#In Here

[gaemms-chamois]

Arknights Blorbissimo Series

#201 – #210

[solifelessblog]

What I once used to be

Please reblog, don’t repost :)

[doorrobloxstuff]

Seek is figure's seeing eye lover

Sober thoughts

Tw//Drunkenness (non-violent)

Seek is dealing with some stuff. It's not an alcoholic or anything it just had a bad day.

also, don't worry about Figure intentionally squishing Seek in its fist it's kind of like a hard reboot but for gay slime. It pops the air bubbles within its lover's mass (which appear from it boiling and is very unpleasant for the entity to deal with.) Figure also stretches Seek like play slime for fun, which feels like a back massage.

There must've been a party the night before, because it didn’t even make it out of the doorway..and that its stench was a filthy cleaver to wrenched into Figure’s sternum... Not that figure minded that much, but It didn’t take figure very long for the flesh-laden creature to feel out where its lover had dematerialized; more of an eye-laden stain on the floor then the puddle it typical rested. It felt dusty between its fingers. “Seek?” It clicked, brushing a gnarled finger up against the puddle.

There wasn’t a response.

It trilled anxiously, its fingers brushing up against its partner’s dark surface once more as it began to repetitively brush its palm up against Seek’s mass with more friction.

“Seek? Seek are you there? Seek? SeekSeekSEEK-

A malformed hand grasped Figure’s fingers and then promptly destabilized back into its puddle seconds later.

“..Shh, I heard you the first time.”

Figure stopped moving its hand and looked down towards where its partner was speaking.

“Why didn’t you answer me then?”

The puddle, still somewhat inert as its partner gently gathered it with a hand, the goopy entity slowly emerged from the fog as its eye peeled open.

“..I have had..t-too much.. sorry darling.” "I had an inkling you did, You smelt like our finest anyway."

"..My eyes..are still spinning.."

Figure bones cracked as it slowly made its way down to sit on the wooden floor, with a wince of its teeth it gently brushed the eye-filled glob in its hand with a tip of one of its finger. "We were all worried about you.." "..I think I drank myself into an alcoholic torpor last night..tell..tell everyone everything's off..tell them I'm sick or somᵉᵗʰᶦⁿᵍ.." Seek's voice rippled away into exhaustion.

Figure whined a little, it poked Seek with the tip of its sharpened claw-thumb. "Why did you even do that yourself? You’d have to drink hundreds of gallons to get even tipsy.."

The glob didn't answer, instead, Figure could feel some small black tendrils wrap themselves between the twisted fingers of its hand. "..Dearest, do you remember how sunlight feels on your skin?"

Figure scratched its head and trilled. "..Warm. I remember it all back before the exits closed..I liked to make mountains in the dirt and hide beneath them to cool off." "..It was always too damn hot out. I remember you once popping out from beneath them and scaring me too." "I didn't even know you could shriek that high," Figured chortled, "I still can hear the sound of you scream-melting into gravel." "...Dirt eater..I probably absorbed some on accident because of you, I felt heavier afterward."

"Never mess with my piles." "Kfft..I also remember.. you climbing trees with those big arms of yours... you'd sniff at the leaves that grew at the top.. and..eat bees from the beehive.. in the other tree next to it." "Did I tell you about how I ate them?" "No.. tell me.. how?"

"I squished them with my thumb and my pointer, then, I'd dip them into the honey like chips. I liked the grubs better, they tasted nutty and very crunchy, I should've brought some salt up there." "..Damn, that sounds like something that could've gone well with what I had last night..maybe if I dried them.." Seek's words trailed off into oblivion. "..Do you remember the back alley..?" "..The one outside..?" "Mhm.." "I still see it when I pass by windows.." "The real one, Seek." "...Barely." Figure raised its partner up close to the side of its face and lightly rubbed up against Seek’s face. "..Do you remember our..creature..the purring one?"

“..The cat?” "Yes.. that's what those are called?" "It was so soft and friendly..." "..Do you think its still there..waiting for us?"

Figure didn’t answer. It put its pressed its side of its head even deeper into the mass it had on its hand, which by now was unusually moist even for such an entity like Seek.

Figure could smell the scent of salt.

“..My Sweetness, I don’t want to die here. Not like this.”

“Do you want to leave..?” Figure trilled softly.

