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✧✦✧ "Fragments" - episode 53 ✧✦✧

Mirage.

New reader? episode list on tumblr | webtoon Read 4 more episodes: patreon | kofi

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okay so. theres SO much to unpack here. i find that the longer i think about this one the more questions it raises. a huge breadcrumbs episode fr

so. lets get the elephant in the room out the way.

this vivi face. we havent seen vivi make an expression like this before, ever. he looks locked in a state of terrified incredulity. he seems to be both pumping adrenline from the fight and being suddenly thrown to another world, but also terrified? traumatised?

however, if its anything, it both contrasts and also adds to his statement that it was "[his] wish come true". if we interpret this expression being the shock of zenos nearly killing him, then graha almost represents a safe haven in this case. a protective ward, his own paragon.

in that sense, it adds to the reading that vivi only craves death because he sees nothing in the source worth living for. of course hed fall for graha and trust him in the way he does, he gave him a whole 'nother world, completely free from the trauma thats attatched to the source. a place where he can live, as himself. of course it was his dream come true. he finally has a reason to keep going that isnt just duty! that isnt just a promise he made too long ago.

....but im not satsfied with just that answer. theres a particular emphasis placed on vivis expression of abject terror? total shock? that lends it a lot more importance than just this revelation. remember:

only the appearance of emet gives him an expression thats remotely similar, and even then, its not the same thing. and if we look back to 52,

we see almost the diametric opposite of his expression here. its serene grace, more akin to a dead man, instead of that of someone whos just been traumatised. and sure. maybe these panels happened in succession. vivi gets thrown to the first, then he realises what happend, and then he looks like this! if we just take the visual evidence, graha tearing vivi away to another world was definitely very tumultous and of course, he did just get slashed on the chest. but again... that doesnt quite do it for me. there was a strong intentionality behind placing a look of pure shock behind the line where vivi tells graha hes made his dream come true, that betrays the relatively simple answers ive given here.

so. yeah. to tell the truth i dont have a super satsfiying analysis of what happens here aside from, "look ma! breadcrumbs!" if anything, ive only left this episode with more unanswered questions

✧✦✧ "Fragments" - episode 53 ✧✦✧

Mirage.

New reader? episode list on tumblr | webtoon Read 4 more episodes: patreon | kofi

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I AM SO FUCKING READY

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Pursue, unwavering

[ One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six ]

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Follow the Wind

[ One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six ]

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am i allowed to say fallout new vegas. i think i am

Fascinated by this phenomenon

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the problem with me is that I want to have fun and enjoy life

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so ffxiv has this beloved meme

and a cn player actually put this to the test (thankfully with homemade ballistic gel, NOT with their actual butthole) and they even [ documented it here ] and i can't stop laughing

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sorry

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looking back on this with new added context and also

this set of vivi looks

my god. he really looks dead here. the light literally disappears from his eyes every time he goes away from his little escape in the first. like more than ever i can feel that immense sense of burnout weighing on him. the way that his expression, looking back on the source, mirrors his expression during an honest-to-god near death experience really puts things into perspective. he really fits the description of "dead inside"

i was originally going to write about how he was like the exarch; in the sense that he was a dead man walking. but now that i think about it, they really mirror each other in a lot of ways. the exarch is a figure trapped in death, who violently, undescribably, wants to experience life. vivi is a figure who absolutely cannot die lest the world goes with him, who romanticises the idea of death so much that his big crush is the guy who showed up before he almost died. they both tow the line between life and death, yet theyre on opposite sides; so close, yet so far. they both yearn, by nature, yet for completely different things.

........man vivi kinda sounds like emet here. wonder why

✧✦✧ "Fragments" - episode 52 ✧✦✧

Mirage.

New reader? episode list on tumblr | webtoon Read 4 more episodes: patreon | kofi

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wake up girl new fragments authors notes dropped

Fragments - episodes 47-52 author notes

You can find similar breakdown posts on older episodes in my pinned!

Time to recap the first proper wolgraha miniarc. See what you might’ve missed, or simply enjoy the extra content in form of my rambling.

47 stands out as a bit disconnected, floaty, introspective episode fully focusing on Exarch’s pov. I’ve scattered some breadcrumbs for him throughout the entire comic, time to pick those up. He may be an oblivious fool in certain moments, but I believe he wouldn’t keep insisting on staying deaf and blind when evidence’s shoved in his face. So, this moment of recollection and rethinking marks the start of the canon divergence, all of his future actions are colored by this.

Vivi has a dire effect on some people even without trying to manipulate them.

