#sentinels of light/ruination

[funnyscienceman]

Reason no. 174846383 why the sentinel team comp actually works, the writing was just super shit: Graves and Senna can relate to each other about the whole. yknow. being imprisoned and tortured in a terrible place for way too fucking long.

[thedamnlesbian]

TWISTED FATE SHOULD'VE BEEN RUINED AND HE AND GRAVES SHOULD'VE FOUGHT. IN THIS ESSAY I WILL

[viktor-leagueoflegends]

sorry it's SUPER ROUGH, but I'm just too tired to finish this up Unmasked Viktor for the novel, not much worse than Unbound Thresh I suppose

by ezzhyart on twitter / ezzhy on tumblr (not uploaded)

[xxxdragonfucker69xxx]

The Abyssals crowdfunding campaign closes in about 24 hours.

I did not get to hourinblack all their charms. As penance, I am going to skim just the end of each charmtree, and tell you about the biggest, coolest power of each tree. I am also going to do this for necromancy because i am a necromantic slut.

ARCHERY:

World-Wounding Darkness: Shoot a hole in the world, leaving a black hole that sucks people in. This isn't actually near the end of the tree but it caught my eye and I was like holy fuck.

Heart-Numbing Spike: When you shoot someone, wound their ability to care about things.

Last Days Portent: Shoot out the fucking sun. Kills the lights over the battlefield. If you're being goth about it, kill the lights for miles around.

ATHLETICS

Mountains Become Dust: Physical scale is no longer a limit on feats of scale or destruction.

Light-Killing Stride: Move faster than someone. Didn't ask how fast they moved, you move faster than them.

Temple-Shattering Ruination Curse: Destroy a building to curse the land, making it shadowy and blighted and supernaturally scary. if you were being intense about it, it becomes an abyssal demesne, a permanent upwelling of goth energy

AWARENESS

All-Seeing Overlord's Lair: Extend your senses throughout your stronghold, you can't be surprised inside and your ghostly sentinels (you know, the wraiths you cast to patrol for you) can roam throughout

Morbid Inspiration Witness: Find inspiration in " the morbid, the eerie, or the darkly beautiful: an albatross dropping dead in flight, three  black cats crossing the same street in sequence, lightning striking a distant temple." That inspiration grants you bonuses on various projects, and also makes you care deeply about it. This is enhanced by further charms like Fervent Caprice Fever and Unrelenting Obsession Genius

Piercing Gaze of the Unmaker: Pick a place within, like 20 miles. You see it like it's your lair and you're there. Or maybe you want to cast your gaze on your rival instead? they are going to feel a crawling sensation up their spine from your gaze through <3

BRAWL

Illustrative Overkill Technique: When you kill or incapacitate a guy, it's so fucked up you can use it to threaten anyone else. Or like blow up a building or whatever

Explosive Gore Eulogy (!!): When you do that ^ you can also use their corpse as a weapon. Jesus christ.

Life-Annihilating Castigation: Pyreflame your attack and multiply (!!) damage by your opponent's wound penalty. If you get their ass they explode with pyreflame from within, and if it kills them their ghost burns up on the spot

Void Avatar Embodiment: Now with 0% prana! Envelop yourself in the void, dealing aggravated damage on touch and withering ranged attacks away. Also you're as close to death as you want to be <3

BUREAUCRACY

Hateful Scorn Panopticon: when you use Accursed Overlord Authority to inspire hatred in your followers, you can sense when any of them encounter your enemy, and where.

Rotting Palace Proclamation: Reveal that you embedded a traitor in a rival organization. Or was it someone we knew all along?

Iron Tyrant Reign: When you do that Accursed Overlord thing, if it's a Defining Principle you can carve it into the world as an Old Law: everyone who hears or reads it must follow, words bleed through coverings or hover like fire in the air, the mindless dead automatically obey

Suffer No Betrayal: When you do the Panopticon, you can also count people who've broken your laws as enemies. You can immediately gain Defining Hatred... and possibly carve that as an old law with Iron Tyrant Reign? That isn't in the charm im just reading between the lines

CRAFT

Malicious Mechanism Mastery: Jesus this one is a cartoon supervillain bit. Reveal that an enemy has stumbled into your trap! If it's a corpse-based trap, it's worse!