“...No. I know you like it here..I do too…Your library is my home..you’re my home…”

Figure could feel Seek mass begin to cascade.

“But this place, it isn’t our lovely home anymore..it’s a death trap Figure. A death trap.”

“That..thing..It twisted..f..Jeff.. It took Greed. It Took Depth…It took Silence..”

“I’m so sorry..”

“..I don’t..I don’t want to join them… I don’t want t-to die..I don’t want you, Screech, Snare, or anyone else I love to die being burned alive..!”

Seek made a sob that reverberated through its overwhelmed mass.

“Oh Figure..! I don’t-…It’s..”

Figure could feel its partner tense in its hand.

“It’s all my fault. I should’ve killed him. I should’ve killed him then and there. But I let him go sweetness. I didn’t kill him. WHY DIDN'T I KILL HIM LIKE I WAS SUPPOSED TO!-”

Figure quickly closed its hand into a fist, which caused the once bubbling, overwhelmed Slime to Involuntarily restabilize, leaving a shivering oozing mess in its wake.

“Oh..sweetness..my sweetness..I’m sorry I didn’t mean to yell..”

Figure looked down and trilled softly into its gooey fist.

“Kkhhrt..shhshhshhshh..it's okay, its okay..listen to my voice..”

Figure gently unfolded its hand and reunited its palm up against its cheek once more.

“You aren’t going to die here..if you do..apart of me will die with you forever and ever and ever and ever and none of our babies will ever, NEVER come close to it.”

“I don’t- I don’t know what I’m going to do about Jeff, I haven’t scented anything or heard anything nearby..”

Figure's words trailed off, how could it comfort someone who can feel its heartbeats, who could feel it blood pressure rise who lives in your veins and can feel the cortisol rush through its Adrenal glands? When you can't even assure itself?

“..He’ll slip up eventually..we'll kill him then..”

"..Are..are you worried..?"

"....A little...” Figure could feel a small tendril brush close to its face. Which, given its hungover state probably left a little bit of a smear.

“Please...don’t go away..”

“..Seek, I knew how you felt when..”

Figure made a clunky noise as it felt its partner begin to melt even more.

“..I know, but please..don’t..bring it up..”

Figure shook its head and brought Seek up to its chest, even from a few inches away it could feel the exhaustion pour through Seek’s mass.

“..You..You’re drunk..come here..”

“I don’t..I don’t think..”

“I’m so..rry...”

“Just come here..”

Figure felt a tendril prod it as its partner instinctively evaporated its way into Figure’s chest and slowly make its way its way into shared consciousness as the blind entity could feel tendrils find purchase in its brain as sleepy eyes sprouted from its host’s arms.

Figure could feel the excess alcohol seep into its muscles, with a distressed whistle it curled up on the floor and wrapped its arms around its shoulders.

[anneapocalypse]

Thoughts Before Endwalker

As I'm about to start Endwalker, I thought it was high time I actually write up some closing thoughts on Shadowbringers, and since I really haven't done this for any of the other expansions, this has turned into a general "thoughts so far" kind of post! And also long. This is not any kind of an essay, just a big long thoughts dump. Spoilers for everything through the end of the Shadowbringers patches.

And I trust I don't have to say this to my own followers at least, but just for the record: please do not tell me anything about Endwalker here, even if you think it's minor, even if you want to hint at something I'll like. I know very little and I'm looking forward to watching it all unfold.

How it started!

It's been a year and change since I started playing this game in the fall of 2022. I didn't actually expect to play very far (I only picked it up in the first place because I was helping a friend set it up! I swore I would never play an MMO! I hated multiplayer games!) and I certainly didn't ever expect to get as deep into it as I have! ARR is very handholdy for new players, which was exactly what I needed to enjoy playing and keep playing. I love the story and the characters and the world and while I do enjoy the solo aspects of the game very much, I've also ended up really actively enjoying playing with other people! I enjoy dungeons. I enjoy raids. I run roulettes more or less every day. Free Company life hasn't always been smooth sailing (long story I won't get into here), but it's also brought me a lot of fun times and some new friends, as well as seeing me step into an active leadership role and not hate it. Who am I? 😂 I don't know! It's not that I've never tried to step out of my comfort zone before when it comes to games and hobbies, it's just that most of those experiences haven't been good and I've ultimately walked away from them. I don't know why this has been different, but it has. It's challenged me to tackle and let go of a lot of old insecurities, which I'm glad for (and grateful to friends who've been patient with me along the way). It's also just been a really good time, and continues to be.

