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4j4tt4r4 · 1 month ago

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Panopticon - Collapse (2009)

Hello Again

I don't really know where to start with the album released almost 20 years ago now. Where I can start is where, when and how the album is recorded. This isn't a product of a lavish studio with a team of engineers; rather, it emerged from the singular vision of Austin Lunn, recorded at his very own Lundr Studios. This implies a deeply personal, hands-on, and inherently do-it-yourself (DIY) approach, with Lunn himself handling virtually all instruments, lyrics, and vocals, and "Skallehammeren" credited for the recording (Most likely also Austin). This intimate recording enviorment is one of the mainstays of the project even as recently as the most recent release with very few people at the helm for any particular album. As with any of Austin's album we have a very heavy bias towards them for completely normal reasons (just our favorite band). Firstly, that recording process, that unmistakable authenticity and raw power. Production makes or breaks a record and for this one specifically it makes the atmosphere that much better from the opening notes of The Death of Baldr -> the beginning of the end (great cover btw). We would call the production "home-grown" like Lunn's sound it is defintely a by-product of his childhood and where he grew up (Rural Kentucky). It's a deliberate choice, and it perfectly mirrors the album's overarching theme: the visceral breakdown of society. There's no slick polish here to make it easier to swallow; the sound is direct, immediate, and confrontational. For us especially living in this rise-of-fascism era this record has consistently been one we've returned to as of the past few months as its almost been a daily ritual for us to listen to the record.

Now onto the individual songs on the record Starting with Track 1: "The Death of Baldr and the Coming War" This is the opening shot, and it's like a lit Molotov cocktail. It starts with this almost ominous, subtle build-up, draped in various fear-mongering, apocalyptic news soundbites (from around the 2008 financial crisis amongst other things). You hear those familiar voices, creating this sarcastic collage of a media divorced from reality. Then, it just explodes into a storming black metal onslaught. It's the pinnacle of belligerence on the album, musically speaking, and it perfectly encapsulates the revolution Lunn envisions. There are moments where it abruptly, almost literally, collapses, like a scratched CD, only to rebuild. It's a powerful statement right from the start, leaving no doubt about where Lunn's allegiances lie, with lines about flags burning and autonomy returning. It's a song that warns mankind of its stubborn nature, driving us towards an imminent downfall, but also hints at victory existing in our minds and in the forest. Aptgangr: After the fury of "Baldr," this track segues in, and it's perhaps the first real indication of how potently atmospheric and immersive Lunn's unique brand of blackened bluegrass could be. It opens with a lone acoustic guitar, aided by a dreamy lead, with Lunn's voice whispering encouragement. Slowly, like the previous track, the music builds, drums are added, giving the revolution a sense of direction. It's achingly sad, but then that long, cinematic introduction erupts into one of Lunn's most hypnotic and abrasive tremolo riffs. There's this yearning, droning, but infectiously hooky guitar swell that slices through the middle. The thunderclaps in this song, they just scare you, but in a good way, you know? It's a track that feels like an unstoppable freight train, droning through variations, showing the diverse errors of mankind and how we deal with deconstruction. Merkstave "Merkstave" is often seen as the most "typical" Panopticon song on this album, if there is such a thing. It features a main chord progression that feels like a hint towards the grand scale you'd see in later albums like "Roads to the North." The interplay between acoustic guitar sections and ferocious blast beats is performed with the confidence of a veteran act, even at this early stage. There are these long, open spaces of rattling, minimalist black metal, with the guitar crackling fuzzily and the drums sounding almost primitive, yet effective. It's got these rustic, almost Nile-ish (Nile being a Technical Death metal band that Lunn has cited as an influence) acoustic interludes, complete with wind instruments and tambourine jangling, abruptly interrupted by what sounds like someone blowing into a shell (specifically it is a conch horn that Lunn made out of an animal tusk iirc). It's a track that embodies the album's tightrope act between Folky Interludes and Black Metal madness, where what seems confusing at first makes perfect sense after repeated listens.

"Idavoll" (5:02) The album closes with "Idavoll," which is a pure folk song, entirely acoustic. It's a haunting, melancholic, and thoughtful outro that provides a sense of redemption. It feels like the end of the war, as if people have found their way back to nature despite the collapse of civilization. It's a peaceful, sorrowful, yet deeply moving piece that offers a hopeful melancholy, envisioning a world of anarchy and disruption, but with a joyous undertone. It's the quiet after the storm, a meditative reflection that leaves you with a sense of peace and the enduring beauty of the natural world, even after everything has fallen apart. It's a fitting, almost perfect, ending to such an intense journey.

In essence this is the start of something grand in Lunn's work with Panopticon (ignoring the huge amount of splits in the meantime) we begin to see the start of the folky and bluegrass making its way into the music instead of pure black metal like the debut. We begin to see a lot of Lunn's traditional riffing making and taking center stage, both on guitar and drums. (also holy shit the drumming). We can wholeheartedly recommend this record to any fan of Raging Anarchic-Communist Folk Infused Black Metal (though Lunn has distanced himself from Anarchism and considers himself some form of Communist in practice).

