#Because on his game there exists this place very similar to The Void and I asked him if he could add Rob in there and he said he could

[yurki-posts]

An idea I had for a different Rob desing . .

[dailyblorboposting]

IM BACK GANG!! been working on this for a few days and didnt wanna post it during the strike

@ectobio made some sprites the other day of if jade and rose's god tier outfits matched their colors schemes, and then @gay-frog-search-history asked about the beta kids.... so voila! my personal designs for the characters in their Color-matched God Tiers

and their regular god tiers below the cut :3 (also I did switch Jade from Mind to Life, because the Mind colors fit Jane a bit better, hope that's ok)

im really happy with how these turned out

also june egbert wins forever

have some thoughts on these:

Jade as Witch of Life is pretty fine I think... No Space Player basically guarantees a failed game but we dont worry about the actual mechanics of the game this is just for funsies. besides, life should be able to find a frog anyways, frogs are living!

Rose Seer of Rage is actually so interesting to me. Light relates to her motifs a lot, but I can brute force some rage symbolism relatively easily. She is very angry inside, her whole "destroying her session" showed that... inch resting...

Jane Maid of Mind mightve kept a lot of the dramatic pre-retcon shit from happening- she'd be "meant" to keep her friends minds taken care of, she probably couldve prevented lots of relationship issues with this. But Brain Ghost Dirk likely wouldnt exist lol.

Dirk Prince of Light is very similar to Eridan Prince of Hope. And i got confused in the comments of the og post leave me alone theyre both yellow. But still, Light is basically Fortune. Lack of Fortune? Too Much Fortune? VERY fun to think about!!!

Roxy Rogue of Heart! That's Nepeta's! Her role in the group already fits a Heart player well (though maybe a Blood player better) but she would gain a lot more individuality and agency that I think she could benefit from as a character. Void players have it rough :pensive:

Jake Page of Doom is pretty based actually. Page is one of the most powerful classes iirc and Hope and Doom are opposites so, functionally he'd be very similar. Again, Brain Ghost Dirk wouldn't exist but maybe there'd be a doomed timeline Dirk to take his place...

Anyway that's all! Normal daily posting begins again btw!!

[moltenwrites]

Thanks @nczaversnick for the tag!

I got tagged for a character name origins tag, but I did that very recently, and the post also mentioned talking about the characters origins, which I’ll gladly yap about!

The Artist

Gotta be honest, it feels odd that Ive BARELY talked about the artist here considering how important they are to How Our World Ended. The Artist is a God who can create universes, and observes them

The artist is a literal outline of a person, with a white line covering their eyes. They exist within a black void, as a result of destroying their own universe. The origin for this character is odd, and many years old, but I’ll try to get a good timeline.

Initially, they were just a character for me to project negative thoughts onto. Then, the idea of them being a creator of universes came into my mind. They were first put into a story during a OLD assignment which I unfortunately do not have access to anymore. While it was bad, it solidified the character in my mind. And they always stayed in the back of my mind, untill I came up with How Our World Ended. And considering how important they are to the ending, and hell, the universe of Souls Collide, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about them ( random note, but I feel like the watcher from What If was a big inspiration of the concept )

RES

Ugh, so this one is a littttle embarrassing. A lot of my older ideas have evolved a lot, and that includes the early stages where they were inspired by some…. Odd stuff ( you don’t wanna know how souls collide itself started )

Anyways, if I remember right, I always liked the idea of doing a more medieval fantasy story. Souls Collide takes place in current times, so that line of thought was always an interesting thought experiment. Anyways, in 2021 I was watching the game awards because I had nothing better to do. I was kinda zoning out, untill the live performance of the song enemy started playing. And as it played, the premise of How our World Ended, or at least a rough outline, hit me. And as time went on, more music inspired more about the story. Hells coming with me by Poor Man’s Poison gave me an idea for a second half of the story that was, admittedly, terrible. But the ending, that was cool, and it stayed. That song also gave me the rough outline of what I wanted Res to be. A revenge fueled fire soul was how he initially was gonna be. But as time went on, a lot changed. I changed him to be an ice soul, as the protagonist of souls collide is already a fire soul, and I didn’t want to overlap that. Then, Res became more fueled by grief. Now, Res is cold and calculated. He works as a vigilante of sorts, and is far more caring once he gets to know someone.

Oof- that was long, I’ll do a quick lighting round of origins that are WAY shorter.

Salazar

Two big inspos for this guy. Firstly, I always wanted to do something similar to the organization 13 from kingdom hearts. Salazar, and his past in the council of fate, was initially gonna fill that role. Over time, the council shrunk and that role more fell to the gods. Then, for his explicit personality, it was heavily inspired by moon waltz by cojum dip. Something about it just fit the guy, and me misinterpreting the wrestling mask of the album cover as a masquerade mask 100% shaped both his chilling personality and his design

Nelios

Okay I think this one is just funny. So, I didn’t plan this book well. At all. I kinda just went “ fuck it “ and let it happen. That’s why the first draft is VERY rough atm. Anyways, Nelios wasn’t originally in the story at all. I was just gonna name drop him, and maybe give him a scene or two, but when I wrote a full chapter of him, I loved him so much, he became VITAL to the story. His personality came from a mix of “ how can I make an arrogant asshole likable? “ and “ how can one make this guy a fun ass character to write “

Okay I rambled for WAYYY to long there, but I have a lot to say haha. Anyways, tag list time.

Tagging @aintgonnatakethis @ddgraywrites @jjoneswriting @revenantlore @noxxytocin @yourpenpaldee @illarian-rambling @theverumproject @autism-purgatory @gioiaalbanoart @the-letterbox-archives

@mk-writes-stuff

+ OPEN TAG

[rogue-of-broken-time]

ALTRverse, the Multiverse, and the Jacksepticeye Cinematic Universe

Hey. This little theory is about exactly what it says in the title; the "Jacksepticeye Cinematic Universe", the universe(s) the comics will take place in, and the concurrent multiverse as a whole.

I'll do my best to explain my thoughts below the cut. :)

—

What if, despite a lot of things being called canon and not canon these days, we made a theory that wraps all those things together?

And what if I told you it's all possible because of IRIS?

IRIS is short for "Inspiring Research of Impossible Sciences". They push the limits of what's possible by any means available to them, and according to themselves, they've actually succeeded in doing that.

But… what does IRIS have to do with the story, aside from being a corporate entity within it?…

Remember that time they tweeted about the multiverse?

What if there actually is a multiverse in play here? And what if… even our universe is part of it?

Hear me out:

My concept here is that IRIS is a multiversal constant. Meaning, wherever you go, in whatever JSE canon universe there is, IRIS is there somewhere.

We've actually had basis to believe this given to us. The fact that IRIS has a Twitter account in general means they're "in" our universe. They also exist in the same universe as Chase Brody. And, as seen in Void Silver issue #0, Marvin also recognizes the IRIS signature.

So, if IRIS really is a multiversal constant, what does that really mean?

It could very well mean that, in every single universe IRIS is present in, there is also an Anti or an equivalent of him.

Here's an example of what I mean:

2016-2017 Antisepticeye as we saw him on the JSE channel and ALTR-114209 are very, VERY different from each other. Sure, they may both make technology malfunction in their presence and be generally ill-meaning, but aside from their somewhat-similar appearances and motives, they have almost nothing in common.

Now, back in the day, we would've theorized that the in-universe explanation for this change would've been that the "Anti" we see and the "Anti" Chase Brody would've seen are the same entity, presenting himself based on his different victims' fears.

What I'm proposing is that, despite both of them being "Anti" in essence, they are two different universes' versions of one character. They are equivalent, but not exactly the same; "Antisepticeye" is our universe's Anti, which is why we've seen the most of him– and ALTR-114209 is another universe's.

(Of course, the out-of-universe explanations for the changes to the character can be chalked up to time– Anti has evolved over the years to be applicable to various situations on the channel, after all. I'm just suggesting explanations for in-universe events here.)

As with Anti, however, all the egos and even IRIS itself can have an equivalent in the other universes. KJSE Henrik, Mayhem Henrik, and Henrik as we saw him in You're Not Ready For These Scary Games could be three variants of the same character. Chase Brody as we saw him in Bro Average and as we saw him in Anomaly Found could be two variants of the same character. Heck, C!Jack could be a variant of Chase or even someone else– just because Seán declared him "non-canon" to the IRIS storyline doesn't mean he can't be canon somewhere else!

Dear ego artists and writers, does this concept sound at all familiar to you? Because it should.

It's pretty much the basis of every ego AU ever made by a fan.

And, well… in the extended multiverse of JSE lore, who's to say what is and isn't "canon" in its own right? Something canon to the story Seán is telling doesn't necessarily have to be incorporated into an AU. Similarly, Seán doesn't have to incorporate fan-made AUs or headcanons into the actual canon.

But it's something we kinda do anyway, because of the way we feed off of inspiration from each other, isn't it? Kinda cool when you think about it that way. :)

As for the future of the IRIS storyline and ALTRverse, though, my prediction is that we're going to see things harken back to events in the past (although those events may be altered for the sake of the setting), while making our way toward the actual canon story. I can't imagine a better way to wrap it all up in a nice little bow.

But, anyway… that's just a theory. ;)

If you read this far, thank you so much! I put a lot of thought into this one, so hopefully it makes some sense. Have a great one! :D

[shadowvalkyrie]

One of the differences between the Vampire Chronicles books and the Interview with a Vampire TV show I find most striking is the focus on the character's relationships with each other.

One of the central elements of the books (especially the earlier ones) is loneliness. A persistent sense of alienation that is only partially explained by being a predatory monster amongst humans.

Louis is already lonely as a human, and becoming immortal just adds more weight to that loneliness. There is a sense of being in the wrong place, in the wrong time, surrounded people that don't really understand him and his bottomless grief.

