#This post may be edited later after more information will be revealed :) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thefirstknife · 1 year

Text

The Witness and the Unveiling

I've been processing the new cutscene for days now and had a lot of good conversations with other people. A lot of people are interested in figuring out what this cutscene means for the lore book Unveiling, which is also my big interest. I'll talk about the lore book itself and how it related to the cutscene and what that possibly means for our understanding of the setting.

A LOT of the text will be super speculative, very long, often abstract and ultimately not conclusive. I'll drop absolutely everything I can think of to discuss about this to try and gather every possible question and possible answers in one place. But the truth is that we don't know the answers to these questions and maybe we never will.

What is the Unveiling lore book?

First things first. The Unveiling is a lore book that we started uncovering at the end of Shadowkeep. Shadowkeep campaign ends with us acquiring a strange artifact: an orb that we recover from the Lunar Pyramid, in front of the statue of a veiled figure. As soon as we touch it, we are transported into the Black Garden and the cutscene with our clone plays.

After this cutscene, we return to the Moon and we give the orb we collected to Eris. At the time of Shadowkeep's original release, Eris worked on the orb for weeks to come, revealing 1 lore tab per week. Every page of this lore book is narrated by an unknown entity who told us about the time before the universe existed and then about the creation of the universe. It also told us about the Gardener and the Winnower, their struggle, their philosophies, what we (Guardians) mean to them and ultimately what might be coming in the future. It's one of the fundamental texts for Destiny.

Is the Unveiling now retconned with the new cutscene?

This is a question that gets both asked and claimed a lot. The answer is no. First and foremost, if we're talking about a hard retcon (Bungie saying that this lore book is no longer considered canon or Bungie simply ignoring to mention it ever again), that is literally impossible. Unveiling is the culmination of a non-vaulted campaign that's considered a big part of the Light and Darkness saga and it will never be removed from canon. This text is not only the ending of a campaign, it is referenced in-game; characters have canonically read it and commented on it, most notably in Witch Queen Collector's Edition and it's directly referenced in the lore book Inspiral from the newest raid which I'll touch on later. But the point is, if they wanted to quickly push Unveiling under the rug, they wouldn't have told us "hey remember Unveiling?" with the Lightfall's raid lore.

If people are talking about a retcon in the sense of "we believed that certain things from this text are true, but now new information is challenging that, does that mean that the original text is being retroactively changed or rendered pointless?" The answer is also no, though with a big caveat. (super long post under)

The thing is that the Unveiling was never 100% proven true. We have always known this. We've received this text from a Darkness artifact and the narrator of it is very clearly both biased and unreliable. The Unveiling is not telling us objective truth, it's telling us a biased interpretation of something that may or may not be truth. There is probably some truth to the Unveiling, which I'll get into a bit later, but it is largely a propaganda piece, meant to sway us to the side of the Darkness and reject the Traveler (Gardener). It uses a familiar and casual language to make it more relatable while it talks about how the Gardener made a fundamental mistake by wanting to introduce complexity and unpredictability to life.

So if new information comes out and says "Unveiling was all a lie or wrong or simply a myth with little connection to reality" it would be perfectly in line with what we know about Unveiling right now. I expected that at some point we should learn directly if Unveiling was just a biased tale filled about something incomprehensible that may never be fully true. The new cutscene does nothing to Unveiling outside of simply giving it a new context and a new way to interpret it. This is not new for the Destiny setting which is actually filled with unreliable narrators, characters who lie and characters who are wrong. As a matter of fact, that's what any setting should be like if it strives for realistic storytelling.

The fact that the Unveiling is directly referenced in the newest lore from the newest raid means that Bungie didn't magically forget about this lore book. They literally basically added two extra pages of it with Root of Nightmares. But we never knew the true meaning of the Unveiling so any new information that confirms or denies certain parts of it makes full sense in the story.

Unveiling and the Witness cutscene

So, what are the issues and contention between these two things? Well, there's a lot. A lot of little details from the Witness cutscene are now putting a lot of original interpretations of Unveiling into question. Did we blindly believe in this origin of the universe myth that the Unveiling told? Is it a complete fabrication? Is there at least a kernel of truth to it? Who wrote the Unveiling?

The biggest divergence comes from the fact that Unveiling claims there are incomprehensible entities that created the universe called Gardener and Winnower; the Gardener becoming the Traveler and the Winnower being completely unknown. The cutscene explicitly calls the Traveler "Gardener" but it's revealed that was a name given to it by the Witness' species when they stumbled upon it on their planet, covered in dirt. How can this be the entity that created the universe?

When the Witness was officially introduced at the end of the Witch Queen, the immediate assumption of many was that the Witness was the Winnower. This is now categorically untrue, at least on some level (will get to it eventually later); the Witness is not an entity that fought the Gardener in the allegorical garden that predates the existence of the universe. So does the Winnower still exist as that entity that fought in the garden?

Let's summarise the Unveiling piece by piece first. First page is an introduction with a lot of grand claims about the nature of existence. It immediately makes it clear that the narrator is selling us a worldview:

But imagine the abomination of a world where nothing can end and no choice can be preferred to any other. Imagine the things that would suffer and never die. Imagine the lies that would flourish without context or corrective. Imagine a world without me.

Pages two, three, four and five claim to detail a time from before the universe existed presented in an allegorical tale about a Gardener and Winnower that live in a garden and play a game. The allegorical language is not subtextual, it's very much explicitly told that this is an allegory.

Once upon a time,* a gardener and a winnower lived** together in a garden.*** * It was once before a time, because time had not yet begun. ** We did not live. We existed as principles of ontological dynamics that emerged from mathematical structures, as bodiless and inevitable as the primes. *** It was the field of possibility that prefigured existence.

The story goes: before the universe existed, Gardener and Winnower played a game of life. They were able to configure the game board with starting set pieces and then let it play out and see what comes out of it. The end of the game was always the same; the same pattern would always win and the game's ending would always be predictable. This bothered the Gardener who wanted complexity and freedom. It didn't bother the Winnower; the Winnower prefered the clean and clear cut outcome that always follows the same principles and always leads to the same conclusion.

Page six is an interjection with a philosophical question about the nature of a specific protein. The page explains it to us and asks if this protein is an agent of Darkness or the Light. This is not entirely relevant to the topic at hand, but it's important for the understanding of how Unveiling is trying to exert its bias onto the reader by presenting some sort of a gotcha. It wants us to come to the conclusions that benefits the narrator.

After that, page seven resumes the origin story of the universe. They fought together in the garden about their differences and about the Gardener's decision to make a new rule for the game. Their fight was so fundamental that it led to the creation of the universe. The chapter title is "T=0" which means "time equals zero" and is a part of understanding how the universe was made out of nothing.

The garden had given birth to creation, the rules were in place, and there would never be a second chance. We played in the cosmos now. We played for everything.

Page eight returns to trying to sway us to its side by telling us that the concept of predation is what made all of life possible and that it is the narrator who is responsible for our existence.

It was the first defector—the first predator. It changed everything. Now the oozeballs needed sensors to watch for danger, and brains to integrate those senses and generate plans of survival, and swift neurons and muscles to enact that plan. This was the Cambrian Explosion, the great birth of complex life on your world. I caused it. I, the defector, the destroyer, the one who takes.

It's selling us a worldview again. It wants us to believe that the reason we have everything we do is because of the sword logic; everyone fighting for the right to exist. When everyone fights, everyone has to evolve to defend and survive, therefore the reason we've evolved is because we had to fight. This is a huge contrast with how the Gardener works. The Gardener jumpstarts and uplifts species by gardening, terraforming, evolving them without the need to struggle. The Gardener also doesn't pick and choose when it comes to terraforming; everyone is equally important and you don't have to justify or prove your right to exist. An ant's value is the same as a human's. To the narrator, that simply cannot be. If the ant can't prove the right to exist by being stronger, then it should not exist. This always showed bias and the way this ideology works on the misinterpretation of the "survival of the fittest" phrase; survival of the fittest isn't "survival of the strong" it's "survival of those who are best adapted to their environment."

Page nine is very important and is one of the things that makes Unveiling possibly true in some aspects. Namely, this page called Patternfall, is about the Vex. The narrator describes the Vex and how they existed in the allegorical garden from which they escaped into the universe with the Big Bang. Before the battle between Gardener and Winnower, the Vex, this pattern, always won the game. The Vex were the winning outcome of every game played, the source of Gardener's frustration and Winnower's elation.

Given that we know that the Vex are real and that they have a... tenuous relationship with time, this part of the story feels correct. It would make sense that the Vex predate time itself, which would explain why they are able to navigate it and manipulate it as easily as we manipulate any other force; the Vex already existed when all of time was a singularity before the Big Bang, this is known to them. Not only that, but the Vex can't understand paracausality, which was added to the game as a new rule, a rule they've never seen before. The description of the Vex in this chapter is also on point so it's has to be correct or close to correct.

They propagated in the saline meltwater of comets orbiting the first stars. That broth of chemicals became their substrate, and they learned to catalyze impossible chemistry with quantum tricks. Then, they rained from the sky into the steaming seas of fallow worlds, and there they built their first housings from geometry and silica.

We know that they are linked to first stars because of Clovis Bray's expedition to 2082 Volantis, an impossibly old star dating back to the beginning of the universe that the Vex have kept artificially alive ever since by refuelling it.

In all their transformations, they retained that kernel of ultimate self-sufficiency that had made them victors in the flower game. But they are not incontrovertibly destined to rule this cosmos. They were made before Light and Darkness, but the rules are different now, and even this pattern must adapt.

Patternfall also makes a note about the Vex that are alligned with Darkness: Sol Divisive of the Black Garden.

They are not all mine, not in the way that admirers such as my man Oryx are mine: utterly devoted to the practice of my principle. But some of them have, nonetheless, found their way home.

This specific page tells us that at least in some way, some sections of the Unveiling must be telling an objective truth, or at least be as close to the truth as possible. Barring any new reveals about the Vex, this seems to fit with what we know about them so it must be correct. The Vex are the way they are because they predate the universe and their existence in the universe right now is the only remnant of a time before time. They used to be the final shape, always, until paracausality was introduced and now they must fight with the rest of us to reclaim their position. This means that the allegorical garden where the Gardener and Winnower lived and fought must be in some way real. Remember, we are talking about a time from before the universe. The word "real" is a very loose description of that place, but the Vex must've come from there and possibly have a memory of being there so it there must be a "there" before the Big Bang. Mind boggling stuff going on. (As an aside, the Vex HAVE to be the core of The Final Shape expansion. They gotta. Also note that there is a weird metaphysical space on the other side of the portal)

Speaking of aspects that have to be true or at least reflect truth; there is the Tree of Silver Wings. This is mentioned throughout Unveiling as a tree that existed in the garden that was toppled when the Gardener and Winnower fought. The Tree is clearly real because we've seen iterations of it several times now. A completely new Tree was grown in the cradle on Io and now we can also see the Tree in Root of Nightmares, growing at the cradle on the Witness' Pyramid. The seeds of the Tree are also real; Osiris had one and so did Calus and we've seen both. How does the allegorical Tree from an allegorical garden from before the universe existed relate to the real Trees in a very real universe is completely unknown.

Page ten is a lot more attempts to convince us that the narrator is the correct choice to follow and that its philosophy is the winning one and that we should abandon the Gardener and join them. The narrator also tells us that we don't have rush with our answer because it is coming over to meet us anyway. This was the end of Shadowkeep so it was quite an ominous message. The Shadowkeep year ended with the arrival of the Black Fleet to our system and then was further expanded in Beyond Light where we gained a more direct contact with them and their gifts of stasis.

The final page, eleven, is Eris' message to us about hope and resistance to the allure of Darkness. Mind you that she's not talking about using aspects of Darkness as tools, but more about the philosophy of it as it's presented in Unveiling; you can use the Darkness without entertaining the Darkness and the philosophy of the extreme version of the sword logic.

Okay, so what's the issue between this and the Witness cutscene? Well, before the reveal of the Witness in general, we believed that the narrator of the Unveiling, the Winnower, is the big bad. The entity that is the origin of Darkness, the entity that made the Black Fleet, the entity that controls our enemies. This was never confirmed, but it was a reasonable conclusion to Unveiling, until further notice. Now we know that some parts of this aren't true. The Witness is the big bad and the Pyramids are just the remains of its species' technology. And while the Witness does fulfil some of the roles of the Winnower, we now know that the Witness is not the origin of Darkness so it cannot be the Winnower that's spoken of in Unveiling, not the Winnower that existed before the universe.