#black metal #rabm #music #song recs #music recs #Communism

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zephyrins · 1 year ago

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so, we can see a lot from Norse mythology in Elden Ring, and because Messmer is my current hyperfixation I cannot stop thinking about the similarities between him and Loki

(but it's just my mumblings and theories and I don't pretend I am the biggest lore-knower because I am not)

Messmer is Loki of Elden Ring. We have:

Red hair, snakes, fire

banished\exiled

In Loki's case, he was banished and imprisoned after helping to kill Baldr. We don't know what exactly Messmer did or not but he potentially could burn the Erdtree.

association with the end

Loki and Ragnarok; Messmer and "Those stripped of the Grace of Gold shall all meet death in the embrace of Messmer’s flame." (But Wiki said the Great Will abandoned the demigods, so they also were "stripped of the Grace"? And Messmer can burn them all?)

But what if Messmer has even more similarities with Loki?

Messmer is an unwanted child of Marika. We don't know when he was born and who his father was, but what if Messmer has the blood of Fire Giants? Maybe Marika had an affair with a fire giant or was r*ped and it was one more reason for the war. Maybe Messmer was her first-born and she realized oh shit he inherited their fire, oh SHIT this fire can burn my tree, bye-bye baby you are not my problem anymore

if he is a half-giant like Loki, it can explain Messmer's fire.

2. Loki is a trickster. He does funny and\or annoying things so the gods won't be in eternal stagnation. We don't know about Messmer's personality yet, but maybe he's just some funny guy and Marika was tired of his snake pranks.

3. What if Messmer somehow helped Ranni to kill Godwyn? Yes, it's just a question based on the mythology.

4. What if we don't see the real Messmer, just a projection of him, and his real body is imprisoned somewhere? Yes, it's also just a question based on the mythology with Loki imprisoned in the cave.

Yeah, as you can see, Loki also was my hyperfixation once. Well, thank you for visiting my ted talk, let me know if i wrote something wrong and\or you have your own theories.

#elden ring messmer #messmer the impaler #elden ring #elden ring lore #norse mythology #my thoughts #my theories #loki #mythology loki #elden ring theory

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wordsandrobots · 11 months ago

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Wishing on Space Hardware: Trivia and the cutting room floor

Having finished the single longest writing project I've ever done, I find myself with a number of bits and pieces left over.

To be fair, I also invite you to contribute to the pile by letting me know if there are any extra scenes you'd like to see based on my truly excessive amount of Iron-Blooded Orphans fanfic. The ask box is open for that and anything else you'd like to prompt me to write about.

However, there remains a bunch of stuff that never made it into the final story and a lot of little details I feel are worth commenting on. So as I luxuriate in not having to spend the week editing chapters any more, I thought I'd share a couple of quick lists regarding the process and what got cut out of it. For posterity, at least.

Spoilers for the fics, obviously, and since they're post-canon, spoilers for IBO as well (go watch it if you have not, it is very, very good, hence the 656,000 words I wrote as a direct consequence [not counting the essays. Jeepers, I'll have to tot it all up some day and get the grand total).

Ahem. Anyway. Trivia!

First up, I must publicly credit penitence_road (on Tumblr as @stillness-in-green)’s excellent IBO fics for inspiring one of the major threads in WoSH (I've mentioned this in author notes but the debt cannot be overstated). The phrase 'Almiria's Adolescent Apocalypse' lodged in my brain and became a mission statement. I did try to steer in a completely different direction regarding the specifics (hence why Todo is very much not a part of the core gang), but the main thrust was all about taking that description and seeing how I could flesh it out. (Go read these fics, my goodness.)

Second, there are, of course, mythology gags referencing the wider Gundam franchise sprinkled liberally throughout. Some I've already called out in author notes, but I believe managed to reference Gundam 79, Zeta Gundam, Gundam ZZ, Char's Counterattack, Gundam Wing, Turn A Gundam, Gundam SEED, Gundam 00, and Reconguista in G in more or less explicit ways. See if you can spot them all!

I named Skoll and Hati with specific reference to their roles in the Poetic Eda. That is, I thought of them as 'the moon-hunter Gundam' and 'the sun-killed Schwalbe', respectively, in reference to their rolls harassing the Arianrhod Fleet (formally the Outer Lunar Orbit Joint Fleet) and destroying the Ahab reactor factory. But also they reflect their pilots' temperaments, with Skoll 'the mocker' being flown by Embi and Hati 'the hater' by Lin.

Spaceships Baldr and the Váli were named in a similar fashion, for their connections to Ragnarök (Váli is Vidar's brother, another of the gods who survive the final battle), and I chose to describe the finale as 'Ragnarök' in the first place because in the sagas, it represents a renewal of the world, rather than a complete end. Quite apart from the Norse influence on Gjallarhorn's whole deal, the cyclical nature dovetailed nicely with what I was trying to do with the story.

I had a very near miss with Skoll in that I wrote it as being based on ASW-G-15 Eligos, named after a demon that took the form of a handsome knight who can see the future. Some months later, the IBO-G app would reveal ASW-G-16 Zepar, the very next Gundam in the sequence, whose namesake's appearance as a red-garbed soldier seems to have been muddled with Eligos in some of the sources I checked. I am really quite relieved I didn't have to rework anything there, but it was close!