Fivefold Malice Curse: Lay a curse on something you make, for instance if its bearer breaks an oath or acts against one of your principles. and if they trigger the curse they get blasted by your Bleak Expiations, aka Abyssal Limit Break aka You Cannot Escape The Goth

Soul-Tarnishing Treasure: Instead of an overt curse you can cause it to inspire vice, a sword demanding bloodshed or a chalice inspiring drink. You can't be totally free of this unless you give the object up

Drawn to Death's Beauty: When you use Magnificent Cenotaph Allure to imbue something with emotion, you can also fill it with the mesmerizing lure of death, so that people wander towards it like a will o wisp and cant look away

Betrayal-Spurring Gifts: Annatar their shit socially if you've given them something you've made. &btw cursing that shit is free

DODGE

Hanging Shrike Focus: Dodge up into the air and float back down, or fall on your enemies maybe

Queen of Killers Pirouette (!!): dodge so good you turn it back on them, like fucking zelda's neutral-B in smash

Tenebrous Cloud Dissolution: DRACULA FOG its fucking dracula fog

Breath-Seizing Mist: Hey how would you like it if dracula fog was inside your lungs

Icy Sepulcher Entombment: When you cause someone to despair at hitting you the ice literally grows around your heart and then freezes them over. The freezing stuff is actually pretty early in the tree but this is setup for

In Awful Glory Crowned: When you bring them to despair with Frozen Fears Blossom you can also drain their Willpower, and if you drain it all they become obedient to you. Unless they're unimportant in which case they might just fall over dead, turn into a ghost, and then be obedient to you

INTEGRITY

Freedom In Chains: If forced to act against death's chivalry or your principles, brood about it, then break free

Clarity in Hatred: Shaping defense if you're mad enough

Immortal Malevolence: If you've enshrined an intimacy with Eternal Enmity Approach, you can care so much that you simply do not die. Wake up the next sunset completely healed, but you can't use that intimacy again

INVESTIGATION

Heart-Haunting Condemnation: Scrooge a bitch. Nightmares and omens reinforce your accusations.

Bleak Justice Malediction: If your victim of the above draws on Ties to resist giving in to your accusations, the haunting spreads to those people and things too. If they die they haunt your victim. You can fully Book Of Job somebody here.

Omniscient Spymaster's Web. Know something. Your people told you. You think anyone can keep a secret from you?

[kamibanani]

14 May 2024 // just a little fun "what if" fanart, here: what if Yorick's religious order survived to the present-day and made it a point to join up with the Sentinels of Light to fight the Ruination and the return of Viego and give peace to the souls that were lost? Just a little imagining on what that Yorick might have looked like, and how to incorporate a bit more of a stately look to his outfit without losing that classing Yorick silhouette.

[arclundarchivist]

Don’t know what took me so long to post this, but hey, are any of you interested in a retelling of the INFAMOUS Sentinels of Light Event?

Would you like the story to be retold, delving deeper into the realms of Runeterra and it’s varied heroes and the challenges set before them?

If so, then I have the fic for you!

The Ruination Saga is set of Five Linked stories detailing the trials and victories of the Legends of Runeterra, a fix fic to challenge all fix fics I tell you!

And it is ongoing! It updates semi-regularly, and I promise to see it reach the eventual fitting end the story should originally deserved.

Drawing not just from the story presented in the Even though heavily edited it also draws from The Ruined King game, Ruination novel, and even Arcane in regards to the story beats and characterization of characters. Further more original adventurers using the LoL characters follow other monsters and enemies as they take advantage of Viego’s singular goal or simply the chaos that he has created.

Check it out! For any that have a strong urge to delve back into a story, that could have been amazing, and the do-over I have supplied.

[teeto-peteto]

honestly i really wished for Sentinels Of Light event to be rewritten on a better way without character flanderization and misconception and self awareness of the lore. Being completely honest: it was terrible.

My point specifically is: According to Riot, Ruined King happened by the end of year 996, and Sentinels Of Light happened on the late 997. Theres only one year difference between events. But still, they messed up very poorly.

In Ruined King, Pyke trusts Sarah Fortune, even if she's a captain. And it doesnt take thaat much time for him to do so, i will talk about Pyke trust issues in another post if i have time. Curiously enough, neither of them are present on the Ruined King finale, having both of them a separate post credit scene, but its understandable at this point that Sarah doesnt fear Pyke or at least, shes not worried about what might happend to her, and that Pyke is now targeting Viego or the entities of the Shadow Isles.