How it's gone! (ARR through Stormblood)

So here I am, in 2024, about to start the last current expansion! Shadowbringers is easily my favorite expansion thus far, but I have really enjoyed the whole ride.

I enjoyed all of ARR, because while I don't think it has the strongest writing and certainly not the strongest characterization, it's really more a very long introduction to the world and its major players and conflicts, and while slow-moving, it does serve that function, and for someone brand-new to MMOs like me, slow was okay. It gave me time to get my bearings and learn the game.

I did really love Heavensward. It hits on several aspects of Fantasy Politics that I enjoy (generations-long war, class politics, structural reform), and postwar Ishgard, while maybe still a little rosy, still doesn't shy away from the growing pains of social change. Also the dragons were cool. I loved Haurchefant a lot, and was heartbroken by his death even as I knew it was coming; I also wouldn't change it. I think his death was meaningful and the natural culmination of his character. A Knight lives to serve. I think Haurchefant was always going to go out sacrificing himself for someone else. If it hadn't been the Vault, it would have been somewhere else. He was a delight and I miss him dearly, but it was a good narrative beat and one I wouldn't change.

Ysayle, on the other hand, I really don't think needed to die. She undergoes a fascinating character arc in Heavensward which I think the writing really drops the ball on at the end. Ideally, I think Ysayle coming to terms with her missteps while continuing to fight for what she believes in would be fantastic. She could have been a meaningful figure in Ishgard's reforms, and she would have made a great Scion. Her death also simply isn't treated with the same reverence as Haurchefant's, and I think that's sad. Heavensward has a bit of a Women Problem, in that it really doesn't give us a lot of female characters who are central to the plot, in contrast to a lot of great and memorable male characters. And the one who is most central dies with a lot less fanfare than WoL BFF Haurchefant. (And I'm not knocking Haurchefant, whom I love dearly, or Aymeric or Estinien! The imbalance is just very noticeable and I wish it wasn't so.)

Stormblood tends to get a bad rap among FFXIV's expansions. It's so common to hear people say it's their least favorite, it wasn't as good as Heavensward, etc. It came up recently in a server I'm in, where a newer player said they were having a bit of content fatigue after Heavensward, and having heard that Stormblood wasn't very good, they were considering buying a story skip. Other responses were, not outright negative, but mostly lukewarm, and I felt like I was the only one who really came out for Stormblood's story. First of all, I don't agree that it's not as good as Heavensward! I grant you that not everyone is as enamored of Fantasy Politics as I am, but as mentioned above, Heavensward is also very political, so I don't really think that's the big difference. Stormblood is maybe a bit grittier in its depiction of war, and that's something I like about it; it's really about the horrors of imperialism and the cost of resistance, and it doesn't pull its punches on that.

Ironically where it does pull its punches is with character deaths, heroes and villains alike. It does feel a little like someone thought they might have hit us too hard in Heavensward, given that we haven't had a lot of major character deaths stick since. I'm not complaining about Gosetsu's return, as I liked him very much and was very happy he lived. I will grumble a little about Zenos, though I'll go easy because I know a lot of people like him. 😛 He just doesn't do much for me. Yotsuyu was a great villain, and I was really dubious when they brought her back, but was pleasantly surprised with how her story ended, to the point that I'm willing to eat a lot of what I said about memory loss as a plot device. They did well with it, and her ultimate death did feel appropriate. Yotsuyu was never going to have a redemption arc, because she didn't want to be redeemed.

It was very refreshing in Stormblood to have more female characters taking essential roles in the plot. Colorism issues aside, I do really like Lyse as a character, and I also loved seeing Yugiri and Alisaie taking prominent roles, especially Alisaie who really hadn't gotten to be in the main plot much before. Rolling around with the three of them was a blast. Raubahn is also a favorite of mine, so seeing him play a major role in Ala Mhigo's liberation and get some character development was excellent. I'm happy that he's stayed involved with the Resistance in the time since.

I also just think Stormblood's new areas are absolutely beautiful. Kugane and the Azim Steppe are particular faves, but I just think they did a great job with the environments and I loved exploring them, including the underwater bits! Eorzea and Ishgard are so European-inspired, and I really enjoyed seeing Asian cultural influences in a fantasy setting. It is after all a Japanese game!