Visually, the deconstructed Char-clone that is Almiria's gang channel aspects of other iterations of the trope, with Asher obviously replicating Montag, Embi settling vaguely in the region of Quattro (that is, a more civilian-mode masked man), and Almira assaying McGillis in a way that probably lands not a millions miles from Rau. But I was primarily thinking of Relena's Sanc Kingdom outfit for her, so the 'general's' coat is a lot fancier.

The media-savvy ally to Victor Handa in Revolution for Beginners... is the same cameraman who filmed Kudelia's pivotal broadcast at the conclusion of Season 1's Dort arc. Those events seemed like they would have consequences for the journalists involved and in Hajime's case, that involved being swayed fully over to the workers' movement.

I invented Alessio as a character to counter-balance Iverson and ensure I had some non-villainous non-binary rep. That I picked the stoutest background character model I could find was not unrelated to this, though it's also an *interesting* model, especially coupled to the ones around him/them in the big group shot.

Doc Chaifin, meanwhile, just sort of happened. Sometimes characters do that.

I wrote a significant chunk of the sex scene (well, post-sex scene) in To Catch a Falling Star while sitting in a car park, waiting for my partner to come back from an appointment. This was mainly because the fic was absolutely consuming my brain and I'd discovered the joys of using a mobile phone to write notes (I put off getting a smart phone for a long, long time).

With respect to the Calamity War recording segments of Eugene Sevenstark and the Hesperus Treasure, my working head-canon is that Agnika Kaieru had a science/engineering background. Or, well, I think he moved in a social circle full of scientists and engineers before getting started on the war effort. I also have this notion that his parents at least were part of the corporate class, distinct from the aristocratic class from which people like the Bauduins and Fareeds emerged. But I never sat down to work it all out in full, as that wasn't required for the story.

Regarding Hesperus, I kind of fudged a lot to get the story to work. I'd sort of assumed Radonitsa Colony was a post-War construct rather than something pre-existing, which isn't really supported by the Urdr Hunt game. So the idea of it being a composite of different space platforms bolted around a space elevator terminal is perhaps a bit of a stretch. I still like it though, the basic concept of doing archaeology on space stations.

There's a lot of stuff I did in the moment, to get an individual fic to work, that I was later able to basically repurpose as long-term plot-points. I didn't actually intend for the 'There are three things you need to know to understand what comes next' bit to set up the salvager ship in the finale, or the pluma in Let Sleeping Angels Lie to set-up for what the McGillis faction would do with the leftovers of Season 2's events. But having those things set up gave me some wonderful 'ah ha' moments as I marshalled the overall plot. If nothing else, I got quite a rush out of realising both Gaelio's weaponised wheelchair and the beach house's lethal defences were there to use.

...try not to think too hard about how excited I got figuring out a convoluted assassination method. I'm certainly going to try not to.

The plot really kicked into gear for me with The Ares Affair. Up to then, I'd been coasting on character interactions and fix-its. But then all the consequences suddenly coalesced in my brain and I went, 'oh, this is what we're doing, is it?'

In addition to the playlists I've already put up, grown-up!Almiria's theme is Bach's Polonaise in G Minor on the harpsichord because it is *precisely* what you'd get if you pitched Rustal Elion's theme higher and more playful.

I still have no proper explanation for why A New England stuck in my head so hard when I was writing th first few fics. But I'm glad it did because it gave me a killer series title, if I do say so myself.

I tried extremely hard to make sure everyone in the anime cast got some kind of moment in the spotlight or at least a mention. Think I did a pretty good job on that front, overall.

And to wrap up on that point, yes, the narrator who occasionally addresses you directly is a character from the show. I'd be terribly interested to hear if any of you've worked out who. (It might not be strictly guessable, since there isn't anything gesturing at it per se; I just imagined it being their voice and it kind of fits, thematically.)

Now let's open the door to the cutting room!

The big one is that when I originally planned out the plot of Revolution for Beginners and Polyamory for Dumbasses, a key part of the uprising in the Dort Colonies was going to be the hackers allied with Ride knocking out the nearby Ariadne beacons in order to blind Earth to what was happening. Gjallarhorn would then have analysed the computer virus they used, and that would have been the basis for them messing about with the Network in the final stretch of fics. In the end, there simply wasn't enough room to fit any more threads into that fic and the more I thought it over, the more I decided this would be weighting the balance of power wrong. It'd be too much of a flat-out win for the colonists. Joshua's appearance on Ariadne One -- which had been intended to set things up for the beacon-hacking -- remained, just recontextualised as a clue to who was responsible for the attack in Frozen Sunlight, and a small bit of character development for this OC. I repurposed the remainder of this plot as a way to tie Ride's arc into Almiria's (she taps him for the hacking resources as a result of them messing with Ariadne One's sensors instead) and made 'Höðr' an entirely Gjallarhorn project.