In Sentinels Of Light, everything said just flops. Pyke and Sarah were written completely DISREGARDING the fact that they know each other. If they didnt make the event with very poor writing, this could be easily exploitable. Listen, Pyke's trauma makes him target captains, but decides to dismiss Sarah after everything that happened along Ruined King. Imagine how they could have written the Bilgewater chapter on Sentinels Of Light, on wich Sarah finally does fall under Viego's ruination because of her obsession with Gangplank, and tries to kill the team and also Pyke. Imagine how it could be to write how Pyke revives his trauma AGAIN because he was betrayed again by someone he again put his blind trust on. This could be also be a good way to portray how Sarah's trauma also perpetuates after Ruined King when Gangplank escapes, having to start all over again. The moment where Pyke gets rid of Sarah would have been a peak, and he would totally have a reason to become a sentinel of light, instead of the 'hehee funny character he would look cool if he were good'.

The description of Sentinel Pyke skin is the cherry on the top of this mess, where it depicts that Pyke is currently under Nagakabouros influence, hence why he is completely stupid and doesnt hear voices nor kill people... no, im pretty sure it doesnt work that way. Pyke voices were removed by Nagakabouros with Illaoi's help in Ruined King, yes, but during the whole game hes pretty lucid, hes able to kill without trouble, it just looks like Riot teams dont talk to each other.

As a side point, i have a smaaall theory or headcanon that Ruined King Pyke is relatively young or at least 'fresh' being the Bloodharbor ripper, as Sarah does know him as she is a captain, but Illaoi doesnt, and that whole scene is written like 'Oh apparently all these dead bodies have a cause'. I dont know, its very difficult to order the whole lore and theory of it when they dont even know /shrug

[bladeundone]

" this would be so much easier if i knew your name. " / ruination moment? light mage meeting a sentinel of light... sighs dreamily

̗̀ะ໒⋮━ FOR PEOPLE WHO DON'T SAY MUCH

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

A quirk of her brow. It’s the only hint of surprise Riven allows to let slip as they both stop by a crumbling fountain—a once popular meeting spot, it seems, before the Black Mist had consumed the area—and though the shroud no longer fills the square, some buildings were still marred by claw marks, some walls still stained with traces of the Black Mist’s corruption.

Her first response comes in the form of a hum, as with many of her previous answers.

She’d bumped into her golden-haired guide not far from the area, and somehow, the young woman had decided to accompany her without a second thought. Riven hadn’t protested, not because she needed the help, mind—she was certain she could navigate on her own—but because, well, it was hard to say no when someone offered so earnestly.

And while Riven had already anticipated her guide to be somewhat welcoming to strangers just from that, she certainly hadn’t expected it to be to this degree. She almost feels sorry for responding to her mostly in hums and mere nods.

“ Aren’t you supposed to share yours first before asking? ” She finally says, her lips curving into a lopsided smile as she glances at the other.

[ablaze-stan]

I just went through all of the animatics for Ruined King event in League. What a damn mess.

Senna and Lucian were picking a sentinel for every region, because of course they were. But they didn't hire anyone from Piltover and Zaun, they hired Graves (from bilgewater) as their Piltover stand in (AS IF THERE WERE NO SHOOTERS IN PILTOVER, LIKE EZREAL???) and then hired Pyke (also from bilgewater).

Failed theme from the start. Like. Why isn't YORRICK involved in killing the Ruined King? He's been surviving through a single vial of water for 900 years because of Viego, he dedicated his entire LIFE to restoring the island of blessings back to its original state AND HE WASN'T THERE. His maiden wasn't there either and that's so frustratingly stupid. Maokai didn't participate and, bro, that's so stupid. Maokai was literally created to help out, he and Yorrick should've been having a BLAST killing Viego off and then hunting Thresh down.

Aurelion Sol, the aspects and Kindred should've had a bigger role in this event. Their biggest opp was the damn ruination because, funnily enough, trapping souls inside a cursed island is not very appreciated by the literal gods of the universe. Hello???

"but Diana became a sentinel" was she there for the final fight? No, she wasn't. She got one Sentinel of Light skin and that's it! Ridiculous.

Pyke SHOULD NOT have been a sentinel. They basically treated him like a dog "oh, that guy's on your list, go get him" when we know he's way more than the list and his personality is actually extremely interesting.

Hot take: Viego's design is fine. It tells his story well. A spoiled young king who loved wrong. It's good even.

It's frustrating to see so obviously that the marketing team basically said "give us a pretty boy to make up for the money we lost on paying animators and writers so we can sell skins", but the creative team did its best.

