#Inaccessible Forms

[idkaguyorsomething]

a support group for people with “unconventional” daemons. jeff with his flounder he has to carry everywhere in a huge tank. lois with her poison dart frog everyone is afraid to touch. sam with their elephant that’s the reason they can never go higher than two stories in most buildings.

[is-the-owl-video-cute]

i think the most annoying part of dog food discourse is how many people will act as though proplan/hill’s/Royal canin diets aren’t extremely and prohibitively expensive and that THAT is the reason so many people look into healthy alternatives.

People complain about corn being in the first five ingredients on most of those feeds because, regardless of other factors here, that is not an expensive ingredient. But it makes up a large chunk of the dry food. So the dry food should be fairly affordable, right?

Oh… with tax you’re spending about $100 for one 45lb bag of food where the third ingredient is wheat and the fourth and fifth ingredients are corn.

Oh… well! It’s slightly cheaper! But the second ingredient is rice, third is wheat, fourth is corn, and then fifth is poultry byproduct. None of those are very expensive so this just must be the low end cost of dog food unfortunately. The vets recommend it so surely that means prices aren’t inflated, right?

Oh? This one has similar ingredients with the only real difference being no corn? And it’s half the price?? Well surely that’s just a fluke.

Oh. Oh no.

This one even has CORN in it and it’s $20 cheaper?? Wow!

Like listen at some point I don’t care if your dog food has the ichor of the gods in it, I’m not spending $100 every five days if there are cheaper options with just as many “good” ingredients in it. If you think I’m a dog abuser because I can’t afford this overpriced garbage, that’s too bad. I don’t care. My dogs are perfectly healthy with the food I give them. Great weight and great coat. People giving dog food recommendations that aren’t those top three hyper-expensive dog foods aren’t trying to epic own those dastardly vets half the time, but I really don’t blame the ones who do lose trust in vets when the only heartworm protection they recommend lately are expensive triple-action brands like Simparica Trio that costs $120+ as opposed to the other heartworm protections that are only about $40-$60 on average, which is still cheaper even if you add on a $20-$40 flea and tick protection separately, and only recommend dog food that costs $85+ a bag even if your dog doesn’t have specialized dietary needs.

Those top three foods are GREAT at making competent prescription diets, I don’t deny that. I do still have to criticize the pricing of those prescription diets though because I have spoken to DOZENS of people who had to pull their pets off of a prescription diet and struggle to find something comparable because they couldn’t afford the food, and that’s terrible! These are not poor companies! Purina, Royal Canin, and Hill’s can ABSOLUTELY afford to lower their prices to make their food accessible to people who need it for their animals but they don’t. They probably never will. Because at the core they are run by greedy corporations. It doesn’t matter how many good nutritionists are on board if the company is run by people who put profits over customers and make the food impossible for people to afford.

[uncreative-cryptid]

i cannot believe some people will excuse using GenAI as a "tool" for writing and claim it makes them better.

just saw the most insane take about it in a fanfic communities post and genuinely? you are not a writer. you do not deserve hate and harassment, but you have no place in a creative space like that. YOU are the reason so many people will begin to lock works behind several walls.

your castle is made of cards and built on a foundation of stolen works and lies.

you do not belong in a creative space.

you want more ideas? you want better ways to sort them?

consume more media and engage with them, dissect their themes and identify what you liked about it.

learn to put these themes and identifies down in a mess, make bullet point lists, and sort them later.

however you want to categorize them, do so. use discord servers, use your notes app, for the love of god learn to do your own thinking. you only think you're doing better because you have outsourced a necessary skill to a machine to do the thinking for you.

you have failed yourself fundamentally, i hope you realize that.

[miirshroom]

Elden Ring - The Fool's Journey

The Fool of the tarot deck is sometimes interpreted as the protagonist of a story and the procession of the Major Arcana as the steps of this story. The Fool begins with nothing but the ignorant faith to undertake a journey full of hardship and pain, and believe that in the end they will reenter the world with new understanding. But the journey never ends, and so The Fool soon begins another cycle and strives for greater heights of understanding.

Rider-Waite-Smith tarot developed by members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

Spoilers ahead from some specific characters from other FromSoft games (Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Armored Core V).