Meanwhile, Lestat is a narcissist, unable to genuinely connect to anyone, because they keep betraying him and/or dying, so he creates this solipsistic existence in which he is the centre of the universe and everyone else just exists to adore him, but because that fails to fill the persistent void in his soul, he has to stage ever more elaborate adventures in a pointless search for meaning. He falls in love with sometimes his prey - fated to be brief moments of stirring tragedy for him to bask in, catching fleeting glimpses of their souls as he drinks them up - and other times the people least interested in him, so that he can always be on a quest to win them over - only to drop/kill them once he has. And of course Louis is his main obsession, because Louis cannot be won over.

Louis is too lost in his depression to respond the way Lestat (thinks he) wants. So they are doomed to forever circle around each other in throes of agonised wishful thinking and longing for a mutual understanding that just cannot happen. (Symbolised by the way their thoughts are always closed to each other as sire and fledgeling.)

Similarly, the rest of the characters have their own issues. Claudia raging against being trapped in the body of a child forever, wanting to be free from the people who made her and deny her any agency, find people of her own, but unable to escape her limitations. Armand with his political machinations, games of power and control that don't, in the long run, go anywhere, because the older vampires he competes against and shares the playing field with are barely people anymore. Any triumphs and losses are doomed to be forever hollow and unfulfilling. And so it goes for practically everyone.

But of course all these thoughts and feelings are by their very nature deeply introspective. Excellent for a novel, but terrible for TV.

So instead of the interpersonal lacunae, the aimless eternal wanderings of the lost immortals through a changing world they cannot quite touch, the show focuses on the relationships of the characters with each other in a more immediate way. By exposing their dysfunctionality a lot more mercilessly than the books (where a lot of the love and longing is taken at face value, as the one constant between the lines of the unreliable narration - in a sense of "the love didn't fix anything but it was there"), it exposes that same lack of connection.

The characters don't seem as obviously lonely, because they spend more time together, and always have this strong focus on each other, the push and pull of passion at the centre, rather than the cold bleakness the books often depict, but in the end you get a similar sense of unbridgeable distance and inescapable grief (and the fine thread of psychological horror that comes with the enormity of it, stretched out over centuries), which I think is masterfully done.

[onestepbackwards]

Ayo, didn’t know MissingNo Anon was a preexisting Anon with its own tag. Wanted to clarifyI was both the same person who brought up MissingNo in both asks.

With MissingNo my original idea was that MissingNo would be trying to warn the viewers about impending doom of their future, but I thought of it society wise.

However, the implication that MissingNo is a result of something catastrophic a person can do to themselves sounds just as haunting.

A creature who lived a horrible life either by preexisting conditions, regrettable decisions, or something deep within their soul, binding and twisting them till they no longer belonged in any reality.

A fate worse than hell or being reincarnated into a ghost Pokémon. More of a fucked up mutation of a person that could take trillions of years to begin. It’s heavily hated for its past sins, regrets, and emotions formed into something that can’t even be distinguished. All Pokémon really dislike it.

However, Arceus would probably notice that.

Then there’s the other idea I’m recycling from another idea I had before this!

The concept of true nothingness, which is usually perceived as a black void by most people. However, MissingNo is what people see when they are close to true nothingness, it’s just an easier thing to comprehend than what’s inside it. It could hold everything that was forgotten, trying to preserve such only for it to forget, to alter, never failing nor winning.

They see all, and know many things… They are unfortunately cursed to live a life mangled and every change to fill itself as a dream existed even before Arceus came to be.

It desires company, but it’s even reality that it can't comprehend something that lives, but has no existing property. It end up fucking physics up all the time which garentees a future of endless lonliness.

Like putting a sticky note over the missing/lost center puzzle piece to an otherwise complete puzzle.

In this case, the Eldritch Flex-tape dex entry to nothingness in the Pokédex. MissingNo, the placeholder Pokémon.

MissingNo never explains itself, but it’s always focusing on the viewers, the streamers, from its cries, philosophical lessons could be learned, since nothing it says makes entirely sense, its purpose is for the viewers to fill the void with its words and create a meaning of their own. Wild, absurd, it’s all up to the people.

It cries for the streamer’s attention and to be treated like any other existing matter…only for it’s existence to fuck with reality of all things.

An endless cycle, but it always ensures to win every battle because the streamer treats it the best they can.

Since you mentioned it still stalks the player even after they leave because it wants to be heard. The stream is the most common place to see MissingNo. I believe even after the streamer gets home there will be a universal distribution of MissingNo photos from throughout the historical record.

The streamer returns…only for their very same MissingNo they are still waiting for them. Who knows how long it’s waited or how long it’s alive, but it wants a battle. It misses them.

Imagine it wiping down all the streamers Pokémon, only leaving Arceus left to battle against it. Arcues can’t defeat nothingness, but the creature retreats after it had enough fun.

It’s similar to X and Y, AZ but the roles are reversed…. MissingNo never escaping its fate of eternal lonliness.

However, it leaves a gift! MissingNo gives the streamer its own custom plate to them, to appear cool like the Nobel Pokémon. It's literally the first Gameboy model.

The other people in the game affected would be everyone, but mainly Laveton, Ingo, Adaman and Irida.

Laveton tries to study the thing, only for all his notes to simply be left as WIPS that are never completed XD. He’s exhausted.

Ingo could see faint patterns of his memories for a split second, or if it’s a skeleton, be reminded of both the flames of Chandelure and the many sparks of joltik. It’s uncanny amounts of familiar where he thinks it’s one or the other, but both?

Overthinking it doesn’t help him one bit. His memories come back faster but it’s so overstimulating, glitchy, static it hurts his head and further damages the accuracy of his gauge memories. MissingNo is trying to help, but it’s like using Auto correct, it recommendations can often steal the tang of the writings.

Adaman, who values time, the creature has no sense of age, with its appearance only getting more disturbing every second he tries to pay attention. His time is better spent on his clan than whatever floating purple L kaleidoscope it is. Time seems to stop when MissingNo is nearby, or it’s really his heart.

Irida, valuing space, MissingNo feels like it’s everywhere or it’s presence takes up all the air in the room. It gets too cold. Imagine being in literal space with no oxygen and pressure 100x stronger than a human body can handle.

Meanwhile, Kamado develops permanent insomnia after the banishment and PTSD from the thing now! He can’t even bring himself forth to attack it, and he’d rather not have the thing destroy the village.

The streamer must catch Cresselia or any psychic that helps with dreams in order to ensure he lives, without it they’ll get to see the Galaxy leader wither awake, slowly losing his sanity in the process.

Beni, yeah he ain’t ninjaing out of this one. He’s in the same boat, but MissingNo likes the guy more because he makes good food. He channels his fears into making cupcakes and keeps Kamado company as another insomnia buddy.

Volo? By the time Giratina appears, MissingNo is only watching as a noticeable constellation in the sky.

Volo didn’t know what the thing really, but he was the one to know it appeared in various texts of the past.

The Celestia people wrote very few stories surrounding it, and how the people were affected…just never the thing itself.

He tries to understand such a mythical creature, but even he feels threatened by the thing.

The streamer doesn’t get much info from the people of Hisui, only snippets of what was around it. So it’s up to the future to write what MissingNo is trying to convey to the audience.

And to add, the historical records make no sense either because it’s existence was never understood in the past either. It was old and ruined, and little connected.

Only until the stream, it’s presence skyrocketed to being one of the most documented Pokémon throughout time as an ever changing concept to fill the true nothingness.

Anyway, Call me 🎲 Anon. I’m not the same as the other MissingNo Anon seen on the other tag.

I’m also the same person who talked about how Ingo would understand the code through Sneasler.

Ah! I didn’t know there was someone else going by MissingNo anon, but that’s okay! I’ll refer to you as 🎲 anon from now on!

I really like these ideas 👀👀

Especially the idea of it being Nothing, or having been born from it.

It makes sense! It was never supposed to exist, a being made from scrapped code. It doesn’t even have a number!

These are all excellent ideas though! Especially it just wanting love and to have fun.

And also messing with Kamado. That is a huge bonus 😈

Though I feel so bad for Ingo 😭 it really wants to help, and ends up making thing’s overwhelming by accident 🥺🥺🥺

[reliquiaen]

Okay, my Dragon's Dogma 2 thoughts. This is not a review, this is me figuring out the story and its meanings, how it connects to the first game, what it answers, and what questions I still want to know answers to.

'Ware of spoilers 'neath the divide.

“Abandon all illusions of control.” – Grigori

First: some words from our original Seneschal, Savan.

“Show that you’ve the strength to break the yoke that binds you.” – Savan encourages the Arisen to challenge him and rise above the role asigned them to become Seneschal. It always comes back to this idea of willpower being the driving factor of power and accomplishment.

“I command all life into existence.” – He creates a copy of the Arisen, demonstrating that he creates life.

“The world thirsts for the will to live.” – The world requires a strong will to hold it together and give it order, give it purpose and life. It’s the will of an Arisen that drives the world and all existence. With a weak will, nothing happens and nothing is overcome. Which is why all the tests are in place: to ensure only an Arisen of exceptional will can become Seneschal.

“Show that your will is fit to bind the fraying circle of this world and hold it fast.”

“Will you claim your right as Arisen, or shrug the burden and seek peace in oblivion.”

“The forge of my heart grows cold, and the world shivers for it.” – Over time – an eternity of it – even the most steadfast and determined Arisen grow weary and falter in their duty. Savan was Seneschal for so long that he’s become tired (he’s experiencing burnout, as you would if you were caretaker of an entire world for millennia), hence his search for a replacement.

“May you guide the world ever justly.” – These words are interesting specifically because they give insight to Savan’s character and I’m going to come back to these in relation to the Pathfinder.

The assumption I'm working with: The Pathfinder is Seneschal.

On the left, Savan from the first game; on the right, Pathfinder from DD2. They are wearing similar robes. There are colour differences, yes, but I put those down to graphics and mood/disposition. The 'world beyond the rift' looks very similar in both cases, but no screenshots because it's essentially just a big empty void with a thin layer of water for a floor. (The Brine lives in the water. I'll come back to that.)

Things about the Unnamed Sequel Dragon:

“If thou seekest to behold this world in its true aspect, abandon thy reason. Cast aside thine heart and thy life both.” – Unnamed Dragon (at the start of the game)

“Naught but thine ambition can alter the course of the rivers of fate.” – Heard at the start of the game and then again at the end if you refuse to sit on the throne, implying that the opening of the game in first person is actually your Arisen being crowned at the end but without the context of the events of the game.