Overall terrible event, even GP's death was more interesting than this, the client minigame SUCKED and, out of 12 people who were hired/recruited to fight Viego, only 5 showed up in the final fight. The fight was also anticlimactic as FUCK.

[the-beauty-of-runeterra]

Ruination spreads across Runeterra, consuming all in its path. But the Sentinels of Light have returned to fight back against the Ruined King.

[arcane-ish]

I think for me it's less that I think that the show is both sides-ing in that both sides are equally at fault, it's more that I think that League/Runeterra as an IP is deeply allergic to conflict resolution. And one side "winning" over the other is a form of conflict resolution.

That doesn't mean that it's impossible that Arcane genuinely progresses the story the way Burning Tides somewhat did (though I sideeye that as "genuine" progress as well, not does the "various people join the Sentinels of Light" from Ruination feel like a genuine change of me). But I'm just very cynical because as an forever game rather than a closed tv show or movie it just isn't within their interest (plus the whole: maybe they are thinking of an extended movie/tv/live action universe).

But that doesn't mean that they can't be firmly more in the corner of one side, the question is what that means for the show and how the stories end.

Of course I'm also cynical about much media daring to do a "one side is pretty firmly morally right, but that doesn't change a thing, that doesn't mean that they get to win" story (even though that would be an actually very mature and true to reality thing to say if you look at lot of real life political conflicts going on).

how does it feel being the only person here whose right about arcane /lh

- @babydrummer

googles 'lh' - I assume it's light hearted, not luteinizing hormone.

Anyway, I don't think I'm that right but I do think that approaching every single media - especially as explicit as Arcane - with preconceived opinion that it's going to be 'both sides'* story makes for a bad habit. Not everything is Avengers. Not everything can have Disco Elysium tone with achievements such as 'The World's Most Laughable Centrist' (oh hey there, Season 1 Caitlyn).

Imo. Arcane is very explicit, there is nearly no scene where Piltover and Zaun characters are together that doesn't bring up inequality and that doesn't have this tension, and if we don't count Vi there is probably no scene where Piltover character is not called out on Piltover attitude by person from the undercity.

Well maybe Heimer and Ekko scenes in S1 but I really wonder where they're going with those two.

Ie. I really like Jayce's arc - it's the meme incarnate of 'local man not into politics finds out politics is into him', like they wrote him to so spectacularly fail upwards into position of power it's amazing and I do like how they show why a person with best intentions in corrupt system can't just easily act on those intentions. The writers are really doing a lot with limited runtime, with whole 'trickle down hexgates' profits not really trickling down and why that is.

*both sides as in equally bad, not both sides as in some economic theories.

[aurelion-solar]

Ruination: A League of Legends Novel - Bookmark Art

[killrabbit]

you want to watch the sentinels of light cinematics you want to be a gwenhead you want to watch the sentinels of light cinematics you want to be a gwenhead you want to watfh the sentinels of light cinematics click the link click the link click the link

[ohnoitstbskyen]

Ruined Miss Fortune vs Ruined King Miss Fortune

Ruined Miss Fortune is, to me, a deep disappointment of a skin, for multiple reasons.

The first is the method of her Ruination. Basically: Gangplank isn't dead and Fortune is super duper way the hell extra special scared of him, and so she voluntarily gets Ruined by Viego because he'll give her the power to definitely for sure kill Gangplank this time!

It sucks. The entire scene sucks. The way her characterization is played sucks. She is fully written as a Hysterical Woman™ who is too emotional to see reason and who gets corrupted because she can't handle her anger and fear, and the f***ing visual imagery of Miss Fortune willingly submitting to Viego by asking him to penetrate her with his eight foot Overcompensator Sword is just... good grief, the semiotics of that entire thing are just bafflingly bad.

The second is that if she had to get Ruined there was a much, much more compelling way to do it that would actually relate meaningfully to the core themes of the entire Ruination event.

Viego is driven fundamentally by a tragic loss, and total inability to cope with the grief of death. He lost Isolde and, being the spoiled little hyperromantic princeling that he is, absolutely could not accept that something he loved could be "taken away from him."

Miss Fortune is driven fundamentally by a tragic loss, and total inability to cope with the grief of death. In her case, it is the brutal murder of her mother by Gangplank, and the complicated mess of survivor's guilt and vengeful hatred that has left her unable to ever put her mother's memory to rest.