The delay to the release of the Urdr Hunt mobile game drastically changed the opening to arc 4 and had knock-on effects for how the grand finale worked. Because I thought I'd have more to work with in terms of plot and characters of the game when it came time to do the writing, I'd assumed I'd be able to work in appearances from Urdr Hunt's cast. I'd planned a much bigger pay off to the idea of Radonitsa Colony's tourist board trying to get the Martain Chairperson to visit, which was that Atra and Akatsuki would have gone alone with Eugene and Sri. The whole 'let's pretend we're here to assess the facilities on behalf of the Martian government' would have been more than a passing joke and instead been a full-on cover story, with Wistario and the his friends scrambling to put on a good show. This would, I admit, mainly have existed to set up a rather dumb gag whereby Sri and Akatsuki would have been the only ones not distracted by Nanao Narolina's everything in a room full of straight male or bisexual adults. But with the delayed release of the game, I needed a drastic rethink, hence bringing in Zaza and having the whole adventure take place with the Urdr Hunt characters off-screen (I even made it vague as to whether they were the ones running the colony, just in case I needed to swing it as someone else taking over following a tragic or failed ending). Ultimately I am very happy this happened, since I didn't especially gel with the protagonists of the game and it gave me greater opportunity to play with my beloved manga cast. But it did mean my idea of having both spin-off heroes come to the rescue at a dramatic juncture never materialised.

This proved to be single biggest alteration to my plotting for the final arc, too. Initially, the escape from Earth was going to be a lot more dramatic. For one thing, I was planning for the whole 'Yamagi gets left behind' element to happen in orbit, with Shino and Eugene actually present. Some sort of ship to ship transfer going wrong, people going adrift in space, that kind of thing. For another, I had the idea of bringing both Gundams Astaroth and Hajiroboshi into play, for a proper 'fight our way through the blockade' moment. Wistario was going to swoop to the rescue as the shuttle broke atmosphere, there'd be pursuit, and I'd wreck as many cop cars Grazes as I could get away with in some protracted chase sequence before we got to the big NOOOO moment. Yeah. But obviously without knowing Wistario's real personality or situation post-game, I didn't have enough material to work with and plans changed. For the better, I think, given the characters moments it allowed me to have and given that Wiz's character is one of my least favourite parts of IBO's extended media. But yeah. I was aiming for a proper team-up, the kind where you could have different people's theme music kicking in as they swooped into view, and it was not to be.

History of a Catastrophe. Oh boy. As I noted at the time, this one got away from me a lot in terms of length. I ended up cutting three complete scenes in an effort to contain the sprawl. The first to go was one focused on Ville Klaassen, (main?) villain of the Moon Steel manga, who I'd already had cameo in Of Obsessions and Erotemes. I wanted to gesture more towards a conclusion for the manga's story, extending from what I'd laid down previously, but ultimately that was too low a priority to justify adding to the word count, so out it went. Given the alternating structure of this fic (it switches between what is broadly 'Julieta's strand' and 'Almiria's strand), that meant cutting a later scene as well and I opted to ditch a brief cutaway to Embi, mainly because it just repeated stuff I'd already establish in A Handful of Rusted Petals. And possibly because of this cut, or because I'd just mucked up the ordering at some point, I also had to get rid of a scene between two of Gjallarhorn's high command that, while cute from an office politics point of view, didn't really contribute much else.

Actually, since these are all quite short, I might as well put them in here so you can see what you weren't missing!

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P.D. 327 – In the middle of entirely unrelated events; Gjallarhorn branch office, Prague

“I'm sorry, is this a bad time?”

Ville Klaassen pushes his briefcase and hat across the desk, out of sight of the terminal screen. “Not at all. I'm just in the middle of preparing for a business trip.”

The Police Bureau officer's eyebrow twitches. “Hopefully this shouldn't take up much of your time. I'm calling regarding two cases you worked on in the aftermath of the McGillis Fareed Incident.”

That explains the highly-secured channel, which demanded Ville confirm he was alone before it would establish an encrypted link. “Oh yes?”

“I'm specifically referring to events at Research Station AD-5, and the investigation into the Fareed Charitable School.”

“The Alaya-Vijnana research? Of course.” The murdered scientists, the destroyed data – evidence of a zealot's self-mutilation turned to so much ash and broken glass. “What of it?”

“This is your official notification that information on these cases has been deemed deleterious to the public good and will henceforth be restricted to category five clearance.”

Interesting. The research Ville can understand, but a school –? Oh, that's right. Those rumours concerning Lord Iznario's predilections. “I was only peripheral to the second investigation. I wouldn't even have been on the ground for the first, had internal affairs not been so short-handed.”

Clearly the exact details of the involvement are irrelevant. “Please sign the forms now being sent to your inbox to confirm you have received this notification. Since you only hold level four clearance, you are not permitted to discuss the indicated cases unless ordered to do so by a superior with level five clearance or above. I am additionally required to run a remote-access search on your Gjallarhorn-issue devices to purge any data pertaining to these cases.”

“Remote access?” Ville asks, a drop of sweat forming at the top of his spine and seeming to fall right the way down it. “Now?”

“The scan must be run as soon as is viable.” There is an overly-deliberate pause. “Do you object?”

Such a rookie error. Ville curses himself inwardly. “Naturally not.” He casts a glance at the pad on the other side of his desk, still displaying the surveillance feed from this morning. “Will you need to scan my personal devices as well?”

“I am not authorised to do so, since under level four clearance, you will not have been permitted to take personal copies of relevant information.”

“Forgive me, I merely wished to be certain.” Opening the security menu on the terminal, he checks his settings. Shouldn't be too much of a risk since he isn't amateur enough to conduct his outside dealings using work equipment. “Please go ahead.”