Upon being defeated the dragon says, “perhaps thine will is strong enough to put an end to it,” which is interesting because it suggests that the dragon IS an agent of chaos and wants the destruction of the cycle which would lead to the unravelling of reality and all existence as we know it. But the dragon is merely a failed Arisen (which we learn in the first game, unless that’s no longer the case in the sequel) fulfilling the duty given them. Not a villain in the typical sense, but an obstacle to be overcome for the good of the world.

Who was this dragon before they were a dragon? That's always what I want to know. Why are they unnamed? (I do like to imagine they might be our Arisen from the first game in a dimension where they failed to beat Savan, but I doubt that would work in a timeline.) How long have they been the dragon? At the end, it looks like the Pathfinder can simply summon a dragon from nothing, so are the rules about failed Arisen becoming dragons different in this game? Where are the wyverns and wyrms from the first game, also, we only have drakes and lesser dragons in this. (I would sincerely love to see those big worm things from the post-game in the main world in NG+ and also proper two-legged wyverns, that would be awesome.)

Things about the Pathfinder:

“You must jump. That is the only path forward.” – The Pathfinder helps you escape the prison camp at the start, encourages you to ‘fulfil your destiny’. The griffin might have even been put there by him for this purpose. Since we see Savan create a copy of the Arisen in the first game, and there are several examples of the Pathfinder creating situations to benefit their goals (presumably*) it makes sense that they could have created the circumstances to ensure a griffin would be there to carry the Arisen to safety. The is especially compelling when taking into account that the griffin didn’t attack the people on the cliffside, it just left, which makes it seem like it, too, was simply fulfilling its duty.

*When the Pathfinder appears in Ambrosius’ study, Ambrosius can’t see him but you can. Then he changes Ambrosius’ mind, demonstrating control over someone, which is what Savan was doing in the first game. We also see the Pathfinder rewind time at least once, by putting you back onto the dragon’s back so you can godsbane it.

“Learn aught you can of this world you must protect.” – Pathfinder wants you to fulfil your role within the cycle, but not to challenge the ‘natural order’, which is counter to Savan encouraging you to challenge him in the first game.

“It is my wish that you should live out that life of purpose.” – This, too, suggests that the Pathfinder doesn’t want you to take their place as Seneschal, but to do what an Arisen is intended to do. This is why we don’t get a chance to fight them, why they show us the world without a Seneschal to safeguard life. Perhaps this is different because this Pathfinder is more vindictive and selfish, more ambitious, more inclined to defend what they see as their ‘right’ to godhood than Savan was. Or perhaps they are simply a newly instated Seneschal (comparative to Savan), someone who hasn’t spent thousands of years as custodian of reality and so doesn’t need to be replaced yet. Their will, then, would keep them in power because they would WANT it. This creates an interesting concept for me, in that a Seneschal doesn’t have to step down if someone of stronger will challenges them, they can simply rewrite the world to change the situation.

While Savan came across as a benevolent god-ruler, the Pathfinder strikes me as far more spiteful. He doesn't seem as if he really cares all that much about things generally, but more that he simply likes being in control and will do anything to keep that power. Savan said, "May you guide the world ever justly," and stepped down as Seneschal gracefully. But when you pursue this Pathfinder (on the assumption that you'll get to challenge him the same as you could challenge Savan), you instead get him saying that you are stepping out of bounds.

Now, I personally play a character I like to consider neutral-evil in disposition, and bumping up against the Pathfinder felt like meeting someone very similar. Someone who acquired this position and simply refuses to give it up because no one else can be trusted to do their job. This is such an interesting contrast to Savan, and I do love the possibility that this Seneschal still has the will to keep the world going, keep the cycle spinning, as it were.

Things about Rothais:

“Time and again have you sent unto me your minions. Yet repel them I have, and so I shall anew, till I might claim the true world as mine own.” – Rothais and the Pathfinder clearly hate each other, but neither has been able to defeat the other completely. Perhaps Rothais was a proper challenger for the position of Seneschal and was punished in a different way because the Pathfinder couldn’t defeat him? (This does not make much sense, but you never know.) Rothais sits on a throne the same as the one Savan sat on in the first game, the Seneschal’s throne. He appears not dead nor alive, but the same wispy sort of spirit image as the Pathfinder, but darker.

“The flesh may rot; the soul fragment. Yet power – power endures.” – This implies that Rothais was an Arisen of such will that time couldn’t kill him – he simply refused to die.

He seems to know more about the cycle than most, but not the entire story. He says, “could ne’er hope to fell the dragon, let alone the watching one,” which suggests that he is aware the dragon is a pawn of the Seneschal.

The godsway are made of broken Arisen souls. The godsbane blade is made of a pure Arisen soul. He pulls a godsbane from his chest, same as Savan does in the first game. Rothais was an Arisen, but he turns his soul into a godsbane, which is something we have only ever seen Savan do as Seneschal. But he’s NOT the Seneschal because he is wary of ‘the watching one’. He says, “the ages have taken their toll; ‘tis as withered as mine own flesh,” so perhaps the ability to create a godsbane from one’s soul is a skill only for the Arisen and time wears away at an Arisen's soul regardless of whether they become Seneschal. Is the purpose of the godsbane for one Arisen to kill another? Is it meant only as a physical manifestation of their unbreakable will? We use Savan’s soul to kill him in the first game, but our own soul remains intact, which is perhaps important to the bestowal of spirit? But in this game, we use Rothais’ soul to kill ??? Ourself? The dragon?? The Pathfinder??? Unclear.

In the post-game: He says he defeated a dragon once and created Vermund afterwards. So he was a successful Arisen in that respect. He says he “ruled the world entire” and that’s how he “came to know of the watching one” which suggests to me that he was a mortal Arisen with very lofty ambitions. It also suggests that this particular Seneschal (the Pathfinder) was in the role before Rothais became Arisen. (So how long ago was that? How ‘new’ are these nations? What happened to Gransys? Anyway.) He forged a mortal empire and ruled it, but because he wanted more power, more everything, he maybe encroached onto the Seneschal’s territory as ruler of the world. He wanted to challenge the Seneschal but was denied the opportunity. Then a new Arisen must have cursed him somehow with the Seneschal’s blessing because he says the watching one sent an Arisen to imprison him in the Seafloor Shrine. So, if he's not the Seneschal, he must be cursed, but why would the Pathfinder want him around?

I do so wish we had a nice little trail of breadcrumbs to piece a timeline together. Because Lamond's there too, being an ex-Arisen, and we know nothing about him. We don't see him in the little collection of character epilogues at the end, so I assume he died when his heart was returned to him, but we don't know for sure and I would really like to know.

General concluding thoughts:

The post-game, then, is a glimpse of what a world would look like with the cycle broken: no Seneschal to keep the world whole and sensible, everything falls apart. Without a guide, all falls to ruin. This properly answers the question left at the end of the first game: What happens if you break the cycle? The end of days happens, good to know.

OR was this simply what the Pathfinder wants you to think? Did they show this vision of the world to the dragon we fight to get him to back down? Were they an Arisen also who gave in and were turned into a dragon by the Pathfinder? Or are the rules different here?

Right at the end, in the final cutscene, the Pathfinder claims that the dragon is meant to embody all the chaos and destruction that we witnessed in the unmoored world. That instead of constant chaos and disaster all the time threatening to destroy all life, we get a single great dragon to ravage the land once every few years (or however long) in order to keep the world whole. A single cycling and defeatable calamity instead of an unending deluge of them that cannot be stopped. And the Arisen, selected to defeat the calamity – the dragon – and grant the world safety and peace for a time afterwards. With the Pathfinder – the Seneschal – to guide and watch and safeguard (?).

“A new world comes. A new tale is set to unfold. Yet it seems I will not be there to watch it.” – So did we kill the Pathfinder (Seneschal) after all? Guess I’ll find out when I do NG+. But it does seem as though the Pathfinder was killed alongside that giant dragon we stabbed with the godsbane at the end. And also that our Arisen vanished, the state of the world is restored and people seem to remember our actions but we - the Arisen - are no longer there. Perhaps we became the new Seneschal? I do so hope that when you get to endgame in NG+ that it's the same as in the first one, with your previous Arisen acting as the Pathfinder, but I doubt it.

Perhaps unrelated: when the Gigantus is powered back up in the post-game, your pawn is sucked into it through the empty eye socket and when that happens, they get the glowing red eyes and writhing purple/red aura that happens when they have the dragonsplague and they get drawn in by tentacles like the brine. So what is the significance of the dragonsplague? Is the brine the dragonsplague infecting pawns to create more chaos and destruction? Is the brine the destructive force the Pathfinder is keeping in check? And what was the Gigantus originally created for? Is it powered by the brine? Are the dragons/wyrms in the post-game that glow and pulse like that (and the lesser dragons also) infected with the dragonsplague? Are the enemies with glowing eyes?

Was the infection taking hold of our pawn at the end a final attempt to break the cycle? Is the brine using the “empty vessels” of the pawns to try and create that apocalyptic version of the world the Pathfinder showed us? Was the will of our pawn – as imbued by us – enough to fight the infection off? Is that why they tried to kill the dragon?

So good to know this game has left me with as many existential questions as the first!