Prophesy and Storytelling and Fate

Prophesy is a literary device. It's a kind of promise from the author to the reader that there will be a payoff for the planting and the prophesy will come true. So effectively when prophets in-universe are able to know the future it is because they have a direct access to the will of the author. The common form of the prophesy is that it is written vaguely, and retroactively shown to suit the events that actually occurred. The belief of the Fool that they can follow the proscribed steps and achieve mastery of the world is a kind of prophesy.

Elden Ring has the prophet class, and the Prophet insists that the path of the future is already laid out. One method of fortune telling is palmistry which is the reading the lines on a hand to predict a person's future. And the Finger Readers strongly allude to this, as well as Godrick directly acknowledging that palm reading is fashionable in the Capitol in volume 1 of the Road to the Erdtree manga. So the Prophet starts with the Two Finger's Seal and the Two Fingers are associated with fortune telling, and Blaidd - a Shadowbound beast assigned by the Two Fingers - is one of only two characters to ever mention the concept of "cards". Tarot card readings being another practice of fortune telling.

"The wheel of fate has been set into motion. If it's on the cards, I'd be glad to meet again." - Blaidd, after Radahn festival if not in Ranni's service"

"There is no denying it, now. A culling appears to be on the cards. One that won't overlook even an aging soldier as myself..." - Sir Ansbach, upon being repeatedly attacked

However, where these two methods differ is that the state of a person's hand (and thus the reading they would be given) is partly influenced by the features that a person was born with and partly by what the hand has been used for. In fact, the joke in the manga is that by grafting so many arms Godrick has taken the fortunes of others to give himself more to choose from. He has tried to subvert palmistry by defying the fixed path set by the hands he was born with. Grafting was his unsuccessful effort to cheat fate.

"One day, we'll return together. To our home, bathed in rays of gold.... ...Not the fool Omen King. Nor the rank malformed twins. O, we are the Golden Ones. The true and rightful heirs." - cut dialogue from Godrick the Grafted

In comparison, a tarot reading is done by choosing cards at random. But from a literary perspective it would be poor setup and payoff to shape a plot based on a random set of cards. Therefore, assume that they are not random - the Fool's Journey. The most well known tarot deck and interpretation guide (Rider-Waite-Smith) were produced by members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (a late 19th century secret society focused on spiritual development). It is packed full of alchemical and astrological symbology, as is Elden Ring.

Who are the Greatest Fools of Elden Ring?

According to the cut-content Godrick speech, Morgott is a fool Omen. According to Sir Gideon Ofnir, Godrick is an old fool, and the player appears at first assessment to be an irredeemable fool. Morgott agrees that the Tarnished is a fool with foolish ambitions. Bloody Finger Hunter Yura thinks the player to be a fool for picking a fight with the dragon Agheel. D, Hunter of the Dead calls the player "another fool" for seeking places touched by death, seemingly self-aware of his own foolishness in seeking to weed out deathroot.

Smithing Master Hewg thinks that all Tarnished are fools:

"I see you've noticed the chains. Nothing special. I'm a prisoner, and these are my chains. I'm trapped by the Hold, undying, smithing for you fools. That's all there is to it."

From the DLC: Hornsent calls the player a mongrel blood and a fool (he places importance on blood purity in his own way, not unlike Ansbach), and Ansbach calls himself a fool for underestimating Thiollier (as mentioned before Ansbach believes in the "cards" and is thus bound to them, while Thiollier's themes are external to the Fool's Journey). If the player fails to defeat Bayle, Igon seems to have some dialogue that laments giving his finger and his soul to a fool.

The Stranded Soul at Fort Laidd is hiding from fools and brought the Fire Scorpion Charm with him in the hiding place. The charm contains hearts in a cyclical motif and nearby the fort there is a magma wyrm created by a human consuming the hearts of dragons. The Stranded Soul in Dragonbarrow near the Caelid Divine Tower complains of dryness and begs a fool dragon to surrender its heart to be feasted upon.

Boc wonders if he must be reborn - and seems to have misgivings about his fate after that rebirth - but calls himself a fool for not having the answer to this question. Castellan Jerren calls himself a foolish old warrior, wears armor that resembles a kind of Fool's motley, and calls blacksmith Iji an old fool.

Kenneth Haight has this to say of a fool: "I want you to take back my fort...A Knight commander from Stormveil took it. A fool, and plumb mad to boot. Simply obsessed with blood!" He also remarks on the Player's foolishness for refusing the offer to enter his service after clearing the fort.

