epicyonbeforeidie

[epicyonbeforeidie]

I think Aesc and Phainon have a lot in common and would have plenty to talk about, but I'm not sure if they would get along, it really depends on how Phainon's story unfolds. I imagine Aesc would have some advice for Phainon.

[epicyonbeforeidie]

Yeah, for some reason, HoYo doesn’t really try to hide the fact that Flame Reaver and Phainon are the same person in some form. Phainon is associated with imagery of the sun, while Flame Reaver represents the eclipse. Flame Reaver also has knowledge that only Phainon should possess. They wield the same sword, except Flame Reaver’s version is broken. The opening of Nameless Faces even features a quick cut from Phainon’s face to Flame Reaver’s mask, and there are countless other small details pointing to this connection.

My current theory is that Flame Reaver and Phainon are both fragments of a single, complete Lord Ravager. (Yes, Phainon is an Emanator of Destruction) Flame Reaver might carry the memories, while Phainon holds something else, maybe the soul, heart, or emotions.

Descriptions in Nameless Faces and the Golden Scapegoat’s mutterings suggest the Lord Ravager was shattered into four pieces „Hero. Divine. Puppet. Prisoner.” It’s still up for debate who represents what. Phainon could be the Hero and Flame Reaver the Puppet, but the reverse could also work.

The Golden Scapegoat’s mutterings tell a story of a Sinner/Traveler/Lamb who speaks to themselves after being trapped and punished for a sin they committed. All signs point to Phainon/Flame Reaver/Lord Ravager being the person described in that text.

Some theories about Mydei

After collecting all the Creation Nymphs in Dragonbone City, you receive a rather intriguing prophecy. It speaks of a sacrifice made to open the gates to the past. From the final line of the prophecy, we can deduce that the sacrificed one was the "golden scapegoat", clearly referring to Phainon.

The one who performed (or at least assisted with) the sacrifice is described as an "eyeless lion." The only characters in Amphoreus strongly associated with lions are Gorgo and Mydei, but both appear to have eyes.

Except

There's a brief moment in Mydei’s trailer where he glitches, and we see what looks like a cracked head with completely missing eyes.

That gives us our eyeless lion.

Then there's the quest "One-Day Talanton", where the fictional character Edgar takes over the actor playing him and attempts to kill the playwright in retaliation for the cruel fate he was given. Every story beat of Edgar's tale mirrors Mydei’s, with slight variations. Edgar kills his mother instead of his father, and he is forced to kill his beloved wife.

Mydei’s story, on the surface, doesn’t involve killing anyone close to him, until you factor in what the eyeless lion did. Then, it aligns almost perfectly, just instead of a wife, the "close one" he kills is Phainon.

Mydei is extremely suspicious, his contradictory memories, the glitches that seem to follow him, and his memory fragments becoming the golden scapegoat puzzle 3.3, all suggest something deeper. Like Castorice I believe he might be someone from a previous cycle, perhaps even the first cycle. He sacrificed the lamb/Phainon, which broke him in some way, leaving him glitching and unstable in the current cycle.

But why did he help sacrifice Phainon?

The prophecy says it was to open the gates to the past, perhaps it’s a way to reset the cycle?

Allegory on YouTube noticed that the three body parts disappearing from the lamb correspond to the three Calamity Titans:

Hands to Thanatos, legs to Zagreus, and torso to Nikador.

This makes a lot of sense, the Titans of Calamity may have been unintentionally created from Phainon's remains when he was sacrificed.

The golden scapegoat’s mutterings also suggest the lamb was sacrificed as punishment for the sin of bringing light/strife/destruction into the world.

There's also this

So perhaps Phainon was killed not just to access the past, but to prevent further calamity.

Whatever the case, I really hope HoYo doesn’t retcon this and gives us some explanation about what’s going on with Mydei.

[epicyonbeforeidie]

Amazing theory, I hadn’t really thought deeply about the meaning of the Lion being eyeless, but the metaphorical interpretation sounds very plausible. Mydei going through with the ritual out of blind trust in Phainon and sheer ignorance makes a lot of sense (3.3 spoilers especially considering he still shows those same traits, he didn’t even suspect the connection between the Flame Reaver and Phainon, and it got him killed). The regression angle is really interesting and incredibly sad for Phainon, given how many cycles there have been.

Some theories about Mydei

After collecting all the Creation Nymphs in Dragonbone City, you receive a rather intriguing prophecy. It speaks of a sacrifice made to open the gates to the past. From the final line of the prophecy, we can deduce that the sacrificed one was the "golden scapegoat", clearly referring to Phainon.