“Thank you,” says the officer once the progress bar has run its course. “No excisions required.”

“I try to keep things tidy.”

“Please sign the forms promptly. Good day.”

Doing as instructed, Ville wonders what will become of the staff and 'students' of the school. They must surely know plenty of juicy details that would be deleterious to Gjallarhorn's good name… on any other day, he'd consider stretching feelers in that direction, just to see what he might find…

The pad twitters. Fresh footage of two people on a street corner, a skinny blonde with a crutch beside a big, white-haired man, both huddled in cheap anoraks.

Ville snarls, grabbing his hat and dialling furiously. “Nanao,” he snaps as soon as the comm connects, “the Warren boy and his employer's pet thug are right outside the building! I cannot have them causing a scene here. Where the hell are you?”

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P.D. 327 – More than two years after Tekkadan's last battle; Chryse, Mars

First time Embi takes Fly-Away, he doesn't stop giggling for four hours.

He floats on a cloud of painlessness, the ghosts and memories lost somewhere way below him as the vapour swirls happily inside his head. His brother is dead. He's constantly surrounded by the people Elgar died for. And right now, he doesn't care. About any of it! It feels so good!

Crashing afterwards sucks. Not getting the shakes bad. It just stinks to be stuck with all the usual feelings. He has fucked-up nightmares about carrying Elgar through the desert, a dead weight clinging tight to his back. Barely gets through the day without starting a fight. Tries to punch Hirume for asking what's wrong.

The solution is obvious. Embi gets some more Fly-Away and the second time is even better.

So it becomes a pattern. Get the money to buy what he needs to make things a little less shit for a while. Burn through that. Rinse. Repeat.

Everyone keeps telling him he needs to find something to live for, right? He guesses this is it.

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P.D. 329 – Some time later; a private dining room at The Blue Horn, Vingolf

The Director General of the Inspection Bureau sniffs, as he is wont to do whenever he wishes to delay speaking. “Lord Iznario's death is being ruled misadventure. As… anticipated.”

The Regulatory Chief of Staff eyes him from across the table, fingernails digging ever so slightly into the white cloth laid between them. “Indeed it is.”

There is a heavy pause, the kind filled with common understandings that cannot be said aloud.

“You don't think…”

“I wouldn't know.” The Chief of Staff adjusts her forks. “That falls in your purview, not mine.”

“The Police Bureau is… not my bag either. Unless there's evidence of misdemeanour, the investigation is beyond our scope.”

“Is there? Evidence?”

The Director General fiddles with the cuffs of his tunic. “Seems the old man just muddled his tablets and didn't care about watching his diet.”

“The Seven Stars always thought they were above mere mortals.”

“Yes. Yes…”

Another, heavily pause.

“Convenient, at least,” concludes the Chief of Staff. “One less remnant of the old order, hanging around.”

The Director General coughs. “You know I'll be retiring in the new year? Lord – I mean, Commander Elion has some up-and-coming young fellow picked out to replace me.”

“I heard. Is he up to the job?”

“Mm. Probably. Didn't… get much say in the decision.”

“How democratic.”

“Hm.”

A waiter glides into the third silence, bowing obsequiously. “Madam, sir? Your entrées.”

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As I said, nothing especially mind-blowing. I also had a slightly different opening to the segment featuring the pluma, which I again cut for length, but that I rather liked, as a conceit.

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Can a machine remember?

It is possible for a machine to record. Pluma ASW-A-H-011_sub:27 can access data on its previous combat deployments at any time, to support its tactical algorithms. It can return the dimensions of the space freighter it disabled on its last activation, the topography of the desert it traversed during the battle before that, or images of the colossal detonation that led to it becoming buried for ERROR: UNABLE_TO_SYNC years.

But that is not remembering as you would understand it. Memory is imperfect, riddled with loss of clarity and skewed by emotional prejudice. A machine records raw, uncaring facts, free from conscious understanding of why they occur. Even if it performs tasks based on the patterns it detects, even if that performance resembles intelligence, it is most likely nothing more than a cascade of hollow logic, as insensible to wider context as a pebble dropping into the sea.

These, then, are the facts.

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On the subject of aborted starts, here is something I sketched for a putative 'Wistario segment' of the Arc 4 opening story, which as discussed never materialised:

Wisterio Afam is having a bad day. That is to say, he's not having a good day. In the grand scheme of things it probably doesn't count as truly terrible given that nothing is presently on fire and as far as he knows the colony isn't being attacked right this minute. He personally is being assailed from all sides but that largely seems to be on the scale of a cosmic joke whereby all his carefully laid plans are coming apart at the stitching.

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And finally, just because I thought it was clever at the time, a reprise segment from Love, Death and Cannoli that I again cut for length, but that would have repeated the echoing memory trick from To Catch a Falling Star chapter 11, with Yamagi recalling lines of dialogue with Shino that were (mostly) from my fics rather than the anime:

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Suns turn into black holes if they get too big and die. So it is with his feelings. Gravitationally crushing.

I don't want perfect. I want you.

What a dumb thing to say.

(There's something wrong with me.)

But isn't it better to be wrong together than apart?

Do you think if we're both worrying it's our fault, that's a sign of something?