The Dungeater mentions fools (and fate!) in his mad rambling:

"Hundreds will be reborn cursed, and they'll bear thousands of cursed children, who'll bear tens of thousands more. A few of those will be born just like me, and they'll kill, and defile, and bless in my stead! The rotten fools. My fate was the grandest, most brilliant of them all!"

One Finger Reader Crone speaks of a fool, but it is ambiguous who is the fool here, the “all-hearing”, or the “big pot”:

"Miquella's favour can be yours. Slaughter, slaughter, slaughter... The all-hearing slaughtered, but alas, it was for naught. But all you need do, is snatch it from the big pot....Pity the poor, poor fool!"

The Demi-Human Queen's Staff is "sneered at by fools in the academy". This does not necessarily mean that everyone at the academy is a fool, but applies to a certain faction. The spell "Glintstone Arc" declares that "fools travel in packs". Animals that may be grouped in packs: dogs, mules, rats, weasels, wolves. The singular mention of "weasel" in the text of the game is Gostoc addressing Godrick. The other animals are more common.

Seluvis speaks of the player's ability to make fools of others - naming Nepheli as being successfully fooled and Ranni as a prospective fool (doesn't work).

Diallos Hoslow is a good case study. He has seven lines of dialogue calling himself a fool - the most of any character. And the animal theming of House Hoslow is that of a ram - which has association with "beginnings" similar to "The Fool", as the warlike Aries is sometimes considered the start of the zodiac. At the least, this astrological zodiac association shows up fairly early in tarot with the 4th Arcana: The Emperor. Observe the storyline of Diallos as understood through the Fool's Journey:

10 Wheel of Fortune - Where we pick up with Diallos he has entered the service of the Round Table Hold. This is a turning point - destiny called him here as it called all Tarnished.

11 Justice - Diallos considers the cause and effect that led to the death of his servant and childhood friend Lanya (and perhaps his Lover, calling back to the 6th Arcana), and decides that he must confront the Recusants to seek Justice. This is also the first instance where Diallos applies the word "fool" to himself.

12 The Hanged Man - Rather than a direct confrontation Diallos finds himself with an opportunity to join the Recusants - originally accepting their offer for the purpose of infiltrating them. Volcano Manor also stands above the Prison Town where likely the Dungeater was hanged. In a reversal of fortune Diallos is soon swayed by the words of Lady Tanith. Interestingly, he describes the decision to pursue becoming a champion of Volcano Manor as thus:

"According to Lady Tanith... I've got the stuff of champions. And champions, ironic as it is, are oft forced walk a tainted a path. It hit me like a bolt from the blue... That my former thoughts were simple naiveté. Of course, my heart weeps for Lanya. That unfortunate incident was a cruel twist of fate indeed. But succumbing to the pain and sadness caused won't make me a champion, will it. Lanya knows this, I'm certain. Fate has laid hard roads for us both."

The "bolt from the blue" is a classic motif of "The Tower", which is 4 cards away from the Hanged Man. The reference to two roads is significant, it will come up again later.

13 Death - Diallos in his previous dialogue claims that "[these hands will] be darkened by grit, once I've set out on the path of champions". And then after the player has completed two missions for Volcano Manor he will say "I haven't achieved anything at all thus far. Even though I've dirtied my hands time and time again." It can be inferred that in the time between Diallos has set out on the path of champions - paralleling your own progress - and killed assassination targets for the Volcano Manor. In the process he experiences a death of his former principles by cutting away that which he believed unnecessary:

"I always resented these hands. Their pale complexion, a far cry from any warrior's."

14 Temperance / 15 The Devil - These also occur in the space before Diallos' next dialogue. Temperance is balance and stability - Diallos falling into the routine of Volcano Manor. The Devil is the ignorance of being in a situation from which one could easily free themselves, but do not even realize that they have been bound to a limited range of experience - Diallos failing to appreciate that there is much more that he could be living for other than dealing out death for a sight unseen benefactor.

16 The Tower - Diallos faces a crisis either when Rykard is slain (by the player who sneaks through the back routes to find Rykard) and the blasphemous core of the Volcano Manor is revealed, or when he is suddenly confronted with the final contract from Volcano manor: Juno Hoslow, Knight of Blood. This crisis shakes him free from the allure of being a Champion for the Volcano Manor.