The one who performed (or at least assisted with) the sacrifice is described as an "eyeless lion." The only characters in Amphoreus strongly associated with lions are Gorgo and Mydei, but both appear to have eyes.

Except

There's a brief moment in Mydei’s trailer where he glitches, and we see what looks like a cracked head with completely missing eyes.

That gives us our eyeless lion.

Then there's the quest "One-Day Talanton", where the fictional character Edgar takes over the actor playing him and attempts to kill the playwright in retaliation for the cruel fate he was given. Every story beat of Edgar's tale mirrors Mydei’s, with slight variations. Edgar kills his mother instead of his father, and he is forced to kill his beloved wife.

Mydei’s story, on the surface, doesn’t involve killing anyone close to him, until you factor in what the eyeless lion did. Then, it aligns almost perfectly, just instead of a wife, the "close one" he kills is Phainon.

Mydei is extremely suspicious, his contradictory memories, the glitches that seem to follow him, and his memory fragments becoming the golden scapegoat puzzle 3.3, all suggest something deeper. Like Castorice I believe he might be someone from a previous cycle, perhaps even the first cycle. He sacrificed the lamb/Phainon, which broke him in some way, leaving him glitching and unstable in the current cycle.

But why did he help sacrifice Phainon?

The prophecy says it was to open the gates to the past, perhaps it’s a way to reset the cycle?

Allegory on YouTube noticed that the three body parts disappearing from the lamb correspond to the three Calamity Titans:

Hands to Thanatos, legs to Zagreus, and torso to Nikador.

This makes a lot of sense, the Titans of Calamity may have been unintentionally created from Phainon's remains when he was sacrificed.

The golden scapegoat’s mutterings also suggest the lamb was sacrificed as punishment for the sin of bringing light/strife/destruction into the world.

There's also this

So perhaps Phainon was killed not just to access the past, but to prevent further calamity.

Whatever the case, I really hope HoYo doesn’t retcon this and gives us some explanation about what’s going on with Mydei.

[epicyonbeforeidie]

Some theories about Mydei

After collecting all the Creation Nymphs in Dragonbone City, you receive a rather intriguing prophecy. It speaks of a sacrifice made to open the gates to the past. From the final line of the prophecy, we can deduce that the sacrificed one was the "golden scapegoat", clearly referring to Phainon.

The one who performed (or at least assisted with) the sacrifice is described as an "eyeless lion." The only characters in Amphoreus strongly associated with lions are Gorgo and Mydei, but both appear to have eyes.

Except

There's a brief moment in Mydei’s trailer where he glitches, and we see what looks like Mydei without his eyes.

That gives us our eyeless lion.

Then there's the quest "One-Day Talanton", where the fictional character Edgar takes over the actor playing him and attempts to kill the playwright in retaliation for the cruel fate he was given. Every story beat of Edgar's tale mirrors Mydei’s, with slight variations. Edgar kills his mother instead of his father, and he is forced to kill his beloved wife.

Mydei’s story, on the surface, doesn’t involve killing anyone close to him, until you factor in what the eyeless lion did. Then, it aligns almost perfectly, just instead of a wife, the "close one" he kills is Phainon.

Mydei is extremely suspicious, his contradictory memories, the glitches that seem to follow him, and his memory fragments becoming the golden scapegoat puzzle 3.3, all suggest something deeper. Like Castorice I believe he might be someone from a previous cycle, perhaps even the first cycle. He sacrificed the lamb/Phainon, which broke him in some way, leaving him glitching and unstable in the current cycle.

But why did he help sacrifice Phainon?

The prophecy says it was to open the gates to the past, perhaps it’s a way to reset the cycle?

Allegory on YouTube noticed that the three body parts disappearing from the lamb correspond to the three Calamity Titans:

Hands to Thanatos, legs to Zagreus, and torso to Nikador.

This makes a lot of sense, the Titans of Calamity may have been unintentionally created from Phainon's remains when he was sacrificed.

The golden scapegoat’s mutterings also suggest the lamb was sacrificed as punishment for the sin of bringing light/strife/destruction into the world.

There's also this

So perhaps Phainon was killed not just to access the past, but to prevent further calamity.

Whatever the case, I really hope HoYo doesn’t retcon this and gives us some explanation about what’s going on with Mydei.

[epicyonbeforeidie]

Nanook and the Path of Destruction

The thing that makes Nanook and the path of Destruction so intriguing to me is that the methods are generally bad, but the goal, and what leads up to that goal, are much more complex and understandable than one might think.