The Witch Queen and some hints here and there before that (mostly in the Presage mission where Savathun more or less explicitly told us that the Darkness is not the same as the entity that we're fighting against) introduced the Witness directly without any metaphors or vague language. We finally saw this being, in full glory, as it emerged, moved and spoke. From then until now, we've tried to understand the Witness but we really knew nothing substantial.

A lot of conversations were about the nature of the Witness and the Winnower, the narrator of Unveiling. Were they the same thing? Or are they separate entities? Is the Winnower even real or is it literally just a metaphor for a philosophy, an idea, that the Witness represents? There's always people who will immediately clamor about "retcons" but once again, the Unveiling was never an objective truth. We made assumptions about the Unveiling and its narrator, but none of those assumptions were ever confirmed in any way. This is also reflected in-game with characters discussing the meaning of the Unveiling in many different ways. Unveiling being unreliable and unclear was intended. The Witness existing does not contradict or remove Unveiling's significance. It just recontextualises and already unreliable text that was never objective to begin with.

And it continues to do so. The Witness cutscene first and foremost shows us the Traveler, curiously covered in dirt and depicted almost as if it's rising from the ground. The Witness' people are described as discovering it and naming it "Gardener." It then uplifted them, terraformed their world and gave them a golden age which is familiar to us.

But wait. If the Gardener is from a time before the universe, how is it now suddenly a dirt covered orb on a random planet? This is where the Unveiling being interpreted literally becomes a problem. If the Gardener (and Winnower) aren't from a time before the Big Bang and that whole allegory of a garden that existed before the universe is a lie, then what is the Unveiling and who wrote it and for what purpose?

I've seen a lot of good discussions on it that I'd like to highlight here. This post discusses things in a similar way to what I'm writing here, for example. Just a little while ago, I reblogged this interpretation of it which I really like which differs from this. There's been a lot of various similar theories in which the Witness has simply created this idea of the Winnower and the associated philosophy after it went through an existential crisis of catastrophic proportions; the Unveiling is simply entirely a lie, an attempt to make people believe the winnowing philosophy.

It's a good question to ask what of the story of the Vex and the Gardener if Unveiling is fully a lie. A really important note here is that we've known from other sources that the Traveler is the Gardener. Both from other characters, most notably in Lightfall from Osiris, but also from the Traveler itself and the Unveiling. So if Unveiling is bullshit, what about the Vex and the Gardener? Why did the Gardener even appear on the random planet from the dirt?

My theory is that Unveiling is partially correct. Something incomprehensible WAS happening before the universe existed; it involved forces that would end up becoming the Light and Darkness, the Gardener, the Vex and probably the Veil. This period of time is so abstract and unfathomable that we cannot physically understand it through anything but allegory. Some believe that the Veil now fulfils the role of the Winnower which is possible, but I'm not sure how likely; we will need even more information on the Veil to make that judgement call. Either way, Unveiling's myth about the origins of everything could still hold true in some regard. If that's true, we know that the Gardener made the new rule for the game (paracausality), caused the Big Bang and inserted itself into the new game (aka into the universe). The Gardener thus became the Traveler which it has refered to as being its body.

It feels like lead and neutronium and electroweak matter fashioned into a moon-sized ball that you must carry as you move.

The time before the universe wasn't physical, but the universe is. This body, the Traveler, had to have been made and it's possible that it was made on the Witness' planet. Perhaps that was one of the first planets in existence, a place where the Gardener forged its body and emerged into the existence as a physical being capable of terraforming. The Light is the domain of the physical so it makes sense that the Gardener has to utilise this physicality to be able to do its thing.

The Darkness is psychic; it's emotion, consciousness, the mind. It doesn't have to be physical. Perhaps the Winnower IS real, but it's simply a metaphysical idea that exists in the universe, but cannot be seen. It can influence others; everyone who ponders on the nature of existence runs the risk of being exposed to the idea of winnowing. It's inevitable. Every conscious being can be influenced by Darkness and it's many possibilities; some perfectly neutral or even good and some bad.

And the Witness' people went highly in-depth in their research of the Gardener and then later the Veil. If they were looking for answers to meaning and purpose, they would've likely come close to understanding the origin of the universe. Perhaps from the Gardener (who was there, before the Big Bang) or perhaps by exploring the Veil (which is, as of now, still fairly unknown as an entity) or maybe even the combination of their investigation into both of those. There's some credence to this in particular, given the memory from Ahsa in week 3, mainly this part:

Two halves of a whole... long divided. A... schism between them. Reunited. [exhales in joy] A glimpse beyond... to the beginning...

This most certainly refers to the Traveler and the Veil being reunited and connected as the Witness' people attempted the connection for the first time. And it offered them "a glimpse beyond to the beginning." Beginning of what if not the universe? The connection was never fully realised and the two were never fully reunited. But they were in Lightfall and in Lightfall, this created a portal to an incomprehensible realm into which nobody but the Witness can enter (for now). This realm acts as if it exists somewhere outside of normal spacetime, somewhere beyond, and it resembles... well, a garden world, like a garden from the allegory of existence before the universe.

If the Witness' people saw how the universe began as explored in the Unveiling, they would've absolutely come to the conclusion that everything is meaningless and that the Gardener did something that led to untold suffering, basically on a whim to seek more complex, but ultimately pointless life. Instead of this perfectly ordered garden world where every outcome is known and there is no deviation from the rules, we received a universe that is seemingly random, chaotic and meaningless. At least that would be the interpretation of it in their mind.

The Gardener could've just let things play out infinitely in the game with the same outcome, with the same pattern, but it didn't. It made the universe instead, filled with infinite mysteries and infinite possibilities and you will never know which one of those possibilities are "correct" and which choices are better than others. You will never know where to go and who to follow and what to do and there is no inherent value to any specific choice you make. Countless species will live and die "without meaning and purpose."

This was terrfying to the Witness' people, possibly exactly because they've seen how things were before. Before the Gardener's actions, everyone would have a specific purpose to fulfil in service of reaching the final shape which is always the same. Now, there is no goal, nothing to work towards, nothing to specific to strive for. So they decided to follow the philosophy of an entity that fought the Gardener and take up its job; to winnow in search for the final shape. To reshape reality, reset existence, "free" the Gardener from its own creation.

In that way, Unveiling is still very much true and it's the same as ever; it's a subjective interpretation of the origins of the universe told in a biased nature by a being that learned to despise the chaos of existence and would want to return to the way things were before.

So who wrote the Unveiling then? Again, many theories. Since the Witness' reveal in WQ, a lot of people speculated that the Witness wrote it and that the Witness is same as the Winnower. That could be true now, in a way; the Witness took up the mantle of the Winnower so it might as well be it. The Unveiling is written with a tone and voice that differs from how we know the Witness, but now we also know that the Witness is a being of billions; perhaps there is a voice in there who writes text and who speaks that way. It could also be just a ruse; the Witness is a manipulator who lies constantly. It could've written this text in this way to deliberately confuse, manipulate and coerce us; the Unveiling "tone" is fake and it was also fake when it spoke to Oryx.

Another option is that Unveiling was still written by the entity we know as the Winnower. If the Winnower is the origin of Darkness, coming from the garden from before the universe, then it is metaphysical; it's in the mind and consciousness. It doesn't need a body or to be fully physical. It can influence and talk and BE simply by being the origin of consciousness. Every conscious being can access the Winnower. The Winnower is every idea that leads to predation and killing and death. It's every thought and dream and memory and pain. It could've touched the Witness' people and pushed them to adopt its philosophy when they went too far with their research and especially when they connected to the Veil. It could've tried doing the same to us, when we connected to the Darkness artifact in a Pyramid at the end of Shadowkeep.

There is also the angle that the tale from Unveiling is literally entirely untrue. There was nothing before the universe existed. The description of the Vex was the Witness' attempt to understand how they function, or a piece of truth added to make the rest of the text seem correct to those that read it. The myth of the garden and the two entities fighting could be an attempt to give meaning to how everything started, giving a reason to pursue the Traveler and feel justified doing it.

The main point here is that we don't know and we might never know given the incredibly allegorical and mythologised way that Unveiling is talking about something that is incredibly hard to conceptualise in the first place. An interesting bit to add here is the concept of egregore:

Egregore (also spelled egregor; from French égrégore, from Ancient Greek ἐγρήγορος, egrēgoros 'wakeful') is an esoteric concept representing a non-physical entity that arises from the collective thoughts of a distinct group of people.

It's not an accident that egregore in Destiny is a physical manifestation of psychic connections that links points of Darkness together. It comes from this originally; basically if enough people think about the same thing or believe in the same thing, they will create an "egregore" = their thought or belief will spawn a non-physical entity associated with that thought or belief. In that sense, the Witness' people may have created the Winnower when they all united in thinking about how the universe is meaningless without a Winnower. The Winnower is an egregore created by the Witness' people and the belief in this egregore manifests physically as the egregore fungus which infests and links everyone who believes in the Winnower. Perhaps, even, if the Winnower is that egregore, something created by the first beings that ventured that far into metaphysics and then it retroactively became tied to the universe. Once the Winnower was created, the Witness' people tried explaining where it fits into the universe, constructing an origin myth around it. Perhaps they weren't aware that they manifested the Winnower, and believed that they simply discovered it and that the origin myth they constructed was them learning some bigger truth.

There are issues and questions with any of these explanations and they all go into super abstract possibilities and options. If the garden before the universe is entirely a myth, then what of the Gardener and the Vex and the Tree of Silver Wings? If there's truth to how the universe began, what about the Witness being simply a species that got uplifted and went mad with horrors of knowledge? Was the Winnower real in the garden before time or is it merely something conjured from the minds of a people who wanted purpose and meaning?

Furthermore, what about Inspiral, the raid lore book whose last two pages are very reminiscent of the Unveiling, reference it and function almost like extra two pages for it? Inspiral is particularly strange because each page starts with a description of a being that left its memories in the book. First of the final two pages, Meaning, describes its narrator as:

A dream of a metaphor made starkly, an allegory discussed in study of ontology, in Darkness not unkind. It leaves behind a warped, barely-real data fragment to mark its passing.

And the second, Winnowing:

A dream of a friendly conversation with someone impossible to see, cloaked in shadows. It leaves behind an impossible data fragment to mark its passing.

Neither of these descriptions fit the Witness. The Witness is not a metaphor or an allegory, nor is it "barely-real." It is also not "impossible to see" nor does it leave behind "impossible data." The Witness is very much real, though clearly ascended into a state of being beyond our comprehension, but we can very much hear it and see it. The cutscene very clearly explains that the Witness began as just another species and achieved a higher existence; it's not some weird mystical energy that originated before the universe began. Most of all, the Witness is neither kind nor friendly.

The only metaphor and allegory is the garden from before the universe and the Gardener and the Winnower that fought in it. The Gardener manifested as the Traveler, but the Winnower is unknown to us. These two pages read, again, almost exactly the same as Unveiling and they bear no resemblance to the Witness, neither in tone nor in the description of their narrator(s). Obviously, it could be lies and manipulations on purpose which is something to keep in mind in general.

But the page Meaning very clearly makes a distinction between two entities:

There is a voice that echoes across the Darkness, and it asks this question: what is the purpose of it all? And there is another voice that calls back and says: listen, I will tell you a purpose. I will tell you of a Final Shape.

After seeing the cutscene, the first sentence could obviously refer to the Witness' people. They sought purpose and meaning. The second specifies that something answered, something else, when they dug deep into the Veil. Did that something exist on its own, predating the Witness, or did the Witness create it, like an egregore? Either way, the Witness inquired and something returned the call OR the text is referring to a generalised idea of anyone exploring the Darkness, asking that question and then getting a reply from the Winnower, which is a creation of the Witness.

On the other hand, there's the issue of the Darkness being a much more complex phenomenon than we've previously believed. If the Winnower is the origin of Darkness, then would it not represent ALL of Darkness? As of right now, both Unveiling and Inspiral pages that we might be able to attribute to the Winnower are distinctly focused only on the sword logic aspect which fits more with the Witness. The Witness and its pawns have extermined species that also used the Darkness, in different ways. Would the Winnower not acknowledge the entirety of Darkness? This issue can be better solved if we insist that the Witness is what invented or manifested the Winnower and its ideology. Darkness is more than winnowing, that's for sure, but the Witness and its manifestation of the Winnower are focused only on winnowing.

