What Even Are Opinions

In terms of punishment, it's hard to say what is enough. There are people who say that Evan and Langdon both paid the price for the bad that they did and that they shouldn't have to be punished for the rest of their lives for their mistakes. There are also people who think that that is not enough and that they should have faced the full consequences for their actions. Who's right? It's up to you to decide.

They sound similar, but it feels like a chicken or the egg situation. Like did Santos think that everyone thought she was at fault and started to "give them a reason to be upset with her" type of deal by being a little more aggressive and rude to those around her? Or was it always as simple as "she is responsible for Langdon not being here and now it's more work on the rest of us" kind of thing? I don't think we'll ever know the answer for sure since it only matters in how it made Santos feel over the time jump. I mostly have this thought because of how Garcia framed the sentiment in their conversation.

"Or maybe you're a pariah because you don't play well with others."

From the way Garcia was talking to Santos about it, though, it is clear that this isn't the first time they had this conversation about Langdon. Judging by Garcia's exasperation towards her, it seems to have been something Santos talked to her about at least a few times (though knowing that Garcia is a forgive and forget type of person, talking about it more than once could also trigger this annoyance). All this to say, there's nothing to suggest that Garcia hasn't been supportive towards Santos in the past when she vented about Langdon. But Garcia is also someone who doesn't like drama (ie season one when Santos first tells her about her Langdon suspicions) and clearly is not someone who can be a good emotional support for someone like Santos who doesn't know how to let things go. Garcia just seems over it all already. Her telling Santos to talk to a therapist is out of line, but it does seem to come from a place of recognition that she can't be what Santos needs. They're casual after all. And the best part about casual is that you aren't expected to be the emotional support for your partner. Is that right? No, but I think that's the point. Santos needs someone to listen and understand her and I'm not convinced that's something Garcia even knows how to do in a more long term way.

2nd lvl heat metal on FCG when he went robocop

3rd (?) lvl cure wounds on FCG to revive him after going robocop (level uncertain. rewatching the scene, Ashley grabbed two dice and then rerolled another, so it looks like a 3rd level, but this is also speculation.)

1st lvl detect magic when they were planning how to extract Treshi

3rd lvl hold person at the beginning of the fight with Otohan

1st (?) lvl cure wounds on Orym to pick him up in the fight (again uncertain, but the roll was low enough that if it was a 2nd lvl she rolled really bad)

3rd lvl revivify for Orym

Fearne would have had two 1st level slots and two 2nd lvls. 

Either way, I prefer how everything played out. Not everything needs to be done optimally and in this case, regardless of whether it was spell slots or diamonds, I like the repercussions of this PC death. It doesn’t feel permanent given that they have a lot of options for them to use to bring her back but it does give weight. 

Me? Talking about a game that’s been out for almost two years now? You best believe it.

Quick Backstory before I bullet point this shit so I can get it out of my system. I played the game the day it released years ago and more or less finished it in a week. My first route was with Black Eagles and after finishing it was ultimately unsatisfied by the ending and set it down with no intention of doing the other routes. A friend started playing it late 2019 and was fawning over Dimitri and his route. Taking her word for it, I gave the game another go and decided to finally finish it. Took me a while but I finally finished the three main routes and oh boy...

The Houses

I loved all the women in Black Eagles but the guys were meh. Caspar was fun and by far my favorite of them, but Hubert grated on my nerves and Ferdinand was sweet but because I also had Sylvain on my team, I kept confusing the two (based on appearance not personality). 

The general cast of Blue Lions was by far my favorite. Every person in the house was so enjoyable and I actually loved getting the support conversations for all of them (Ashe is my favorite character). My only issue with the house was ironically Dimitri who I could not stand post time skip (a little more on that below).

By my Golden Deer run, I was mostly playing just to complete the game which might contribute to how lackluster I found them. I wanted to kill Lorenz so bad but he was so good at killing people and Ignatz was sweet but was so bad at killing people that I permanently benched him to focus on everyone else (played this one on hard mode). Almost all of their support conversations were fairly one note and after the layered convos of Blue Lions, I wanted more. Claude is incredible though and it became an inverse of my thoughts on Blue Lions.

Bonus: Yuri and Hapi were my immediate faves (even if Hapi was a glass canon on the field for half of the game) while Balthus and Constance where interesting but still meh for me. 

Wanda had literally nothing to do with the Hex. 