[askthespffcrew]

so uh some adult design i made for my ocs (plus one kirby) for fun  

and oh i updated the adult mukou one heres what he looks like now

he’s supposed to be the reincarnation of void

here’s what part of the au will be about

so uh in time when he”s a teen, he for some reason will be sent back to the game universe to like lend help in defeating void termina......i mean i felt like it'd be a good way for him to not only fully redeem himself but to also put his past self to rest so uh technically in my au void termina exists in the games but is reborn in the anime universe, where he doesnt exist due to it being a alternate universe of some sort technically i also like to think that kno knows who he used to be but he wont tell for fear that his second chance will be a repeat of what void termina did/ what galacta did to get them seal away in the first place but little does he know that mukou is actually learning about his past sort of but he doesnt really make the connection until he begins to learn that the creature in his dreams is referred to as void termina. technically i like to think he meets with his past self in his dreams and at first theyre mostly nightmares and the creature is often trying to hurt him but cant for some reason [i havent though up why yet though.....]

this has important part to play because everybody (at least kno and target) is going to do their damn best not to reveal to him what he once was so he's going to have to lern somehow, but as the nightmares go on theyll slowly begin to form into a strange silent staring, to a unexplained understanding, a small chat, to finally a relisation that maybe in this life....they can do better

technically their relationship is very similar to chara and frisk like sooner or later as mukou ages void will be able to like appear as a ghostlike entity that's very similar to chara as their relationship gets better.

so when mukou and void have been reborn they would be somewhat emotionless at first until as time goes they begin to regain their ability to feel emotions  and begin to learn that theres actually such thing as happiness and such and as they begin to learn, mukou's form will begin to change very slowly as he ages

so uh reason why mukou's form begins to change as he ages is because i hc that if a puffball  has been mentally or physically hurt for a long time their color will begin to dull, so over time as mukou ages he's slowly recovering and regaining the color he had lost a long time ago...

so when mukou begins to regain his color, everybody's super excited and relieved because they were truly worried that there was something terminally wrong with mukou due to how long it took

so uh reason why both are referred to as being seperate entities is due to the fact they kinda are but at the some time are not due to void termina’s soul having been split in half where one part managed to be successfully reincarnated but the other part is still stuck in limbo mostly and as a voice in mukous head...

[itsclydebitches]

Clyde, it would be my honor to make a Apollo prophecy with you.

The highest display of love to a mutual.

We will weather whatever the Gods throw at us together, friend! XD

Okay wait, not to take my own memeing seriously... but we've kinda already gotten this? Granted, comparing any two shows will inevitably lead to a wealth of differences, but think about the framework: two characters of the same gender, heavily coded as queer and in love, face a crisis where one of them is (presumably) killed and sent to a Very Bad Place. There are similarities between SPN's Super Hell and RWBY's "Don't fall" void, in that the latter is heavily implied as not just a death, but a horrific one. Ambrosius isn't shrugging at the possibility that one of them might fall with a, "Eh, it would suck to leave this world early, but that void leads to Remnant Heaven! :D" There are similarities between SPN's choice to reconnect Dean and Cas in actual Heaven (even if we don't see that) and the inevitability of Blake finding Yang in the Wonderland. There are similarities in the sacrificial nature of the death, even if in RWBY's case the sacrifice was for her sister rather than the love interest.

The two most significant differences to my mind are that a) Cas' death immediately follows his admissions, whereas RWBY hasn't had even a one-sided confirmation yet, and b) that in SPN this occurs towards the very end of the show, whereas RWBY presumably has at least two more Volumes. So it's by no means an exact comparison, but there are #vibes here that I think are worth acknowledging. Oh look, another coded-but-not-explored pair of queer characters is dealing with a horrific "death" that doesn't actually remove them from the narrative because the rest of the cast has a personal relationship with Gods/the afterlife/alternate universes, thereby allowing the writers to indulge in that removal without committing to it given the inevitable backlash. I'm still not on team "RWBY is queer baiting!" because I think there's a lot of nuance here, as well as the influence of the term's original definition, however, if we start comparing RWBY to other shows, the lines become more blurred. Why is SPN's "Cas, not for anything, but the last time someone looked at me like that I got laid" a problem without a confirmation, but Blake's blush and the hand-holding without a confirmation isn't? Is it just because RWBY hasn't gone on as long? (Even though I think that quotation is from Season Five.) Is it only because RWBY doesn't treat the coding as a joke like SPN does? Is that was keeps the hope alive: that if creators aren't encouraging their audience to laugh at the idea of this couple, then it's considered proof that they'll commit to it? For me personally, there's a huge divide between the two. Queer baiting--or it's more complicated cousin we've seen in recent years--doesn't have to be followed by a criticism/joke. It's entirely possible that RWBY will continue to imply without committing or, like SPN, commit in the final hour so they never have to write the relationship itself. It exists only in the gaps of the show and fans' imaginations.

I feel like Apollo has been tossing soft balls for years that we've been able to dodge up until now, but that doesn't mean he hasn't been playing the game 😬

[tiny-cloud-of-flowers]

void-kissed (Luna/Adriana)

A dark dreamer learning to love the life she has made for herself, and her soul-touched love brought back from a previous timeline. Together, they help to save a city reborn, living together in the grand Vanhanen Castle.

series: Pokémon Reborn romantic F/O: Luna Vanhanen self-insert: Adriana Laverre names for the selfship: void-kissed, lunadri, voidkissedshipping selfship start date: 9th May 2020 (approximately)

Content for this selfship: on this blog | on previous blogs

Some things you may wish to know about this selfship are below the readmore!

Luna's character tag is "love: dark dreamer (luna)", while Adriana's tag is "self-insert: soul-touched (adriana)". The tag for the selfship as a whole is "selfship: void-kissed (luna/adriana)".

In the story of this selfship, Adriana meets Luna upon arriving at Vanhanen Castle to battle her adopted father Radomus, and later rushes to her aid in the Subseven Sanctum. The two confess their feelings to each other after Adriana successfully obtains Luna's Gym Badge, but cannot then reunite until after Reborn City has been revitalised, because of Adri getting stranded in Carnelia for several months. After the events of the main game, Adriana moves in with Luna to live in Vanhanen Castle, becoming the Reborn League's first reserve/Shadow Champion. When Shade steps down from being the Ghost-type Gym Leader, Adriana takes his place, taking challengers in Iolia Valley just like Luna does (until she becomes one of the Elite Four, that is).

This is one of my main romantic selfships, so there is a lot of story!

I headcanon Luna to have a slightly different appearance to how she appears in the game; specifically, she dyes her hair black so that it better resembles the other Vanhanens', and wears coloured contacts (one eye is pink and the other is blue) as a reference to Serra. I still like her in-game appearance just as much, but this headcanon is one that I got quite attached to, so most of how I portray Luna will be with this appearance.

Pokémon Reborn has at least three successive timelines - one where Fern is the protagonist/player character equivalent, one where Adriana is, and one where the player is. My selfship with Luna exists in both the second and third timelines, and the story is fairly similar in both (aside from second timeline failing before postgame). To tell the difference, Adriana has dark brown freckles in the second timeline (and uses Pokémon of lots of different types), whereas she has white freckles in the third timeline (and almost exclusively uses Ghost-type Pokémon).

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this! If you have any questions, or there's anything else you think I should put on this info post, please don't hesitate to let me know by sending an ask!

[ninboyfriend]

Final thoughts on the Frontiers story THIS POST SPOILS THE ENTIRE GAME <3

I really liked the plot of this game but to be real much of it was a standing around and talking kind of thing. I like that kind of story in a lot of other games but this being a Sonic game, I don't feel like it was the best choice. I think the Knuckles portion of the game was one of the best solely because of the kind of character he is and how he lends Action to a plot inherently. He is a very active character on par with Sonic which is a necessary matchup to me- Every other character seems to be taking a passive role through either choice or direct helplessness which makes the plot go very, very slowly. I think this could have been combated through having the stages be more necessary to the actual story rather than "pass this to get an item to progress." If it felt like getting the key was a more dynamic thing, that would have made it feel much less slow- Maybe Sonic has to collect Key Shards or some shit and manually assemble them (with the help of his friends and the hindrance of Sage) to get a key and is able to speak to the other characters during this time so it feels less like grinding. I feel like this would have been a relatively small change and really changed a lot for the times that felt void of plot.

I do really like the story that's going on though, it feels like an expansion on pre-existing staples without entirely removing the intrigue of a lot of them. The aliens are clearly modeled after chaos and the chao in general and with some outside hints I feel that will be relevant in a future game. It's a good starting place!

I still don't really understand the character of Sage, but I also may have missed a few optional conversations in the game so I'm gonna chalk that one up to personal error.

The aliens themselves didn't really feel like characters and the best part for me was when the elder alien was showing the cyberspace to the children. I wish we had had more moments like that where we got to see parts of their culture (especially since their collective cultural memory is inside the cyberspace- I would have especially loved to see Knuckles be part of this. Wasted opportunity to me), it would have been a lot more impactful knowing even at that time that they all died already and it would have made the (....Very underwhelming) fight with The End feel a lot more meaningful.

This felt more like a mystery-solving game than an action game which isn't great for Sonic really? But I had fun. I was pretty disappointed when Sonic's cybercorruption, which had been built up as an extreme danger to him and framed as him hurting himself willingly for the sake of others, was sort of magicked away by Friendship in a way that did not feel like it really changed the previous situation at all. I feel like there could have been a lot more emotional meaning if we had had something similar to 06' where the rest of the gang had to put some real effort into bringing him back and maybe a more complete version of their little emotional remarks while bringing him back. You built up a point that he was torn out of his body between worlds!!! There should have been repercussions for that!!! I don't want a weird torture porn situation, this is still a kid's game, but it felt hollow. The third act is a hard thing to get right in anything, and this went so well up until that exact moment. Twas lame I am sorry to say.

I do wish there had been a few less verbal references to previous games (not to mention left field canonization of certain characters and events that were dubiously canon before? I could have done without that even if I do dearly love both Tangle and Sticks) and more of those events having actual impact on the world outside of the group's knowledge of them. I wish it felt a bit more like a game than a comic or Talking Simulator but seeing everyone well characterized again was so refreshing I give it a pass.

Overall I think this game was excellent if meant to serve as a soft-reset of sorts. I don't know that it's a soft reset I would pay 60 dollars for again, but I am giving the game and team Sonic the benefit of the doubt and hoping this game is intended to set in stone a new standard for things the game has been lacking.

I really truly just hope they learned enough from this game's reception and flaws to improve upon them. Literally anything is better than another Sonic Forces but I would still like to see them do better lol.