Just this week I finished the reconstruction of the Doman Enclave. As a player who's joined the game more recently, it's always bittersweet to learn about game elements that were temporal and are now lost to time, like the evolution of Mor Dhona during the ARR patches, or the Ishgardian Restoration in the Firmament. I can go hang out in the Firmament and craft and do fêtes and custom deliveries, but I'll never get to see the Firmament being built. It was done when I got there, which for me was after completing 3.3, very soon after completing the main story of Heavensward. The Doman Enclave goes in the other direction. It is a solo experience by necessity, but it's an experience that every new player can have: making their donations every week and watching the Enclave grow. Such things are always a trade-off for an MMO, but between the two, I would definitely choose the one that doesn't lock new players out of the experience.

And to give one last shout-out to Stormblood, I think it's pretty essential setup for what's happening when Shadowbringers begins. It's not just that the Scions are dropping like flies, it's that this is happening on the brink of a full-scale Garlean invasion. Said invasion is also critical to the bad future that G'raha is ultimately trying to prevent. The state and history of Garlemald is inextricably tied to the Ascians who are tied up in all of this. Stormblood is arguably more important to the events of Shadowbringers than Heavensward is, though Heavensward is also not unimportant, both with the continued presence of Estinien (reluctantly so if we believe him 😉), and with the involvement of Tiamat in the Shadowbringers patches. It's all connected!

How it's going! (Shadowbringers)

Urianger is, unsurprisingly, a big part of why I love Shadowbringers so much, as he gets some wonderful character development there and actually gets to be in the plot! But it's not only him—I like how character-driven Shadowbringers is overall, how much the major characters are driving the story and not merely reacting to events. ARR was largely driven by the world itself; the expansions are where the story starts to become character-driven. The driving forces of Heavensward's are much bigger than the main characters, but Haurchefant and Ysayle and Aymeric and Estinien bring a personal face to the conflict and a reason for us to be invested in it. Stormblood's emotional core is Lyse, Yugiri, Gosetsu, and their collective drive to liberate their homelands from Garlean occupation.

Shadowbringers, to me, really brought all of that home. It's not only character-driven but it brings a much more personal touch, I think, to the Scions themselves, with the major players being characters we've known since ARR but now get to know in a deeper way. I've always liked Y'shtola as a character but never felt I really connected with her, and Shadowbringers changed that, even as her story in Shadowbringers is in many ways about her isolation from the others, her (sometimes justified) mistrust and the way she closes herself off even to the people closest to her. Yet there is a deep caring beneath Y'shtola's prickliness as well, which we see in her leadership of the Night's Blessed, the new family she is willing to risk her life for. She's complex and difficult, sometimes angry and stubborn, and we all know I love that in a fictional woman. I really gained a deeper appreciation for her as a character here.

I've said my piece on Minfilia already, so I'll try not to repeat myself too much. I will say that Thancred is the main character I have the hardest time with in Shadowbringers. I appreciated the additional character development given to him at first, but as the story made Minfilia's death more and more all about him to the exclusion of everyone else, the more I started to kind of resent it. It really gets under my skin how he treats Ryne for like, the entire time until Minfilia Prime's final departure. The narrative kind of treats it like oh, he just has a hard time expressing how he really feels! and honestly I don't fully agree with that framing. I think Thancred's cold and harsh attitude toward Ryne does reflect how he really feels at that time—namely, he's angry and lonely and upset for valid reasons, but he's taking them out on a teenager who's fully dependent on him for her survival, to the point that she admits she thinks he hates her. His legitimate pain doesn't justify that to me, and it really kinda chaps my ass how everyone just agrees that he's the one with the most claim to call Ryne family, when Urianger was far kinder, gentler, and more comforting to Ryne than Thancred ever was. And Urianger was in pain too. He also regrets what happened to Minfilia, and his part in it. He was carrying a terrible secret that he couldn't tell his closest friends, which put one of those friends' life in danger. He just owned his feelings, instead of taking them out on a scared kid. I know my bias is obvious, and I swear I don't hate Thancred 😛 but I really didn't like his behavior here and I wasn't really satisfied with the way the narrative handled it.