So... what if we had built some kind of thematic connection between the two characters, a shared form of loss, the connection of which is exploited by the abusive, manipulative monster to further his own goals? What if Viego had said to Fortune "I will bring back to life she who you love the most?" with the absolute insane certainty and sincerity with which he believes he will bring back Isolde?

And rather than MF being the dumbass who gets taken in by an obviously lying man's obviously false offer of power because she's just so scared of Big Bad Gangplank, she gets taken in by a moment of connection and a glimmer of hope, however vain, that the literal worst thing that ever happened to her can undone?

I dunno, given that the entire Ruined King event was thematically about learning to cope with grief, to let go of those who are dead and to stop making other people's lives and deaths about yourself, that seems to me like it would have been cool, actually.

Anyway the third reason is that the skin itself is basically a bland-as-hell "EVIL = SEXY!!!" fanservice skin, which first of all is extremely tame and boring as fanservice (srsly, cleavage and a bit of thigh action? That's the best you can do for a sexy evil pirate queen?), but which also simply does not fit the character story being told here.

Miss Fortune falls for power, she falls for the strength to destroy her enemies, she falls for the power to rule and control. The Ruined Skin looks no more dangerous, powerful or domineering than her Captain Fortune skin, it's just a sexy pirate halloween costume with all the colors turned off.

Now, in the spirit of fairness, there are some production reasons for this. It was not a Legendary skin and Riot puts a hard budget limit on how many actual changes you can make to a design at lower skin levels. So no changing her animation, for example, and only limited changes to her model itself and no changes to its rigging. There was probably a corporate and technical mandate not to stray too far from her base form.

On top of that there is in-game readability. Silhouettes are important for character recognition, and Riot are... usually quite careful about broadly preserving them skin to skin to avoid gameplay confusion. Usually.

So yeah, there's some limits on how much you can do, but if you want an example of what I would consider a good "Ruined" version of Miss Fortune, Riot Forge and the people over at Airship Syndicate helpfully went and made one:

Good feature number one: The Crown. The corruption of Miss Fortune as it is told in the Ruination is that she lets her paranoid lust for power blind her and this allows Viego to take over her mind.

So what do we have here? A crown literally blinding her, mimicking the shape language of Viego's crown, indicating his deception of her and his domination over her mind. That's some good visual storytelling.

It is also Sauron-esque as hell, so it reinforces Miss Fortune as an imperious, domineering, regal presence. Queen, sovereign, it is the visual language of power.

Good feature number two: the chains incorporated into her design, which are just about the most widely used visual shorthand for enslavement and control. Riot L4T3NCY, creative lead at Riot Forge, confirmed for me that this and the blindfolding of MF were both extremely conscious choices in her skin design here:

Good feature number three: Miss Fortune's own pirate aesthetic is entirely supplanted by Viego's Camavoran army aesthetics. There is no hint of the Bilgewater fashion left here, everything that was Bilgwater about her has been torn away, which again is good, solid, basic storytelling showing us that she is mind-controlled and subverted.

Good feature number four: I am definitely reaching here, but I quite like that the hands that grasp her guns are the most wraith-like and corrupted. It is Miss Fortune's grasp for power that is corrupting her, and it is the trauma of the loss of her mother, a gunsmith who is intimately connected to her weapons, which is ultimately the source of the paranoia and power lust that has destroyed her. Is this intentional at all? I have no idea, but I like the idea.

Good feature number five: It is still sexy. Not in as blatantly pin up-ish a way as the base game Ruined Miss Fortune is, but there's some solid Hot Mean Evil Lady appeal in that cleavage and armored bustier. MF has always been a flirty, sexy character (albeit definitely too much so in the past *shudders in League Judgment*), and that aspect is still present here, without being distracting from the character storytelling of the skin.

I think Miss Fortune being ruined by Kevin McKilledbyhiswife of Camavor is a bad idea on the whole, I think it gets catastrophically in the way of her much more interesting base story of slowly being corrupted by the structural violence and brutality of Bilgewater itself, reducing it all down to a "Sad Woman Very Angry About Dead Mom" personal grief narrative (which is honestly a little too eager to paint her desire to see justice done to Gangplank for his crimes as a bad thing.)

But if she has to be Ruined, at least do it with some gosh darn character storytelling as part of the skin. If she has to be Ruined, at least do it in a way that thematically reflects on and interacts with the general themes of the Ruination event as a whole.

Don't do it just for a D-tier generic hot lady fanservice skin.