"It's just as my noble brother says. I'm a complete fool. I can't believe I thought I could become a champion."

17 The Star / 18 The Moon - Diallos finds himself healed by the peace of Jarburg. He is hopeful that his soft hands will finally be good for something in becoming Potentate to the jars. However, Liurnia is also governed by the moon and this peace is an illusion, for the pots themselves are mad/lunatic/crackpot creations that look innocuous on the outside but are internally stuffed with gore.

19 The Sun - Diallos finally has his moment of greatness in defending Jarburg from attack. He is tragically enlightened as to what it means that "the tale of House Hoslow is told in blood" when he meets a bloody end.

20 Judgement - Diallos sheds his ego with and so his soul is freed from his flesh. That flesh will be reborn soon, as the contents of a Warrior Jar.

21 The World - Diallos's worldview was coloured by blood, and so becoming reduced to blood was his fate. A macabre twist on the end of the Fool's Journey, but it was what was called for by Diallos's character arc. And to emphasize that "blood" means more than simply a red liquid, the visual design of Hoslow's Petal Whip is fashioned in a way to evoke the visual of a DNA strand. A person's DNA is indeed something passed down through generations, as indicated in the item description.

Overall, there is significant textual support that the Tarnished in general and the player in specific is seen as a Fool. Dragon-hunters and dragons themselves are considered to be fools. And obsession with blood is a recurring trait of Fools.

Authorial Intent for the Tarot Sequence

As I mentioned previously, prophesies are an expression of the hand of the author on the story. Aside from a few references to "cards" and "fools", there is little enough evidence to be found looking solely within Elden Ring. Rather, the circumstantial evidence extends outside of the game, which is to say, from paying attention to the development history of FromSoftware.

There are coincidentally 22 years between Elden Ring and a FromSoft game called "Eternal Ring" released in 2000, which is long enough for a full cycle from Fool to Fool. One of the antagonists of Armored Core V (2012) pilots an AC unit called "Hanged Man" and with an emblem alluding to the iconography of the Hanged Man tarot card, which is the 12th Arcana. An added detail is that the hanged man is positioned in front of a guillotine - the looming spectre of death by beheading.

And there are a few hints that I've noticed in Dark Souls - such as Havel the Rock drawing inspiration from the Hierophant of 2005 (a priest in keeping with Havel's background as a bishop, and the Hierophant is associated with astrological Taurus matching his bovine leg armor and proximity to the Taurus demon), and of which 2005 was also the Year of the Wood Rooster (Havel being derived from Gallus meaning "rooster" and having a cock's comb on his helmet). Those familiar with Dark Souls may point out that this selectively ignores aspects of Havel's character such as how he carved his own armor out of stone, his hatred for Seath the Scaleless, and reputation as a Dragonslayer who uses a dragon's tooth as a club. Also there is a significant difference between a "Wood Rooster" and rooster carved of stone. But to that I would say: read to the end of the last section about parallels from other fantasy stories that are structured around a "Fool" character.

And if that was all, it could be easy to pick apart the overarching story by looking for the steps of tarot. But the pattern has been growing for 30 years and it is far more complex than that. It is - for example - not my intention today to explain the throughline of the astrological wheel as it applies to all of the Armored Core games in sequence. I do think it important to describe the truly convoluted decision to merge a second Fool's Journey to the first.

A century ending in 0 is one natural start for a Fool's Journey, but so is April 1st - April Fool's Day, which is known in Scotland as "The day of running the cuckoo". There has been one single game that FromSoft has released on an April 1st - Kuon in 2004. And like the 12th Arcana being incorporated in the year 2012, one of the puzzles of Kuon also references the year of its release - the zodiac puzzle is solved by "rooster first - monkey last" with 2004 being the year of the monkey. A cycle ends and is on the precipice of starting a new one, from the perspective that the Fool's story only truly begins upon meeting Arcana #1: the Magician. Also coincidently backtracking a bit to the previous cycle on this track will land "The Tower" arcana on the release year of "Shadow Tower".

Remember back with Diallos where he talked about two roads, and also referenced aesthetic of "The Tower", while playing out the spirit of "The Hanged Man"? Both align in 2016.