Some more concrete answers may lay in our understanding of the Veil. We're beginning to gather more information about this entity and the cutscene itself shed some light on it as well. The Veil was connected to the Traveler, always, even before the Witness' people found it. It was not near the Traveler, but instead somewhere far away where the Witness' people had to fly to in order to bring it back. Some already believe that the Veil is the Winnower or a product of it; that the Winnower and the Gardener were these abstract entities in the garden before the universe and then became the Veil and the Traveler post-Big Bang, but still connected.

The truth is that this is a highly complicated concept to think about, explore and explain. The Unveiling could be one being's attempt to explain how the universe began and it could be true or it could be false. Nothing in the cutscene explicitly tells us either way, nor does it render the Unveiling useless (and it also doesn't render it a word of god).

The science and philosophy about the origin of the universe are unknown in real life and will probably remain unknown in Destiny. To expect a fictional story to accurately and unambiguously tell us how the universe began is to expect A LOT. The only ones that could truly maybe tell us are the Traveler (Gardener) and the Veil. The question is, would we be able to withstand knowing something like that. Many who peered into the Veil have lost their minds and the Traveler does not speak of things like that because divulging such information would inevitably put someone on a set path. To know everything is to lose choice. You know exactly where to go, how, when and why, as well as what will happen when you get there. The Gardener wants us to make our own fate and it wants the universe to not lead into any specific outcome.

This is some of the most bizarre and wild high concept scifi stuff we've ever had in Destiny. I don't expect us to solve it so quickly after major new information has been revealed and there's still a lot more to find out. This is a really exceptionally long dive into some of the theories and options. A lot of people don't like this type of unreliable philosophical conundrums and would much rather just prefer to be told the facts. And I don't think we'll ever know facts about these topics in a way that would make them easy to digest. Unveiling might one day be fully explained in a way that will allow us to construct the true history of the universe and its origins, but it might also not be. Perhaps it will remain a perpetual mystery to force to wonder about these concepts.

I'd personally prefer a little bit of mystery to remain; for both us and the Witness to forever wonder what was the meaning of it all, what was our purpose, have we chosen it "correctly" and what our choices could've led to if we've done things differently.

#destiny 2 #destiny 2 spoilers #season of the deep #season of the deep spoilers #witness #unveiling #lore vibing #long post #i did say this cutscene made me insane #and then also it brought up questions about the unveiling and unveiling makes me super insane #long rambling post be upon ye #i really enjoy reading thoughts on this so if anyone would interpret something differently or has better evidence feel free to share #also btw don't feel bad if this is all super confusing #i believe the story around it very much intended to give us a headache and require like 4 degrees in philosophy #i myself am also confused by a lot of the points raised by this whole thing #being confused is not a inherently a bad thing. we are moved to learn by confusion #it pushes us to want to explore and understand #i love this incomprehensible eldritch scifi shit that makes me question existence and reality #no wonder people go insane when they start unraveling the knowledge about the universe

87 notes · View notes

boasource · 4 months

Text

BoA recently hinted at retirement...

[Edited on 240825 for clarity and to include information that was revealed after I initially posted this, which can better contextualize what happened]

I made a thread on Twitter explaining the context behind BoA's recent IG stories, where she hinted at retirement, so I figured that I'd write up a post on it here too.

TL;DR: This announcement was a big shock - BoA has consistently said, up until the week before she posted those IG stories, that she wanted to continue singing and performing. Fans believe that BoA likely hinted at retirement because of the relentless harassment she's faced online.

On April 6th (240406), BoA hinted that she was planning to retire from being a singer entirely. The following day, she stated the exact date her contract was expiring. A few days later, she took down all of her IG posts.

What people seem to miss is that leading up to this, BoA has also been at the receiving end of constant online harassment for months.

(More under the cut)

BoA has been the subject of huge hate trains, arguably since 2021. This isn't a comprehensive list, but the big ones include:

People disagreeing with her decisions as judge on SWF and SMF, prompting a flood of hate comments on her IG, including accusations that she was 'trying to seduce the male contestants.'

GOT the Beat opened the floodgates for a lot of ageist comments about BoA, who was the group's most senior member. There were also malicious speculations about why she wasn't present in much of the group's behind-the-scenes content; BoA swiftly addressed this via her IG story, explaining that she had to attend a family event. While this wasn't named as the reason, it may be important to note that BoA's brother passed away from cancer on September that same year.

BoA was blamed for 'delaying the solo/group comebacks of her juniors,' in favor of GOT the Beat to 'boost her own career.' Not only has BoA (who is not even the group's leader; she gave the position to Taeyeon) already explained that she did not make the group — she was asked to join it and was, in fact, initially apprehensive — it was also later revealed that comeback delays were due to internal management issues (culminating in the ousting of Lee Sooman and Hybe's acquisition of SM) and because of disagreements about lyrical content. Interestingly, out of all the members of GOT the Beat, BoA ended up being the only member who didn't have a comeback in 2023.

The most recent wave of hate came from her cameo in the drama Marry My Husband, often mocking her appearance.

Since at least February 2024, BoA has been consistently and directly addressing the harassment she's been facing, both in interviews and in her social media. This is something she has rarely done in the 24 years she's been active.

Things came to a head on the evening of March 29th, when BoA posted this on her IG story:

This IG story prompted a huge wave of hate. There were forum posts calling her an attention seeker; notably, there was also a tweet that went viral, of a 'fan' saying that they now planned to unstan BoA because she was now "a completely different person."

One week later, on April 6th, BoA posted, "It's okay for me to retire right?" with an IG story that clarified that she intended to remain a singer until her active contract expires on December 31, 2025; the implication seems to be that she would no longer be an active singer after 2025.

This came as a huge shock to fans because BoA has consistently said that she wants to keep working as a singer:

August 25, 2020 [her 20th debut anniversary]: "There'll be a 30th anniversary after my 20th. I'll do my best to make good music for a long time, so please always give me your love and support!"

April 23, 2023 [Interview with Uhm Junghwa for W Korea]: "Actually, I'm the type who doesn't look back. After I've accomplished something, I don't have time to think, 'well done' or 'good job' because I'm already thinking of the next step. With that, there's no time for me to rest on my laurels, but this drive allows me to last a long time. It might be the most difficult thing, but my one hope is that I never tire of this job [being a performer], which I love so much."

February 23, 2024 [BoA for Marie Claire Korea]: "Right now, I enjoy my job, and I want to keep doing what I can, given my age."

Most notably, on the afternoon of March 29th — shortly before BoA responded to hate comments about her looks — BoA gave an interview with Esquire Korea, where she basically said that there were still so many things she wanted to accomplish as a singer:

Q: Is there something you still want to achieve? BoA: I want to do a lot of interesting performances. I want to break away from preconceived notions/conventions, sing songs I haven't done before, and create opportunities to communicate more with my audience. Q: What don't you want to change? BoA: My passion for music. Music is where I started. It's my life.

Right after BoA posted her retirement IG stories on April 6th, her fans organized truck protests (something the fandom has never done before), demanding that SM take action to defend BoA from the deluge of online hate.

They were incensed by the fact that in 2022, SM had already promised they would take legal action over malicious comments against her (she even reposted their statement on her personal IG), but nothing happened. In fact, legal action has only been taken in defense of BoA once, in 2020 — 20 years into her career, despite the fact that she's been going through much worse harassment, especially in the early 2000s when she was barely a teenager.

Five days after BoA's retirement announcement IG stories, on April 11th, SM announced that they were going to take legal action. While the statement resembled the one they put out in 2022, they also added that BoA was going through a difficult time, suffering from "great mental pain." A follow-up statement came on April 17th, where SM mentioned specific platforms and forums they were planning to sue. Unfortunately, as of this writing, there have been no further updates.

To recap:

On March 29th (afternoon), BoA gave an interview where she said that there was so many things she still wanted to do as a singer.

On March 29th (evening), BoA responded to malicious comments about her appearance on her IG story.

Her IG story quickly went viral in Korea. On March 30th, a post from a fan who claimed to 'unstan' her because of her IG story, garnered millions of views.

On April 6th, BoA hinted at retiring after 2025 on her IG story.

On April 9th, BoA removed all of her IG posts. Fans organized truck protests to call out SM's inaction vis-a-vis the harassment she was facing, in spite of their explicit, repeated promises to act on it.

On April 11th, SM issued a statement that they were going to take legal action against malicious comments about BoA, adding that BoA was suffering "great mental anguish."

As of this writing (August 25, 2024), there has been no formal, official announcement on whether or not BoA is really going to follow through with retiring after her active contract expires. But BoA has remained inactive on social media since April. There were only a handful of times she interacted with fans online: she went on IG live for 4 minutes in May to tell fans that she has plans to hold a concert in October, and she would also sporadically post a sentence-long message on her membership-only Weverse page.

On a more personal note from me: this has just been so disheartening to watch, as someone who's been following her career closely. The idea of BoA retiring was unimaginable to me. She always talked about how she compares her own career to other older artists, how she still feels like a 'baby' with a long way still to go compared to them. Obviously, it is well within BoA's right to change her mind about her own career, and surely, there are things going on behind the scenes that we don't know about. But the news has just been so hard to take because it doesn't feel like she's retiring because she wants to - it feels like she's burnt out.

#boa #boa kwon #long post #retirement #explainer

12 notes · View notes

kbirbpods · 22 days

Text

Summer Podfic Stats!

Back in January, I said I wanted to do this monthly but then I instantly got too caught up in life. However, this summer was my most productive season yet so I thought I'd do a little stats round up for the season ~

January-August Quick Stats:

Podfic made: 42 hours, 28 minutes, 38 seconds Most podded fandoms (including crossovers) so far: Star Wars (69) & DC (46) Most podded sub-fandoms so far: Clone Wars (45), Batfam (16), DPxDC (10) Most podded authors so far: @wanderingjedihistorian (16) & @flowerparrish (12) Music? Top two choices: No Music (30) & Taylor Swift (27)

Summer Round Up!

JUNE: I waffled on including June in my "summer roundup" but technically my summer starts mid-June. It just so happens that right after work ended, we moved. And it took a minute for my podfic space to be set up. So, in June, I made 1 hour & 41 minutes of podfic. It was quite literally just Chapter 47 of the Sansukh multivoice project. I posted more in June but it was all recorded/edited in May.

JULY: July brought 7 hours, 31 minutes, and 53 seconds of podfic. Much of this was not posted until August when Summer Podfic Swap revealed but it was all recorded in July! In July, my most recorded for event was Summer Podfic Swap with 11 podfics. My longest podfic was The Jedi Within at 3 hours & 16 minutes. My shortest podfic was Red Bones at 6 minutes & 37 seconds.

AUGUST: In a weird coincidence, I made 7 hours, 32 minutes, and 38 seconds of podfic in August. (I've never had two months in a row be almost the exact same.) My most recorded for event was again Summer Podfic Swap with 19 podfics recorded for it this month (I used one podfic I'd recorded another month for the exchange). I also began recording for CCPA this month and did one Pod Together project. My longest podfic in August was Aliit Ori'shya Taldin (Family is More Than Blood) at 37 minutes & 28 seconds. My shortest podfic was Race at 1 minute & 11 seconds.

EVENTS: - 31 podfics posted for Summer Podfic Swap 2024, plus one I provided the voice for as well! - 10 podfics made "just because" - 3 podfics recorded so far for the Chromatic Characters Podfic Anthology V (the link is to the information post, reveals are at the end of September!) - 1 Pod Together Project with Wander & Flowerparrish [text | podfic] - 1 podfic for Fandom Trumps Hate posted (Lights Up! for hoebiwan)

+ large multivoice projects: Chapter 47 of Sansukh, one scene in Chapter 50 of Sansukh, & Chapter 20 of QKP

SUMMER SWAP BREAKDOWN:

For my main giftee, I made 14 podfics that totaled up to 4 hours & 12 minutes of podfic. Some of these treats were also treated to others! I made 12 podfics as treats for Flowerparrish. Again, many of these were also treated to others. These treats totaled up to 2 hours & 7 minutes of podfic. In total, there was 7 hours & 16 minutes of podfic that I posted for the event. I recorded 51,787 words! The top fandoms I recorded for the exchange were DC(+ crossovers) at 15 & Star Wars(+ crossovers) at 12. This includes the three SWxDC I recorded (so it would be 12 DC and 9 SW if not)! I did 5 DPxDC podfics, despite how recently I got into it again. The other fandoms included were Mass Effect (2), Stranger Things (2), & The Locked Tomb (1). Crossing over with DC, I had one Tomb Raiders and one Leverage.