Probably my least favorite part of Shadowbringers was Vauthry. I just do not like "fat" as shorthand for "evil" and I think there could have been better ways to design him that didn't fall back on that trope. Even Dulia-Chai, a very lovable character in the end whomst we stan, does fall into some fatphobic tropes, and it's unfortunate that in a game without much body diversity (not to single out FFXIV, that's a problem for games generally), we only got fat character models as signifiers for "rich person" (yeah, I get that "fat cat" is the joke, it's just not a good joke) and "repulsive, evil abomination." No love!

On a lighter note, the return of G'raha Tia as the Crystal Exarch was simply wonderful. G'raha was very cute and fun during the Crystal Tower story but his presence was quite short-lived, so we didn't fully get to know him then. I think it's pretty easy to guess that it's him under the hood; he has a distinctive voice and lip shape and also the tower is right there. So the question becomes why he is hiding his identity, what his true motives are, and that's all intriguing! The fact that his plan hinges on his pretending to be the villain at the end and he utterly fails at convincing anyone is… deeply charming. But one of the things I love most about him is the kindness he extends to the people of Norvrandt. Even though his primary mission is the salvation of the Source, he gets attached to these people, offers up the resources of the Crystal Tower freely to improve their lives, helps build a home and sanctuary, fights for the First and becomes deeply invested in their survival as well. He has a huge heart, and I love him. I'm delighted that he gets to return and join the Scions at the end, and it's already been a lot of fun to have him along on the patch quests.

And of course, Urianger my love. 💜 He really shines in this story and every scene with him was a delight, even when I was climbing the walls needing to know what he was hiding. He gets so much good character development in Shadowbringers I could go on for hours about it, but I did especially love the Echo scene where you see G'raha asking him to lie—and you see how much he doesn't want to do it. Urianger's really been on a long arc ever since Moenbryda's death, and I don't think that arc is over yet, but my biggest worry for him as the cracks started to form in his story was that we'd find he hadn't changed, and was lying here for the same reasons he did in the Heavensward patches, and as easily. And that's not the case at all. He hated doing it before, and he really doesn't want to do it again, but G'raha's reasoning is just too strong for him to refuse. I brought it up recently but I think Shadowbringers reveals an Urianger who despite his long isolation really doesn't want to be alone, and does want his friends' understanding and approval and their trust. The look he gives the Warrior of Light if they say they trust him, and then the way he submits himself to their judgment when things go wrong while begging to be allowed to help fix things… god. I love him. And I'll stop there for now, since I'm sure I'll have a lot more to say about him in the future. ;)

Emet-Selch is a fascinating villain, certainly the most interesting Ascian we've seen so far, and the one who finally turns what have been fairly two-dimensional powerful bad guys into a truly motivated and complex faction. My favorite villains are always the ones who believe they're the hero, and there are a lot of parallels between Emet-Selch and Solas from Dragon Age: Inquisition which will be obvious to anyone who's played both games. FFXIV being a more linear story afford the player a lot less choice in how they respond to their villains true motives and history, but there's definitely still an expectation that we will sympathize somewhat with Emet-Selch, and recognize the tragedy of what happened to his people.

Ardbert's ghost, too, was a welcome addition to the story. Between his presence and the role quests (which were 100% worth doing in their entirety), I felt like we finally got to actually know the Warriors of Darkness against which we briefly clashed back in the Heavensward patches, and I really felt the pathos of their story, all they fought for and lost, but also their friendship and how they cared for one another.

Shadowbringers is beautiful in so many ways. The design of the Crystarium is gorgeous. Il Mheg is probably my favorite location in the game so far. Eulmore is a fascinating dark mirror of Limsa Lominsa. The way the game takes the idea of "a world being swallowed by light" and interprets that visually is so stunning. The sky over Lakeland arrests you immediately upon arrival, and the crystallization of the Flood of Light where it was halted at the edged of Amh Araeng is a chilling reminder of how much the First has already lost. The music has also been a highlight for me! I really adore the Shadowbringers music, and it has prompted me to go about collecting orchestrion rolls more deliberately than I had before.

The more I sit and write about how much I loved this expansion, the more I think of, so while I could definitely go on, I think I'll wrap it up there. 🙂

Onward to Endwalker. I'm not making any predictions this time, because I have done my absolute damnedest to stay unspoiled for this one and I know very little about what's coming other than what the locations are, what's been revealed in the Shadowbringers patches, and that it's the end of the big story arc we've been on since ARR. I'm extremely excited.