The composition forms a star here :3c

This panel should make their likeness even more obvious, they’re mirror reflections, albeit deliciously twisted ones. Also, the V sign is literally something that Vivi. Just. Does.

Exarch’s heard from Vivi himself that they might be the same, Urianger literally tells him to go to a mirror and ponder, but when he does, and tries to look a bit more like he imagines Vivi, he can’t stand what he sees in the mirror. They still aren’t the same in his heart of hearts, even if reality itself tries to prove otherwise.

Hidden Angst Time! I can only hope that most readers are familiar with the flashback bubbles by now, and that this panel reads as it should: Feo Ul embraces Exarch while pointing out that they’re also being ostracized by their kind. Though the ultimate fae wisdom lies in accepting something the way it is, and just not caring too much.

More under the cut~ 

Keep reading

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green

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life’s vessel

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The Heart and the vessel

Some design and hc notes for them under cut

Inferno is the Nightmare Heart personafied, the true Nightmare King, not an alternate Grimm form

Grimm is the body without heart and Inferno is the heart without body

Inferno can possess Grimm to physically exist, merging body and heart together basically

Grimm's form is more human while Inferno is an amalgamation of patchwork and hard shell

The tail isnt REAL real, it's connected to his ribcage thing

Grimm's head splits open and burns whenever Fern just wants to pop in and say hi because he's annoying like that

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reading this post and coming to the immense realisation that graha is Catboy Prometheus

It’s been like two years since Carmine pointed out to me that people blatantly mischaracterization G’raha every day and the more I’ve grown to like him the more mad it makes me. I’m going to start getting mean about it. I will flat out say that if you are creating a G’raha Tia and his primary character trait is not sheer cunning you are doing it wrong. Reconsider. He has adorable nerd out moments, but they are NOT entirely WoL-centric and are vastly outweighed by the times he is sly, manipulative, scheming, and plotting, and the only reason he is not a villain is because he does all this to further the good of the populace rather than his own ends.

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still dont know hiw to make prev tags clearly deliniated on tumblr bleh

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HI. so. im going to dump a load of thoughts about this illustration on tumblr instead of bluesky because i have so many thoughts about this so please bear with me (feel free to post this if u want!)

like. one of my favourite soulcrushing parts of shadowbringers grahas characterisation is ironically: how hes portrayed in post shadowbringers - a free spirit with a thirst for adventure

its so clear therefore, from how he composes himself after hes been freed from his duties at the first that he wants to see the world. reclaim the joy that he abandoned to save a world. finally live after spending thousands of years as a dead man walking. a ghost in the shell

but in shadowbringers, that graha, the adventure-loving graha, is killed. stuck at the top of the crystal tower, forever unmoving. he didnt necessarily get cut and paste into his new body, he creates a second entity with all his memories and identity.

so THIS graha, the one with the crystal arm stays dead. his story has no happy end. and i LOVE how uve specifically placed focus on his crystal arm and intentionally saturated the blue. hes transparent. fragile. ephemeral. hes a dead man walking, half tower-half man. his state is unstable, like glass, the tower slowly creeping through every part of him until hes subsumed into it. theres such a specific sense of beautiful body horror that i think your illustration plays into and highlights. the red - his signature colour is slowly being washed away with the tide of blue, like his whole self is slowly being washed away as his duties literally eat away at his life

and god. that expression. its a little unreadable - partly because hes trying to cover it up, but yet you can still SEE that quiet anguish and terror show through. hes simply too earnest. any hard face he tries to put up will fall away with time simply because not him, nor anyone, can bear the burden of a whole world.

and i know hes portrayed as happily self destructive throughout the msq, him literally concoting a brazen suicide plan to save the first and the warrior, yet we know that he is someone who appreciates life, living. he was literally able to convince an unfeeling robot that life has joy in it in endwalker, so i dont think its too much of a stretch to say that theres a part of him in shadowbringers that is intimately terrifed of his duty. the horrific trolley problem of your life against the star, where you pull the lever. and this terror is so nakedly presented in your illustration, the way he tries to hide away from it, but simply cant, the way that his stare seems both anxious, afraid, yet resigned, a grim awareness that this version of him, the one stuck in the first only has one destination: the end.

but he still fights! still tries to hide away from it, appreciate life every step along the way. gaze at the night sky that returns after eons. make his loved one some sandwiches. try to hide that gnawing inevitability of his fated death. the one that he physically cannot avoid. the one that he knows will shatter him, like a pane of glass hit by a hammer.

youve nailed almost every part of shadowbringers graha that made his story so fucking compelling!!!!! god!!!!!

i think everyone present here will enjoy reading this