All Of These Statements:

Advanced interrogation techniques

so this is how the lore stream went right

OK so

Wilbur/Revivebur said he was alone for 9 years or whatever, which means there was no Schlatt, no MD, and no Tommy. But we saw Tommy talking to ask three of them when he died, so how can this be true? Well: personal afterlives.

If each afterlife is personal then they have to be constructed somehow, right? So what if they're made using expectations, hopes and fears. Personal afterlives mean all of the afterlife options can be true:

Revivebur was alone because he hates everyone and himself so he wants to be alone and thinks he deserves it. At first a relief it quickly became torture, but it had been established in his mind already that the afterlife is unchanging. His own personal hell, designed by himself, though subconsciously.

Tommy, having been told the afterlife is a big void by Ghostbur (who experienced Revivebur's afterlife until he split off as a ghost), gets exactly what he expects a big void holding all the dead people he knows. All of them act as he expects them to, Schlatt is drunk/asleep, MD is being a creature of chaos coming and going as he always does, and Wilbur is even more unstable than he was in Pogtopia (which gives me hope for a possible redemption arc, not much though as Tommy knows Wilbur better than anyone, and Revivebur probably has a "dream my beloved" locket)

Everyone knows Ghostbur's afterlife is happy and peaceful, just because Ghostbur and Revivebur rode the same train doesn't mean he got off on the same station. Ghostbur is in a flower field and all his friends are there and he's living his best death. Sometimes some friends aren't there and sometimes they are all different ages. Like Fundy might be a baby one day and an adult the next, Tommy is a toddler and then he's sixteen and then he's ten.

but they are always happy

Sometimes the real Mumza pops into her son's afterlife to check on him. Because she's death and she can enter any afterlife, but only if the person wants her there, which Revivebur Did Not (going off the assumption that Ghostbur + Revivebur = Wilbur/Alivebur).

Why doesn't she visit Tommy? Well, why would she? She doesn't know him, he doesn't know her. The only thing they have in common is that they view Wilbur as family.

Kinda implies Mumza was the train but we're not going to think about that too hard

you might be awkward but I can be awkward in a far deeper and more humiliating way than you ever will

the biggest problem with writing fantasy in english is that there's really no alternate universe phrasing that carries the exact tone and context to the reader as "jesus fucking christ"

there is nothing more threatening then when a fanfic author hits you with a single :) in the authors note

this makes so much sense

So I was searching up Gregory Goyle to find a piece of info for a fic I was writing, and…

If you don’t see it, look closely:

I’m genuinely fucking crying, I can’t breathe. Send help.

Pretty sure she straight up killed a man once but go off

"What does daphne even do?" She literally looks for clues. Go fuck yourself

I forgot to post this ages ago so im doing it now:

Man, that flashback episode really reminded me of all the things I hate about Zoox and Devo.

(Which speaks to the McElroys bc I'm pretty sure I am supposed to, if not hate, at least dislike these aspects of their characters)

For Zoox - It's mostly just that he's very callous and easily offended? Which to be fair to him, he's basically a toddler so it's pretty understandable. Just sometimes it rubs me the wrong way, like when he was talking to Hermine about Finneas' lantern and being offended when she tries to keep, what is ostensibly, the corpse of her friend that, to him, is just a lantern with no meaning ascribed to it other than it is his.

My main problem is that this characterisation seems mostly incidental and is framed as positive and at other times he seems rather willing to give things to other people - not a greedy guy for the most part which made the whole thing seem a bit weird to me, but it could just have been a tonal disparity.

Devo is just an asshole. He constantly explodes at people and blames them for things that aren't really their fault (example: Finneas, the sallow) and doesn't provide any constructive feedback alongside his complaints of other people (again: sallow). He's also kind of a hypocrite in that he gets easily offended at things and also seems surprised at people being hostile to him despite his poor treatment of them (see: the bar fight, enlisting the biggest baby). He doesn't really apologise and when he does I feel as if it's often about the wrong thing, just the wrong time or he makes the situation more about him. The apologising thing might just be something he learned from the church, though.

On the subject of the church I feel a large disconnect between the story Devo is telling and the story we are seeing (specifically the lantern room), but I think that might just be due to Travis and Griffin not really discussing it properly between them. I got the impression the lantern memory was worse in Travis's mind than it turned out to be, it was still bad, don't get me wrong, but Guidance was being kind of a good teacher the entire time (as in: there were no threats or punishments, just gentle encouragement - it was a discussion). Which isn't to say I like her - she's a gaslighting, lovebombing bitch. (Specifically: when they talked to her for their contract)

I honestly have no complaints about Amber. She's a well-written, well rounded character who is consistent in both her flaws and her strengths. She's a badass woman who lived through the apocalypse, I don't know what to tell you.

I'm not going to lie: I really don't like Devo. And I really preferred the scientist over him. (He was fun. Hope he shows up again)

But also Devo is somehow my favourite of the three and I'm excited to see how Devo manages his anger issues (which he's acknowledged he has! love that for him) and further develop as a character. As well as potential for seeing what the Church/Hand Of Benevolence is really like (I want them to be really shitty).

All of this to say that a lot of people like this exist and props to Travis and Clint in making me have lots of conflicting feelings about Devo and Zoox

{x}

[image id: AO3 tag that reads “i said there would be no angst. i lied” end id]

this is like the dumbest thing in the world to write about a 24 yo with zero children who set out on a ridiculously dangerous expedition to record animal behaviour in the wild