WRITING: I actually wrote this summer! I wrote 3 works that can be read now and have more that will reveal for later events! All writing was for DPxDC x Stop trying to make the Olympic Village Tinder Trend happen, Dick! (Jay/Roy, Batfam dynamics, side DP characters) x gold medals and golducks (POV Damian, Jazz Fenton is an Olympic fencer & his hero, Pokemon Go shenanigans) x falling in the dead of night (eyes so green) (Danny/Jason soulmate AU)

& here is the graph:

Okay to anyone who looked @ this and cared, thank you! Reply with your favorite animal if you read this far ;)

#kbirb pods #podfic #podfic stats #2024 stats #writing stats #ao3 #summer podfic swap #long post #flowerparrish #wanderingjedihistorian #dpxdc #dc podfic #sw podfic #kaje rambles #kaje pods #kaje writes #kbirb writes

11 notes · View notes

doomed-era · 2 years

Text

Sentient Monsters/Enemies in Zelda

People seemed to enjoy my last list so I'm going to touch on probably one of my favorite topics in LOZ! I'm mostly focusing on monsters and enemies that are shown to be not completely affiliated with any sort of Big Bad or are demonstrably capable of speech or independent thought but I'll also be including other enemies and monsters. I'm not going to really include bosses unless I find it necessary (hence the lack of Maz Koshia, Gohdan, Byrne, Bellumbeck, etc) As usual, I may touch headcanon territory a little, and I'll happily take any corrections/suggestions and reblog them!

...Actually I might just edit the post, not sure.

This contains gameplay spoilers for...a lot of Zelda games, so please proceed with caution!

Ache

Batlike enemies from The Adventure of Link. They are usually hostile, and will disguise themselves as villagers, revealing their disguise if spoken to. There is a friendly Ache that can be found in the Town of Nabooru that Link can speak to.

Batreaux

A reformed demon from Skyward Sword who has a secret house on Skyloft. He expresses a desire to become human, and requests that Link bring Gratitude Crystals to him so he can become one.

Bulblin

Namely King Bulblin, but I personally think this applies to regular Bublins as well. Throughout Twilight Princess you fight King Bulblin in various boss fights, but he always retreats before Link can kill him. In your final battle with him, he finally speaks, claiming that he "always follows the strongest side," before leaving and dropping a key to the inside of Hyrule Castle. Bulblins in general are shown to be fairly intelligent, riding on large boars called Bulbos and Twilit Kargaroks, creating structures, and cooking food.

Dark World Creatures

Many of inhabitants of the Dark World in A Link to the Past are heavily implied to be people who sought after the Triforce but were trapped upon entering the Dark World and transformed into monsters according to their true nature. These creatures can be aggressive at the start, seem initially friendly and attack you later, like Blind the thief, or can be completely passive.

Deku Scrub

These are plantlike creatures that spit out seeds to attack. In Ocarina of Time, Deku Scrubs seem to have made an allegiance with the first boss, Gohma. When attacked, they will surrender and either give you information or sell you items. In Majora's Mask, not only can Link transform into a Deku Scrub, but there is a Deku Scrub palace to be explored. Like in Ocarina of Time, Deku Scrubs are hostile to outsiders, and will refuse to let Link into the palace if he is not in Deku Scrub form. In Minish Cap, a sick Deku Scrub blocks the way by sneezing out seeds at Link and Zelda.

Garo

The Garo from Majora's Mask are a tribe of undead, ninja-like hooded creatures. They reside in the Kingdom of Ikana, though they're not originally from there, and will only appear to Link if he is wearing the Garo Mask. At some time in the past, the Garo came to Ikana Valley as assassins, but like most Ikana residents they were killed and their ghosts linger around the area.

Goriya

A slightly more obscure enemy from the original Legend of Zelda, Zelda II, Link's Awakening, and the Oracle Games. Goriya are moblin-like creatures that attack with a boomerang. In the original Legend of Zelda, a hungry Goriya blocks a door in a dungeon. In Link's Awakening, there is a hidden friendly Goriya that can only be seen using the Magnifying Glass, similar to the friendly River Zora.

Iron Knuckle

Armored enemies in Zelda II and Ocarina of Time, serving as minibosses of the Spirit Temple in the latter. In the last room of the Spirit Temple, the Twinrova control Nabooru, the Sage of Spirit, and force her to fight Link as an Iron Knuckle. Looking closely at the ordinary Iron Knuckle model reveals a Gerudo face inside, so many people believe that the other Iron Knuckles Link fights are also possessed or evil Gerudo.

Mad Batter/Li'l Devil

A batlike creature from A Link to the Past and Link's Awakening that lives in an underground cavern. Link can disturb him by tossing Magic Powder at a statue, where he will become angry and "curse" Link by giving him a magic upgrade.

Moblin

Featured in the original Legend of Zelda, Moblins are one of the quintessential enemies in the Zelda series. They have been shown multiple times to be capable of speech and seem to be able to defect from Ganon's horde in some instances. The original game also contains the first instance of a friendly monster in Zelda, the famous "it's a secret to everyone" Moblin. In the Wind Waker, a girl named Maggie has fallen in love with one of the Moblins in Forsaken Fortress, and sends a letter to him. Moe the Moblin sends a letter back, proving that Moblins are not only capable of speech, but probably writing.

Phantom

Guardians of the Tower of Spirits in Spirit Tracks and invaders of the Temple of the Ocean King in Phantom Hourglass. Phantoms are highly intelligent enemies that will chase Link down, and are capable of speech. In Spirit Tracks, Phantom Zelda can converse with them to distract them while Link makes his way through the Tower of Spirits.

River Zora

River Zora are featured in the original Legend of Zelda, a Link to the Past, Link's Awakening, A Link Between Worlds, Oracle of Ages, and Phantom Hourglass. River Zora are highly territorial creatures that inhabit bodies of water in most of the games they are featured in. They will usually shoot fireballs at Link and dive under the water if confronted. However, in many games, there are several Zora who will not attack you and may give you helpful items. In A Link to the Past, Link can speak to King Zora to get the Zora Flippers. In Link's Awakening, there is a secret friendly Zora that can be seen after Link has obtained the Magnifying Glass. In A Link Between Worlds, the Zora Queen Oren will give you the Zora Flippers.

Soldier

Hylian Soldiers have a long history of either getting possessed, turning evil, or being extremely incompetent in the Zelda series, and A Link to the Past is probably what started it. Soldiers are the primary enemy fought in the Light World, and are friendly to Link at the beginning of the game, telling Link to go home to bed on such a rainy night. One soldier mentions that they have noticed something strange about the other soldiers, and expects that they will soon succumb to whatever is possessing them. This is of course Agahnim, an evil magician and Ganon in disguise.

Stalchildren/Stalfos

Featured in almost every game in the series, Stalfos are undead skeleton-like enemies. Stalchildren are weaker, more common enemies that are featured in Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. Ordinarily Stalchildren will attack you in Majora's Mask, however if you wear the Captain's Hat—the hat of their leader, Skull Keeta—they will talk to you, and give you access to secret underground areas each night. Stalchildren, like the Garo, are also one of the undead races from Ikana Valley, and their king can be fought there.

Yiga

(they get a shoutout cause I love them. mwah)

Featured in Breath of the Wild, the Yiga Clan are an offshoot of the Sheikah Tribe that separated ten thousand years before the events of Breath of the Wild. After Calamity Ganon emerged for the first time and was destroyed with the help of Ancient Sheikah technology, the Royal Family turned their backs on the people who helped them, forcing them to abandon their work. The Sheikah went into hiding, but some of them fought back. This group became known as the Yiga Clan, and they are well known for their affinity to Calamity Ganon and their murderous tendencies. Dorian was originally a member of the Yiga Clan, and served as an informant to them for some time.

#breath of the wild #twilight princess #majora's mask #ocarina of time #a link to the past #link's awakening #windwaker #the legend of zelda #zelda ii #again if there's any additions or corrections please let me know!#oracle of ages #river zora #moblin #yiga clan #iron knuckle #longpost

80 notes · View notes

lotusmuses · 2 years

Text

Hey everyone!

Here's all of Scaramouche's lore + explanations/analysis for anyone who wants to understand his story more. My comments/analysis are in purple and references are in blue! Everything in white is the Husk of Opulent Dreams Artifact Set. Edit: UPDATED AFTER 3.3 INTERLUDE QUEST

This post is very long so everything is under Keep Reading! I hope you enjoy, this took multiple hours and going through and evaluating anything with relevant information to Scara and the people mentioned in his lore.

Tales of the Opulent Mansion, Awakening from a Dream, and the Soulless Body

Era of Splendor

A small golden ornament with six petals that shall never wilt. It symbolizes the transience of mortal glories.

What he saw in his dream was a phantom dancing to the music under the moonlight, Just like the young man in the distant past, who was akin to a blank sheet of paper, And like a pure yet fragile persona, Emerging once the resentment and suffering had dissipated.

The wanderer did not know that he had any faculties for dreaming, Thinking that this must have been the researchers' little trick, Or perhaps it was the infinitesimal resistance of that bygone heart.

"You once acquired the 'heart' that you always dreamed of," "But it was but a mere prop for lies and deception." "Now, you will finally obtain what belongs to you," "And this false construct of a body can at last aspire to power over this world."

"Yet, this is all but a fleeting dream of glory." "And it will all one day drift away amidst the sighs of a suffering earth..." Was it a "him" from the past who said this? Or "him" from the future? The vagrant cared not, for when he awakened, It was not he, but that ethereal future that dissipated.

This entire section can be seen as The Balladeer dreaming of either his past self telling him that his vengeance is worthless or his future self telling him this. The ending seems to allude that it was indeed his future self or, perhaps, his true self. This section also seems to be directly preluding to the 3.3 interlude chapter. The Balladeer learns of the lies created by Dottore during the Tatarasuna Incident. He gains a vision. His past was transient and he must live on.

Feather of the Opulent Mansion

A feather-shaped token that was brought forth from a secluded hall. The compassion of its creator led to it being left within that mansion along with a certain slumbering form.

The long-wandering eccentric no longer thinks about this, But when he closes his eyes, he can still see the moonlit nights over Tatarasuna and the burning furnace flames.

The kind young deputy said: "This gold ornament is a proof of identity granted by the Almighty Shogun," "But as you travel the world, please bear this in mind," "Never to reveal your identity to others."

The deputy is the yoriki Katsuragi who would introduce Kabukimono to Nagamasa and Niwa (Niwa is the ancestor of Kaedehara Kazuha's great-grandfather, Kaedehara Yoshinori, formerly Niwa Yoshinori)

“The second was a human. My family... my friend. Consumed by fear, he saw me as an abomination” (The "Divine" Will)

The upright Inspector said: "This gold ornament may be a proof of identity granted by the Almighty Shogun," "But you are neither man nor mechanism," "And so I can only deal with you in this fashion. Do not hold this against me!"

Katsuragi* is the only person to specifically tell Scara to hide this identity, it is likely that Scara saw this as his friend being ashamed of him. It also explains the ‘misconduct’ that Nagamasa used as justification for killing Katsuragi: for hiding this truth, though the other members of their group believed that Katsuragi had only good intentions — We later learn that it was a joint effort from Katsuragi and Nagamasa to hide the death of Niwa

(*the quote may have been referring to Niwa instead, i can’t tell. but katsuragi is still relevant in the explanation because the quote is about the Tatarasuna incident members)

The Inspector is Mikoshi Nagamasa (Katsuragi’s daimyo: his boss, and murderer) - Kabukimono and Nagamasa were at odds around the time Katsuragi was killed. Their previous relationship was good-natured.

The wanderer who has left yesterday in the dust no longer thinks about it, But when he covers his ears, he can still hear the wild winds that roared that year.

This seems to allude to his anemo vision as a playable character.

A pair of expectant eyes said: "This gold ornament is a proof of identity granted by the Almighty Shogun," "It must surely be able to save the people."

This is the Nameless Child from Kabukimono’s backstory

The intelligent, lovely shrine maiden said: "This gold ornament is a proof of identity granted by the Almighty Shogun," "And she will not abandon you." "As for me, I shall do my best to send for help immediately..."

This is Yae Miko

...But in the end, the golden arrow-feather were covered in dust, And all tales were incinerated in karmic flames till nothing remained.

Kabukimono literally burned the house that the child died in and figuratively burned away his longing for emotional bonds

The Song of All Living Things

As far as Inazuma is concerned, this is some small object from overseas. The heart of this mechanism has been removed, and its hands no longer turn.

