#Leda sisters

[heleniad]

i hate an evil woman, especially my daughter who slaughtered her own husband. and i’ll never approve of helen, your wife, or even speak to her. i don’t think much of your voyage to troy to get that worthless woman back again.

— tyndareus to menelaus, from euripides' orestes.

i don’t risk pollution talking to you. and yet i do lament my sister’s death, clytaemnestra, whom i never saw after i sailed off to troy, driven there by that fated madness from the gods. now i’ve lost her, i weep for our misfortune.

— helen to electra, from euripides' orestes.

it’s not good for a young unmarried girl to walk around in public.

— helen to electra about hermione, from euripides' orestes.

[wanderingmausoleum]

mostly-finished the dlc last night which really made me realize how many npc quests i fucked up or locked myself out of despite trying to be really careful to avoid that lmfao

[no1ryomafan]

Thinking about the idea of a casshern au that’s specifically a new take that’s closer to the original but uses the sins characters as if I’ll have time to make that/develop it given “I had a au like that for Jeeg and even Kikaider but it went nowhere + now I’m working on a actual big project so I can’t do anything else until it’s done which will take a few years at my rate”

but yknow? It’s fun to rotate concepts.

[bumblingbabooshka]

I’d die for leda she fascinated me so

Dejar is reporting you to sickbay but Leda is down

[feukt-42]

Elden ring + Shadow of the Erdtree lore thoughts

Alright, so, first off, obviously, spoilers ahead.

I've been thoroughly enjoying and getting my ass kicked by SotE and what ive seen of the lore so i wanted to ramble about it.

I specifically wanted to talk about how Elden Ring explores power and godhood.

In the base game, godhood isnt seen as inherently bad. Marika's golden order is fucked up six ways to sunday, but the blame mainly rests on Marika's shoulders it seems. She's a genocidal homewrecking war-mongerer who threw two of her children in the sewers bc of racism, she's not a good god, but it doesnt portray the problem as her being a god, just her being a mess. The game provides several "solutions" to unfuck everything :

Ranni's ending has you completely throw the system in the trash. She says, fuck it, godhood's the problem, im out of here. She is kinda right, but the lands remain fractured and the power vacuum left behind is going to be immense. We're on the right track but could be better.

The frenzied flame ending is just pure concentrated nihilism so i think we can move past it for this one.

The bunch of other endings are fairly similar : you beat Marika/Radagon's ass and you impose yourself as Elden Lord to keep her in check and fix the issues you see as most important. This doesnt fix anything long-term, the god in power is still the exact same fucking mess but with a chaperone now i guess.

None of these endings are very satisfying, they all leave you with a sense of "it could be worse i guess" (except the frenzied flame one but you get the point). This is where Miquella comes in :

Everything we hear about Miquella sounds great. He's kind, compassionate, against racism, doesnt like violence, etc etc. Cherry on top, he's even one of the characters with a direct shot at godhood, brilliant ! Why cant we just put him in charge, he'll do much better than the absolute wreck we have right now.

And thats where the base game leaves us, Marika is a fucked up mess of a person, and the obvious solution is to put the much better Miquella in her place.

Shadow of the erdtree, on the other hands, aims to set the record straight. The problem wasnt just Marika, the problem is inherent to godhood in and of itself.

In SotE, we see the land of shadow, the realm where Marika came from and ascended to godhood, and the realm where Miquella intends to do the same. And the more we hear about who Marika was before in snippets of lore, and the more we watch Miquella tread the road to godhood, we realise something :

There is no such thing as a good god

It doesnt matter how kind and compassionate you were, what your morals were, who you loved, who you loathed, none of it matters because you cannot grasp the power to become a god without sacrificing who you were before.

In the dlc we see Miquella shed more and more of himself, his flesh, his arms, his eye, his heart, his doubts, his fears and even his love. Miquella has shorn so much of who he was that he formed an entire new person (St Trina) from it. Some of him remains, he still wishes for a kinder world, but he cant sacrifice anymore of himself for it. Now he has to start sacrificing others.

Miquella was always blessed with the ability to charm others, and he sees it as the least painful path to make others do as he wishes. And so he charms his sister, he charms Mohg, he charms Radahn, his followers, Leda, Moore, Thiollier, Freyja, the hornsent, Ansbach, and everyone he can convince to give themselves up for his dream of a kinder world, regardless of the pain they might cause or feel by being enthralled by him.

And oh boy do they feel pain. Mohg is used and discarded like a ragdoll, and his followers and dynasty slowly crumble to nothing as the last pureblood knight watches helplessly, himself entranced by the one responsible after he failed to kill him. Radahn's soul is shoved in a corpse so that he can play consort to a god that is his antithesis, depriving him of his glory and honour as lord of the battlefield. Malenia is left alone to rot after Miquella has no use or help for her, and she endlessly waits for her brother to return. Every one of Miquella's followers has to grapple with those feelings of betrayal, manipulation, and lost memories returning all at once. It is by no means painless.

And so we end up with a god that is not much better than Marika was. On his path to godhood, Miquella has caused as much pain to those along the way as his mother once did, in this very same land that still feels the scars of Marika's ascension.