So now consider as a case study the significance of the year 2012. The Fool is the Hanged Man and suspended in a moment where the world has been turned upside down. An experience that seems too difficult to endure and the only choice is to let go. With the benefit of hindsight we know now that FromSoft did let go of something in 2012 - mecha games almost entirely disappeared from FromSoft development for 10 years after being a core part of their development for the previous 20 years. 9 of 29 (31%) from 1994-2003, 16 of 31 (52%) from 2004 to 2013, and 1 of 7* (14%) from 2014 to 2023 (*8% if counting DLC’s). The true last mecha game before AC6: Fires of Rubicon was Armored Core V: Verdict Day in 2013, with a name that speaks of finality and released in the year matching the 13th Arcana - Death. And as well as continuing the Fool's Journey the natural next step is to travel into the underworld - and so picks up Dark Souls. Hence the double-entendre subtitle of the Dark Souls Complete Edition directed to both the player and FromSoftware's long-running AC game franchise: Prepare to Die.

In the second Fool's Journey, 2012 is Arcana #8: Strength, following after Arcana #7: The Chariot. These tarot build off each other, as the Artorias of the Abyss expansion built off the base Dark Souls in the consecutive years of 2011 and 2012. Strength is associated with patience and tolerance and with the Fool having the courage to go on despite disillusionment, such as that which occurs in-universe upon learning that Artorias did not defeat Manus, Father of the Abyss, but instead fell to the Abyss. The Chariot is the Fool achieving the will-power to grasp control over the environment and achieve adulthood, as Dark Souls achieved the assertive success that was lacking in Demon's Souls.

Demon's Souls itself was released in 2009, the year of the 5th Arcana: Hierophant in the 2nd tarot journey. The Hierophant represents the beginning of the Fool's education in an organized belief system - identifying with a group and belonging. One might be tempted to think that this was the beginning of a belief in "souls", but that is too narrow focused - a "soul" is "thought" and exists whether it is believed in or not. Rather the contemplation of the nature of thought and personhood is more suited to the first Fool embodying Arcana #9: The Hermit, who looks inwards to search for answers. The Hierophant I find to be better expressed in the gaudy religious figure enthroned in the Tower of Latria - the old monk who brings belief in madness and eldritch entities, and is the first of the King in Yellow references scattered throughout the souls games and Elden Ring. Perhaps the Hermit-fool looks inside and sees a developing cuckoo of the Hierophant-fool, but has not the power to do anything to separate the conflicting parts. There is indeed an acknowledgement of two entities to consider as it is said in the opening titles: "On the first day, man was granted a soul, and with it, clarity. On the second day, upon Earth was planted an irrevocable poison; a soul-devouring Demon." So, there is the man and there is the demon.

Compare Demon's Souls Old Monk with the gilded tree growing behind his head with Shadow of the Erdtree's Midra who has the roots of a tree growing through his skull.

And while it seems unlikely that game development cycles could be contorted to some greater overarching narrative, consider this: how often have FromSoft games shipped "unfinished"? They always seem to set their goals a bit too high, resulting in outcomes like the abandoned 6th archstone in Demon's Souls or the under populated Izalith area in Dark Souls. They cut so much content that it ends up incorporated into massive DLC's like Bloodborne's Old Hunters DLC or Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree. Rather than delay games by a year or so until they can ship "complete", they have seemed more concerned with releasing as close to schedule as possible. The amount of content left unfinished simply does not matter if the overarching narrative was never intended to be completed in a single game. The game developer can't control for dataminers who will scrutinize any unused strings of code and invent in their heads a more "complete" game that could have been, regardless of whether these unused pieces were simply cut in the editing process because they didn't suit the artistic intent.

On the other hand, Elden Ring was delayed by a year from the initially planned release in 2021 and the result: not a single FromSoft game released in the year matching Arcana #21: The World. The final twist of the Fool's Journey was that it simply failed to manifest a world on time. My guess is that a substantial amount of cut content remained unused because it would have been appropriate for a 21-year story concluding in early 2021 (with 2 DLC to follow) and simply didn't suit the restructured 22-year story that released in early 2022. But there has been one last entry for the cuckoo-fool's journey. Shadow of the Erdtree released in 2024, and corresponds to Arcana #20: Judgement.

And notice that again it is specifically Ansbach - a follower of Mohg, Lord of Blood - who most closely applies to Miquella the tarot phrasing associated with the concept of "Judgement" in the Fool's Journey:

"Pure and radiant, he wields love to shrive clean the hearts of men. There is nothing more terrifying"

Ansbach is not wrong - he should be terrified. From the perspective of Miquella-as-god, the Lord of Blood and his followers are the false ego that needs to be overcome in order to manifest as a pure and radiant being. There is no negotiating - it is simply what must be done before moving on to the next step of creating a new World according to Arcana #21.