Since we know Agnes is behind everything, what if she made the Hex around Westview way before Wanda even came into the picture. Because everyone outside of Westview forgot about Westview, it hard to tell when the Hex ever even established itself. It was assumed that the Hex was there for a few weeks because it was under the insinuation the Wanda was controlling everything and since she was last seen a few weeks ago, it could only be a few weeks old, but if Agnes created it with her own powers, the town very well could have been like that for months maybe years (perhaps even five years... as a way to protect herself and everyone inside from the blip). 

So here’s my theory: Wanda escapes SWORD with Vision’s body and runs off. She decides to lie low. She doesn’t try to go to Westview, but when she notices a town on the road that she didn’t even realize existed, what better place to lie low? But when Wanda goes through the Hex, the Hex doesn’t know what to do with her. She is too powerful to be controlled by it so the only way it can maintain itself is to give her the reigns, lest she sees the Hex for what it is and attempts to take it down.

Agnes’ end goal is clearly to get her hands on Tommy and Billy. Why? No clue but for whatever reason she needs Wanda Maximoff’s children.

Agnes creates this world for Wanda and places her in the limelight. Maybe Wanda knew what was going on ahead of time, maybe she doesn’t. Either way, Agnes knows she can’t fully control someone as powerful as Wanda, so she lets her have control of it. Or rather she gives Wanda the illusion of control and manipulates her in subtler ways as the crazy neighbor you can rely on, the unassuming best friend. (Of course there are the more unsubtle ways such as the whole “For the Children” talent show.)

She remains in her role until Wanda gives birth and as far as she’s concerned, she has what she wants. But it’s not as if she can snatch the little kiddos and run so she lays the groundwork. 

It’s only after the birth of the twins that Agnes steps outside of the role of kooky neighbor and starts planting the seeds inside of Vision that something is not right in Westview (he never paid much mind to the weird stuff before Agnes mentioned that Geraldine wasn’t from around there. that on top of the doctor mentioning he couldn’t leave was what made him start questioning stuff and the doctor only said something when he was outside in front of Agnes). Then she asks Wanda if she wants to reset the scene right in front of Vision, who she already knows is suspicious because she’s the one who started nudging him in that direction. 

It’s clear she wants them to argue with each other, for him to “do the right thing” and get Wanda to take down the Hex on her own (why that may be is explained below). By adding her brother into the mix, it could be another way for Agnes to potentially put a wedge between Vision and Wanda, quite literally when he pops up right in the middle of their fight. 

There is another hitch in her plan and that is Tommy and Billy themselves. What is she gonna do with two children? She said so herself that kids are so hard to control and Agnes can’t have that. They need to be older. 

From baby to six-ish years old it happens literally out of no where and even Wanda attributes the boys’ sudden halt in crying to Agnes. I can’t say she was the one to age them up to older toddler or not, but it wouldn’t put it past her to at least suggest to the boys that they could get their needs met if they were a little older.

From six to ten, the dog is the one to blame, but who brings over the dog house for the boys? Agnes. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if she planted the dog for them to find.

In Agnes’ plan, I think she intended for the boys to age up again after discovering their dead dog, but Wanda managed to put a stop to it. She even tried to neg the boys on by putting some validation into the boys’ pleading for Wanda to bring him back to life. 

Obviously I don’t know how she will intend to age the boys up from here, but I wouldn’t doubt if she was trying to get them to be rebellious teenagers or young adults which would make them much more malleable to her influence from that point onward.

So, how does she intend to take the boys from their parents? In Vision’s pleading with Wanda, I suspect that in Agnes’ grand plan, Wanda would eventually be persuaded or forced to take the Hex down. And once it’s down, Vision would still be dead. And the boys would be gone because it was all part of the illusion right? Wrong! 

The internet is not a void. It can feel like you can scream into it all you want with little to no effects but that isn’t always true. There’s people on the internet, people who hear you, people who you will inevitably be hurt by claiming that a ship is toxic just because there’s an age gap between two consenting adults or that a random chance encounter that happened to end in a character having years of her life taken from her was really an attempt to age her up to be shipped with.

You can be disappointed or upset or even angry that something you wanted to happen is not happening, but don’t forget that when you use that emotion to attack others on the internet, there are people who hear that. Sometimes those people are Matt or the other cast and sometimes it’s just someone who read why their favorite ship is toxic and if you ship them you are also toxic.