The only way to gain power is to take it from everyone else, and that cannot be achieved without pain.

[magpie-come-east]

Thinking about the forager brood and Moore and their parallels to Metyr and the Elden Beast and Count Ymir’s quest.

It’s been said before that each of Miquella’s followers are meant to be representatives of various characters vital to the story. Obviously Ansbach is Mohg’s. Leda’s is Miquella’s. Thiollier is Trina’s. Hornsent is well, the Hornsent people. Freyja is Radahn’s. And Moore is Malenia’s.

Moore is revealed to be a kin of the forager brood. Which we come to find is out are the ‘pests’ or Kindred of Rot. The Kindred of Rot are the abandoned children of the Rot Goddess.

It is often speculated that, like Millicent and her sisters, there were ‘born’ or summoned to Malenia after/around the battle of Aeonia.

When Miquella’s charm breaks, Moore says this:

He says ‘Our mother abandoned her brood’. Signifying he feels that maternal abandonment by the Rot Goddess as well. Moore and the Kindred, unloved by their Mother, cleave to Miquella to fulfill that love and forget their abandonment.

I think ultimately this is the connection to Malenia we were meant to see. Miquella never left Malenia- or intended to abandon her forever. He was going to try to use his Godhood to heal her of Rot. And he was going to take on the parental and guiding role for the Kindred. He intended to remove that ‘burden’ from Malenia- because it is clear she did not want to ascend.

I think these points also nicely mirror Metyr and her abandonment by the Greater Will.

There’s a theme of Gods abandoning their children and the strife it brings. And as Ymir states, Miquella wanted to take on the ‘sins of the mother’ and give love to the unloved.

[cannedwyrms]

Spoilers for Shadow of the Erdtree but...

I'm gonna talk a bit about Miquella.

So, I've seen a lot of (what I believe to be) misconceptions about what we learn about his character in SOTE. I'd like to clear them up as best I can, although I'm no expert at the lore. Still, I think a lot of people are quick to discard him as an irredeemable villain too quickly, or believe that his character in the dlc is different from how he was presented in the base game.

Now, in the base game, I too thought Miquella was pretty cool. He had the rare honor of being one of like 3 characters to not be racist, he seemed to actually care for his sister and have a good relationship with his brother, and he just seemed like the only demigod with some kind of basic empathy.

However, while I believe all of those things are true, there were signs that there was something deeper going on.

Take the bewitching branch, for example.

It's description goes like this:

"The Empyrean Miquella is loved by many people. Indeed, he has learned very well how to compel such affection."

So, basically, we already knew he could charm people.

Here, I think, is the first misconception. Miquella does not brainwash or mind control people, he just has the ability to make people like him. "He wields love to shrive clean the hearts of men," as the honorable sir Ansbach says.

Shrive, by the way, means to confess, or in this case I think absolve.

So, while Mogh is absolutely the victim, it should be noted that he didn't abandon his original goal. He just factored Miquella into it. His plan went from "rule my dynasty" to "rule my dynasty with Miquella." Still bad, I want to stress, but I think people believe that Miquella can just turn people into mindless slaves or something. All he can do is make you love him and see his point of view.

Next, let's talk about him and Malenia. In the base game, he seemed to really care for her, going as far as leaving the Golden Order when he learned it wouldn't help her.

Now, though, people believe he actually never cared about her at all and even that she was brainwashed into following him.

For this, I'll actually quote Miquella's dialogue in the Consort Radahn fight. (We'll get to him, don't worry)

"My loyal blade, and champion of the festival. Both your deeds will ever be praised in song."

So, when he says "my loyal blade," he's talking about Malenia, right? You know, Malenia, the blade of Miquella.

It's obvious to me that Miquella did care about his sister. His actions in the base game reflect this, and he's the same guy in the dlc, so of course he'd still care about her.

I suppose he could also be talking about Leda here, but what I got from her arc is that she was always doomed by her own bloodlust to be a failure to her cause. In the end, she never truly understood Miquella, and he probably never even knew she existed.

But I'll save all that for another post.

Point is, Miquella definitely cared a lot about his sister, so much so in fact that, in the moment he was so close to achieving his goals, he praised her accomplishments.

But, there's more to his dialogue, which I will use to clear up yet another misconception.

Miquella also praised the tarnished here. "Champion of the Festival," and all that.

This is because Miquella doesn't hate anyone. He doesn't want to fight us. Consider his instant lose move, where he charms you. To me, this reads as Miquella looking for a peaceful outcome to your conflict. What does he say to you?

"I promise you a thousand year voyage guided by compassion."

And

"Lord of the Old Order, let us go together."

It's clear to me that he's trying for a peaceful solution.

See, I think a lot of people have begun to believe that Miquella is some kind of compassionless robot, but, as always with elden ring characters, it's more complex than that.

Miquella obviously has a lot of empathy for the world. Maybe even too much. Instead of him wanting to rule over everything as some kind of God, he simply wants to make the world a kinder place.

Like Marika, he sought godhood not for personal power, but for a cause. But, as we all know by now, to become a god in Elden Ring is to abandon your humanity.