Because Nanook wasn‘t some mustache twirling villain since birth, they were a victim of catastrophes started by other people and only through experiencing so much suffering did they develop their ideology of „This universe is bad and it needs to be destroyed.“ Fact is that if the universe did not exist in the way that it does in Star Rail, there wouldn’t be a path of destruction. Continuing that thought, there was and is Destruction in Star Rail‘s history that’s completely disconnected to Nanook. Nanooks ascension was more of a response to the suffering created by Emperor Rubert, Tazzyronth, the IPC etc. than something that happened in a vacuum.

If you look at all the antagonists we got in Star Rail up until now, do you notice how only a few of them are fully associated with the Destruction? And if you look at their goals, how many of them align with the path of Destruction?

Nanook and the followers of the path of Destruction are in no way justified in their actions, but acknowledging that they are the product of a continuous cycle of violence created by paths other than theirs than them is important for understanding the entire Star Rail story.

To end this I wanna point out how similar Nanook‘s goal is to the message of the game to ultimately show how flawed the Destruction is.

The message of Star Rail is to embrace the future. This is similar to Nanook wanting to destroy the current universe for a new one. Ending things to start new things isn’t wrong, but Nanook‘s desire to destroy the past is born out of an inability to see the past clearly for what it is, resulting in their actions being harmful. They internalized the violence they experienced as a human and now see it as some universal law and can‘t see past it to find a way to break the cycle of violence which they are now just continuing.

This is what makes Nanook‘s goal ultimately only a twisted reflection of the core message of Star Rail, because the AE Crew is creating a better future by understanding people’s problems and helping them (e.g. Sunday), not just by fighting bad people and never fully addressing the problem.

[epicyonbeforeidie]

I don’t usually write rants like this, but I need to get this off my chest.

With Cyrene who is clearly an Elysia expy coming to Honkai Star Rail, I sincerely hope she won’t be too much like Elysia. I wouldn’t mind if she shared some conceptual similarities, as long as it’s done right this time. But honestly, my hopes aren’t high.

I have a lot of thoughts about Elysia, and none of them are positive. At best, I see Elysia as the biggest disappointment in the entire series at worst, I outright despise her.

The thing is, I love “perfect savior” characters. They usually come with deep emotional arcs, internal conflict, and explorations of both the good and bad sides of humanity. That’s why Elysia frustrates me so deeply.

She’s portrayed as this flawless, idealized being loved by all of the characters, and even the writers. The narrative constantly screams at you: “She sacrificed everything for humanity! She is perfect! She loves humanity! She married humanity! She’s your wife too! - Don’t you love her already?”

But it all feels empty and shallow. Her so determination rings hollow because she never actually struggles. She doesn’t make mistakes. The story tells us she’s witnessed humanity at its best and worst but we never see this. Everyone worships her, and the moment there’s even a slight hint that she might doubt herself as a Herrscher, the writing bends over backward to reassure her that none of it matters because she’s just that perfect.

She doesn’t fight her nature. She doesn’t question her convictions. And because she never experiences genuine negative emotion, her “goodness” has no weight. She’s like a cardboard cutout that is sweet to the point of blandness.

What makes it worse is that there was potential. There were hints she could have been more than just a flawless goddess — maybe even morally ambiguous. But those hints go nowhere. It’s a waste of setup and a complete letdown.

Perfect characters can work, when their perfection is shown to be inhuman, and even evil and dangerous in its incompatibility with humanity.

Maybe I’ve been spoiled by Fate a series full of complex savior figures like Morgan, Castoria, Kiara, Jeanne d’Arc, and all of the Beasts. Each of them is unique, carefully written, sometimes heroic, sometimes terrifying. They struggle. They question themselves. They feel. The writing doesn’t beg us to love them it just shows us who they are and lets us come to that conclusion on our own.

I still cling to a sliver of hope. The Amphoreus arc is written by a different team than the Elysian Realm, and they gave us Phainon a brilliant example of a savior archetype done right. He’s full of doubt, hiding his negative emotions behind a mask of perfect deliverer. He’s broken, lost, and empty yet he still fights to find his convictions and protect the world.

So I beg let Cyrene, who seems to be another “savior” type have real flaws. Let her feel, struggle, and have a opinions on the world around her. That’s all I ask.