A person could get forever trapped in the circular logic loop of which happened first: Mohg taking Miquella to bathe in blood or Miquella using Mohg for his goal of becoming a god. Because from a mythic story-telling perspective it is a loop - Miquella is the Golden Dawn and Mohg is the twilight before nightfall - they are two sides of the same spinning coin. Mohg looks at the ruins of his life and is enchanted by the idea of living on through the life of the younger generation, continuing the pureblood dynasty at all costs even to inflicting pain on everyone involved. Miquella is the child who is traumatized by the abuses of the older generation and determined to regain bodily autonomy, yet blinded to the way that the trauma has corrupted his own dream for the future. In time, Miquella would inevitably become a new version of Mohg, unless some outside force intervenes to break the cycle.

The Fool's Journey in Fantasy Novels

As for George RR Martin as writer, I can't say that I know much about what he thinks of tarot. I don't think that the decision was in his hands - as an astute reader may have noticed, I am making a claim that FromSoft has been sculpting their library of games since before even Miyazaki was hired. But I suspect that GRRM is aware of the Fool's Journey, as he has expressed praise for Robin Hobb's Farseer and Tawney Man trilogies (and with an unsourced quote attached to Liveship Traders as well).

“Fantasy as it ought to be written…Robin Hobb's books are diamonds in a sea of zircons” - GRRM book quote for the Farseer trilogy

The influence of the whole Realm of the Elderlings series by Robin Hobb upon Elden Ring should be considered for a lot of reasons. Not only is "The Fool" one of the named characters and a prophet with meta-knowledge of what will happen in the story, but also the series has the following uncannily specific parallels with Elden Ring:

- A metaphor around smithing and Forging, paired with an alchemical metaphor about attaining the status of a Golden Lord before fading/dulling/tarnishing

- A quest to a snowy mountain that unexpectedly ends in being teleported to an ancient city and a place full of stone dragons

- Creatures that made giant cocoons for themselves and slept within them in a secluded city, only to have their cocoons cut open and soft infant forms removed before they could finish metamorphosis. Also the sleeping creatures can project themselves into dreams and there is a major plot point around soaking the cocoons with blood being a form of mental trauma.

- An elaborate homage to Moby Dick that works in themes of the generational cycle of violence (even featuring characters of similar name with Igon and Igrot).

- Protagonist has a close spiritual connection with wolf (counting for Elden Ring that the Raging Wolf set is often used to represent the player in promos).

- Time is a wheel - from Demon's Souls to Elden Ring these games literally embody one of the philosophies outlined in Realm of the Elderlings. The player can try again and again infinitely as long as it takes to correct all mistakes and play perfectly:

"All of history, a great wheel, turning inexorably. Just as seasons come and go, just as the moon moves endlessly through her cycle, so does time. The same wars are fought, the same plagues descend, the same folk, good or evil, rise to power. Humanity is trapped on that wheel, doomed endlessly to repeat the mistakes we have we have already made. Unless someone comes to change it. ...And when an entire cycle passes in which every prophet succeeds, time itself will finally stop. ...For time is the great enslaver of us all. Time that ages us, time that limits us. Think how often you have wished to have more time for something, or wished you could go back a day and do something differently. When humanity is freed of time, old wrongs can be corrected before they are done."

This is where I wanted to point again at Havel the Rock from Dark Souls. In RotE's Liveship Traders trilogy a precious material is discovered in an ancient city in a room called the "Crowned Rooster Chamber" for the sigil carved into the walls. This material is a silvery wood that is as hard as stone and is sawn into boards used to construct the titular "Liveships". Despite being marketed as such by the secretive traders, the "wood" is not wood. It is the cocoon of an infant dragon - a sea serpent - spun from sand and toxic/acidic saliva containing the memories of mature dragons. Harvesting this wood kills the squishy scaleless dragon inside the cocoon, who would normally absorb the material in the process of gaining adult form.

In-universe the source of the Liveship "wood" is a well kept secret for generations where outsiders have no idea that it is made from dragons. Here in the real world there is a certain amount of symmetry in imagining that a book series that Miyazaki or anyone from FromSoft has never even mentioned in interviews could be the inspiration for some of the best kept secrets in the entire library of FromSoftware games.