At least there are similarities in how they're screwed up, for whatever comfort that is.

(You're here and you're – you're mine.)

And Yamagi will hold on with hands and teeth and everything he's got.

Jeez, you're so uptight sometimes.

He can be fierce too, if it's necessary.

(Of course I want to be out there with you.)

Right to the very end.

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I've a few more partial scenes in my planning document, but they're mostly things I reworked for the actual posted versions, rather than cutting entirely. Stuff like some of the flashbacks Shino has to his pre-Tekkadan days were originally in different places and the conversation between Yamagi and Ordsley wound up requiring a lot of changes as the story developed. I think that about covers all the major deviations from my original outline.

Oh, except for Gundam Paimon. I swear I meant to figure out what to do with that thing, eventually, but in the end it just remained hanging on the wall. Ah well.

#wishing on space hardware #fanfic #my fic #gundam #gundam ibo #gundam iron blooded orphans #g tekketsu #tekketsu no orphans #notes #writing #a peek at the process #there's probably a bunch more stuff I could have listed by this is all I can think of for the moment

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mendelmakes · 1 year ago

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My sister has been practicing witchcraft for a few years and is into tarot so I'm making them a custom deck for fun based on norse mythology. Here is Baldr as the fool based on the art from the Rider tarot deck and this image I saw on Wikipedia.

#baldr #norse mythology #norse gods #tarot #custom tarot deck #drawing #mendel makes #norse tarot card project

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nirgilis · 1 year ago

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SRNHNR 2 - KH and FNC

Part 1 | Part 3 | Extra 1 | Extra 2

1) KH and Unreality, aka now Final Fantasy within KH, might have certain concepts in common and theirs colors.

Using KH's theories like Necklace theory, Riku being the Light and him kinda being a personification of Kingdom Key L.

Baldr looks like another personification of Kingdom Key L, but inverted due to bigger presence of white and black in clothes.

There's another character from not that distant game, who shares yellow-blue colors. Also in his design from the first part, like Ventus he recembles X-Blade a lot.

FF13 Hope, Riku and for this case Baldr, all look quite like they're Bhunivelze's boysband from different universes. Their likeness to him mght be also reflected in their names and for some in stories.

Hope - throughout FF13 he was called the hope (of humanity) numerous times, and while his project couldn't come to fruition due to what other characters were going through, his merits didn't go unnoticed.

Baldr - in Norse mythology Baldr is the god of light, radiance, sun, summer etc. The spring won't come until he will be revived or he will be revived when ragnarok will pass. That's pretty close to the theme of Bhunivelze as the God of Light in FNC being related to dawn or light returning to world, as he is the one who can rebuild it.

Riku - he doesn't outright represent light-releated aspect in name as Hope and Baldr do, but as Bhunivelze is the ruler of everything that has physical/material form, Riku's name meaning "land," so earth, might tie him to Bhunivelze through that.

2) This scene of Noctis and Stella from VS13's trailers with opposite or complimenting colors is compared a lot to the scene of Sora and Riku combined keyblade from DDD and KH3.

Due to FNC's termynology needed to be changed for FF15, Bahamut might've taken Bhunivelze's place. He has Bhunivelze's colors and has similar to him worldview, making allowance for the fact that concepts of life and death aren't the same in FNC and FF15.

Like Hope having similar colors to Bhinivelze, Luna for FF15 might've been given "Bahamut's" yellow and blue, in the game through her eyes being changed to blue, in the movie through the colors which Oracles seem to wear.

Stella may have yellow seal of deity opposing to Noctis' one, but like her eyes, glowing that appears when she enters and still present when the seal is active is purple, so exactly yellow and blue might not be initial colors reserved for this character, or not in this meaning.

There's no 100% way to tell since in the end Ravus wasn't shown, but for FF15 Fleuret siblings might have swapped colors and roles to a degree along with them.

3) In KH Kingdom Hearts represents the brightest light in the darkness, as itself it's a very powerful light with surrounding it equally powerful darkness. It's a conglomerate of all hearts, and located beyond the Door to Darkness.

What might be the closest analog to both KH and tDtD is Etro's Gate, which like in KH separates realms of light and darkness, in FNC's terms real world and unseen realm.

Unlike its analogs in FNC which are only the source of such power, KH has another property to be able to create new universe, the next world. In FNC's terms, KH is as if it's own Bhunivelze or fal'Cie he created.

Bhunivelze exerts that much light to the point of being blinding, similar to Riku's light blinding Sora in KH1's OP.

There's a theory based on Re:Coded's plot, that in a way it propheses future events of KH, and KH will make Riku its avatar. With the fact that that's kinda what happens to Hope in FF13-3, it might add to the possibility of that happening.

Bhuniveze is the highest deity in FNC by time events in games' stories take place, but he's not omnipotient. He can build worlds, but the natural order of death and rebirth is systeined by chaos, which he can't see and control.

In ways Data-Riku is similar to him. He's the journal/data-world himself, kinda the ruler of digital world, being able to separate the data which is supposed to and not to be in the journal. But it's quite interesting that as a program he can't repair himself and the moment he tried to fight, Maleficent captured him. So there's something in data-world beyond his control and he needs Sora to solve this problem for him.