[epicyonbeforeidie]

There's a theory from Ashikai that Aeons come in contrasting pairs that oppose and fight each other. Ashikai pairs Nanook with Qlipoth, but I don’t fully see that connection, Preservation already stands as the natural enemy of Voracity. That makes me wonder that there isn’t really any Aeon of Creation who directly opposes Destruction. Lygus mentioning that we don’t fully understand Destruction only reinforces some of my thoughts.

What if Nanook is both the Aeon of Creation and Destruction? Nanook desires to destroy the current universe so that a better one can be created, creation through destruction like how you can’t make a chair without first cutting down a tree (he too has strong jesus references in his design). This could explain the Stellarons who hold destructive power of creation. There's a strong theme here, the destructive power of creation and creation of destruction.

This also sheds some light on Phainon and his dual themes of destruction and creation. Let’s be honest he’s likely the Lord Ravager trapped in Amphoreus, yet he’s also strongly tied to memories and creation. If he represents creation through destruction it would make a lot of sense

[epicyonbeforeidie]

I have many thoughts about the Golden Scapegoat's mutterings and Phainon.

If the theory about Phainon being the Lord Ravager is correct, and the Golden Scapegoat's mutterings are about him, then this entry takes on a much more literal meaning.

It becomes far more straightforward the mark of property being made in the furnace corresponding to Nanook giving the mark of destruction to the chosen, their bodies being reforged in the Warforge they become Lord Ravagers and destruction becoming their destiny.

Interpreting it this way suggests that the rest of the entry should also be taken quite literally. That makes me wonder could Phainon, before becoming the Lord Ravager, literally speak to the dead? But the references to black iron and charcoal suggest a much more violent method of communicating with the dead than what you’d normally expect. I’m not sure what to make of that.

(Gardener - Garden of Recollection perhaps?)

This entry also seems to associate the dead more strongly with memories, but I think this one is referring to Cyrene, because she too is heavily associated with being a sinner, so I don’t know how useful this entry could be in trying to decipher 6B.

[epicyonbeforeidie]

no looking back, orpheus. you promised ▋

[epicyonbeforeidie]

there's meta to be had about just how much of viktor's arc is about loneliness and the blatant visuals they use in his evolution about metamorphosis, butterflies, cocoons, in utero, etc, as he molts from a soft, vulnerable larva who keeps getting hurt in his bids for love and acceptance, into a hardened final form complete with an exoskeleton acting as both physical and emotional armor. a shield keeping his emotions in and the pain of loneliness and rejection out, until it's cracked and his humanity is forcefully exposed. like. sorry if it's just the entomologist in me but this was blatantly obvious the very first time i watched the show and I've been continually surprised that no one's really pointed this out. as a certified lonely person it struck such a deep cord with me, when he accepted his fate, his path ahead, to be one he'd have to walk alone, finally putting up that last seemingly impenetrable wall around his soft parts (but keeping the blanket, this signal that he never asked for this, and that he's not unreachable). So much of his s2 arc centered around not just his desire to right his wrongs and help the world, but to connect with others and not feel alone, both of which got twisted by the hexcore. His attempt to create a hivemind where no one would ever suffer loneliness or rejection or loss, and he would feel their souls with him as well (even though that was an illusion in the end, he truly believed it). The whole 'I now speak with all their voices' but he's just floating in an empty space. And for the consequence of the glorious evolution to be eternal solitude, it just drives home how that's the worst possible fate imaginable for Viktor.

[epicyonbeforeidie]

Waiting -Jayce and The Mage

Do you think Jayce was hoping The Mage would come back?

I mean Jayce Talis has spent most of his life living in a city that built to defend itself from Mages who used their powers for evil. Piltover is not Demacia but it is an Anti-Magic society. I'll bet you anything when children were caught "pretending" to be mages they were punished or reprimanded. To Piltover the Arcane was Dangerous and could only destroy not create.

But Jayce's first experience of Magic is when a Mage decided to save him and his mother from a Blizzard. Then he was give a Hex crystal and we can assume the mage just dissappeared without a goodbye. He wanted to thank him. To show his gratitude because that is who Jayce Talis is, someone who loves so much and so deeply that he dosen't always know what to do with it or show it properly but boy does he try!

There was no way he could search for a teleporting Mage outside of Piltover. Did he hope that maybe, just maybe the Mage would appear to Jayce once again.

But there's no way a Mage would come to Piltover. Piltover hates Mages! Why would one ever want to come here? But what if Jayce could change it?

The Mage showed him the Magic can be Harnessed for Good. Why can't he use Science, Piltover's bread and butter, to Harness Magic. Show them all The Mage doesn't have to be feared. That he could make this city a place the Mage could come to and find Jayce again.