Final Notes

There are enough pieces of circumstantial evidence that I am confident that the Fool’s Journey is a central concept in Elden Ring. In a way it is the “Golden Order” - the process of taking an insignificant fool and forging them into a higher state of being through a spiritual journey heavily associated with hermeticism/alchemy. From one tarot perspective, Elden Ring is about the life and death and resurrection of Armored Core. Or from another perspective, Elden Ring is about the rise and fall of Dark Souls from the buried groundwork laid by King's Field and Shadow Tower.

However, at the same time the outcomes of the game also point out the pitfalls of the Fool’s Journey. Diallos follows the spirit of the journey...but what he prophesied for himself was a tale told in blood, and blood was how he ended. Diallos couldn't bring himself to confront and overcome the Knight of Blood - represented by his own brother - and dies in obscurity protecting crackpots.

The God form of Miquella in the DLC follows the aesthetic of the journey (banishing doubts and becoming an angelic “good” being, on a path to literally restart the cycle as the base Fool), but an outside observer cannot accept Miquella forcing his charm on others - even if the ultimate goal is to achieve peace - and most likely rejects him. The will of the God Miquella is detached from the reality of the game, where the Tarnished are avatars of real world people who are clueless as to what they are "supposed to do" to play their role in following the tarot fate. The Fool's Journey is just a story framework with nothing inherently intuitive about it - if all of the pop culture keywords are stripped away it becomes unrecognizable unless a person goes digging for it. So instead the player opposes Miquella on the principle that he is an obstacle who can be fought and is placed in the way of seeing end game content.

These two are examples of fools who looked inwards and backwards and reached conclusions that were self-destructive. They reached greater understanding of themselves, but at the same time became detached from the outside world (for Miquella - literally retreating into the dream realm of the cocoon) and have no idea how to apply that understanding towards constructively improving the civilizations around them.

Seluvis tries to make a fool of Ranni and cannot. Ranni’s quest is one that involves actively exploring the most inaccessible and secret places in the game. It's an externalized journey compared to an internalized one like Miquella who retreats into the surreal dreamscape of the cocoon. Ranni is strongly aligned with the intelligence sphere of influence compared to Miquella being aligned with faith. The entire Liurnia area is structured in ways to help a player notice that story is being told literally through landscape elements (in short: try mushroom vision, or climbing up churches). Escape from the wheel of the Fool's Journey is achieved from an active and ongoing effort to understand the systems that intertwine and form the ecosystem of a whole world.

[tofufei]

I got the "different calendars can cause the laws of physics to change" part on my first read, but the social component of it really didn't sink in until my reread and I'm just continously amazed&disturbed by the logic of how it works

like....yes! humans do actually celebrate specific things on specific dates. 25th of dec is christmas every year under the gregorian calendar. chinese new year falls on a different date every year on the gregorian calendar, but it's the same date when you're using the chinese agricultural calendar.

so you can enforce a calendar system by making people perform the same social rituals every year on what are the same dates on the calendar you want to use.

not like the series doesn't not tell you this but it's not that intuitive of a concept to grasp (also what with the whole, yknow, plot happening and the grand ensemble of characters getting introduced)

[revenant gun and glass cannon spoilers below]

it was described that jedao 2 felt horrified in revenant gun when kujen told him he needed him specifically for another hellspin fortress but idk, his further thoughts on that are left rather opaque and they're almost throwaway lines. it doesn't really sink in until you sit on the implications a bit. kujen wants to make his sentinent moth experiment saddled with jedao's remaining memory fragments re-enact hellspin fortress on "its anniversary" because that was a major historical event under his high calendar and so what kujen needed was "jedao" killing "enemies" plus his "own soldiers" alike as it is the most effective way to shift the calender back to kujen's preferred one. it's just so AHHHHHHHHHHDGDGAJJA

so yeah. i loved cheris torturing jedao in glass cannon xD something something thematic iterations, characters doing horrible things that are specifically and directly necessitated by the very laws of the world they live in. cool af

also yes, kujen, very fucked up of you to make torture the feature of your calendar, couldn't people just do weird ass things they wouldn't usually do. like what about a everyone eats 6 kel ration bars day