He was originally born to be a vessel for a "heart." But he shed tears in his dreams. His creator observed thus: He was too fragile, whether it be as a human or as a tool.

Yet his creator would not destroy him, and so allowed him to continue slumbering. In her latter works, she would also consign designs that might store such a heart to obsolescence. Not long after, that noblest and most prestigious "proof" in the world would come to have no home, And thus was sent to the great shrine at Mt. Yougou.

His sleeping form was placed in Shakkei Pavillion along with the feather that he wears.

‘A feather-shaped token that was brought forth from a secluded hall. The compassion of its creator led to it being left within that mansion along with a certain slumbering form.’ (Feather of the Opulent Mansion Description)

Deep within these rocky mountains is a sight that does not belong to this world. Many of those drawn to it do not belong to civilization. — This magnificent mansion was built by an ancient ascetic warrior in the depths of the earth using scenery borrowed from the outside world. In latter days, a deeply disheartened eccentric would be discovered within. (Shakkei Pavillion Description)

This masterless mansion has become the haunting ground of monsters from the rift. Those who can wield the eternal lightning to conquer this trial will obtain the artifacts within. — This great hall stood when Seirai Island neither had the name it has now, nor had it yet been stained with the color of thunder. The scenery within will probably never change, either. (Slumbering Court Description)

Ei began designing a “perfected” puppet, the Shogun. There was no further use for the prototype and the Lord of Electro did not want to intefere in his fate.

Ei conducted countless experiments to this effect, discarded a great many failed products, and spent an unimaginable amount of time and resources—But at last, by her dogged pursuit and warrior's spirit, she was able to create a flawless puppet. (Raiden Shogun: Character Story 2)

“The first to betray me was a god. My creator... my mother. Valuing strength above all, she saw no worth in me, and I was discarded” (Story Teaser: The "Divine" Will)

He was a transcendent being, divinely created, but he was cast aside like worthless dross. (Artifact Set: Pale Flame)

Later, the beautiful puppet awoke and began his wanderings. He observed many a heart, Good ones, upright ones, strong ones, gentle ones... The puppet, too, desired a heart.

This is when he met humans after Katsuragi brought him to Nagamasa, Niwa, and the others of the Tatarasuna group- heart in this context seems to be referring to individuals’ personalities and emotional bonds

Yet, due to an error that cannot be known, he roused himself from slumber, And began to wander the mortal realm. (Artifact Set: Pale Flame)

Later, the lovely puppet would finally obtain that "heart." It was, after all, his purpose for being, the very reason he existed. Yet, it was not what the puppet truly desired, For it did not contain any blessings, But was instead a sacrifice brimming with selfishness, hypocrisy, cunning and curses, All wrapped in an amiable husk.

He literally gained a heart: It was Niwa's heart that The Doctor put into a device after he murdered him and lied to the eccentric. This heart saved Kabukimono, yet he was disgusted at what he believed to be Niwa's wrongful acts and abandonment

“It took three betrayals for me to finally understand: The world is just an elaborate tapestry of lies. My fury will never be quelled” (Story Teaser: The "Divine" Will)

Good and evil were the song of sentient life, useless and cacophonous. But if he were to wrench this "heart" out, He would no longer be able to feel anything at all…

“Humans... they can't be trusted. And the gods fill me with pure loathing. So I said good riddance! I denounce the world and laugh in its face. My chest will never again be defiled by worldly filth. I will scrub away every last trace of human emotion. Then it will be empty, a blank slate. And ready to receive a supreme Gnosis, brimming with pure divinity” (Story Teaser: The "Divine" Will)

Before the Fatui found him, he had drifted for countless years. And in that time, this is what his experience had taught him: "I am a 'human' who surpasses all others." "Even the gods daren't meddle in my fate." "Neither mortal nor god, nor fate itself, is qualified to be my judge." "I am free to choose how I wish to spend the remainder of my days." (Artifact Set: Pale Flame)

Calabash of Awakening

A gourd that has been adorned with powdered gold and black paint. Its original color can no longer be discerned, but its main use seems to be as a performance prop.

Amenoma, Futsu, Isshin, Hyakume, Senju. These were, once upon a time, the five branches of the Raiden Gokaden, But today, only Amenoma still maintains its line of succession. While the Isshin line can just barely be said to have extant descendants. In the eyes of the people, this is just the natural result of the ravages of time. They never once suspected that such sudden falls from grace might have some hidden mystery behind them.

These were the 5 bladesmithing arts of Inazuma. All of which were associated with the Yashiro commission. The Isshin Art included the Niwa Clan, Kaedehara Clan, and the Akame school. 100 years ago Scara destroyed all but 2 of the Arts as an act of revenge against the ‘bladesmith’ (ie. revenge against Niwa). Scara only stopped after he met Kaedehara Yoshinori and learned that Yoshinori was originally from the Niwa clan before adoption. The remaining members of the Akame school fled to Snezhnaya before ultimately dying there. Yoshinori stopped the Isshin Art to protect his family in case Scara came back and the only remaining member of the Isshin Art is Kaedehara Kazuha. The Amenoma Art is the current Inazuma blacksmithy.

The wanderer would never admit to this. He would never admit that he had done this as an act of revenge against the bladesmith. Nor would he ever mention the truth, That he had abandoned his schemes halfway because they had suddenly become dull. He would only say, in that tone of voice he had learned from a certain researcher: "It was all just a little experiment into human nature."

The researcher mentioned is Il Dottore who brought Kabukimono into the Fatui (through a well organized devious plan)

In Inazuma's traditional theater, there is a certain character known as "Kunikuzushi." Such characters are often schemers and usurpers of nations. At the end of his wanderings, he chose this name as an act of his own will. And as for the name he had once used, even he no longer remembered it.

The Kabukimono revealed this as his name when he met Kaedehara Yoshinori. The character known as Kunikuzushi is based on the character of the same name and role in real-life Kabuki theatre.

It is a norm in Inazuma's traditional theater to join the names of a play's three acts together to form the play's name. For example, "Sumirezome," "Sangetsu," and "Kogetsukan" come together, Thus forming the play "Sumirezome Sangetsu Kogetsukan." Perhaps a day will come when this body's adventures, its experiences, Will become tales to be passed along by mortals, distant memories that flow through the ley lines. But for now, his third act is still ongoing.

This is based on the real life Kabuki theater in Japan. The first form focuses on samurai and historical events. The second form focuses on domesticity such as family and commonfolk. The third form focuses on dance to convey emotion.

Often the actors in Kabuki need to know how to act as one personality to a completely opposite personality as the first one shown was only a fake.

Emotions are also expressed through the colors of the costumes, a key element in kabuki. Gaudy and strong colors can convey foolish or joyful emotions, whereas severe or muted colors convey seriousness and focus.

Kabuki involves the concept of jo-ha-kyū (序破急), a pacing convention in theater stating that the action of a play should start slow, speed up, and end quickly. Nearly every full-length play occupies five acts. The first corresponds to jo, an auspicious and slow opening which introduces the audience to the characters and the plot. The next three acts correspond to ha, where events speed up, culminating almost always in a great moment of drama or tragedy in the third act, and possibly a battle in the second or fourth acts. The final act, corresponding to kyū, is almost always short, providing a quick and satisfying conclusion.

Kabuki is known to sacrifice drama and even the plot to highlight an actor's talents. It was not uncommon in kabuki to insert or remove individual scenes from a day's schedule in order to cater to an individual actor—either scenes he was famed for, or that featured him, would be inserted into a program without regard to plot continuity.

Skeletal Kasa

A hat that once shielded a wanderer from sun and rain. It eventually became a convenient tool with which faces might be hidden and expressions obscured.

"Where are you going, wanderer?" The roving youth was stopped by a child's shout. That was a child of a Tatarasuna crafts-person, and while he was ill, his eyes were still clear. The youth told the child that he was bound for Inazuma City. "But it's raining really hard right now. They say that the people who left haven't returned!" The youth opened and closed his mouth a few times... But at last could only give the child a small smile. The next time he set foot upon that island, that child was nowhere to be found.

The Nameless Child from the Kabukimono’s backstory again.

I'm going to assume that he went to Inazuma City because Konda Village is right outside of the city and that's where lavender melons were:

"They say that Konda Village once planted Lavender Melons and that they were famed for their secret "Konda Dye" art, by which they produced truly lovely fabric."

The Lavender Melon is mentioned in Volume 6 of Someone's Diary. According to the author, lavender melons tastes astringent and eating the skin turned his teeth and tongue purple.

Despite not being flowers at all, Lavender Melons are often used in the making of "Flower" paints, one of the two types of paint traditionally used in Inazuma.

Another interesting thing is that the fruit was likely based on the Japanese fruit Akebia which children like to gather and is also made into medicines and teas.

"Some people recollect in idyllic terms how they foraged for it in the hills as children."

“The third was one exactly like me. A hope for the future... a fledgling barely out of the nest. Powerless before his mortality, he broke his promise to me”

"Where are you going, Inazuman? This boat is not for you!" The wandering young man was halted at the harbor by a boatman. But before the youth could draw his blade, a man in his company stopped him. The man told the mariner that the outlander youth was with him. "Ah, so he's your guest, sir? My apologies for my presumption." The man gave the youth a coat to keep the cold out, but the youth shook his head. He had no need of such things — he only wished to know what interesting things he might find on this long journey.

Il Dottore brought Kabukimono to Snezhnaya; Kabukimono joined the Fatui and became Scaramouche "The Balladeer".

"Since these mask-wearing people are so fun to be around..." "I think I'll become one of them.”

"Lord Harbinger. Where are you headed?" The youth, hating chatty humans the most, gave his subordinate a backhand slap. But he also loved watching expressions of terror and helplessness play across human faces, And it was perhaps precisely because of this imbecilic underling's expressiveness that he had kept them around. He told the groveling, quailing figure that they were headed east, for Mondstadt. "I understand! I'll get your bodyguards ready right now!" He had no need of guards, of course, but he was lazier still to barter words with cretins. Donning his wanderer's hat, he headed eastward alone.

This takes place immediately before the Unreconciled Stars event.

"Child, where are you going?" Returning home, the youth was stopped at the roadside by an old woman. He told her that he was going west. "To Yashiori Island, then? What business are you on?" She had said this thoughtlessly, knowing only that things had not been peaceful of late. The youth thanked her for her concern with earnest smile and told her that he was bound for an appointed meeting. As the boat gradually approached the shore, a lady in foreign garb could be seen standing by the shoreline, And she threw a small crystal sphere at the youth from afar. Catching it with ease, he lifted it up to the dying, bloodied sun.

Takes place during Inazuma Archon Quest. The Lady in foreign garb is La Signora entering Inazuma. The crystal sphere is unknown, possibly a delusion from the factory.

Sources:

Artifact Set: Husk of Opulent Dreams

Artifact Set: Pale Flame

Domain, Shakkei Pavillion

Raiden Shogun’s Voice Over: About Kunikuzushi

Raiden Shogun Character Story 2

Yae Miko Character Story 5

Story Teaser: The “Divine” Will

Interactable, Rather Aged Notes

Event, Unreconciled Stars

Event, Labyrinth Warriors

Event, Hues of the Violet Garden

World Quest, Equivalent Exchange

Archon Quest, Chapter II, Act III, Part 9: Wishes

Story Quest, Acer Palmatum Chapter

Weapon, Kagotsurube Isshin

Weapon, Katsuragikiri Nagamasa

Archon Quest, Interlude Chapter, Act III, Inversion of Genesis

#genshin impact #genshin scara #genshin scaramouche #genshin impact scaramouche #gi scaramouche #scaramouche #gi kunikuzushi #genshin impact kunikuzushi #kunikuzushi #raiden ei #gi raiden shogun #raiden shogun #genshin raiden #yae miko #genshin yae miko #scaramouche x reader #kunikuzushi x reader #genshin x reader

129 notes · View notes

rukbat3 · 6 months

Text

Babylon 5 Rewatch - Deathwalker

This is a post I originally wrote several years ago for Mark Oshiro’s Mark Watches blog. I don’t really plan to edit them before posting, so there may be some references that don’t make sense. If you see words that look like gibberish, they are actually rot13, which was our way of discussing spoilers. There are plugins you can install to decode the text (Cryptext is the one I use), or you can copy/paste to rot13.com, or just ignore it.