BTW none of this is to say I did not like the game, I think it fucking rocks and I was overjoyed to play it and regret nothing. That is all I will stop writing this long ass post otherwise I will start nitpicking

[magnuficent76]

Couldn't help but read your fav oc rb game and like "Hey man how did you unleash the void on the world. And could you not do that please" HSHFHSGD I'm paraphrasing but the way you worded that stuff was so funny. Imagine being so fucking pissed you ruin the world and gods have to be like "No. Detention. Angry baby jail for you" haha

AHDAJFJ IM GLAD YOU LIKED THAT !! Honestly thats the best way I could explain Luis' lore in few words, but its also literally what happened

Luis' very existence is straight up an anomaly, not even Solaris really understands his ass, because he straight up doesn't fucking die !! Solaris could ask death hey man. When's this fucking guy gonna get off our back. And deaths like mmm yeah he's not due yet. Im not even really sure when he is ever gonna be due. Ever. We're just gonna have to wait and see. All because this dipshit somehow convinced the Void that he's cool enough to be a vessel for it.

Like, for reference, even gods die one day because their existence js limited to their element, once their element stops existing they just kinda slowly dissipate. Easy to understand, fade away and stop existing once you're just not known anymore, concepts just gotta stop existing someday right ? For mortals it's kinda similar- once they die, they get reincarnated into a new body, your soul's basically the same after you get reaped, your memories just get kinda wiped off. You get a good run on the mortal realm, you die, and then you can either do it again or go some other place. Nice and simple.

Luis disagrees with this whole thing, and so instead of just letting his soul be reaped away, he decides instead to be a dipshit and eat his own fucking soul, basically absorbing it forever WITH HIS MEMORIES. This caused the Death dimension to glitch out so bad that it opened a portal to the void. He bypasses every security measure set on the Death realm BY JUST. EXISTING SLIGHTLY OFF THE MAP.

His soul is bound to his body the same way god souls are, and the void acts like duct tape so that it doesn't go everywhere whenever he gets injured or something. He's being held together by duct tape, and PURE, UNADULTERATED RAGE

The gods eventually have enough of his shit and send him to another dimensions, and they also kinda throw a lot more responsibility for him to handle, kinda like keeping a baby occupied with an iPad, adult edition

[rin-enjoyer]

Ok okie okay OK..... MANY questions for you if that's alright, because I've recently seen your blog and your view of Rin as a character is very intriguing to me. It reminds me of the depth tora-the-cat here on Tumblr gives to Sakura, and I mean that as a high compliment! So without further ado: 1. Do you have any idea what caused this gaping void in Rin and whether she was born that way or made? 2. How much of everything about her is artificial? Does she kinda view herself in the sense that she's like a character in a book-- that she always has an ever-present audience viewing her, even when alone ala Margaret Atwood, except instead of the voyeuristic gaze of a man in a woman viewing herself, it's the voyeuristic gaze of humankind in one she watches instead? 3. Why does she try so hard to play a person when so much of it seems like drudgery to her? Is it out of a fear of consequences, because it's a game everyone plays but she wants 1st place, or is it just that she has nothing better to do/no strong whims to propel her in a solid direction? 4. Do you think she and Kabuto, (my personal blorbo), would study each other like bacteria in a petri dish or repel each other like magnets, had they known the other existed? (They seem to have A LOT of similarities but their cores feel very different to me...) 5. Why does she get so angry when people remember her? Is it that she's remembered incorrectly or the idea she's remembered at all that upsets her? If it's the former, does she hope someone can see through her facade and find the "real" Rin? 6. What's her philosophy on life? 7. Does she have opinions on both White Zetsu(s)/Black Zetsu and vice versa? If yes, what are they? Depending on the AU Kaguya would likely keep both groups around the same time she keeps Rin, so what in god's name is going on there???? 8. Do Kaguya and Rin keep Toneri as a pet?

And I've got more but this thing's long enough so I'll save those for later; thank you for your time! :>

kicking my feet twirling my hair ect ect. oh anon i am SO glad you asked

1- rin's apathy is made of a lot of different things mixing together. some of it is innate; she genuinely doesn't care about a lot of things that most people would. she doesn't get the same fulfillment out of doing things that most people do. however, in a world where she wasn't forced to be child soldier, she probably wouldn't have fallen into quite as extreme a mindset. a lot of the apathy is a (bad) coping mechanism that builds on traits she is already predisposed to. so... both, i guess? rin is already kind of apathetic and empty, and then work as a ninja causes her to use the apathy as a shield.

2- rin doesn't really see herself as a character, per say- it's more that she views the *facade* she puts up as a character. "rin" as everyone else sees her is an artificial construction that rin is able to control, which is really important to her. she doesnt view herself as a character, but she does view the persona she puts up as a character, if that makes sense. she puts a distance between herself and the people she's acting for.

in regards to the sincerity of her actions; well, rin kind of thinks that if she chooses to do something, that negates the intent behind it. which... is arguable, to an extent, but also ultimately untrue. when he's teaching his own team 7, kakashi hides behind a mask of a lazy troll- but he also *is* a lazy troll. the fact that he's using those traits to divert attention away from other traits doesn't negate the honesty of them. to rin, though, even if she *would* do some of the things she does if she wasn't playing the role of "rin", the fact that she is choosing to do them to project a specific image invalidates them. there's a lot of things that she does that she doesn't mean at all, too, but to rin those aren't any different to the things she only sort of means. lmao. there is something so wrong with her <3

3- the facade started as a way to avoid judgement, yeah. rin's mannerisms when she's not masking are unnerving to a lot of people. as time went by, though, she got Weirder about it and started keeping up the persona because she doesn't know who she is without it, and is terrified that she doesn't know. this creates a really weird mindset where rin ends up stuck playing her facade because she's scared of putting it down, but also she hates it and wants an excuse to drop it, but also she hates everyone around her and doesn't want them to figure out that she's been deceiving them, but also she's mad that they're falling for her persona. truly she contains multitudes

4- never considered it before but. oh god. bro. you are on to something. im hardly a kabuto expert, but from what i understand, he is also a big 'putting on masks' person so. 👀 . i think that kabuto has a lot more internal drive than rin, and even if he hasn't exactly ironed out every kink in his plan, he knows that he wants SOMETHING!!! honestly now that you've brought it up i can't stop thinking about the parallels... kabuto disregarding the fact that he isn't sure exactly what he wants and focusing on acting because there is SOMETHING that he wants, and he can't have it unless he acts vs rin hyper-focusing on the fact that she isn't perfectly sure what exactly it is that she wants and letting her masks drag her down. autism to autism communication.

5- 👉👈 if i said "a little bit of both its kind of complicated" again would you be mad lol

so, yeah, the idea of people remembering her facade instead of her is absolutely sickening to her. rin really, really, really wants to be known, but she can't *let* people know her until she knows herself, and also she would rather die than take of her mask. people remembering her persona instead of her is basically proof that she failed, that she never understood who she was, and was therefore never able to share that understanding with others. yes that's what happened in canon lmao.

HOWEVER. even if someone did come around and understand rin beyond the mask she puts on, rin wouldn't want to be remembered after she dies. to rin, grief is... unnecessary? like, when faced with a problem, rin likes to Fix It. if there's no solution, or if the solution is more effort than it's really worth, she will simply choose to stop caring (oh yeah there's that emotional disassociation). anyways, that's a *very* unhealthy mindset to have, and also is the cause of a lot of resentment between rin and people who she might have otherwise come to befriend, even if it is kind of out of a place of care (she doesn't want people to keep hitting a wall they have no way of climbing).

tldr: she doesn't want people to remember her facade because she hates that thang. she doesn't want people to remember *her* because she doesn't want them to be sad when repressing their emotions is an option and its sooo easy too

6- big question,,, honestly, a lot of the way i characterize her revolves around the way she *can't* answer that question. i think that in canon, she never really develops any philosophy towards anything. in aus where she lives longer, i can definitely see her leaning towards a utilitarian viewpoint- being able to recognize that not feeling the "right" emotions behind an action doesn't negate the action would go a long way for her mental health lol.

7- rin doesn't really have strong feelings on either of the zestu. black zestu is... kaguya's will, right? which is not something that makes sense to me at all and it probably never will but you know. you know. i guess she'd probably view him as something similar to one of kaugya's shadow clones? the white zestu are mostly just old, chewed up corpses and if there is one thing about rin to remember it is that she does NOT want to be remembered after she dies. so of course she will be extending this same courtesy to others. they're just tools to her, because thinking of them any other way would be *disrespectful* (she has problems)

8- you know i've never really given much thought to toneri (i had to google him to remember who he was lol). he seems lonely. a bit of a silly little hypocrite which is admittedly a great kind of guy. apparently he shows up in boruto too but i haven't read it so idk if anything changes there. depending on his attitude towards them, i certainly think they could be convinced to let him hang around. if he's nice i think kaguya would treat him like an annoying little cousin more than a grandkid of anything, and if he's rude i think she beats him to death with hammers. i don't think rin would have very strong feelings on him? maybe she'd be a little pissed at the way he idolizes hinata on account of her knee-jerk reaction to anyone (besides her) failing to treat anyone as human and nothing more or less, but in any au where kagurin are just chilling hinata's probably dead lmao so im not sure how that'd affect things.

this got long but its fine aljfghsdajkgkjdkg. thank you so much for the questions, they were actually really compelling!!

[powdermelonkeg]

So, BO2W Breakdown

Buckle up, this is gonna be a long one.

Here we’ve got Ganon’s...energy taking over Link’s arm. Ordinarily, I’d call it Malice, but based on what it turns into, I’m just going to be calling it corruption. We don’t get much information from this scene besides this expression:

Link’s grabbing the corruption with his other hand, and wincing. It looks painful. I personally think it’s for cinematic effect that it was included, but it COULD be a gateway into a Phantom Hourglass sort of mechanic--Link has to function on a time limit, or using the corruption’s power could drain his life.

Next we’ve got a closeup of Ganondorf. F in chat to the rehydration theorists.

And the closeups of his jewelry. The only significant thing I can see is his necklace, which looks like a cross between the Gerudo symbol and a Fleur de Lis:

But what I’M most interested in is this tie on his belt:

For one, it’s WAY bigger than it needs to be, and that’s deliberate. Ganondorf’s got a jewelry aesthetic he’s already hit above; everything else is gold, why not this bit?

