#fandom rambles

Rewatched S2 in its entirety AND reread the book for the first time since S2 aired, and I am more convinced than ever that

The Book of Life has been in the bookshop this whole time

Therefore it burned along with the shop in S1

Adam "reset" the world with the beautiful innocence of a semi-omnipotent, 100% mischievous child, and everything in S2 is being viewed through a child's lens

(Hence the absolutely bonkers minisodes, missing characters, and overall unreliable narrator vibe of S2, which I'm sure will not actually get explained in 90 minutes, unfortunately)

Adam didn't quite fix that one extremely important, very specific book properly, and the butterfly effect is only now being seen/felt

(The butterfly effect is actually mentioned in the book as something Adam is aware of)

Rambling Reasons, in no particular order, under the cut:

usually i prefer fate in stories to be this thing that is either discovered to not exist or that has no real control over those determined enough to choose their own paths. i find the idea that the story has already been decided just because that's how it's gotta be and nobody questions it incredibly boring. this should surprise nobody as i AM the world's biggest chrono trigger fan.

but castlevania... i think it has a different outlook entirely.

fate in this world is synonymous with basic human nature. the future is predictable because we as people are predictable. we create our own cycles. even the very earliest game in the timeline, lament of innocence, is an examination of two opposite reactions to loss and what they say about humans' capacity to love and hate and how THAT is what creates the good and evil constantly cycling in and out of our history like day and night

in each century dracula is destined to rise in some form eventually, not because he's just supposed to but because we, and our curious power-hungry nature, call him. and a hunter, whether belmont or morris or something else entirely, is destined to come to meet him and strike him down, not just because the story needs a hero but just as it is human nature to chase the things that lead us to our destruction, it is also human nature to want to overcome our failings. there is good and evil everywhere in each of our souls and that is what fate is here. by our nature to desire, selfishness will always exist. by our nature to love, generosity will always overcome it. fate is just the inevitability that a living, thinking being can be flawed and can also wish to be better.

IT GOES EVEN DEEPER THAN THAT TOO like even the protagonists themselves are microcosms of flawed humanity and how even the most well-intentioned, even the ones who bring us out of the darkness have flaws in themselves. richter's addiction to the life of battle that makes his mind vulnerable to shaft's spell, simon's obsession with his legacy that makes him overestimate himself and gets him cursed, etc etc... not even the ones "favored" by fate are safe from criticism.

what if the peak of truth costume story IS canon because it's set in a timeline where smilk is a good guy and so is pv but they don't really know each other.

Pv was originally a regular ol pv until Mr time lord smilk swooped in and fucked everything up for him turning him into truthless recluse via the similar methods used in beast yeast ep 7-8. This causes pure vanilla to be corrupted by deceit and hence tortured by shadow milk just like in the trailer for the costume.

If anyone gets mad at dazzle for today episode because she made Jack sad...Remember that harsh words left his mouth even if it wasn't him. Dazzle is allowed to feel angry at Jack. She deserves to not want to be his friend. She's a kid! I have two younger brothers and it takes time for kids her age to ever forgive someone for saying mean things to her.

She didn't even tell sun until July 16th about her secret and as Jack said in the episode it took her 2 years to ever talk to sun about it.