[omniblades-and-stars]

🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹 🌹 <- half dozen

Aw, for me? Thanks! Here is a random assortment of sentences from my various works for you to chew on in return. Because I think it's funny to post these things out of context.

Sins of the fathers are visited upon their children, or so the saying went.

Zaeed would have liked to hit him, just one good shot straight across the jaw, but it wouldn't come close to solving anything.

Blood, bullets, battle, and probably a few more B-words that could be assigned to a soldier of her one-time status and the krogan … bombs or bastards, maybe … those things she understood.

"Darlin', if you take your hands off my throat this second, I'm willin' to pretend this unfortunate business didn't happen," Lou said sleepily with only one eye cracked slightly open.

Nilea blinked at her, trying to process the strange idiom the bounty hunter used, “I’m sorry, did you just say that he rode you? For the knife?”

The posters of boy bands and swimsuit models on her wall all stared down on her in judgment, mocking her with their beautiful, clean skin, and perfectly styled hair.

Send a rose (or several) and make me post a sentence from one of my many, many many WIPs.

[brainyrot]

Now let's bring it to 666

[aquariusaurus]

post-rumbling pieck and falco talk (applied pokkopiku)

Pieck: So, have you ever seen Porco's memories?

Falco: Not really. I only saw a few and they're really not that much.

Pieck: Like what?

Falco: Probably just him making sandwiches and coffee every morning while yawning.

Pieck: Sounds very Porco to me *chuckles*.

Falco: But there's one memory that I should tell you Miss Pieck.

Pieck: What was it?

Falco: Mr Galliard once talked to himself in his room a few days before they attacked Paradis Island. I think he kind of talked to his brother? He was proud about saving Reiner just like his brother did while in his titan form during the Liberio War but at the same time he was sad to know about his life span was decreasing day by day and worried about his parents going to lose him too one day. Knowing that he was the last warrior who got the titan shifter at that time, he was devastated that the candidates are going to take over the other warriors' titans since their lifespans were way shorter at that time and he was never ready for it. He had a lot to tell to the other warriors. He even regretted not talking much to Mr Bertholdt and Miss Annie after they were sent to Paradis Island. He told himself to less bicker with Mr Braun, work harder for War Chief and he even talked about you too, Miss Pieck. He appreciated you so much for being with him and working with him ever since the trio went to the island. He wish you live longer along with him and couldn't face the fact that you were going to die first. He said that whoever got the cart titan after you would never replace your ability or even the work environment he was going to get with that person.

Pieck: Oh, wow! I never thought Pock was this sweet but sadly he was the one left us way first. I hope he met with his brother and Bertholdt again. I miss them so much, Falco.

Falco: There's also another thing, Miss Pieck.

Pieck: What is it?

Falco: I think Mr Galliard loved you, Miss Pieck. The way he talked about you really explained it, softer and described more about you than the others. He was afraid to tell you knowing how you're going to die before him and now I don't know if he ever regretted the decision.

Pieck: He loved me? I- I had always loved him too back then when both of us were starting to feel comfortable with each other and often seek each other out but I never thought he would loved me back. All this time we just lived together as comrades or even as friends and never thought of ourselves as lovers. I had the feeling only and not even trying talk to him about it because of this 13-year curse. This lifespan thing really by cursing us all even think it's gone now and you know what Falco? I'm the one who regretted not telling him about my feelings and now he's... gone too.

Falco: I'm really sorry Miss Pieck-

Pieck: Oh Falco, you did nothing wrong, you did the right thing to survive and telling me this. Remembering this little bits of him is really cute. Thank you for this Falco. Don't ever feel guilty about living your life okay?

[seis-seven-eight-nein]

hey

@do-it-four-swords hi nein here. do you perhaps know why our apartment floor is covered in orbeez

[swiftiesforpeeta]

i seriously like. stop with the extremely tragic best friends. please. i can’t do it anymore.