For me, this is one of the more memorable episodes of the series, and it’s mostly down to Sarah Douglas’s performance as Jha’dur. I think she does an amazing job of being cruel and creepy and totally confident that no one can touch her. She has a presence which just commands attention every time she is on screen.

We get another example of Sinclair’s command style in this episode, as he tries to suggest a compromise solution to the problem of how to deal with Jha’dur, and is shot down at first. But then later, when he manages to get the League representatives to listen, they find that his suggestion does, in fact, work for them. This is something that Sinclair does constantly—he thinks about problems and talks to people and manages to find ways for all parties to get what they want. He doesn’t just rush in and try to use force to impose his will on a situation. [season 1] Gur orfg rknzcyr bs guvf, vzb, vf pbzvat hc fubegyl va bar bs zl snibevgr rcvfbqrf, jura ur svaqf n pbzcebzvfr fbyhgvba gb gur qbpxref’ fgevxr.

And then there’s what is going on between Kosh and Talia. Weird, right? [whole series] Nyfb gur zbfg veevgngvat qebccrq cybg guernq va gur jubyr frevrf. Gurer jnf fb zhpu cbgragvny urer, naq rira nsgre “Qvivqrq Yblnygvrf” V ernyyl gubhtug jr jbhyq trg fbzr xvaq bs pnyyonpx gb guvf, cersrenoyl nf n jnl gb trg ure onpx, ohg abcr. Abguvat. V haqrefgnaq gur intnevrf bs gryrivfvba cebqhpgvba, ohg vg’f fgvyy qvfnccbvagvat gung abguvat rire pnzr bs guvf.

A couple of little moments I wanted to highlight: First in the council chamber before the big meeting, Londo is telling off Sinclair for lying to him. “We thought it best to handle this quietly,” Sinclair explains. Londo pauses briefly to look at the chaos around him. “Great job,” he says. Ooh, burn! I just love the sarcastic way he says it.

Second is later in that same scene, after the vote has been taken and everyone has left, furious. Sinclair and Lennier are alone, and Lennier tries to apologize and explain his part in what just happened. He admits that the Minbari government did know where Jha’dur was hiding and they kept it a secret—at the time because they were at war and she was useful to them. “We couldn’t reveal it then,” he says. “And like all secrets long kept, we cannot bear the shame of admitting it now.” Bill Mumy delivers this line with such quiet sadness and dignity, and there is so much truth in it. I love it. (Side note: Does this mean that Delenn knew about Jha’dur as well? We know, based on Sinclair’s memory, that she was in the Grey Council during the war.)

Lastly, let’s talk about Kosh. The Babylon File (an unauthorized guide to the show which is very informative) calls the resolution to this storyline “a true deus ex machina,” and it’s kind of right. There was no way to see that ending coming. Kosh has spent the entire episode off on a side quest, and before he shows up in the observation dome, we don’t really have any indication that he’s even aware of what has been going on. But somehow, at least to me, it still comes across as a great ending, and the very unexpectedness of it makes it even better. After the bombshell that Jha’dur has just dropped, having the decision taken out of our hands comes as a relief. And maybe that’s why Kosh is right when he says, “You are not ready for immortality.” Plus, this ending just adds even more to the Vorlon mythos.

[season 4] Xbfu npghnyyl qbrf gjb guvatf va guvf rcvfbqr gung ner pyhrf gung znlor gur Ibeybaf ner abg gur oraribyrag tbbq thlf gurl’q yvxr hf gb oryvrir—zrffvat jvgu Gnyvn’f zvaq naq znxvat n havyngreny qrpvfvba nobhg Wun’qhe. Ur znl abg, naq zl thrff vf ur cebonoyl qbrfa’g, rira xabj nobhg gur “fvqr rssrpgf” bs gur nagv-ntncvp. Ur whfg xabjf jung vg qbrf, naq qrpvqrf gung gur “lbhatre enprf” pna’g unaqyr vg. Naq lrg, fbzrubj, ba svefg ivrjvat, obgu bs gurfr uvagf, nf jryy nf yngre barf, jrag sylvat bire zl urnq. V obhtug vagb gur Ibeyba zlgubf gbgnyyl—naq V’z orggvat V’z abg nybar.

[same] V sbhaq n WZF dhbgr ba gur Yhexre’f Thvqr ragel sbe “Fvtaf naq Cbegragf” gung rynobengrf ba guvf n yvggyr zber: “Bar ybiryl guvat nobhg ‘Fvtaf naq Cbegragf,’ juvpu lbh cvpxrq hc ba, vf fbzrguvat V yvxr gb cynl jvgu; vzcylvat bar guvat juvyr fnlvat gur bccbfvgr. Ybbx ng nyy gur Funqbjf’ znva ercerfragngvir, Zbeqra, qbrf: ur nfxf crbcyr jung gurl jnag; ur trgf gbffrq bhg bs Qryraa'f dhnegref; ur vf cyrnfnag va uvf qrzrnabe ng nyy gvzrf, arire lryyf, nyjnlf fzvyrf, naq vf pbhegrbhf; ur gnxrf na npgvba juvpu fnirf bar bs bhe znva punenpgref, Ybaqb, sebz qvftenpr naq erfvtangvba, naq urycf va gur cebprff bs fpenttvat gur onq thlf va gur rcvfbqr. Naq lrg rirelbar jnyxf njnl guvaxvat gung gur Funqbjf ner onq. Juvpu jnf bs pbhefr gur vagrag … ol gur jnl va juvpu gurl qvq ‘tbbq.’ Xbfu ceriragf uhznavgl sebz npuvrivat vzzbegnyvgl, fpnerf gur uryy bhg bs Gnyvn, arire tvirf nalbar n fgenvtug nafjre, qbrfa'g frrz gb zvaq vg vs crbcyr srne uvz … naq jr jnyx njnl jvgu gur cerfhzcgvba gung ur vf tbbq, ol iveghr bs gur jnl va juvpu ur qvq guvatf gung jrer ‘onq.’” Gung’f fbzr terng jevgvat!

One little issue I had that I wanted to mention: Why doesn’t Franklin recognize Jha’dur’s species? We know that Earth was at war with the Dilgar—a war which they won!—and that the Dilgar are notorious even now for the atrocities they committed. You’d think Franklin would at least know what they looked like, especially considering that xenobiology is one of his specialties. This was a pretty clunky way to prompt the exposition.

Favorite scene: The scene where Jha’dur explains her true purpose in giving the serum away. I’ll quote it: “Your kind takes blind comfort in the belief that we are monsters. That you could never do what we did. The key ingredient in the anti-agapic cannot be synthesized. It must be taken from living beings. For one to live forever, another one must die. You will fall upon one another like wolves. It will make what we did pale by comparison. The billions who live will be a testimony to my work, and the billions murdered to buy that immortality will be the continuance of my work. Not like us? You will become us. That's my monument, commander.” As in the rest of the episode, Sarah Douglas does a fantastic job of delivering this monologue. There’s so much poison in her voice, and she’s taking a perverse pleasure in revealing this to Sinclair, when she knows he can’t or won’t be able to do a thing about it. And the most chilling aspect to it is the fact that we know she’s right.

Thank goodness for Kosh, right?

#babylon 5 rewatch #babylon 5 #deathwalker

3 notes · View notes

papillon82fluttersby · 1 year

Text

Famous Five Art Nostalgia #15 – Part 1

Introductory post

Masterpost

🏚️🏺💼 Five on a Secret Trail – Le Club des Cinq se distingue / Le Club des Cinq et la maison hantée

Original publication date: 1956 (UK), 1961 (France)

(Cover art by Jeanne Hives, 1968)

After “Five Get into Trouble / Le Club des Cinq en péril”, this is the second book in the series that benefitted from an upgraded edition in a special collection called “Idéal-Bibliothèque”, featuring more numerous illustrations, a larger format and better quality paper than the regular “Bibliothèque Rose” collection. This book was thus first published in 1961 in the “Idéal-Bibliothèque” collection, and then added to the regular series in 1968, both editions being illustrated by Jeanne Hives. You will find herebelow the illustrations from the latter edition, and I will make a separate post for the “Idéal-Bibliothèque” illustrations, to be published later this week.

You may have noticed that I quoted two different French titles above; this is because of a title change that occurred during a major update to the translations of the whole series in the early 2000s. I am not quite sure what motivated this specific title change. Some other titles hadn’t aged well and had taken xenophobic/racist connotations over time, but this one seems perfectly innocuous: “se distinguer” means “to achieve a remarkable feat.” Maybe this title was considered too bland and thus changed to “la maison hantée” (i.e. “the haunted house”), which, if not accurate to the plot, would certainly grab the attention of potential readers!

~~~~~~

Plot summary (adapted from Wikipedia):

George decides to go camping with her dog, Timmy, so he can recover from an ear injury without being mocked for wearing a large cardboard collar that prevents him from scratching his wound. George is pleased to be joined at the campsite by her cousin Anne, but is disappointed upon learning that Anne's brothers, Julian and Dick, are in France [Spain] and thus, would not be able to visit them.

(George’s temper flares high when poor Timmy’s condition is cause for hilarity in the neighbourhood!)

(George finds a camping place near an old cottage, which is soon to become the location of some very eerie events)

George and Anne encounter a boy named Guy [Guy], the son of famous archaeologist Sir John Lawdler [Jean Truchet], and his small, one-eyed mongrel dog called Jet [Radar]. The boy is excavating an old Roman camp to search for artefacts and asks the girls not to disturb him. Later that day, the boy's twin brother named Harry [Hubert] (as it is later revealed) comes to the area, but the girls mistake him for the first boy, unaware they are dealing with twins. This makes the girls very confused, as they would see the first boy at a certain place, and then think he would have inexplicably doubled up and reached another place. The girls think that he is just one crazy, mad boy, who likes to say things and make promises and later to say that he didn't make such promises or so. (It should be noted that the twins are certainly aware that they’re causing confusion for the girls, but due to a personal feud, neither of them feels the need to clear it up.)

(The girls meet the first twin, Guy – who has not endeared himself to George by playing a prank on Timmy – and his dog Jet)

Later that night, Anne gets up for a drink from the nearby stream and while trying to return to the camp, she ends up near a derelict, ruined cottage, where she sees lights and hears whispers and footsteps. She gets scared and then takes George and Timmy to the cottage but there is no indication of any human activity.

The next day, the girls again encounter the twins separately. The girls then go to George's parents' house for more food supplies and are informed that Julian and Dick will be arriving in a day or two.

The following night, a storm prompts the girls to shelter in the old cottage, where they are shocked to see people outside during the heavy storm and rain. The girls get scared, and Anne decides to leave the place the next day as she does not want to stay at the old cottage anymore.

(Scary happenings at the old cottage 😨)

Julian and Dick arrive the next day and notice that Anne and George are about to leave, the girls explaining their reason for departing. With the boys there, they all decide to stay in the ruined cottage and investigate.

(Five reunited at last!)

The Five spend the day visiting Guy at the dig, swimming at a nearby lake, and searching through the cottage. That night, while sleeping in the cottage, they hear weeping and wailing noises and see some kind of light that makes them a bit afraid. The next morning, the four understand that someone was trying to scare them away. They decide to move their camp and pretend to leave while keeping an eye on the activities at the cottage.

Julian and Dick visit the old cottage that night and they find that a gang of people are trying to find a secret tunnel in which a very precious blueprint was kept. The boys then report their findings to the girls.

In the morning, they decide to warn Guy about these suspicious people, only to find a distraught Harry who – finally – reveals that they’re twins, and explains that Guy and Jet have been kidnapped a few hours ago by the same people who searched the cottage and now wanted to search the dig.

(The Five find Harry distraught after Guy has been kidnapped)

Later George finds a clue to the secret tunnel. After a long and tiring walk underground, the children discover a leather bag that was very well hidden and feels very light. To their surprise, they find Harry and Jet waiting alone behind a roof-fall, their kidnappers having left them there while looking for tools to remove the rubble, confident that Harry would stay put as he got his ankle injured.

(Reconciled twins!)

After exiting the tunnel at the Roman dig, Julian makes sure to remove the rope that they used to get out, so that the bad guys remain trapped underground. Then the Five with Guy, Harry and Jet go to Kirrin Cottage. Later, a police officer arrives and opens the bag, which seems empty but they end up finding a blueprint hidden in the lining. Afterwards, Uncle Quentin reveals that it was a secret document which has only two copies in the world, one with himself and the other with Sir James Lawton-Harrison [Prof. Leroy-Larson] (whose copy has been stolen).

Later, the Five and the twins celebrate around a huge spread prepared by Joanna the cook. The story concludes with Timmy scratching his ear wound, making it go bad again and thus necessitating the use of a new cardboard collar, just as the story began with!