Miquella literally does this, while I think for Marika it's a bit more metaphorical.

Elden Ring is about how people lose themselves in pursuit of their goals, and this is especially true in SOTE.

So, with that framework, Miquella is actually the obvious choice for the main antagonist of the dlc.

Think about it.

What better antagonist could there be for a game about purpose and cause being twisted than a highly compassionate person who became a monster? It's almost painfully on the nose. (In a good way)

Miquella might even be aware that he's done awful things, but as long as it's in service of a better future, he probably sees it as a necessary evil. Still evil, mind you, but necessary.

Normally, I'd just say that if he worked on making everyone be less being racist and mean, then no one would need necessary evil, but Elden Ring avoids this because, at the time out tarnished arrives back at the lands between, racism is literally a law of reality.

It seems like the only way to change that would be for a new god to write new rules.

I don't know, that's all mostly speculation on my part, but whatever. My point is, Miquella absolutely makes sense as the main antagonist of the dlc, but he is notably not the main antagonist of the base game, nor the story at large.

Personally, I'd argue those titles fall to Morgott and Marika respectively, but I digress.

Miquella is just one link in a long chain of people fighting for a cause they believe in. Really, his actions are no worse than Ranni's, but strangely no one is really as upset about the fact that she literally had Godwin murdered to attain her goals as they are with Miquella doing the same thing to Mogh.

Something interesting that I noticed is that Miquella is actually very similar to Messmer. Whether that was intentional or not is not for me to say, but I do think it's interesting that the oldest demigod and the youngest have a lot in common.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm no Messmer lore expert , but, for example, Messmer is often described as being very compassionate and nice, only taking on the burden of being the face of the hornsent genocide to spare his mother that shame. It's an interesting contradiction, to be sure, and one that is quite similar to how Miquella sheds his humanity to make a brighter future.

Perhaps Messmer is meant, in part, to mirror Miquella to make his seemingly "villainous" turn make more sense.

Again, maybe that's just speculation on my part, but what's important is that Elden Ring stresses again and again that there is no such thing as pure evil. Everyone's a victim in some way.

All that to say, I don't think Miquella is out of character in the dlc. I think everything we learn about him is perfectly in line with his portrayal in the base game.

Alright, it's finally time to talk about the big guy with a little horse.

So, I've seen a lot of people say that Radahn was charmed and used by Miquella, or that Miquella only saw him as a tool, but I really don't think that's true.

Let's take a look at some more of Miquella's dialogue.

"Aspiring Lord of the Old Order. If you have known sin, if you grieve for this world, then yeild the path forward to us. To I, Miquella, and my Promised Consort, Radahn."

Now, I don't know about you, but of Miquella only saw Radahn as a tool, then what's with all the "Yeild the path forward to us," and "To I, Miquella, and my Promised Consort, Radahn."

If he really viewed Radahn as just a means to an end, then why specify the both of them, unless Radahn was always in on Miq's plot?

Also, if Miquella really only wanted a big guy to ride around on and fight for him, why go through all the trouble of making Radahn a promise? Why not just bewitch him from the start and just force him to follow you?

I don't know why Radahn and Malenia fought. Maybe that was part of the vow, if Miquella could grant Radahn a warrior's death, then he'd follow him, or something like that. So maybe my theory isn't totally sound, but I do still think it's just as plausible as the bewitched theory, if not more.

Another thing I've heard people say as evidence of the bewitched theory is that Radahn wouldn't have gone along with it because Leonard wouldn't be with him.

But, like, you guys, that horse is dead. You killed it in your fight with Radahn in the base game. And Radahn is obsessed with warrior's deaths and all that. He probably saw that Leonard was dead, mourned him silently, and even resolved to take take revenge on the one who killed him, which, again, is you.

And, as a side note, Starscourge Radahn did not treat Leonard with any amount of respect. Did we even see the same attack animations. He was pushing him into the ground, standing on him, and definitely not feeding him. Leonard was described as scrawny, but when we see him, he's downright skeletal. And of course Radahn wasn't taking care of him. He was a literal zombie.

So, I don't think Radahn was bewitched. I think he willingly went with Miquella, once his soul was put into Mogh's body.

Miquella, at his core, is compassion without understanding. He feels for the plight of the world and its inhabitants without having the context necessary to understand why they are suffering. It's a very childish outlook, reflected in his design and curse, his outward childlike form representing his nieve understanding of the world.

That's why he can only see godhood as the solution to the suffering. Because it's all he knows. He was an empearyan, after all.

Of course, if he was a little more emotionally intelligent, he'd realize that abandoning everything that made him who he was is a bad thing, but he's not. He can't see past his own status, not in an arrogant way, it's more like he just doesn't know or understand there's an alternative.

He's that theme I mentioned earlier, the pursuit of goals turning you into a monster, personified. I mean he literally leaves his humanity behind. Can't get much more obvious than that.

Well, that's everything I have on Miquella, at least for now. I've just seen so many "Miquella is actually super evil" type posts and videos, and just a general increase in Miquella hate, which maybe is to be expected, but I still think a lot of people missed the point.