[saltedrats]

Indulge me, if you please:

So I think we can all agree that Ruination threw A LOT of champions under the bus (not even talking about the ones involved, mind), but Kalista was one of the big ones. I’ve also seen a resounding agreement (Between Twitter and Tumblr) that TF absolutely should have been ruined for some good ol’ angst (‘oh no babe you’ve gotten fog horned this is personal now’ type angst) between Graves and him.

But then I was like, ‘wait a minute’ my girl Kalista! The literal fucking embodiment of revenge! I love her too!!! Wait a minute, Graves wanted revenge so bad he almost killed both TF and himself to get it! WAIT-

So, I’m going to explain my thought process behind this in the best that way I can.

So, Viego unleashes the Ruined mist across Runeterra, as followed (in the ruined king GAME, mind you), and Senna and Lucian do their little thing.

Now, to my knowledge, Kalista is bound to the shadow isles (like Thresh), but the Mist changed that (I believe, I’m ngl I didn’t actually finish sentinels of light so let’s say it does for the purposes of this) allowing them to go to different parts of the known world, and Kalista doesn’t seem that well versed in the concept of, you know, forgiveness. That’s where TF and Graves comes in.

Graves HATED TF in the locker, as is established. Kalista even has a voice line related to Graves, insisting if he just ‘says his name, his revenge will be complete’. Well, we can now assume that Graves isn’t really invested in that anymore. And, as Graves would probably put it, “uhhhh, which name, exactly? :)”

And this would likely piss Kalista off. She (they?) get wanting revenge yourself, girlboss, gatekeep, gaslight, am I right? But when she picks up on the fact that Graves FORGAVE TF? And the fact that they’re PARTNERS (in multiple senses)? Well, I don’t think she, or the hundreds of avenged (of killed) souls would particularly vibe with that.

There’s also the logic that Graves actually hasn’t forgiven TF, but instead that kind of skittishness of the past has been totally warmed over. Like he got over it, and he doesn’t care what happened because he has his TF now, and that’s all that matters. Like there will always be a tiny part of Graves, shoved back in the dusty cobwebs of his skull, that will never, ever forgive TF, but the logical rest of him is like “yeah, I’m over it, kiss me before we go blow up a bunch of people.” That’s just the type of guy he is.

But TF, on the other hand, worried about fucking EVERYTHING. This man definitely is not 100% right in the head (in my mind, after everything he’s been through, you can’t be. You can only watch your family leave you so many times, and watch all your friends die so many times before it starts to take a toll on you mentally). But he’s probably convinced himself that Graves hasn’t forgiven him (at all, in his poor anxiety riddled mind), and probably never will, and TF made his peace with it in his own way. Graves assures him like “shut up, stop worrying about that dumb Shit” and gives his boyfriend a big ol’ hug.

So, given this, Kalista decides to take matters into her own hands, no longer bound by the ‘you need to ask me for permission’. Think about Kayle, almost, the sense of self-righteousness and ‘this is how it should be, and will be. No one gets second chances’ type of ideal. Forgiveness doesn’t EXIST to Kalista and the souls tethered to her. So, Kalista does her equivalent of ‘taking’, using TF as another competitor to Viego and the sentinels, because Viego and Thresh are the ones who betrayed her in the first place.

Graves and TF eventually butt heads in the field, and TF being the girlboss he is, starts manipulating Graves. Insisting that this is Graves fault, that Graves never forgave him, and that Graves did this to them after he left TF during an apocalypse, and if Graves would get over it, everything would be alright (I will NEVER get over this point).

This, logically, destroys Malcolm. He sulks, 100% because boy, that hurts. But eventually Graves has an epiphany (maybe talking to Vayne, because I think if written correctly, their friendship COULD be wholesome and NICE and have great development for BOTH of them) and is like “wait a damn MINUTE- I AM OVER IT!”

This leads to the actual resolution, Graves HAS forgiven TF, but the issue arises where TF hasn’t forgiven himself for what happened all those years ago, which is how TF was able to be affected by Kalista at all. Graves didn’t want revenge of TF, TF in a way, wanted revenge on himself for the mistakes he made that lead to Graves being sent to the locker.

Then there’s the emotional confrontation, where Graves calls TF out of his bullshit and saves his boyfriend because of it (ah, the powers of assurance and smooches). Kalista gets sent to the shadow realm along with Viego (she just goes back to the shadow isles, because I’m not even addressing statue Viego)

TLDR; Graves is stubborn and TF is dumb, and Kalista doesn’t understand Marriage.

[notoriouslydevious]

Lucian by Taekseo