Most importantly, you can barely make it out, but the designs either look Sheikah or Zonai--they’ve got that same kind of swirly busy pattern to them. The red tint and tan-ish lines in it makes me think it’s possessed Sheikah tech.

Next, we’re shown Zelda falling. This looks like it happens right after these two caps from the first trailer:

So we reach for her as the ground collapses, and evidently, we fail to pull her back up. So my next question for that scene is going to be what the in-game reason is for us not diving in right after her. Maybe we won’t get one, since the appeal of the original BOTW was that you could fight Ganon whenever you wanted.

Up next, we’ve got a skydiving shot:

The first thing to notice is that Link’s pose while skydiving is just about identical to his pose in Skyward Sword:

Second is that, yes, he’s falling towards a floating island, and that in itself is noteworthy, but he’s FALLING. There’s something either above him that he jumped off of, or a force that carried him high enough TO fall, and I doubt Nintendo’s encouraging magnesis flying.

So, there’s a few options: Loftwings making a return (which is unlikely, but a hope I have), something like Revali’s Gale boosting Link up for a cinematic shot, indicating that the corruption arm has that kind of power, or islands higher than the one shown here.

Now the island itself:

In Skyward Sword, Skyloft looks like this:

And (spoiler alert) we loose this island here over the course of the game:

Now, it’s not a PERFECT 1:1 match, as most things between games aren’t, but a quick rotate and overlay shows it’s got the same kinds of shapes between the two. The same “W” shape along the eastern side, the same tiny island off the northeast point, the same relative edges.

Now, I don’t know what happened to the plaza at South Skyloft, or the Knight’s Academy isle, but it could very easily be drift away from the central island.

The presence of other islands through the clouds seems to support that theory. Now let’s look at Link here:

The outfit is new. We haven’t, to my knowledge, seen one of this design in other games. My gut reaction to this image was “oh, we go back in time and we’re the first hero now!” because it’s vaguely reminiscent of Tapestry Hero.

But upon closer inspection, that theory’s null and void. Under Link’s tunic in the image above, you can see that he’s still wearing the shorts he woke up in in the first game. So either Sheikah boxers haven’t changed in 10,000 years, or it’s taking place in present day. Jokes aside, I’m curious to know if the outfit he’s wearing is modeled after Tapestry Hero.

Next thing to point out is the obvious:

Link’s arm here looks less prosthetic and more...withered, I almost want to say. The corruption here’s made his hand look frailer, and armored them up with Zonai patterns before it fades out at his shoulder. Based on how the tattoos look, I think they’re an artifact of the corruption taking hold.

Also, the belt here:

Aesthetic purposes, or specific function? The presence of the second, smaller one on the side reminds me of Skyward Sword’s adventure pouch, which could be how the new game handles inventory size:

Next we’ve got another flying shot:

It seems like he’s flying towards Ruined Skyloft, and you can see the bottoms of islands above it, possibly meaning that the sky serves as more than just a hub world like it did in Skyward.

Now let’s look at the paraglider he’s using. It’s new.

This is how the paraglider looks in the original BOTW. It looks like we still have the Rito symbol in the center, but other than that, there’s a LOT of changes here.

First off is the color. We’re now blue and gold. The shade of blue makes me think of the Kochi Dye Shop’s navy blue:

So, possibly a dyeable paraglider?

The new pattern surrounding the Rito symbol makes me think that it’s combining the paraglider with Skyward Sword’s sailcloth:

Other than that, there isn’t much else to say about the paraglider besides the handles looking like they’re made of bone. Craftable paragliders? God, I hope not.

Back to Link:

Here we have him in different gear than the last shot. He’s wearing the snow boots, he has a shield with a stylized Eye of Truth looking upwards, and he looks like he’s carrying a traveler’s sword and an unknown bow. The presence of the bow makes me think that the shield here is a lower tier item, rather than this game’s Hylian Shield equivalent.

Now, let’s get a better look at the horizon:

The trees here look a lot like the smaller trees you can find in Akkala, but there’s a distinct lack of red among them.

Then it looks like we’ve got some ruins at the furthest isle.

Whatever the rock formations are over there, they don’t LOOK natural.

Another thing I noticed is the bottoms of the islands.

These look a little too geometric to be natural, too. Now, this one, I’m a little muddy on, because it COULD be a stylistic choice. But it also reminds me of the Shrines if you clip out of bounds:

And a little bit of the dormant Gate of Time from Skyward:

My money’s on the cube-like nature of the islands’ undersides being deliberate, rather than just a far-off render.

And then there’s this thing!

What is it? It doesn’t look broken at all; look how nicely the roof(?) is kept. The ribbing on the sides makes me think it might be a Zonai thing, but the shape makes it difficult to figure out. A giant temple? An airship? A sloped coliseum? This thing haunts and vexes me.

Our next shot is presumably from one of the islands, based on the color. Here we can see that there are definitely ruins all over the place. Link is in the same gear as before, so I won’t touch on him.

This, however, has my interest. The design here has more geometric patterns--Zonai ruins?

We’ve got another one off in the distance here. Sky checkpoints, like Sheikah towers?

Now this guy here. There’s a LOT to look at. First off is the eye design, it’s the same sort of upward looking one that Link has on his shield in the previous shots.

The energy that’s pulling this thing towards its base looks like the same green energy that surrounds the arm holding Gan in place in Trailer One:

This stuff. That, plus the fact that the robot has to be pulled into its base rather than just existing, implies that either A: Link activates it himself, like a trial thing, or B: that the green energy here functions in the same way Malice does in the original BOTW.

This pattern at its base is intriguing, too. I don’t recognize the gold symbol in the center, but the green around it reminds me of the portals from Twilight Princess.

Which, yes, everyone’s already said that the Twilight Princess patterns look like Zonai things. But another thing this weird dial thing reminds me of is from Lanayru Desert:

On top of that, the color palette of this guy looks like that of the Lanayru Robots from Skyward:

BO2W robot on the left, Lanayru robot on the right. Given that Skyward is a lot more vibrant than other non-Toon Zelda games, I think this is a fair enough comparison to draw similarities from.

And then we get a closer view of the sky ruins from the last shot. I don’t know if the geometric pattern in the corner is a deliberate carving, or wear from time, but since the pattern looks ALMOST mirrored around the corner, I’m going to go with the former.

A better shot a few frames later. The robot has HANDS, which I do not like in any way shape or form. However, we get a better look at the sky ruins.

We haven’t seen this style of stairs before, to my knowledge. The pedestal out front looks like a light source, and it has the same floral egg thing the robot above has on each shoulder; the eggs could easily be a power source for Zonai tech. And at the top of the stairs, we see a pedestal, backing up the theory that these ruins function as our new Sheikah towers.

This is our next shot. Which...

Unikoblins. Can we talk about that? UNIKOBLINS.

Anyways, Link is here again in his old clothes. This is a very early game shot, because his right arm isn’t corrupted yet; this means we get to explore Hyrule before we embark on the main quest. Which gives rise to a question: Where’s Zelda?

The hopeful side of me wants to say that she’s a tutorial companion, like Navi or Tatl, at least for the beginning here. The pessimistic side of me thinks that she’s waiting for us at a predetermined location, and this is just part of getting to her.

Now the unikoblin structure itself is built on a Talus, meaning that the dev team at least intends to have more inter-monster interactions. But if you kill the Talus, does that mean that the base falls apart, or does it just drop down as a separate entity?

Also, what are these background ruins? The one on the left looks like it’s a distinctly different style than the one on the right. It looks almost like a giant guardian arm.

Our next shot is Link’s arm getting corrupted. Which, first of all, the effects look beautiful.

Now, we can see a corner of Link’s hip here, and we know that this is his right arm. So Link’s lying down here. Unconscious? Knowing how Zelda games like to start with Link waking up, probably. Although it looks like at least part of his shorts got an update.

We can see what looks like circuits here. It looks a bit like the electricity puzzles you can find in the Divine Beasts and Shrines in the original.

Then we’ve got these strange symbols.

Whatever this circular stone he’s lying on is, it looks a lot like the Zonai puzzle from the “A Fragmented Monument” sidequest.

This one that everyone thought was the Mirror of Twilight for years.

Our next shot is Link using the corruption powers against enemies:

The spike ball itself looks solid; the question is, is this a duplication power, or a visualization of how the spike ball is set into motion?

We see it barreling over a poor Unikoblin or two, but I’d like to turn your attention to the Moblin and the background.

The moblins here have helmets, and the bases, while they carry the same design, look like they have more cause and effect in mind. The left base’s rock, for instance; that’s a lot bigger than the rocks we got to play with in the last game, and it looks like we can barrel anything in the screen over with it.

The helmet, though, concerns me a little bit. It looks natural rather than forged; like it’s the moblin’s horn, just very much deformed. Does it mean a harder enemy, or is it just for flavor?

Our next shot is this strange flower thing. Note that Link’s right arm is perfectly fine in this shot, meaning that it’s still early game.

This is what Link’s flamethrower looks like. And this:

Is Zonai art.

So the question is, what IS the flamethrower? My first thought was that it’s either a new item in its own, or it’s a Sheikah Slate upgrade. The latter might sound a little far fetched, but Link in this game is right-handed, and in BOTW, he always held the slate in his LEFT hand when using it.

We have more of the weird faded designs that we saw on the Sky ruins:

And we’ve got some kind of pedestal or stage behind the ground flower thing:

It looks like it’s either an altar or a grave, from what I can tell. The stairs aren’t the same design as the ones in the sky, and there aren’t any patterns on it.

More importantly, though, is that this place is underground. This could be a part of the game you’re required to go through, in order to get to Raisin Gan.

A few seconds later, though, we get our answer to what the flamethrower is!

It’s a shield!

Off to the left side, we can see pillars with more weird scribblings towards the top. These match the Sky ruins’ pillar shape, with a narrow base and a wider top.

Our next scene is...weird.