If course, everything I've said is subjective, and if Miquella being evil is what makes you like the character, then more power to you.

But if you, like, actively hate Miquella or misunderstand what we're presented in game, then I don't know. I can't stop you, I guess, but maybe I've managed to change your mind. I think the fun of lore hunting in this game is that everyone kinda has their own version of events, it's almost like we're historians debating ancient history. Idk, I just find that cool, so if your interpretation differs from mine, I think that's fine. Just don't be an ass about it, basically.

Tl;dr: if you took a shot every time I started a thought with "now" or "so," you'd be dead.

Okay, that's all, bye.

A brief adendum to this post:

So I've done a bit more thinking, and somehow completely forgot about the fact that Miquella appeared in Caelid after Malenia bloomed, to help the wounded.

This does, at first blush, come off as quite the dick move on Miquella's part, as he didn't think to help his sister, but I do have some thoughts and speculations.

What if he couldn't? Like, he's a small guy, it's not like he could've carried her all the way back himself. Maybe he trusted Finlay (Malenia's gf, it's canon) enough to let her do it. I mean, I guess it depends on how he got to Caelid in the first place, but like how does anyone in this game get anywhere?

No one uses ships as far as I'm aware, and the only transportation we see is like horse or giant drawn carriages, which are already pretty slow. Maybe Finlay asked to carry her back. Maybe Miquella could have used Torrent, but idk. This is all just speculation on my end.

Anyway, I also think this points to my earlier speculation about Miquella's character thematically. He saw only the wounded he needed to help, but ignored the one closest to him in the process. This interpretation lends itself very well to the idea of his childlike, naive ideas of compassion.

Okay, that's really it this time. I'll probably talk about Leda and the others next.

Bye

[eruhamster]

Honestly for all the memes about Miquella being evil and Mohg being vindicated, considering the way only one of Miquella's followers truly aligns himself against Miquella with the idea that he's just manipulative(against the evil blood lord???), and how the Hornsent all seem to truly believe in him, and the actual good he's done throughout the Lands Between... I do think Leda has a point when she claims that you were only sent by the Erdtree. The grace very specifically leads you to Miquella in a way it does not lead you to kill the other demigods like Malenia.

Miquella, in other words, seems to be an actual threat to the Erdtree and the Greater Will. It wants you to kill him. Specifically him. I think Miquella legitimately was going to become a god, was going to follow through with his promises. He could force people to love him, but he had the true intention to become not Elden Lord, but a real god, so he can do the things he couldn't as a Demigod- bring his brother back, cure his sister, give those that Marika wronged justice - Bury the original sin, and embrace the whole of it.

He strikes me as a great unifier. He wasn't acting selfishly, and in fact was acting so selflessly that St Trina begs you to kill him rather than let him suffer as a god; she wants you to grant him mercy in death.

It gives me a bad taste that he had to die. He may end up failing, he might go nuts(given how Fromsoft usually goes) but he clearly wasn't evil, and his plan probably would have been far better than even the best Elden Ring ending where a Tarnished simply lets the status quo continue. And I think the fact that the grace leads you to him to get you to kill him REALLY suggests that he was a true threat, in a way that even Ranni was not, to the Greater Will.

I mean. Look who he picked as consort. The kindest man he knew. The man who was able to keep the stars out even when he'd completely lost his mind. There is not a single suggestion that he was only faking all that kindness he provided to every person Marika had wronged or that fought valiantly and justicely. Not a hint of malice in any quote from him. The only people who dislike him are themselves evil. I really do not think he is the villain. It's the opposite. You are. You doomed everyone he promised peace.

[hunnysnoops]

South Park Music HCs

What music I think the South Park characters would listen to.

Stan ✰ Kyle ✰ Kenny ✰ Cartman ✰ Wendy ✰ Bebe ✰ Heidi ✰ Tweek ✰ Craig ✰ Butters

With Spotify links!

Stan Marsh

Artists:

Radio Head

Siouxsie and the Banshees

Crywank

She Wants Revenge

System Of a Down

Slipknot

The Front Bottoms

Favourite Songs:

Atoma- Dark Tranquillity

Smokey Eyes- Lincoln

F.C.P.R.E.M.I.X- The Fall of Troy

Mr Grieves- Pixies

Misc:

Generally angsty

Gets embarrassed of his taste when he’s put on aux

He probably likes 90s dad rock

Whenever Stan listens to ‘System of a Down’ Cartman calls him ‘Syndrome of a Down’

Likes The Front Bottoms purely because he relates

Kyle Broflovski

Artists:

Dan Mangan

The Cure

Echo & the Bunnyman

Blur

Weezer

Billy Idol

Favourite Songs:

I Love You- Fontaines D.C.