Both FNC games and KH have a story of a prophesized messiah, who will banish the darkness and restore the light. Savior/Agito/King of Light and Child of Destiny. With Verum Rex adding to the roster, by logic of Agito and KH, in that world the role might be called either "King of Truth" or "Verum Rex." But it's also possible that those titles will be how the highest deity analogous to KH or Bhunivelze will be referred to.

As FF13 is the only FNC game which managed to release with Bhunivelze's awakening from his slumber. What might await that prophesized messiah isn't becoming the light themselves, but becoming the chaos/darkness to help the highest deity to sustain the balance of the world.

4.1) White coat Strelitzia was showed to wear in UX is similar to the coat Ravus wore in one of VS13 trailers. And both of them remind assassin's robes.

Between Pulse and Lindzei, as they both represent Bhunivelze in some ways, Lindzei is the one who has heavenly portrayal. "Commanding from his throne on high. The Solemn Ruler."

VS13/FF15 is supposed to be closer to reality, so a country flying in the sky like Cocoon is probably impossible in that world, but Tenebrae having an illusion of its islands floating and its buildings as if reaching out to the sky might be close to it being Cocoon's analog. Fenestala Manor possibly derives from "Fenestella" - "small window," and "small window" is what's depicted on Lindzei's playing card. Image-wise Tenebrae might've been a nation founded by Lindzei.

Scala ad Caelum being "Stairway to Heaven" somehow seems to be close to Tenebrae.

As Lindzei's methods of operating are more on manipulating humans side, both in encouraging mind work-way and sacrificial-way, he's viewed both as protector of mankind and untrustworthy trickster.

Assassins robes, like the one Noctis has from collab, especially its hood, might allow wearer to blend-in with scholars or people with religious calling. If like in FF15 in VS13 Tenebrae had an image of being a country with its rulers being religious leaders in the world. That might make Ravus Lindzei's representative at some points in the story in both ways Lindzei is viewed, as protector/religious leader and untrustworthy trickster/assassin.

4.2) In VS13/FF15 Noctis had a degree of subtety of him being red, as his eyes only glowed red and red soles of his boots weren't something which could be seen outright. As Yozora now, through his heterochromia, his outfit having red and red glow from weapons and powers, he's parading it quite freely.

Yozora and Riku may have very similar clothes, but color-wise theirs meaning might have to be opposite.

Like Ravus has similarities with Riku and Hope, Yozora might share similarities not only with Sora, but with Noel too.

Pulse and Lindzei were given the task to search for Etro's Gate, with Pulse searching by corporeal means. Lindzei was also given another task, to wake Bhunivelze when the Gate would be found.

In FF13 it wasn't stated what actually woke Bhunivelze up. Hope rising new cocoon called "Bhunivelze" might in a way symbolize him fulfilling task given to Lindzei to wake Bhunivelze up.

"Gaze held aloft, his strides bring ruin," words on Pulse's playing card refer to Pulse destroying the world to search for the Gate.

Noel by killing Etro's heart, thus unleashing Chaos from Etro's Gate, might've fulfilled Pulse's task to find the Gate through corporeal means.

"If the mountain will not come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain." Pulse and Lindzei couldn't find a way how to enter the Gate, so they brought what was in the Gate into the real world.

On Pulse's playing card it might be depicted Cocoon, but it also looks like red moon.

4.3) Since VS13 as its name suggests in many ways was supposed to be the opposite of FF13, and if it was really supposed to be a tragedy.

While Lightning in FF13 resisted Bhunivelze's offer to become Etro, VS13 might've ended pretty similar to FF15 in regards to Noctis' fate, but with lots of meanings being switched. Noctis might've supposed to accept Bhunivelze's offer and become new Etro.

Despite Lightining being Etro's Champion, she never got submerged into Chaos on different levels as much as Noel, Caius or Yeul did, or as Noctis might've been. So, Noctis might've not been the Light that will banish the darkness, but darkness that will take Chaos with him to the Unseen Realm back. That might be the result of his actions, i.e. him really being the antagonist of his own game, or in way similar to FF15 becoming the King of people's hearts in FNC's terms quite literally.

As conclusion of a sort, author would like to say, that especially the last point is just a theory and author's personal guess based on everything described before.

Author's thoughts on Sora's mini-existential crisis "is Yozora him or Riku," is that Yozora is neither Sora or Riku, he's "Sora," but different kind of "Sora."

Since Stella or "Stella," which is for now mostly called Nameless Star, doesn't seem to be a character fulfilling yellow-blue-green-white palette quota, a "Riku"-character, Yozora's "Ravus" has to exist.