[depressedhangrybitch]

weird ascension of darius the great

have u ever heard of Darius the great. i  mean people who are passionate in middle east’s history might or probably do know about this king since he was the first Persian ruler who actually unified the what is now known as persian empire and under his rule it went onto great heights. he kinda reminds me of Julius creaser since their story is pretty much the same :- great majestic prime then died tragically.

anyways back to the topic, what really makes me laugh about his case is not his empire and his rule but the hilarious chain of events that led to him becoming king.

never heard about this...buckle up since this is going to be a hell of a ride.

the story starts with Cyrus the great

yes that Cyrus the first to ever write a human rights tablet. great ruler. salute to this man. he was actually a distant relative of Darius.

one day he dreamed of Darius with wings behind his back one wing shadowing Europe the other Asia. Cyrus fearing that Darius might be plotting against him send him away. though Cyrus's story ends tragically i dont really feel bad for him. he died at the hands of queen Tamarius. badass lady seriously dont mess with her as Cyrus learned the hard way. she cut off Cyrus's head after he killed her son and dipped his head in the pool of his own blood. i think the exact words she said were i always keep my word and    "Drink your fill of blood!. Badasssss i say with a capital B. well she had aright to be angry since Cyrus got her son slaughtered.

HELL HATH NO FURY LIKE A WOMAN SCORNED!!!!!

ANYWAY I ALWAYS GET A LITTLE TOO PASSIONATE IT SEEMS.

SO after Cyrus death, as the custom dictates his eldest son should inherit the throne the problem was Cyrus had 2 sons Cambyses and smerdis.

while Cambyses was the elder one he was also a short tempered spoiled  and paranoid man who had a habit of going into fits of rage and doing things he later regretted. in my opinion he was also an idiot.

there is actually a story of how when a close comrade of him told hm that he drank too much. and he was like ,”ok if i drank too much then i wouldn't be good at shooting a bow and then he had the comrade’s son stand against the wall and used him as a target board. he said that if he drank too much then he will PROBABLY miss the shot and then proceeded to shoot the comrades son in the heart IN FRONT OF THE COMRADE.

WHAT.    A.     DICK.

kinda like Joffrey from got.

smerdis was....

his brother?? he is not the focus here and is irrelevant.

so... FFUUUUUCCCKKK OFFFF SMERDIS!!!!!

ANYWAYS, he also had a weird mind considering he sometimes had very crazy plans that always ended in disaster.

case in point in his new years of crowning himself  he had this awesome (not) plan of invading Egypt by basically sending his army through Sahara desert. SENDING AN ARMY THROUGH SAHARA DESERT!!!! l

LIKE. DUDE. WTF. IS. WRONG. WITH. YOU.?

even today i think people have not fully travelled through Sahara desert through foot or on horses and camels imagine in that time.

understandably this ended in disaster as i think we still haven't found the lost army of king Cambyses as people have named this mystery.

though he did end up conquering Egypt during the reign of pharaoh phastmik 2?? i think the name is. but the first attempt and its consequence still remain a mystery. (probably)

So when he visited Egypt he took his brother with him because he had a dream of smerdis on a throne and his form  big enough to touch the heaven.

(i swear this family has weird dreams).

this nightmare made him fear that smerdis will usurp him in his absence so he ordered smerdis to come with him. now the most logical decision in these circumstances would be to go yourself and in order as to not have a power vacuum in your empire u leave a close family member to rule temporarily. but what this idiot dd? he took his brother with him and put a magician aka a complete stranger to rule in his absence.

i.  am. done.   with.   this.   guy.

soon his paranoia reached its limit and he had his brother assassinated.  througha trusted confidant of his - perxasspes. after the deed was done prexasspes returned to egypt to give his master the good news.

also fun fact i dont know where this comes in the story but the guy who assassinated smerdis, perxasspes his name was i think, his son was actually killed by Cambyses.

PLOT TWIST!!!!.

when Cambyses was to return to his Syria after a successful conquest of Egypt he received very surprising news considering the circumstances - in his absence his throne has been taken by..... SMERDIS?? yeah smerdis.

or is it??

continue if u want this mystery solved. HEHEHEH......MWAHAHAHAHAHA

Cambyses at first was confused by this recent development until someone reminded him that this must be a power grab by an opportunistic usurper.

i. am. honestly. loving.  this.  whole.  situation.  really. so.  far.

in his haste to reach his kingdom Cambyses accidentally  stabbed his thigh with his sword  while mounting his horse and died in Egypt. BUT BEFORE DYING HE INSTRUCTED HIS NOBLEMEN TO SEIZE HIS THRONE FROM THIS SMERDIS...

