Going to be going through my follower list and unfollowing those that are no longer active or have also unfollowed me, I’m still on the fence about what I want to do with this blog, but I considering I’m thinking of overhauling my theme and slapping a new coat of paint on things, I might take the “it’s my blog, I’m going to do what I want.” approach to things.
If people lose interest because I may use this blog for multiple varied fandoms -- they lose interest, I’m not entitled to their interactions in the first place. It’s also not to say people can’t talk XCOM to me or anything -- just that it’s not going to be a central focus of my blog. If you’re wondering why I’m suddenly posting again, check out this post I made this morning.
I.. kinda feel bad for the Chosen, y’know. I mean.
Warlock: Vastly powerful if not equal to the Elders in psionic mastery. Great! Except he only got to such a point because of their engineering from when he was a child, warping him to the point of madness that only seems to take comfort and/or be expressed through zealotry and self-importance. Also totally incapable of empathy and more than a worrying amount of cruelty that will continue to grow.
Hunter: A master tactician and strategist meant to match the Commander on a galactic scale. Wonderful! ... Except that he’s a completely off his rocker induced by the forced planet-scale hunts that did not entertain or provide challenge in the slightest, coupled with criminally overlooked bloodlust that is masked behind a facade of constructed charisma.
Assassin: A peerless warrior with a sense of honour and loyalty. Lovely! .... ... ... Except her very foundation, her very design is doomed to fail from the start because perfection can never be achieved and to be built as ‘perfection personified’ is inevitably a cycle of failure just waiting to turn. Not to mention being mislead, unwanted and overall at odds with everyone for simply existing.
Spoilers. Massive amounts of spoilers. You’ve been warned.
Below is a list of confirmed things, in no particular order
List of My Headcanons that were Confirmed
- Reaper Celebratory Feasts
- Volk and Elena’s father - daughter like relationship
- The Hunter was a kidnapped Reaper that they injected an overload of information into.
- To some extent, Elena’s crazy unnatural perception.
- It’s a stretch to say that the entirety of my backstory for Elena was confirmed, but she was fighting Chryssalids at 13, which is pretty much damn close enough for me to say that my backstory for Elena is good interpretation of her backstory. It’s fuckin CANON BOYES. This is the most exciting for me because. Like. Boy shit. That was something I entirely constructed on my own with little canon influence. So??? XCOM??? You read my shit??
- Bradford and Volk have a lot of history. Less of a HC as this was alluded to already in the games, but now it’s more canon-confirmed. Moreover the fact that Bradford and Volk got back in touch pre Gatecrasher.
Other Things
- There are four Elders. One that seems to be mainly in charge, and three others. But unlike how I envision the Elders, they are quite harmonious between each other. There’s no animosity. Just a well-oiled working machine. It’s actually pretty damn scary how they exhibit little to no individuality and I kinda like that take.
That being said, I’m keeping Tzaphkiel and Joy acting the way they do. They’re noticeable outliars in the Collective, and the majority do not like their feud. I’ll just tweak the fact that they want their unanimity because the majority DO act like a well oiled machine and THESE two fucks are rotten apples on the branch that they can’t get rid of.
- Tomko is the Hunter. We guessed this.
- The Hunter’s process of ascension seemed to take weeks, which is even worse when you consider how much information they shoved into him. It’s not explicitly said the information was from the Commander, but there’s an enough evidence to imply it.
- I was wrong. The Hunter is bald. And he skipped arm day. But hey! There’s where his damn tattoos are. They’re on the crown of his head.
- Honestly I’m dedicating an entire another paragraph to the Hunter’s body because seeing his arms just made me laugh out loud. Grace, if you’re reading this: This is the unintentional hilarious moment.
He’s a walking skeleton. You can see his ribs. His waist so so tiny. Please redo your work, Elders. This. This isn’t as fan-service as you think it is. This is fan disservice. Here’s my artistic interpretation of the Hunter next to his siblings:
- They.. kept Central’s extremely voluptuous eyelashes, for some reason.
- Back to the Hunter, he’s shown here as being damn loyal. In fact, the only time we get to see him joking is later on out in the field. It’s a cursed interaction to see him be obeying the Elders and the Elders to be cordial.
- Mox was the one to have captured Tomko. And an even more extremely cursed interaction is Mox and the Hunter working together.
- The Hunter’s vision is a constant tactical visual simulation that he can run thousands of times in seconds. Pretty dope.
- Hunter talks to himself.
- Elena recognized the Hunter as Tomko like, immediately.
- Hunter, did not recognize Elena. He has none of Tomko’s memories, so it seems the scare of weird Hunter x Elena content was avoided. Narrowly.
All the soldiers that you use in the Legacy Pack.. must be canon characters. Maybe they went their separate ways at certain instances, or returned back to their factions, but.. these guys are 100% canon to XCOM’s story, thanks to the TLE.
For characters like the Psi Operatives, they could’ve been regular back in the day before they unlocked their Gift, but Bradford, being a storyteller he is, decided to include their present abilities for the past.
Sofia Rojas
Bao Zeng
Darrell Rutherford
Veronica Reyes
Sunny Pathak (PsiOp)
Nikita Bedi (Templar)
Leslie Campbell
Michael Lewis
Karla Hernandez (Skirmisher)
Amany Mostafa (PsiOp)
Alon Cohen
Amondee Barta (Skrimisher)
Vero Marvez (Reaper)
Choi Kim
Florian Bernard
... I can say a non-spoilery thing for TLP, at the end: it’s increased my want to replay through the campaign like, tenfold. But I’d have to play it without mods, because I don’t know which breaks what yet.