Troubled Mind- Dan Mangan

The Killing Moon- Echo & the Bunnymen

Jumping Someone Else’s Train- The Cure

Candy- Paolo Nutini

Misc:

Cartman calls him a virgin for listening to Weezer

If he’s playing his music around you, he’ll sneak glances at you to see if you like it

Definitely has a poster for The Cure in his bedroom

Refuses to use Bluetooth headphones

Kenny McCormick

Artists:

Eminem

Outkast

Ini Kamoze

Car Seat Headrest

Cypress Hill

Limp Bizkit

Green Day

Favourite Songs:

Hits from the Bong- Cypress Hill

Sexy Drug- Falling in Reverse

Deadlines (Hostile)- Car Seat Headrest

Take A Look Around- Limp Bizkit

Misc:

Watches clips of Woodstock 99 on YouTube

Plays his music so loud that it spills through his headphones and gets weird looks for it

Listens to Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter with his little sister

Eric Cartman

Kanye West

T-Pain

Lady Gaga (we all saw this coming)

Rihanna

Black Eyed Peas

Oliver Tree

Pitbull

Favourite Songs:

Church- T-Pain, Teddy Verseti

Meet Me Halfway- Black Eyed Peas

I Can’t Stop- Will Smith

Bury Me Alive- Oliver Tree

Happiness is a Butterfly- Lana Del Rey

Misc:

Strikes me as the type of guy who doesn’t really listen to music

Unironically likes Oliver Tree (His music and him as a person)

Rips on everyone for their music but won’t tell them who he listens to

Lip syncs to Wiz Khalifa while flexing in the mirror

Listens to T-Pain and Will Smith to make him feel tough

Prefers podcasts

Wendy Testaburger

Artists:

The Shins

Gwen Stefani

Hozier

Grizzly Bear

Nelly Furtado

Olivia Rodrigo

Elliot Smith

Favourite Songs:

Swan Upon Leda- Hozier

Lacy- Olivia Rodrigo

Stand By Me- Ben E.King

Vienna- Billy Joel

Pocketful of Sunshine- Natasha Bedingfield

Misc:

Thunder makes her think of stan so she skips it

Relates to Vienna and probably got a small tattoo for it after she graduated

Probably has an eclectic taste and loves 2010s pop

Lets everyone else play their music while she’s driving and never complains

Stares at her ceiling and listens to Elliot Smith when she’s sad

Gets ready listening to y2k pop songs

Bebe Stevens

Artists:

Jungle

Wild Belle

Dominic Fike

Kesha

Avril Lavigne

Justin Bieber (baby era)

MGMT

Favourite Songs:

Feet Don’t Fail Me Now- Joy Crookes

Back On 74- Jungle

Memory Box- Peter Cat Recording Co.

Keep You- Wild Belle

Beauty And A Beat- Justin Bieber, Nicki Minaj

Ur So Gay- Katy Perry

Misc:

Hates sad music, she’ll force herself to listen to USHER during a breakdown

Picky about her music, if someone plays a song she doesn’t like she’ll definitely skip it or complain until someone else does

Mentioned she liked Justin Bieber and then got in an argument with Cartman because of it

Never lets Clyde near the speaker

Screams Ur So Gay at the top of her lungs when it comes on

Heidi Turner

Artists:

Jack Johnson

Syd Matters

Daughter

Fleet Foxes

Rainbow Kitten Surprise

Noah Kahan

Of Monsters and Men

Favourite Songs:

Open Season- High Highs

To All of You- Syd Matters

Two Weeks- Grizzly Bear

Sitting, Waiting, Wishing- Jack Johnson

Sisyphus- Andrew Bird

Blue Ridge Mountains- Fleet Foxes

Misc:

Loves going for walks while she listens to music

Sends you songs that remind her of you

Listens to every song you send her and tells you what she likes about it

Hums when she has her headphones in without realising

Her and all of her friends love Noah Kahan

Tweek Tweak

Artists:

Billie Holiday

Billie Marten

Johann Sebastian Bach

Claude Debussy

Ludwig van Beethoven

Foals

Connie Francis

Favourite Songs:

Who’s Sorry Now- Connie Francis

Cello Suite No. 1 in G Minor- Johann Sebastian Bach

Méditation from Thaïs- Jules Massenet

Bad Apple- Billie Marten

The Lark Ascending- Ralph Vaughan Williams

Misc:

I actually think he would hater Hyper-Pop

Prefers slow/classical/instrumental songs

Listens to a lot of white noise, really specific ones like ‘Heavy Rain in Autumn Fairy Forest 9 hours’

Musical prodigy, plays piano and cello

Craig Tucker

Artists:

Nirvana

Hole

No Doubt

Foo Fighters

Pulp

Arcade Fire

Jeff Buckley

Favourite Songs:

Common People- Pulp

Malmo- Mook

Forget Her- Jeff Buckley

The Pretender-Foo Fighters

Dumb- Nirvana

Misc:

Made one playlist in eighth grade and never listens to anything else

Thinks Courtney Love killed Kurt Cobain

Hates TikTok music, like genuinely.