[aiyexayen]

shoutout to fanfic authors who love plots and write convoluted 300k epics full of twists and turns--plots are cool and i think they matter. shoutout to drabble writers and meme writers and crack aus. shoutout to sci-fi lovers and mystery crafters and horror fans cooking up spoopy stories about their blorbos. shoutout to all the fic authors who aren't even interested in character-driven stories, for any reason.

shoutout to self-indulgence fic authors who just wanna see their faves bang or explore kink even when it's not in character--and fic authors bathing in the tropiest most cliche smoochie fluff the exact same way--and bad endings and whump and dead doves that wreak wanton destruction too--because sometimes it's about your own emotional fulfillment (or your boner).

shout out to fic authors writing oc's or even ooc on purpose just because they can do what they want. shoutout to fic authors who project like crazy to write about themselves and process their shit but need the thinnest veneer of another person's identity to make the words flow. shout out to self-insert fic authors who don't even need that much.

shoutout to people exploring themes and genres and new concepts through words whether or not they're good at emotional continuity. shoutout to neurodivergents who don't understand characterisation and character interactions very well, who don't feel emotions or empathy, or who just don't care about the characters at all sometimes.

shoutout to poets and filk spinners and meta analysts. shout out to fic authors who get so wrapped up in the worldbuilding and lore expansion and politics of their aus or canonverses that individual characters cease to matter. shoutout to fic authors writing in documentary styles or with omnicient narrators or in absolutely wild experimental formats.

i fucking adore character-driven stories and character studies and relationship studies and i spend way too long contemplating characterisation sometimes. but other times i don't. other times i am so many of these other things and i am not being less fanfiction at those times. so shoutout to anyone who has any kind of story to tell through the medium of fanfiction. we're all part of the fanfiction 'genre' because fanfiction is so much more than just one thing.

[telomirage]

I heard water drop into the basket of my washing machine, which is NOT ON RIGHT NOW, and I thought I was going to be sick! it's brand new! WHAT COULD BE WRONG! and then the water heater started loudly burbling, which I don't think I've ever heard it do before, so I texted my friend to ask what was "normal." and I checked my taps and then checked my email to find that they've shut water off to half the buildings in my complex 🥲 what started as a water main break in one building has now become even more of an emergency

[eldritchcow]

.

[finnlongman]

I love your blog but how do you not know Eric cartman i assumed everyone in the English speaking world knew him!! He’s the lil fat boy from South Park btw 😄

I've never watched South Park or had any interest in it whatsoever, so I guess that's why ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[softgrungeprophet]

cracking open my goth tower to see if there's any space on the mobo for a second SSD since my HDD is about a decade old now and i'm starting to run into game compatibility issues lol

[silverhand-j]

Have to go out to fix my card but uh. Hm

[rootin-n-bootin]

So I haven’t really been seeing folks talk much here at all about what’s been going on with Hurricane Helene recovery- but I thought I might share something I thought was cool and important.

Because of how roads have been washed out making homes and towns inaccessible to vehicles, the Cajun Navy (organizations that performs search, rescue, and assistance during disasters) has partnered with Mountain Mule Packer Ranch to use the mules to get medications, food, and water to people in need.

I just think it’s incredible. Despite all the technology you’d think is accessible to help people out, mules are still the most reliable form of transport to save people’s lives

[heylinfanclub]

Showered.

Now assailed with the NEED TO DO SOMETHING. but lacking. Some Things.

God I miss when roleplay was easy.

[accessible-flatland-art]

[ID: Two digital drawings showing A Sphere and A Square based on the 2007 Flatland film. The first has a texture like paper, and a background of blue grids like graph paper, and shows A Square, who is greyscale, sitting on A Sphere's hand, looking over at him with a smile, thinking, "I think I'm dying…". A Sphere has one hand lifted and is thinking, "Wowza! I'm so amazing!" as he looks off to the side with a grin. A Sphere is yellow with red eyes, and two arms. A Square is grey, with two thin arms and legs, and a tail with a tuft of fur on the end. The artists' signature of "Arrimorr" is in the bottom corner. The second drawing shows A Sphere now without arms, looking over at A Square with narrowed eyes and a frown thinking, "he wants to see my insides so bad it makes him look stupid", while A Square, now with visible simple insides, smiles at him. End ID.]

Watched Flatland yesterday 😭 what an insanely silly movie

[technijianravi]

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