No matter how many people brushed off Jayce's dreams as childish at best or dangerous at worst, he never stopped believing in magic in a city like Piltover. He somehow found the same kind of crystal the mage gave him. He somehow convinced Viktor and Mel that his dreams could be reality.

His first BIG Hextech invention? Hex Gates. Teleportation Magic. That changes the Piltover Skyline for all to see. Was he hoping the Mage would come back through the Hex Gates?

Come to find out The Mage came back and was with him all this time in a city that always hated him but not for magic? That he gave his savior the tools to save his past self!

(Bonus. He also made it a place Mel felt safe enough to return to even though she was a mage! That would of never happened before Hextech!)

Edit: When he thought his chance to change Piltover was over before it could even start, he took off the bracelet and left a goodbye letter. That we never got to read. Did it say anything about the bracelet? He didn't want to be buried with it? Did he want the Mage to have it back? Just for it to be returned to him before he could leave?

[epicyonbeforeidie]

I didn’t see anyone else do this, but I have many thoughts about an Arcane Fate AU.

The concept is that Hextech and the story of the two sisters took place roughly 100 years ago, and during that time, Zaun gained independence. Because of this, characters like Jinx and Vi are now historical/folk figures in Piltover and Zaun.

The Holy Grail Ritual is a fancy competition between Piltover families to show themselves off. They usually select representatives with sufficient magical abilities to compete, and they use Servants as familiars in battles. However, in this particular Holy Grail Ritual, something went wrong, and some Servants ended up being summoned by unintended individuals (people from Zaun).

The Master-Servant pairings and classes would look something like this

Piltover: 

Viktor - Jayce - ????? Caster

Mel - Lest/Leblanc -  Assassin/Pretender (what i mean is Leblanc is pretending to be Lest and that her class is assassin)

Caitlyn - Vi - Saber or Shielder i am not sure about this 

Zaun: 

Isha - Jinx - Archer 

Ekko - Heimerdinger - Rider

Singed - Warwick - Berserker 

and special guest:

Ambessa - Arcane Herald - claiming to be saviour those who are more familiar with the fate series could probably guess his true class

[epicyonbeforeidie]

VIKTOR | JERICHO | ARCANE

Please enjoy this edit here on Tumblr in full. ❤️ Focusing on the GLORIOUS EVOLUTION of Viktor (with lots of Jayce too, because you can't have one without the other). HOW are these lyrics so perfect?

Update: We have a link to a NEW extended version on Youtube (the only way we could make the audio work there was to add 12 seconds to the middle of our edit at 0:51) under the cut:

Update: We FINALLY found a solution to YouTube blocking/muting our audio. 🥳 Apparently cutting 12 seconds from the second verse was enough of an edit that the filters were rejecting it. We have an EXTENDED edition going live on Dec 27 with those 12 seconds added back in (new content begins at 0:51 secs).

Other places to watch (original version)

Patreon (public, no login needed): https://www.patreon.com/posts/viktor-jericho-118392578

Tiktok Part 1: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8NbxnBt/

Tiktok Part 2: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8NbnQQd/

Twitter: https://x.com/VidDuality/status/1871194052923670966

[epicyonbeforeidie]

Before the release of the second season, there was a popular theory that the Hexcore had a missing element—a type of rune that wasn’t present, specifically the Inspiration rune from League of Legends.

According to this theory, it was Sky who „solved” the Hexcore, and when she was killed by the Hexcore, she somehow became the Inspiration rune in it. However, this theory was somewhat debunked because, although the writers have differing opinions about what Sky was in the second season, they agree that it wasn’t truly the real Sky.

This led me to think of a slightly different theory: that it wasn’t Sky who was the Inspiration rune, but Viktor himself.

First of all, the scene where Sky was killed by the Hexcore always seemed to me less like the Hexcore absorbed her and more like it simply disintegrated her.

Take the Sky line before she died:

"I was inspired by your... Everything you do inspires me." It’s very easy to interpret this line differently, as "You are the Inspiration."

And the Hexcore reached its peak power and functioned at its best when Viktor became one with it in the second season.

What could this mean? I have no idea. I truly wish the creators would explain what the Arcane is and how it works in details.

[epicyonbeforeidie]

Another Castlevania padoru this time Juste

[epicyonbeforeidie]

I wonder, is there any castlevania discord? (For a fans of games and animated series obviously)

[epicyonbeforeidie]

It is this time of the year. Richter padoru