Somewhat of a gatekeeper

Butters Stotch

Artists:

She & Him

Blonde

Kate Bush

Dolly Parton

Regina Spector

The La’s

The Mama’s and the Papa’s

Favourite Songs:

You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine- Lou Rawls

In the Summertime- Mungo Jerry

Hey, Lucky Lady- Dolly Parton

The Tide is High- Blondie

Why Do You Let Me Stay Here- She & Him

Don’t Let The Good Life Pass You By- Cass Elliot

Clay Pigeons- Michael Cera

Misc:

Songs absentmindedly all the time, annoys the hell out of everyone

Quotes the songs he listens to

Developed choreography in middle school and still remembers it

Asks people if they’ve heard a super popular song that’s all over the radio and social media out of genuine curiosity

Anyways, that’s all I got for now. Re log or comment what you think they’d listen to bc I’m genuinely curious, thanks for reading!

Also it literally took hours to add all of those Spotify links so I hope you got something out of this! they wouldn’t let me add more than 100 :/

[glitchy-creations]

Odysseus and Ctimene

I couldn’t get the idea of Odysseus being forced to tell Ctimene, his sister and wife to Eurylochus, that her husband was never coming home after his journey. This started as a traditional sketch to start off a new sketchbook but i decided to do a digital version as well.

While I was working I kind of realised there was both a happy and sad interpretation to it; either Ody is reuniting with his sister or he’s having to console her. So, I tried out a lighting/shading tutorial I saw on tiktok to give off both vibes.

I’ve included both versions with and without the shading so y’all can see the differences. Also played around with backgrounds & I’m vibing with the gouache brushes.

Since I like the idea that Telemachus and Odysseus look very similar, Ody pretty much looks like my older Telemachus just with lighter hair and a fuller beard. When I designed Ctimene I was referencing a statue of Leda my local museum has for her hairstyle. I like colour motifs so to show her familial relationship to Ody her hair tie is blue, but her dress is a magenta/red to symbolise her marriage if Eurylochus. Her shawl would be like a funeral shawl and ngl I was very drawn to Alma’s colour palette from Encanto 🫣

[prismatic-starstuff]

i've come to the conclusion that i love miquella and all his rights and all his wrongs tbh

like, he is the person who literally carved out and removed his capacity to love; but he's also the person who wants to right all the wrongs of his mother's rule and make the world better. he is the person who bewitched leda and her allies for his own ends; but he's also the person who has earned the loyalty of the many people he helps and houses in his haligtree. he is the person who orchestrated his half-brother's death; but he's also the person who turned his back on fundamentalism because it couldn't help his sister.

in a game full of complicated characters whose motivations are often unclear at first, it makes sense that miquella isn't an outlier in that regard! and personally... i don't think his actions in the DLC contradict anything he'd done beforehand. like, if we hadn't rocked up, chances are he would've went back to the haligtree as planned; malenia - who seems to be loyal of her own accord with no bewitchment - is waiting there because she believes he'll return, and there's nothing that says he wouldn't.

what he did to mohg was cruel, undeniably, no question. but all the rest of his actions still exist, and i think that gets forgotten about a lot! the wrongs happened... but the rights did also still happen; so to talk about him as if he's some kind of pure evil isn't true, because it's ignoring the genuinely good actions he has canonically done.

(...and also... i'm not throwing shade at anyone, but i've got to say it: some things i've seen attributed to miquella and mentioned as reasons to dislike him - bewitching malenia and/or the denizens of the haligtree into being loyal, bewitching radahn and/or forcing him into the consort plan, planning to bewitch the entire world into submission - are actually speculation that many people, including lore youtubers unfortunately, are claiming as fact. i thought the same thing about radahn at first, but then the story sat with me a while and i realised it wasn't stated one way or the other; it's the same with those other points too!)

[halfratsalready]

“No more dreaming like a girl, so in love with The Wrong World” ✨

Chapter 1 - July 19th.

“Nearly a year after her disappearance, Sara wants nothing more than to find her missing sister Leda, but being pulled into the world of a dancing game only to discover that Leda has become its newest, most dangerous villain isn’t exactly the reunion she had in mind.”

8 chapters + a short epilogue. Alternating Sara, Night Swan, and Jack POV’s. Also starring our beloved Discoball, the rest of the Just Dancers, Cygnus, and the Traveler, with a little bit of Wanderrose for good measure. Updates every Friday.

I hope to see you all there! ☺️✨

[ltwilliammowett]

Today in the 13th door a little beauty that is often forgotten. Once built in India, she is now the oldest English frigate still afloat. We are talking about HMS Trincomalee

HMS Trincomalee

More infos about her here:

Laid down in Honourable East India Company's shipyard in Bombay in 1816, together with her sister ship HMS AMPHIRITE and launched on 12 October 1817, TRINCOMALEE was one of 47, 38-gun Leda class frigates built between 1800 and 1830. Nearly all of them were of oak, but the two Bombay ships were made of Malabar teak.

Her building had been delayed by the plans being lost on HMS JAVA which was sunk by USS CONSTITUTION, a second set of plans not arriving in India until two years later.