~~~~~~

Cover art through the ages:

(Disclaimer: This is not an exhaustive list; sometimes the dates are difficult to pinpoint; and I have purposefully not included editions that re-used similar cover art, with differences only in layout and font style.)

(Original cover art by Jeanne Hives, Idéal-Bibliothèque, Hachette, 1961 – a pretty group shot!)

(Subsequent cover by Jeanne Hives, Hachette, 1968 – the Five are wearing victory laurels as a nod to the title, in which ‘se distinguer’ means ‘to do a remarkable feat’)

(Poor Timmy and his cardboard collar 😔 – Jean Sidobre, Hachette, 1977)

(Once again, J.P. Morvan takes a lot of inspiration from Sidobre above – France Loisirs, 1979)

(Umberto Nonna brings us to the old Roman dig – Edito Service, 1981)

(Yves Beaujard, Hachette, 1989 – Anne is wearing quite a weird headband in this…)

(Julian and Dick’s stake-out at the cottage – Paul Gillon, Hachette, 1997)

(The old cottage – this looks great, I want to explore this place! Munch and Prunier, Hachette, 1999)

(Title change and lighting strike – the poor cottage has totally lost its charm! Frédéric Rébéna, Hachette, 2008)

(Spooky happenings! Auren, Hachette, 2020)

~~~~~~

Thanks for reading, and see you soon for the Idéal-Bibliothèque illustrations, as well as Sidobre's and Nonna's takes on the book!

#papillon82 reads #famous five art nostalgia #famous five #le club des cinq #illustrations #jeanne hives #enid blyton

6 notes · View notes

archivyrep · 2 years

Text

Creating Your Own History: Archival Themes in "The Watermelon Woman" [Part 2]

Continued from part 1

youtube

Following her setbacks in the library, Cheryl again goes through her mother’s files in the basement. Her mother’s friend, Shirley Hamilton (played by Ira Jeffries), reveals a key clue: the Watermelon Woman’s real name was Fae Richards, which Shirley knew because Fae sang under her real name. Cheryl also learns that, like her, Fae is a “sapphic sister”—a Black lesbian woman—and was in a relationship with Martha Page, the White female director of Plantation Memories and other 1930s films. Through her research, Cheryl learns the lesson that Alta Jett, coordinator for the community-focused Black Woman in the Middle West archives project, pointed out in 1986: “if you want the history of a white man, you go to the library. If you want the history of black women, you go to the attics, the closets, and the basements.” [5]

Reprinted from The American Archivist Reviews Portal. Thanks to Rose and Stephanie for their editing of this article! It was also posted on my Wading Through the Cultural Stacks WordPress blog on Jul. 5, 2022. This review contains some spoilers for the film The Watermelon Woman.

Jolie Braun, a modern literary and manuscripts scholar, has argued that The Watermelon Woman highlights the power of archival limits, critiques how archives and libraries control access to records, and reveals power relations that undergird research in those spaces. [6] John J. Kostka, a moving image specialist, described Cheryl’s contact with the librarian in her reference interview as “frustrating.” His description is accurate: the librarian does not initially listen to Cheryl and only offers assistance and takes her seriously after he realizes that she has done her research. [7] If Cheryl had been a White woman, the librarian may have been more gracious and less hostile, instead of telling her to check the “film,” “women,” and “Black” sections in a derisive tone. [8] The librarian, by redirecting her to look in those library sections, is representative of collections reinforcing cultural bias by marginalizing views that are not White, heteronormative, and male.

Although the librarian’s stance toward Cheryl hints that librarians are gatekeepers of information rather than information providers, Cheryl fully experiences the power of the archive when she travels to the Center for Lesbian Information & Technology (C.L.I.T.) Archive. While at this collective feminist lesbian archive, a parody of the Lesbian Herstory Archive, [9] with her friends Tamara and Annie, she meets an archivist voiced by queer academic Sarah Schulman. While researching at C.L.I.T., Cheryl discovers documents and photographs of Fae, including one given to Fae’s “special friend” June Walker. Later in the film, Cheryl talks to June, who angrily denies that Fae had a relationship with Page, a White woman.

At C.L.I.T., Cheryl faces pushback from the archivist, who explains that Black lesbian materials are segregated from the rest of the collection and that their donor wanted the materials to be used “exclusively” by Black lesbians. The archivist declares that she respects Black people by crossing out any White people in the collection’s photographs. It is implied that this brazen act of record defacement was deemed “acceptable” by the collective running the archive but runs against the wishes of the donor. While the donor restricting access to Black lesbians would seem to reverse archives’ typical power dynamics, this liberatory potential is squashed by the archivist who wants to maintain power over the records.

[5] Darlene Clark Hine and Patrick Kay Bidelman, “Introduction: The Black Women in the Middle West Project,” in The Black Women in the Middle West Project: A Comprehensive Resource Guide Illinois and Indiana (Purdue Research Foundation: Indianapolis, Indiana, 1986), 1.

[6] Jolie Braun, "Review: Make Your Own History: Documenting Feminist & Queer Activism in the 21st Century," RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage 14, no. 1 (2013): 49, https://doi.org/10.5860/rbm.14.1.399.

[7] John J. Kostka, “Toward Transgression: The Changing Role(s) of the Postmodern Archivist,” All Access Pass: Theory + Practice, accessed March 3, 2022, https://web.archive.org/web/20190429001349/https://johnkostka.com/toward-transgression/.

[8] Jean Bessette, "Composing Historical Activism: Anecdotes, Archives, and Multimodality in Rhetorics of Lesbian History" (PhD Thesis, University of Pittsburgh, 2013), 169.

[9] Moira Donegan, “The Watermelon Woman Shows the Power of Gay History,” The New Republic, July 5, 2017, https://newrepublic.com/article/143703/watermelon-woman-shows-power-gay-history; Bessette, “Composing Historical Activism,” 184; Rebecka Taves Sheffield, "The Bedside Table Archives: Archive Intervention and Lesbian Intimate Domestic Culture," Radical History Review, no. 120 (2014): 112, https://doi.org/10.1215/01636545-2703751.

3 notes · View notes

jdyf333 · 2 years

Video

crazy by Davivid Rose Via Flickr: (The telephone voicemail message was recorded in late 2021.) (I do NOT think I have schizophrenia. I do NOT think I have any other form of mental illness.) (I have never received any psychiatric treatment. I have never been prescribed any psychiatric medication [antipsychotics, tranquilizers, antidepressants, etc.] and I do not use any psychiatric medication.) On my Facebook home page in early October 2022 there was a post from NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) about "Mental Illness Awareness Week". There were more than 1,000 comments from Facebook users. Most of the people commenting said they are mentally ill or have a family member who is mentally ill. I was deeply moved by the number of commenters, their sincerity, and their pain. Their words were all the more powerful and heartbreaking because I could click on their picture and be taken to their Facebook account. I spent a lot of time reading the comments and viewing the Facebook accounts. I wish the public could do the same, because they might then more clearly understand how incredibly widespread mental illness is and how very, very common. (And that people who are mentally ill DO NOT "CHOOSE" TO BE MENTALLY ILL.) Most of the commenters seem to be ordinary Americans. Finding a way of providing desperately needed care for the very large number of mentally ill people in our country (and the world) is an extraordinarily urgent problem that is in no way even beginning to be adequately addressed. Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump definitely seem to be quite mentally ill. Please do NOT waste your time and energy being wrongfully angry at Biden and Trump for their mental illnesses. (As scientists have repeatedly shown, no evidence has yet been found that such a thing as "free will" exists, although many people say it is VERY important, for obvious reasons, for society, evolving in the way it has evolved, to pretend that "free will" exists.) (The comments on the NAMI post were later [wisely, in my opinion] deleted, although more accumulated quickly. Sadly, there is no doubt that there are many predators on Facebook gathering information about distressed people like the commenters, people who aren't thinking clearly and are thus more easily victimized.) (On September 7, 2022, Alameda County Sheriff's deputy Devin Williams, Jr., 24. murdered a woman from Vietnam who worked as a nurse at John George Psychiatric Hospital in San Leandro, California. He also murdered her husband. [A psychiatrist named Dr. Cuyler Burns Goodwin at one point worked at John George Psychiatric Hospital. Goodwin's medical license was revoked in 2022. One of the reasons was that he was accused of raping a patient after giving the patient ketamine.] After the murders, it was revealed that Williams had previously failed a sheriff's department psychological examination. The sheriff then told 47 other deputies who had also failed their psychological examinations that they would no longer be allowed to carry guns or arrest people.) ("Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around--nobody big, I mean--except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff--I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy." ---Holden Caulfield, in J.D. Salinger's novel THE CATCHER IN THE RYE, published in 1951 less than a month before I was born.) A randomly-edited selection of approximately 700 of my pictures may be viewed by clicking on the link below: www.flickr.com/groups/psychedelicart/pool/43237970@N00/ Please click here to read my "autobiography": thewordsofjdyf333.blogspot.com/ And my Flicker "profile" page may be viewed by clicking on this link: www.flickr.com/people/jdyf333/ My telephone number is: 510-260-9695

#crazy #pandemic #late 2021 #Berkeley California #telephone voicemail message #flickr

0 notes

duckprintspress · 3 years

Text

How to Edit an Over-Length Story Down to a Specific Word Count

One of the most wonderful things about writing as a hobby is that you never have to worry about the length of your story. You can be as self-indulgent as you want, make your prose the royalist of purples, include every single side story and extra thought that strikes your fancy. It’s your story, with no limits, and you can proceed with it as you wish.

When transitioning from casual writing to a more professional writing milieu, this changes. If you want to publish, odds are, you’ll need to write to a word count. If a flash fiction serial says, “1,000 words or less,” your story can’t be 1,025 and still qualify. If a website says, “we accept novellas ranging from 20,000 to 40,000 words,” your story will need to fall into that window. Even when you consider novel-length works, stories are expected to be a certain word count to fit neatly into specific genres - romance is usually around 80,000 words, young adult usually 50,000 to 80,000, debut novels usually have to be 100,000 words or less regardless of genre, etc. If you self-publish or work with a small press, you may be able to get away with breaking these “rules,” but it’s still worthwhile to learn to read your own writing critically with length in mind and learn to recognize what you do and do not need to make your story work - and then, if length isn’t an issue in your publishing setting, you can always decide after figuring out what’s non-essential to just keep everything anyway.

If you’re writing for fun? You literally never have to worry about your word count (well, except for sometimes in specific challenges that have minimum and/or maximum word counts), and as such, this post is probably not for you.

But, if you’re used to writing in the “throw in everything and the kitchen sink” way that’s common in fandom fanfiction circles, and you’re trying to transition only to be suddenly confronted with the reality that you’ve written 6,000 words for a short story project with a maximum word count of 5,000...well, we at Duck Prints Press have been there, we are in fact there right now, as we finish our stories for our upcoming anthology Add Magic to Taste and many of us wrote first drafts that were well over the maximum word count.

So, based on our experiences, here are our suggestions on approaches to help your story shorter...without losing the story you wanted to tell!

Cut weasel words (we wrote a whole post to help you learn how to do that!) such as unnecessary adverbs and adjectives, the “was ~ing” sentence structure, redundant time words such as “a moment later,” and many others.

When reviewing dialog, keep an eye out for “uh,” “er,” “I mean,” “well,” and other casual extra words. A small amount of that kind of language usage can make dialog more realistic, but a little goes a long way, and often a fair number of words can be removed by cutting these words, without negatively impacting your story at all.

Active voice almost always uses fewer words than passive voice, so try to use active voice more (but don’t forget that passive voice is important for varying up your sentence structures and keeping your story interesting, so don’t only write in active voice!).

Look for places where you can replace phrases with single words that mean the same thing. You can often save a lot of words by switching out phrases like “come back” for “return” and seeking out other places where one word can do the work of many.

Cut sentences that add atmosphere but don't forward the plot or grow your characters. (Obviously, use your judgement. Don't cut ALL the flavor, but start by going - I’ve got two sentences that are mostly flavor text - which adds more? And then delete the other, or combine them into one shorter sentence.)

Remove superfluous dialog tags. If it’s clear who’s talking, especially if it’s a conversation between only two people, you can cut all the he saids, she saids.

Look for places where you've written repetitively - at the most basic level, “ ‘hahaha,’ he laughed,” is an example, but repetition is often more subtle, like instances where you give information in once sentence, and then rephrase part or all of that sentence in the next one - it’s better to poke at the two sentences until you think of an effective, and more concise, way to make them into only one sentence. This also goes for scenes - if you’ve got two scenes that tend towards accomplishing the same plot-related goal, consider combining them into one scene.