OR IS IT???

since he had no heirs the power vacuum that was created and the fuckup events following it are finally here so lets get STARTTTTEDDDD!!!!

the problem the Cambyses men faced was that this smerdis was an extremely popular king and majority of the population believed him to be real son of cyrus. yes this is fake smerdis. i really suck at keeping suspense *sigh*.

perxasspes the one who killed the real smerdis could have resolved this confusion but he kept his mouth shut most likely to keep himself innocent because no one is going to leave u alone if u admit that u killed a prince on his brothers orders. most likely this would have created a scandal. or because perxasses was sadist who enjoyed peoples suffering.

the smerdis on throne also kept himself in seclusion whenever possible and surrounded himself with people who never met the real smerdis so as to further protect his identity.

enter one nobleman named otanes, otanes had a sneaking suspicion as to who this imposter was. years ago during cyrus’s reign a man had his ears cut off. otanes believed that this man could be the imposter. but to find out if this was true was very difficult since the imposter king always had a turban on which hid his ears and thus he could not confirm if he had ears or lack there of. so otanes had his daughter who was part of imposter kings harem sneak up on him  while he was asleep and and check if he had ears.

NOOOOOO EARSSSS!!!!!

OTANES HAD HIS SUSPICIONS CONFIRMED. THE MAN ON THE THRONE IS NOT IN FACT THE REAL SMERDIS BUT A MAN ALSO NAMED SMERDIS.

HISTORY TWISTTTTTT!!!!!!

it gets worse btw.

turns out i the magician who was tasked to keep an eye on the empire had a brother whose name was smerdis and he  in the absence of cambyses and smerdis crowned his brother king. its awesome timing since the real smerdis had just been secretly murdered.

otanes now gathered a bunch of men to overthrow the false king and one of them happened to beeee.........

DARIUS!!!! our man is finally here.

it seems that darius had pieced the plot together himself and came to assist the noblemen in their rebellion.

meanwhile the fake smerdis and the magician were getting nervous because the rumors of their scheme were spreading and so to get control of their situation they enveloped perxasspes in their scheme to make a public formal announcement that the false smerdis is the real smerdis and that the real smerdis had not been killed but the weight of his lies and betrayals finally began to crumble upon the assassin. he decided that he will no longer follow the line filled with betrayals and falsehoods. he climbed on a tall building and openly denounced the false king and confessed in front of the astonished crowd that the smerdis sitting on the throne is indeed an imposter. he urged to those who were listening to him to rise up and destroy the false king and restore the true persian royal family line. then in a dramatic exit he jumped and fell to his death. he must have realized he was fucked any way so death seems like a better alternative.

back to otanes and his men, after storming the royal palace and killing the imposter and his magic bro. the noblemen took to the streets and explained the evil plot to their people and urged people to cut down any magi they see. by morning, almost every magi was slaughtered.

the people seem easily impressionable tbh.

after their successful rebellion the noblemen had to decide who will rule them. in order to decide who will be king they determined that they will mount their horse  and whoevers neighs first on the sunrise will be the king.

well at least there wasnt another war. that is a very effective yet childish way to do it.

according to one version of the story darius turned to his horse master obareus  for help who proceeded to help his master by rubbing his hand on one of darius horse’s favourite mare’s vulva and then just before sunrise bought it close to darius’s horse nose which caused the horse to immediately snort and whinny.

ughhhhh so disgusting!!!

and thats how my friends darius the great became the ruler of persian empire after a chain of hilarious clusterfuck of events.

well his intelligent reflects from his actions. piecing together a conspiracy theory from abroad which turned out to be accurate is pretty sherlock holmes stuff.

darius my pal hope u are proud of yourself. u really left a mark on history and ur legacy.

[jam-does-audio]

I doubt it's going to happen, but it would be really funny if my old dieing laptop can run AC6 cause technically it meets almost all the standards so maybe??

[scribe-of-hael]

Music i associate with my ocs

maybe I'll make a Playlist but ill share a few songs of my tf ocs I like to think about with them ! I won't put alot maybe 3 or 4! I'll edit and add more later !

GROWLWIRE

Vigh Holtage

Ula

I'll edit her picture later lol

Proxy

[butchlinkle]

really helpful technique ^ once you know how to divide by halves and thirds it makes drawing evenly spaced things in perspective waaay easier:

[hansoeii]

the honda odyssey, huh?

[ugartecoco]

the transition im crying

[ladyshinga]