When TRINCOMLAEE reached Britain in 1819, she went straight into 'ordinary' for 26 years in Portsmouth harbour. In 1845 she was commissioned for service in areas which lacked adequate coaling stations for the new steam vessels. Her stern was modified to an elliptical style, and she was reclassified as a 26-gun Corvette. In 1847 she served in the West Indies and then in the Eastern Campaign of the Crimean War. After patrols in the Pacific she was again paid off into ordinary in 1857. Three years later she became a Drill Ship for Royal Naval Volunteers. Between 1860 and 1897 she was moored, mast-less and with deckhouses in Sunderland then West Hartlepool and finally in Southampton. She was sold to shipbreakers in 1897.

The philanthropist G Wheatly Cobb bought HMS TRINCOMLAEE to replace the training ship FOUDROYANT which had foundered two years earlier on its way to take up a similar role, and renamed the ship FOUDROYANT. She was moored in Falmouth and later at Milford Haven and finally at Portsmouth. On Cobb's death on 1932 she was managed by the IMPLACABLE Committee of the Society for Nautical Research.

During the war the vessel was taken over for the training of Sea Cadets. In 1947 she was given back to her owners and became an adventure training base for Sea Cadets, Sea rangers, Sea Scouts and other youth groups. From 1957 to 1987 she was moored at the entrance to Haslar Creek, Portsmouth. The Foudroyant Trust later moved her further north to avoid her being rammed by submarines. Training was discontinued due to the poor state of the ship and insufficient trainees. In 1987 the Foudroyant Trust transferred the ship to Hartlepool where a private yard had just paid off after restoring HMS WARRIOR 1860. In 1990 the Trincomalee was restored under the Trincomalee Trust. In 2016 the National Museum of the Royal Navy took responsibility for oversight of Trincomalee.

[miquella-everywhere]

I'm disappointed with the Miquella related items from the DLC; they're just rehearsed versions of the items we already got in the base game.

Multilayered rings of light = rings of light

Empyrean burgeoning buds = sacramental buds

Charming branches = bewitching branches.

This just fuels my gut feeling that FromSoftware actually exhausted GRRM's lore on Miquella and didn't know what else to give him.

Your thoughts on the matter?

Yeah that's definitely what it all feels like :/

So far the only Miquella related item that I enjoy is the Dryleaf Seal, that description of the Dry Leaves seeing the end of the Erdtree in the fallen leaves and the dedicating themselves to a strict faith as the awaited the coming of a new God i.e Miquella?

Oh I love that. It connects to the Fallen Leaves line that we hear so often in the game and it connects to Miquella so naturally I love it very much lol I will definitely be making a Dryleaf character/build my next playthrough lol

But yeah... Everything else is definitely a rehash, I can somewhat forgive Layered Rings of Light because with the Dryleaf Seal maxed out and 70 faith that thing hits hard 😂

But what really pisses me off the most is the Charming Branch and for three reasons:

One, it's just the Bewitching Branch with different personal specs.

Two, its ugly, like wtf is this? OG Bewitching Branch has red and gold blooms, and Trinas new Branch has flowers on it too, so why the hell are these just some freaking ugly ass twigs???? I hate the way it looks >:(

Three, its item description is just a retelling of what Leda told us about Miqs charm nonsense, like, give us more information please you are literally so disappointing.

It's just really so disappointing that Fromsoft clearly had no idea what to do with Miquella when the base game had literally so much promise and intrigue regarding Miq. His relationship with Godwyn, the Eclipse, him wishing to cure his sister, his connection to Ranni and Melina, best horsie Torrent, the shadow beasts that all Empyreans are apparently supposed to have but Miq and Mal dont for some plothole reason lmao nothing on those guys 🤷 how the Albinaurics are all loyal to Miquella and the Haligtree but the DLC only has one Albinauric and its to pull the bullshit that Gaius is actually an albinauric(i will strangle you) how he abandoned Golden Order Fundamentalism and yet turned around and went his moms route even though he abandoned her Order, his opposition to the Outer Gods, FUCKING UNALLOYED GOLD.

Literally Fromsoft how the fuck did you fumble this????

But hey why would that all even matter when Radahn is soooo cool~ 🙂👍

Yeah so anyway, I will die mad.

[nightcolorz]

loveee the armand music discussions i feel the need to talk about some of my most armand songs of all time (no mitski this time as we’ve already discussed that ^^)

- notre dame by Paris Paloma (literally any paris paloma song tbh esp the fruits and labour but notre dame isn’t appreciated nearly enough) Very very religious guilt armand, angel symbolism heavy, also very cult era armand in paris. I would put lyrics here but oh its the whole song. its the entire song.

- Abstract (Psychopomp) by Hozier. again impossible to put specific lyrics but the song being about painful memories, getting past traumas with new loves, and heavy symbolism of a hurt animal in the road and the singer feeling kinship with it is just so SO armand imo its impossible to explain. i always think of a deer being the “poor thing in the road” in the song though it is left to interpretation, and armand’s doe eyes very much come to mind with that.

