I May Never Recover From The Tonal Whiplash Of Lore Dumping/important Discoveries And Straight British

thinking about how kipperlilly even knew who riz was or why he was important and - riz was spying on porter and jace when they were investigating the cafeteria to make sure they didn't try to cover it up. even if he didn't spot riz, porter then went to check on the bad kids of whom riz was missing. it wouldn't be suspicious at all for porter to look into the kid who randomly disappeared after the principal died, in fact very sensible to check for his guardian and address to make sure he gets home safe.

maybe he asks someone from his rogue class if she knows anything. mentions that goldenhoard seemed to be very interested about his dad. pretends he's just concerned about a kid with a tough home life witnessing a murder on his first day.

maybe in her little black-and-white mind that means he's getting special treatment. maybe that was what porter intended.

now i really hope this isn't right, but i gotta say it

kalina said ragh barkrock, not lydia. lydia has experience with these things, she knows how to seal it and she's pretty cognizant and capable at the moment so she doesn't need ragh to explain on her behalf. maybe kalina just said ragh because he used to be infected (and he wasn't born with it so we can assume lydia wasn't) so she knows him better, but. lydia's already occupied with the gem in her chest. IF the same ritual needed to happen to seal the shatter stars again, lydia wouldn't be strong enough in her current state since she's weakened by the gem. gorgug's strength score dropped to 18 since taking more levels of artificer. ragh still has a +5. as far as we know the closest person to the bad kids who COULD have the strength to fuse with the gem is ragh, who also has some experience with it already. and if he did he would experience the same illness as his mother if not worse.

kinda starting to feel like kittencone and kristen aren't going to make out? what's up with that???

hot take - i don't care if none of the rat grinders get redemption, i just want them to at least be good villains because they've been built up all season as foils but they're actually kind of trash

people are starting to sympathise with the rat grinders now because they ARE the underdogs. they're outmatched by far and even if they're the villains people want to root for an underdog. they're weak because they were given the cheat codes and never learned anything because why would they?

this whole scene was so gerard talking to elody-coded you have no idea

Hey. Hey since when did you have permission to tell your mom about my horribly embarrassing curse?!

YOU'RE SO TRUE FOR THIS

sparks

PALADIN KRISTEN. i will die on this hill.

i don't want kristen to lose her faith entirely. i think back to prompocalypse, talking to the ether the gods get their answers from, and saying into the ether that she cares. she wants a god that cares, not just about her but about all the good people she wishes she could help, because if there's nobody more powerful that cares then it's her responsibility to care for them and she's not a god. she couldn't trust her family to care, couldn't trust her church, couldn't even trust her god, and she had to step up and be the person who cares even though she's just a clumsy kid who got her girlfriend newspaper-copying putty for a joint anniversary/birthday gift.

[and then she makes cassandra, still desperate for that perfect god that she can trust to protect people for her. but cassandra, just like yes, is created and controlled by her and thus entirely dependent on her and her ever-changing ideals. kristen still only trusts herself to do right by people, so the only god she will accept is one that she designs to be just like her and indulge her every phase and that means without her there to decide what the god should be there is no god. there is no morality to a religion that bends to your every will because your actions don't have consequences - cassandra and yes weren't created to be good, just to give power to kristen when she wants it. and that means that all of the responsibility still falls on kristen to be good.]

because the alternative would be being complicit, and kristen cannot rest unless she is doing everything possible that she can to help people. and so she never rests. even doing nothing, she's wandering labyrinths in her head trying to be better and find the answer, and she can't let herself take a break from trying to be better without being plagued by guilt. she can't push let go of the guilt because she's seen first-hand what happens when people don't feel guilt or question themselves.

and in the summer starting junior year she and tracker break up and the guilt becomes unbearable and suddenly she can't remember why she let herself feel it. so she stops feeling guilty. she forgets to heal her friends, she devotes herself to her own body (my faith is mostly physical, tracker had once said, kristen doesn't remember what she meant by that) and she breaks all the promises she made to protect cassandra. she stops caring.

until she sees bucky again. until she sees her parents again. she remembers why she wanted to fight to stop bad things from happening to good people, and more importantly she remembers what happens when you don't question yourself. how mac and donna follow their beliefs blindly and never questioned whether they could be wrong if they could be better. how they promised to love her and left her to suffer, how helio let the people he swore to love suffer, and how she was leaving cassandra to suffer. and she doesn't realise until after that cassandra wanted to help. cassandra was always encouraging kristen to grow the church not just because she couldn't rely on kristen to keep her alive but because she knew kristen couldn't handle the responsibility of keeping her alive on her own.

kristen chose to be a cleric of cassandra because she thought cassandra was good and wanted them to have a religion. it was the only way to revive her, but if she can grow the church then kristen would be free to work on herself with cassandra being free to take care of her, not the other way around. as a paladin kristen could take an oath she will always believe in - an oath to care and love her friends, perhaps - and trust that cassandra's church will still be helping people on a large scale even when kristen needs a break. kristen can get swole and learn to fight and know in her heart that what she's fighting for is right. she can trust that cassandra wouldn't bless her if she didn't deserve it, and in that trust she doesn't have to worry so much about being a perfect person because she knows she's good.

listen. listen. as a pastor kid ex-ministry person who left the toxic religious group they were raised in. it’s not about cassandra being rad or not (she is i really think she is). it’s about whether or not kristen can make peace with what being devout means. if she can take that leap of faith. if she can really settle in on a belief system and ask others to do the same.

i think this arc is gonna be about kristen giving up on cleric and reclassing (my guess on barb) because this is about kristen finally FINALLY giving up on how she was raised. she didn’t need to a different god. she needs to reject, wholly, that lifestyle and figure out the best version of herself and what she needs. maybe she doesn’t need to be a cleric. maybe trying to force herself to be one is perpetuating the harm she escaped. maybe she can step back.

i think this will have HUGE complications. but it really feels like ally is interested in explored why kristen has struggled this whole time with this. maybe she doesn’t want to be a cleric at all.

JUNIOR YEAR EP 1 SPOILERS + THEORY

OK. OK IMCHILL ABOUT THIS.

lemon yoghurt demon yes, but consider - corn cutie glob. tuna surprise.

is now a good time to say that alex is PEAK representation of 'gay in theory'??

hear me out, he has very loving and supportive friends and he's comfortable and relatively open with who he is. but we know that he's experienced a lot of homophobia particularly from his parents, and i feel like his trouble expressing his affections with willie really show the impact that had on him.

dont get me wrong, part of it is definitely because of the whole 'willies being blackmailed' thing but it could easily be metaphorical and shit can have double meanings. that hug ?? the way he clearly cares a lot about willie but can't look him in the eyes and admit it even to himself because at that point he has to face the reality of his feelings and show vulnerability with them. it isn't often talked about, but a lot of queer people act very outwardly proud as a preemptive defense mechanism - what you say won't hurt me so dont even bother. because if they show vulnerability then they're letting the prejudice get to them, and they can't do that. hence why alex hesitates from the hug, otherwise comfortable with physical affection but knowing how much this particular hug will mean to him and being scared to face it, particularly in front of the people he loves. because in his experience, the people he loves have been the ones to judge him for it.

its a huge misconception that gay people like to 'show it in your face' that they're gay, and complaining about it is inherently homophobic. but there is some truth that gay people like to call out homophobia before it even comes up, so as to feel some power over it. acting confident and proud is our way of protecting ourselves from a world that has always preyed on our vulnerability.