We see a puddle splash in reverse. It’s hard to tell if it’s actually water or not, but the design on the ground implies that it’s either been there for a long time, or that that’s a dedicated splash spot. And the quality and zoom makes me think that this is part of a cutscene. Return of the timeshift stones?

We then see Link...surfacing out of the island? I don’t know how else to describe it. However, his arm is changed again, and glowing, meaning that this is a corruption power. And the “water” he rises out of here looks a lot like the puddle in the last clip.

We get a good look at the Zonai Lights:

A Sky ruin that looks like it contains a room:

And a glimpse of other isles’ ruins in the far distance.

And then as the camera zooms out...

We can place a location!

We’re right over Thundra Plateau!

We also get a mildly better look at the back wall of the sky ruin, which looks to be some kind of table:

The next scene is Hyrule Castle:

The ground shakes and it starts to rise up. However, notice that the columns surrounding the castle are now missing.

We’ve also got red sparks in the air, like we would have in a blood moon. However, due to the sky color, we can assume that this is a conscious decision by Gan himself, and that he isn’t drawing power from his surroundings.

We then see that power bleeding out of the ground. It’s MUCH more red than Malice is, which has always been a kind of burnt pink-ish color.

However, even though Ganon lifts the castle up, he doesn’t lift it very high.

The castle’s about triple the height it was. But since we’re talking Skyloft levels of floating islands, this is still pretty ground-level. What’s interesting to me, though, is that in this shot, despite the game now being about sky islands that we should be able to see from ground level...there aren’t any here. This, to me, means that there’s going to be a sudden appearance of the isles in the sky, rather than them simply being accessible now.

And that’s the whole trailer! I have many questions.

My blog! If you have any opnions/questions/theories, feel free to drop an ask!

Part 2 is up! We missed a lot!

[dalekofchaos]

What would you say are the biggest mistakes Mass Effect 3 made?

Okay this is going to be a long one, but these would be the biggest mistakes ME3 ever made in my opinion

Choosing Cerberus over The Reapers. The thing that annoyed me most about ME3 is the fact that Harbinger is not the main threat. The Illusive Man is. Harbinger has been built up as the big bad since ME2. "YOU HAVE FAILED. WE WILL FIND ANOTHER WAY." He says as he discards the Collectors. Then his speech to Shepard as the base blows up. "Human, you've changed nothing. Your species has the attention of those infinitely your greater. That which you know as Reapers are your salvation through destruction. You will surrender your potential against the growing void. We return, and you will rise. We are the harbinger of your perfection. We will bring your species into harmony with our own. Your species will be raised to a new existence. We are the beginning, you will be the end. Prepare for our domination. Prepare for our coming." Then in Arrival, he came pretty damn close to unleashing quick subjugation and harvest upon an unprepared galaxy. Upon Shepard foiling his plans. "Shepard. You have become an annoyance. You fight against inevitability. Dust struggling against cosmic winds. This seems a victory to you. A star system sacrificed. But even now, your greatest civilizations are doomed to fall. Your leaders will beg to serve us. Know this as you die in vain: Your time will come. Your species will fall. Prepare yourselves for the Arrival." The perfect final villain right? Unfortunately, Cerberus was more focused on than The Reapers. My problem with Cerberus and no Harbinger is Too many Cerberus, too few Reaper forces in plot. We fight Cerberus more often than the reapers. Hardly any boss fight and the one with Reaper Destroyer on Rannoch was more an interactive movie than fight. During the Horizon mission in Mass Effect 2, Harbinger was solidified as the Big Bad. It was menacing and ominous, with just the right amount of annoying. It taunted us throughout the game, telling us how insignificant we were, and how our actions were pointless. It was willing to posses drones through the Collector General to fight us personally, and when we killed the host, it tossed them aside. Harbinger even gave the typical “You haven’t seen the last of me!” villain rant. It made any fire fight frustrating, and that made me want to kill it even more; I hated Harbinger. Many games fail to do that. Harbinger was an enemy which I looked forward to defeating. I had the desire to annihilate. In Mass Effect 3, I got a codex entry and a cameo. Harbinger just swoops in at the last second and blows my friends and I to hell(and lets the Normandy save them), then flies off. Personally, I would have loved to hear Harbinger’s menacing monologue, it drove me on. I would have felt a deeper motivation to take the fight back to Earth if it told me how much destruction the Reapers were causing, how many lives were lost. I felt cheated when I got to the final mission, only to suddenly realize it was largely absent from the game. Harbinger has been replaced. Replaced by the Illusive Man and Kai Leng. The former is an old acquaintance, albeit one now controlled by the Reapers. The latter is a space ninja from a terrible book. What would've been amazing is if Harbinger IS the Catalyst. Harbinger taunts and haunts Shepard throughout the game He uses the memory of that child to haunt Shepard as a symbol of humanity lost. After Shepard activates the Crucible. Harbinger appears. He explains to why and how The Reapers were made. the AI Leviathan created to solve the equation is Harbinger all along, Harbinger manipulated The Leviathan into giving it Reaper form and birth at first it did what it commanded and what they asked of it was to look at the dark energy building up which back then was only an anomaly that Leviathan was concerned with but then the first harvest began and Harbinger and The Reapers were born. Funny enough, Leviathan reminds me so much of FMA:Brotherhood. The Intelligence tricked Leviathan to create the Reaper is very similar to how the Dwarf in the flask became Father. So what I think should have happened is it would've been revealed that Harbinger is the AI that convinced the Leviathan that harvest was the only way to survive and justifies the harvests not because organics and synthetics can't coexist, but because of the dark matter crisis. Throughout the game we would have more confrontations with Harbinger. Have him "ASSUME CONTROL" during fights. Give us a voiced confrontation between Shepard and Harbinger. Make it clear that Harbinger chose The Illusive Man and convinced him of together they could uplift and empower humanity over the lesser races. The Illusive Man is to Harbinger, as what Saren was for Soverign. Then the Crucible will grant us the choice to Destroy or Control The Reapers or Harvest this cycle to survive the Dark Matter crisis. You could either. Destroy Harbinger and The Reapers, while the united races would discover a way to stop the dark matter problem. Give in to Harbinger to harvest humanity to save the galaxy. Control The Reapers to stop the harvesting and to work together to stop the dark matter crisis.

Choosing to have a smaller crew than ME2 and focusing solely on the ME1 characters and screwing over or ignoring the ME2 crew, especially romancing Jack, Miranda and Thane. If it were up to me, this is what my ideal ME3 line up would be Ashley/Kaidan EDI Garrus Liara Tali Javik Jack Miranda Thane(EA forgot about him and simply chose to kill him off, I think Thane could’ve rejoined the crew and even had a mission where we find a cure for Thane and Kolyat) Grunt Mordin(you'll see how later) Legion(You'll see later) Balak or any Batarian Squadmember. Ideally it would be someone who survived the Bahak system or even a Batarian freedom fighter who puts his people’s survival over the pride and prejudices of the Hegemony. His sole goal is to liberate Khar'shan and save his people. But for a more memorable person, Balak would be the squad member. I would make killing Balak not an option. The last high ranking officer in the Hegemony. Instead of causing deaths on the Citadel, he seeks Shepard out. It’s an enemy of my enemy is my friend. Over time, Balak would show remorse for his past actions as a terrorist and for the Hegemony’s past. Shepard and Balak learns to overcome their differences and see each other as friend and works together to destroy the Reapers. We would get a Priority Khar’shan where we could liberate the planet and the Batarians would be in a fighting force.

Keeping James alive. I like James, but he added absolutely nothing to the game. We already had an Alliance character. Ashley Williams/Kaidan Alenko. James should have been the Jenkins/Wilson of the game. He should have died in the crash to take out Eva and Ashley/Kaidan should have been with us from beginning to end. James is a character we barely know. We’ve waited a long ass time to see Ashley/Kaidan and it was downright disappointing that neither Ashley nor Kaidan did not get to interact with Garrus on Priority Palaven and Wrex during Priority S’Urkesh.

Mirandafying Ashley Williams. Mirandafying Ashley Williams for Mass Effect 3 was shallow and unnecessary. Wearing loose and long hair and skimpy clothing? Ashley Williams is a by the books soldier. She would not look like this. She would not grow her hair or let it down like this. I mean, it’s not that they changed her face so much, but they just tried too hard with the makeup, hair and outfit. Ashley didn’t need to be model-sexy and run around in heels and showing cleavage. She was already sexy as hell in her own way. All they needed to do was give her the Alliance Crewmen outfit as her casual look and the Phoenix Armor and the current Alliance type armor she was given in ME3, as well as a unique Spectre armor. It's not just the shallow Mirandafying. It's the fact that Ashley has little to no interactions. Ashley barely has any interactions in the game. Compared to Kaidan, Ashley is not interactable. I don't like that Ashley barely has any interactions and just feels...hollow. Ashley should have crew moments with Joker, Adams, Ashley at the monument mourning those who died with the original Normandy, Liara, Tali and Garrus. Was it so much to ask for simple interactions? And really, Ashley in the first game had a personality, Ashley in ME3 feels hollow.

Choosing Diana Allers over Emily Wong and Khalisah al-Jilani. Emily and Khalisah are two reporters we actually know and respect. They earned their place on the Normandy. Emily reported on crime and traffic controllers. Khalisah gave us hard hitting questions and actually cared about reporting on what the fuck was going on in the galaxy. They earned their place on the Normandy as far as I'm concerned. Compare that to Diana Allers. What has Diana Allers done to deserve a spot on the Normandy? Nothing. They created the Battlespace to make her seem like a hip and cool Alliance News Correspondent. Allers looked, weird and she just comes off as annoying and she's a waste of space on the Normandy when we could've had a whole new or returning squad member. God, I WISH Javik could throw her out the fucking airlock. You had TWO perfectly great reporter characters and you did jackshit for any of them. Just so you could have an excuse to hire Jessica Chobot.