- Spellbound by Siouxsie and the Banshees (Following the footsteps of a rag doll dance, we are entranced, spellbound) Both these lyrics and the intense sound of the song bring to mind Armand’s heavy use of and skill with the spell gift, especially in TVL (for books) and s2ep5 (the show) You do feel entranced by his spells even if you don’t realise it and this song captures it perfectly (also i think S&TB are very armand overall so honourable mentions to Cities in Dust, Arabian Knights and Melt which are all sooo armand as well i just didn’t want to make this so Siouxsie-centric)

- Devils Don’t Fly by Natalia Kills (Angels were never meant to fall, and you were the loveliest of all) This song reminds me so much of 2018 YouTube but oh the lyrics are so very armand. Always called an angel, even referred to it as shorthand, but so torn religiously that he could never be holy, never be more than a demon with what he is and has been through. But being made so young and so beautiful, its very fallen angel of him.

- speaking of angels, Not Strong Enough by boygenuis (Always an angel, never a God, I don’t know why I am the way I am) I don’t feel like i need to explain this one it just Is

- Teen Idle by Marina (I want back my virginity so I can feel infinity, I want to drink until I ache, I want to make a big mistake, I want blood guts and angel cake) & (Adolescence didn’t make sense, a little loss of innocence, the ugly years of being a fool, ain’t youth meant to be beautiful?) Just something about Armand finding his worth through his beauty and physical desire, not to mention the utter horror of having to be a teenager forever, seen as that same sort of obscene beauty forever. The line about drinking and making mistakes feels very Venice-era as well, with Amadeo’s main coping mechanisms being getting blackout drunk on the daily and sleeping with people he knows he shouldn’t because he doesn’t feel like he’s good for anything else or even able to do anything else (which of course also leads to his death eventually)

- Jolene by Dolly Parton (Your beauty is beyond compare, with flaming locks of auburn hair) Definitely sillier but reminds me a lot about how people in the books (especially lestat) wax poetic about how beautiful Armand is and fear it somewhat in a mix of jealousy and insecurity.

- Dominion / Mother Russia by Sisters of Mercy. this one is much more vibe based that lyrical but there is the detail of armand being described as russian in the books and also the lyrics being very repetitive and prayer like (as well as the ‘some say prayers’ line) very much remind me of his repetitive prayers both when young and in the cult

- Swan Upon Leda by Hozier (One more sweet boy to be butchered by men, But the gateway to the world is still outside the reach of them, Would never belong to angels, Had never belonged to men) This song is overall about sexual violence and reproductive rights, but these lyrics deeply remind me of Amadeo’s abuse as a child and young man, and of men feeling a right to him and his body because they found him beautiful, angelic.

I have about a million more but I won’t go on too much. Hope you like my choices and give them a listen if you’re unfamiliar with any (to anyone reading this <3)

AHHHHHHH THANK U FOR THIS IM OBSESSED!!!! GONNA ADD THE ONES THAT ARENT ALREADY ON MY PLAYLIST RNN!!! (I already have got not strong enough, Jolene, devils don’t fly, teen idle, and Notre Dame, we r the same person). U get Armand like no one else mutual kittenbradensgf. Devils don’t fly made me laugh because it’s also on my Armand playlist because 2018 AMV YouTube songs r always so Armand to me 😭 !!! Ur so right the lyrics r so him. angel of darkness is on mine and I can’t stay it’s entirely ironic, lmao. Ugh this is my favorite I’m gonna run in a room and listen to these forever, ur analysis is so good

[mac-tirs]

the tarnished, loyal blade (sote spoilers)

i'm a little slow on the uptake admittedly, but it just occurred to me right now that there is actually a reason why this dialogue occurs. spoilers below the read more.

i always found it strange that miquella referred to us as his "loyal blade" because while, yes, we ARE the champion of the festival, we've never explicitly served miquella. most of us would've even ransacked the haligtree, his realm and seat of power, and killed his twin sister and half-siblings on our journey to ascending to lordship. we were never charmed by miquella either, unlike the others, and we directly oppose him by slaying his actual loyal followers, like leda, dane, and moore.

but then i thought about it, and yes, we ARE his loyal blade. we enacted his will not only in the lands between, but also in the land of shadow. we slew radahn and mohg, granting him his franken-consort. we became or will become elden lord, becoming the last scion of the old order that miquella seeks to overthrow. we softened the lands between up for a new ruler by wiping out the other shard bearers and allowing a god and lord-shaped vacuum to form, which miquella would have no trouble to fill.

we killed messmer, his half-brother and one of the last demigods, and romina, the saint that caused the spread of scarlet rot through communing with the god of rot, which likely led to malenia being cursed upon her birth.

we meticulously removed the various pawns and pieces on the board that would've prevented miquella from ascending to godhood. despite being a god cursed with nascency, fated to always fail, he actually did achieve godhood, and its all because of the decisions we made and the people we killed that he made it.

don't get me wrong, miquella exerted great effort to get to where he was, but we were on his heels from the moment we entered the shadow lands. he shatters his great rune, one of the last vestiges of his self that remained, potentially morethan halfway through our journey in the shadow lands, meaning he hadn't ascended to godhood yet before you approach the shadow keep or the land east of bonny village.

we are singlehandedly responsible for his rise to godhood. so i suppose it makes sense he'd see us as his loyal blade, even if we were the one to slay him in the end. we served him better unknowingly than most, if not all, of his loyal knights and followers.