#SRNHNR theory #Final Fantasy XV #Final Fantasy Versus XIII #Kingdom Hearts #KH #KH theory #Verum Rex #Yozora

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hallowed-nebulae · 6 months ago

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2025 Writing Goals

I admittedly feel a bit silly posting this, since it's been. . . a hot minute since I actually did things on this blog, but, I may as well make the effort! (this is entirely inspired by @corishadowfang doing the same -- if you like my writing, go look at theirs, especially if you're a fan of kingdom hearts).

i'll be putting this under a cut for sake of post length on dashboard, as i am Well Aware that i ramble, and i imagine i'll be rambling a lot. with that said!

i had a lot of goals and ideas for 2024 - i wanted to write a lot. it's something i'd started to notice, but this year i sat down and had to acknowledge that the times of 2019, 2021, 2022 even when i could sit down and churn out 3k words in one sitting, when i could update chapters semi-consistently every few weeks or so, is entirely gone. both because of my lower levels of energy, being chronically ill, and because of college work picking up, and things of that nature.

things have definitely changed a lot over 2024 -- i'd gotten diagnosed with POTS in late 2023, and this year by talking with my doctor, other friends, i've learned that i probably have EDS, which doesn't help with the energy levels. i'm trying to get better at managing my ambition with writing - that's a major goal, is to not start huge AUs or projects without pacing myself or being realistic about how long those things are going to finish.

another goal, most definitely, is to try to rotate my WIPs, and not just focus on only one WIP at a time. i tried that with crystal verse, last year, and it definitely led to some burnout, between all the exhaustion of everything else. being able to poke at different projects and not feel guilt about that is going to be incredibly helpful, i think.

also, i want to get better at actually working on my WIPs -- take some space every day, or at least every week, to at least add something. i used to have a goal to write 10 words, minimum, ever day, and i think i'll try to adopt that again as a 2025 resolution.

as far as WIPs that i've actually got:

Tempests Verse, my beloved, is over three years old, now. i started this thing in September 2021 and it's still ongoing, can you believe it? Storm Whispers, the current WIP, is going to be on hiatus for the forseeable future, until such time as @beastenraged has the energy or time to work on it again; it's written by both of us, after all, and i don't want to pressure them by writing a whole bunch on my end that they'd have to catch up to.

i do still want to work on this 'verse, though - since Dark Road has finished, i can now properly write out what happened with those sets of events, in this AU, and how they diverged from canon. more elaboration on the ghost xehanort, what happened with bragi, what happened with baldr, how Darkness even possessed xehanort's corpse, all of that. it's exciting, even if i don't know how long writing that fic will take or entirely where to begin. i do really love working with the mobile games, so i'm excited to work on this one, whenever i have the time or energy to do so. i reread all of Tempests Verse and took notes, last year, so hopefully i can be most consistent when writing this one, despite my poor memory.

Crushing Stones Verse! will still be poked on, as always. since it's become my warm-up exercises, writing a chapter of this AU's current WIP before moving to other WIPs once i'm warmed up, it's gotten a lot easier to work on this one. i finished outlining it, also, so while it'll take a good hot minute to finish, there is an actual end in sight! i look forward to working on this project and seeing how anyone reading reacts to some of the twists that happen.

Crystal Verse, my ffxiv AU (which has rambles related to it hidden over on @crystal-verse, my ffxiv blog), will get worked on as well. i'm trying to get better and not have there be an entire 7 months between updates like what happened last year; it's very ambitious, given it's a sort of novelization of, well, all of FFXIV, but i do also have an endpoint for this one -- currently, the plan is to write up to the end of Endwalker, and then stop. (that is, 6.0 -- no patch quests, no Dawntrail, nothing, just the end of the Hydaelyn and Zodiark saga.) given how large FFXIV is, this one will take a long while to finish as well, but i do really love it, so it's worth the work.

Miracles Verse will get its rewrite! to those of you who remember the original version -- please don't mention it, and i ask of you to simply read the rewritten versions with open minds. to those of you who've never heard of this au before -- good, the original was my first "got too ambitious and scrapped the project when i failed to execute it the way i wanted", so i'm hoping to do this story justice with the rewrite. this one will also take a long while, most likely, as i'm planning on using multiple digimon canons here, but i'm confident that as long as i rotate my WIPs and outline decently, i'll be in good hands.

Red Scales Verse, a new au of mine, is my first major RWBY au! you have @cheeseandcake-from-ao3 to thank for this AU, as they provided the initial idea, and have rambled with me long enough for me to decide to write this as an entire proper AU. no idea how large this project will be, we'll likely go to post-V9 for this one (and if V10 ever gets greenlit then who knows, we could adapt that one into this AU as well). i've only recently gotten into RWBY, so i'm not sure how well this will be received, but hey, who am i if not someone who writes niche fics that are for me and me only, right? (this AU begins with the premise of: what if ruby rose, and summer rose, were wyrms akin to the story of the king lindwyrm? and then things diverge and stick to canon in different ways from there)

i want to make room for more oneshots, also! i've got a couple that i'm poking at, one for RWBY and one that's for digimon frontier, but i miss just -- writing oneshots. writing a thing and being Done with it, and not having to plan for another chapter or work in the series or whatnot. i miss oneshots and want to do that more. so, that's what i'll try to do this year!

with all of that said -- please look forward to seeing more of the various WIPs, and if you have any questions feel free to ask! it's a bit ambitious this year, but i'm trying to be ambitious in a different way than i was last year, and hopefully will be kinder to myself as far as writing.

good luck to everyone else, in 2025, and may your writing be whatever it is that you desire to get done

#rambles #i'm. . . not sure how to tag this outside of that ahaha #i don't think i'll tag this with the individual 'verse names but maybe for sake of ease of access later on. . .#drabbles #yeah. that works #happy 2025 everyone and cori i hope you don't mind i got inspired by your post ^-^;;

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