Not letting us see Tali's face on Rannoch. Legendary Edition fixed the mistake by finally showing us Tali's face, but it's still exclusive to Shali romancers. What should have happened was we see Tali's face when she unmasks on Rannoch. If we don't romance her, she unmasks and gives us a smile. If we romance her we see her face and kiss her. Something simple like that. It would've been great to see

Not having the ME2 squad members join in on the Citadel DLC. I mean for fuck's sake, it's like they want us to know "fuck you, ME1 squadmembers only" Again, why? Why wasn’t Jack, Miranda, Grunt, Samara, Jacob, Zaeed and Kasumi not added? If we romanced Jack or Miranda, why didn't they come to save us when we were being hunted? Why not REALLY making it feel like Team Hammerhead by actually adding the ME2 Squad members to the Citadel DLC before the party? There was no reason why you couldn't include the ME2 squad members in the Citadel DLC

Making Cerberus the villains instead of uneasy allies, when The Batarians were the perfect allies for The Reapers. This might just be me but I think Cerberus should have been on our side in ME3 and The Batarians should have been fighting for The Reapers. Makes sense Cerberus has just been a rouge organization doing what the job no matter what the cost(even if the cost is atrocities) and instead of indoctrinating themselves they could of studied it to make themselves immune to indoctrination and The Illusive Man's goal was to use any means necessary in order to destroy The Reapers. I also like the idea that you know you can't trust him, but he does get results. The Council and The Alliance are desperate, so they accept a partnership with Cerberus. The Batarians have always held a grudge against The Alliance, The Council and would have wanted revenge for Bahak/ Viper Nebula. The fact that there are no consequences for what we had to do in Arrival from The Batarians just doesn't make any sense and you'd think this would give The Batarians the motive to turn to The Reapers. Hell in the Terra Nova DLC in Mass Effect 1 it seemed to me that Balak was already indoctrinated and Balak’s revelation of the “Batarian rebellion” makes it seem like they would be the perfect tools for The Reapers. Balak will be the new Saren figure. If you killed Balak, then The Reapers would just bring him back. The first act of war for the Batarians was the destruction of the Viper Nebula, so their retaliation was killing Udina. Prior to the Reaper invasion of Earth, Udina would go to Omega to make peace talks with Aria. The Batarians attack and gain control of Omega, Aria is ousted(but saved by General Petrovsky) and Udina is executed live for the galaxy to see. Because of Udina's execution and Anderson leading the resistance on Earth. The Illusive Man is now the Human Councilor. Miranda and Kai Leng would be squad members. Depending on if you gave TIM the Collector Base or destroyed it, he will either keep you in the dark or help you at every turn. Just think of the Cerberus War Assets Cerberus Scientists General Oleg Petrovsky Collector Base Cerberus Fighters Cerberus Phantoms Cerberus Engineers Project Phoenix We would get a big mission to deal with the Batarians, Priority:Khar'shan. If you do not deal with the Batarians, there will be major casualties. However half of the Batarian forces are not indoctrinated and just want to end the mistakes of their government and live. Balak wants to kill the rebellion of his people. Ironic. Somehow Balak has placed enough bombs on the planet to destroy everyone who is resisting Reaper indoctrination. We can either. Talk Balak out of it. Telling him to resist and fight for your people(which WOULD gain Balak as an ally) or talk Balak into killing himself. Or the true Renegade option is to kill Balak and order a strike that wipes out the Batarian forces, but sacrificing the Batarian Rebellion. By the time we get to Priority Earth everyone is on the same page and united against the true threat, The Reapers. And it is Harbinger who is the final boss

Not having Maelon be there with Mordin in ME3. This isn't really a problem, but I had a thought. If we spared Maelon and kept Maelon's data for the cure. Maelon should have been on board to help Mordin with the cure. If we warn Mordin and Maelon about the sabotage, then Maelon would choose to sacrifice himself to save Mordin. And after that, Mordin would choose to join Shepard's crew.

Legion's "death" is pointless. He....is software. He could easily copy and paste The Reaper code without sacrificing himself in the same manner when he was broadcasting the Reaper signal to all Geth. Or he could've disseminated himself after he made a copy and transfer that copy over to his platform. I just get the feeling that they didn't want to keep Mordin, Thane or Legion alive....for reasons.

[raeynbowboi]

Disenchantment and Fairytales

By now, we’re well aware that Disenchantment is to the fantasy genre what Futurama is to the Sci-Fi genre. It’s made many references to Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, and of course, Disney. But a less glaringly obvious inclusion in the realm of Disenchantment is its use of fairytales, as they often exist only in sight gags or very minor elements. Take for instance the glass slippers Bean refuses to wear for her coronation in the finale for season 3, or Elfo’s Snow White style glass coffin actually being an aquarium. The only overt fairytale is Hansel and Gretel, which even then is given a very dark spin with the twins being cannibals who imprisoned the witch and used the gingerbread house to attract kids and other people to cannibalize. So, I wanted to examine the use of fairytales and how they might be used, played with, or subverted by Disenchantment.

The Wicked Step-Mother

Most noteworthy in the fairytales like Snow White and also Hansel and Gretel, in the original versions of both stories, the wicked mother is actually the biological mother of the heroes. But in later renditions, it was altered to vilify step-mothers. Thanks largely to the Brothers Grimm popularizing these stories with evil step-mothers, they were driven to make these alterations due to their own perception of motherhood as pure and sacred, making the step-mother a wicked obstacle to the wholesome nature of the nuclear family. Disenchantment heavily leans on this trope, mostly with Dagmar resembling the wicked mother from Snow White. Like the Evil Queen from the fairytale, Dagmar is a smolderingly beautiful queen with a knack for witchcraft and sorcery. Oona meanwhile is the deconstruction of the Evil Stepmother trope, as Bean comes to recognize that she put her birth mother on an undeserving pedastal, and only comes to appreciate how cool Oona was too late, only seeing Oona as a true friend once she and Zog were divorced. 

The Princess and The Knight

Lady Bowmore is the bee knight that Bean meets in Steamland, and she even calls herself Bean’s “Knight in Rusted Armor”. The only thing we really know about Lady Bowmore is that she drives a mechanical horse-car, is very helpful and flirtateous with Bean, and she wears a bee medallion. While this is a personal theory, I wonder if the bee blimp that Bean took back to Dreamland belonged to Lady Bowmore, which would mean that she’s connected to Gunderson Airships, and possibly in allegiance with Alvin Gundersen and the plot to kill Zog. Based on the story conventions and Disenchantment’s general tone, the fact that she calls herself Bean’s knight in rusted armor implies that while she’ll seem like a heroic helper at first, the apparent chivalry isn’t as clean and pretty as it seems, and she’ll turn against Bean somewhere down the line as a deconstruction of the gallant heroic knightly figure. However, I could be wrong and applying a cynical reading, when instead the trope will play rather straight, and Lady Bowmore will be the stock gallant knight who rescues, aids, and defends the fair princess, possibly even defecting from Steamland to serve Bean as the new Penderghast and captain of the royal guards.

Pinnochio

So far, Freckles has only been in three episodes. He showed up in a cameo in the pilot, and then appeared in earnest at the end of season 3. Freckles is clearly mischevious and very probably dangerous. For starters, the shop is literally selling haunted puppets, and the shop keeper (who is very likely Dagmar) says that she can’t part with Freckles because he’s a very naughty boy who is like a son to her, much like how Pinocchio is like a son to Geppetto. What’s more, in the book version of the fairytale, Pinocchio is a mischievous little brat whose actions get Geppetto arrested and kills his conscience. We also know that Dagmar told Zog to let her into his mind in exchange for being let out of the asylum, so this access to his headspace could have something to do with why he was drawn to Freckles specifically. There’s also a sign in the shop that reads “Replace your Child”, which Pinocchio was a substitution for Geppetto who had no biological children of his own and replaced that void in his life with a puppet he made. This stands to reason that Freckles is somehow going to threaten Bean’s place in Zog’s heart in one way or another. Another sign reads “Need a Friend? This Won’t Help” again alluding to how dangerous Freckles is going to be. When buying the puppet, Freckles says “Don’t you see? He talks through me. But it won’t be free.” Fairytales have a longstanding tradition of “paying for something in an unconventional way”.

Beauty and the Beast

I’ll admit, when Merkimer first turned into a pig, I assumed he was downgraded to a running gag side character, but season 3′s episode Hey, Pig Spender shows us a miraculous bit of character growth for Merkimer. He gives up his chance to be human in order to save Bean, and in that moment, I realized he wasn’t just a man turned into a pig as a joke. Merkimer is the Beast. Like Merkimer, Beast is usually depicted as a cruel, selfish, or vain man, who is changed through magic into a hideous creature in order to learn a lesson. While the Disney version is more similar to a wolf, most of the older illustrated versions depict the beast as either having the head of a boar, or being otherwise pig-like. In fact, the fairytale even has a related fairytale called The Pig King, which likewise features a handsome prince turned into a pig and only becoming human again once he obtains the love of a woman. With only 3 seasons so far, it’s hard to say whether Bean will eventually come to love Merkimer as he keeps growing and changing or if he will slowly win the heart of another woman (or man), Merkimer’s character arc is clearly setting up that he’ll become human again when he’s completed his redemption arc and become a better person. In a sense, he’ll stop being a pig when he stops thinking and acting like a pig.

The Little Mermaid

Like her fairytale counterpart, Mora gives up her home and family to pursue her passion, only to find it’s not what she expected it to be, and find herself regretting the choice she’s made to leave it all behind. The Little Mermaid wanted to see the land of the humans, and also longed for an immortal soul that she might live forever in Heaven. Mora meanwhile desired to be an actress, but due to her tail, wasn’t given a fair shake. This also mirrors the real life casting discrepancies of the early film era, when non-white actors had a hard time finding roles, and even the few actors of color who did manage to get roles were still largely disrespected by the industry at large. Due to the original tragic ending of the fairytale, I half suspect that Mora too will get an unhappy ending with Bean, likely due to how distant their kingdoms are, or how different their biology is. However, considering how much merfolk imagery appears in the Dreamland Castle, it is highly possible that Mora is Bean’s soul mate and ultimate love interest for the series. Mora’s song, though short, all but confirms that Mora is not gone from the story. When Bean finds herself caught in a war, Mora will appear and take Bean’s side, and fight beside her, likely as an archer like the mermaid in the constellation.