Have a reason for every sentence, and even every sentence clause (as in, every comma insertion, every part of the sentence, every em dashed inclusion, that kind of thing). Ask yourself - what function does this serve? Have I met that function somewhere else? If it serves no function, or if it’s duplicative, consider cutting it. Or, the answer may be “none,” and you may choose to save it anyway - because it adds flavor, or is very in character for your PoV person, or any of a number of reasons. But if you’re saving it, make sure you’ve done so intentionally. It's important to be aware of what you're trying to do with your words, or else how can you recognize what to cut, and what not to cut?

Likewise, have a reason for every scene. They should all move the story along - whatever the story is, it doesn’t have to be “the end of the world,” your story can be simple and straightforward and sequential...but if you’re working to a word count, your scenes should still forward the story toward that end point. If the scene doesn’t contribute...you may not need them, or you may be able to fold it in with another scene, as suggested in item 6.

Review the worldbuilding you’ve included, and consider what you’re trying to accomplish with your story. A bit of worldbuilding outside of the bare essentials makes a story feel fleshed out, but again, a little can go a long way. If you’ve got lots of “fun” worldbuilding bits that don’t actually forward your plot and aren’t relevant to your characters, cut them. You can always put them as extras in your blog later, but they’ll just make your story clunky if you have a lot of them.

Beware of info-dumps. Often finding a more natural way to integrate that information - showing instead of telling in bits throughout the story - can help reduce word count.

Alternatively - if you over-show, and never tell, this will vastly increase your word count, so consider if there are any places in your story where you can gloss over the details in favor of a shorter more “tell-y” description. You don’t need to go into a minute description of every smile and laugh - sometimes it’s fine to just say, “she was happy” or “she frowned” without going into a long description of their reaction that makes the reader infer that they were happy. (Anyone who unconditionally says “show, don’t tell,” is giving you bad writing advice. It’s much more important to learn to recognize when showing is more appropriate, and when telling is more appropriate, because no story will function as a cohesive whole if it’s all one or all the other.)

If you’ve got long paragraphs, they’re often prime places to look for entire sentences to cut. Read them critically and consider what’s actually helping your story instead of just adding word count chonk.

Try reading some or all of the dialog out loud; if it gets boring, repetitive, or unnecessary, end your scene wherever you start to lose interest, and cut the dialog that came after. If necessary, add a sentence or two of description at the end to make sure the transition is abrupt, but honestly, you often won’t even need to do so - scenes that end at the final punchy point in a discussion often work very well.

Create a specific goal for a scene or chapter. Maybe it’s revealing a specific piece of information, or having a character discover a specific thing, or having a specific unexpected event occur, but, whatever it is, make sure you can say, “this scene/chapter is supposed to accomplish this.” Once you know what you’re trying to do, check if the scene met that goal, make any necessary changes to ensure it does, and cut things that don’t help the scene meet that goal.

Building on the previous one, you can do the same thing, but for your entire story. Starting from the beginning, re-outline the story scene-by-scene and/or chapter-by-chapter, picking out what the main “beats” and most important themes are, and then re-read your draft and make sure you’re hitting those clearly. Consider cutting out the pieces of your story that don’t contribute to those, and definitely cut the pieces that distract from those key moments (unless, of course, the distraction is the point.)

Re-read a section you think could be cut and see if any sentences snag your attention. Poke at that bit until you figure out why - often, it’s because the sentence is unnecessary, poorly worded, unclear, or otherwise superfluous. You can often rewrite the sentence to be clearer, or cut the sentence completely without negatively impacting your work.

Be prepared to cut your darlings; even if you love a sentence or dialog exchange or paragraph, if you are working to a strict word count and it doesn't add anything, it may have to go, and that's okay...even though yes, it will hurt, always, no matter how experienced a writer you are. (Tip? Save your original draft, and/or make a new word doc where you safely tuck your darlings in for the future. Second tip? If you really, really love it...find a way to save it, but understand that to do so, you’ll have to cut something else. It’s often wise to pick one or two favorites and sacrifice the rest to save the best ones. We are not saying “always cut your darlings.” That is terrible writing advice. Don’t always cut your darlings. Writing, and reading your own writing, should bring you joy, even when you’re doing it professionally.)

If you’re having trouble recognizing what in your own work CAN be cut, try implementing the above strategies in different places - cut things, and then re-read, and see how it works, and if it works at all. Sometimes, you’ll realize...you didn’t need any of what you cut. Other times, you’ll realize...it no longer feels like the story you were trying to tell. Fiddle with it until you figure out what you need for it to still feel like your story, and practice that kind of cutting until you get better at recognizing what can and can’t go without having to do as much tweaking.

Lastly...along the lines of the previous...understand that sometimes, cutting your story down to a certain word count will just be impossible. Some stories simply can’t be made very short, and others simply can’t be told at length. If you’re really struggling, it’s important to consider that your story just...isn’t going to work at that word count. And that’s okay. Go back to the drawing board, and try again - you’ll also get better at learning what stories you can tell, in your style, using your own writing voice, at different word counts. It’s not something you’ll just know how to do - that kind of estimating is a skill, just like all other writing abilities.

As with all our writing advice - there’s no one way to tackle cutting stories for length, and also, which of these strategies is most appropriate will depend on what kind of story you’re writing, how much over-length it is, what your target market is, your characters, and your personal writing style. Try different ones, and see which work for you - the most important aspect is to learn to read your own writing critically enough that you are able to recognize what you can cut, and then from that standpoint, use your expertise to decide what you should cut, which is definitely not always the same thing. Lots of details can be cut - but a story with all of the flavor and individuality removed should never be your goal.

Contributions to this post were made by @unforth, @jhoomwrites, @alecjmarsh, @shealynn88, @foxymoley, @willablythe, and @owlishintergalactic, and their input has been used with their knowledge and explicit permission. Thanks, everyone, for helping us consider different ways to shorten stories!

#writing advice #duck prints press #original content

481 notes · View notes

zkbigbang · 3 years

Text

ZKBB 2022 Writer Guidelines

Story Requirements:

All stories should be centered around Zuko and Katara and their relationship.

Oneshots should meet a minimum word count of 6,000 words when completed, and multichapters should meet a minimum word count of 10,000 words before the end of the event.

Stories must be rated G or T on AO3

Big Bang fics must be new, standalone works. No continuations of existing series or published WIPs are allowed.

Story ideas should be secret before the start of the event to allow for fair, anonymous project bidding.

Stories will be posted to an anonymous AO3 collection for two weeks at the end of the event before writers' information is revealed publicly. This rule is intended to give lesser-known writers more visibility - please do not discuss specifics of your Big Bang project outside of the event server until writers are revealed.

Summary Submissions:

Within the first few days after joining the event server, all writers will have to submit information about their planned story for artists and betas to bid on. In case you'd like to get an early start on writing up your summaries, this is the information required on the summary submission form:

A working title for your story: This can be the title that you plan to use when you post to AO3 or something as simple as "Fake Dating AU" or "CoD Canon Divergence"

The type of story you're planning to write: oneshot or multichapter

A "short" summary of your story: the type of summary that you might use to promote your story on AO3 or Tumblr. This summary doesn't have to cover the plot of your story in detail - it can just be catchy and capture the ~vibes~ of the story

An "extended" summary of your story: a summary/outline that includes more plot details and important scenes for your potential artists and betas' reference. This summary doesn't have to be extensive, but it should give your team a better idea of where the story is going and the sorts of scenes that could be translated into artwork

Any AO3 archive warnings that will apply to your story

Any other content warnings that may apply

Other planned relationships that will appear in the story

What type of beta reader you'd like to work with: SPaG, Planning, Creative, Cheer Reader, etc

How many Discord channels you want for your project: we're offering up to 3 text channels and a voice channel for every project - if you know in advance that you want to voice chat with your team, we can get that set up for you. If you change your mind about this later, just let your mod know.

If the mod team has any questions or concerns about your submission (if you've accidentally chosen the same working title as someone else, or you've included content warnings that don't usually appear in G or T rated fics, for example), we'll be in contact with you before getting your project channel(s) set up in the server.

Writer Check-Ins:

At each formal writers' check-in, you'll be asked to provide your current word count so that the mods can gauge your progress. Suggested word count milestones for each check-in are:

Saturday, May 14 - Oneshots: 1,200, Multichapters: 2,000

Saturday, May 28 - Oneshots: 2,400, Multichapters: 4,000

Saturday, June 11 - Oneshots: 3,600, Multichapters: 6,000

Saturday, June 25 - Oneshots: 4,800, Multichapters: 8,000

Saturday, July 9 - Oneshots: 6,000, Multichapters: 10,000

Friday, July 15: Writers’ Draft Deadline

Saturday, July 30 - Oneshots: have the first 3,000 words of your fic edited, Multichapters: have the first 5,000 words of your fic edited

Saturday, August 27 - Have your entire fic (or chapters up to the minimum 10,000 word count) edited

As always, feel free to reach out with any other questions. The mods are more than willing to help!

#zutara #zutara big bang #zutara big bang 2022 #zkbigbang #zkbigbang2022 #zkbb #zkbb2022

29 notes · View notes

hakuoyuki · 3 years

Note

Morning satomi, I was wondering if it’s possible to be told more about mr eyepatch man? I’m good with heavy spoilers since I’m quite impatient 💔

If there isn’t anything more to be said about him or smth else regarding my ask then it can be ignored

Gilbert: Hey there, I heard you want to know more about me?

————

Hello Anon, I see you're eager to know more about Obsidian's generalissimo. The supreme commander, a young man with an eloquent smile. And talk about amazing timing, IkePri revealed his name while I’m in the middle of giving a super long and detailed answer to this ask. Not me having to edit almost the whole thing because of the name reveal....

—

Obsidian’s 1st Prince ： Gilbert von Obsidian

Character：Absolute Evil × Trampling

Character Voice: ??? (To be reveal)

—

p.s. I’ll be translating Gilbert’s voice line from the tweet on IkePri JP official twitter and posting it on here later with their name and character description after the lines for all 3 new characters are shared (probably in the next few days and I’ll update my old asks accordingly too).

—

Additionally, quite A LOT was actually revealed about Mr Eyepatch Manー Gilbert, from Luke’s Route. That's pretty much all I can say as the intro....

Everything else will be under the cut due to very Very VERY Heavy Spoilers for *Luke's route.

*Spoilers of plot, quotes, and descriptions as translated from the JP version of Ikemen Prince

Note: Some content may be triggering so please be forewarned.

Again, this is SUPER HEAVY SPOILER for LUKE RANDOLPH’S ROUTE. (Biggest spoiler from the get go right under this cut. Please take this as the final warning)

. ————

Since I’ve already shared the basic info on him (without plot spoiler) in the previous ask...

From here on I’ll be sharing everything that was revealed related to Gilbert von Obsidian (a.k.a. Eyepatch Man) thus far. (Everything are from Luke’s route)

Parts which have direct references to Gilbert (something someone says about him / something about him / something he says) will be in italic.

Note: Now that we got a name reveal, I’ll be putting his name in bracket where applicable. (Example: ??? (Gilbert), Eyepatch man (Gilbert), etc..)

————

[Spoilers from Luke’s common route (Chapter 20)]

Back at the castle 3 princes gathered in the pure white office room

Clavis: ーー.......And that ends the report

Nokto: Oh... Both Luke and Jin got it hard huh. To be seeking revenge even though they're brothers

Chevalier: I don't remember telling you to report about that kind of stuff I don't give a damn about

Chevalier rested his chin on his hands on the one and only desk in the room as he coldly glare at Clavis

Chevalier: What I asked about was "information on what you've been snooping around"

Clavis: .......Seriously, what an unpleasant guy. I don't remember telling you about that

Chevalier: You think I don't know what you're doing?

Nokto: What information he's been snooping around?

Clavis: The other day I realized luke's family background was shrewdly forged

Clavis: Getting hold of fake information affects my honor as an older brother you see?

Clavis: That's why I thoroughly investigated him all over again

Nokto: Your "thoroughly" is just nasty isn't it....... well, so there was "something" that even king wants to know about?

Clavis: Yeah. It's an exceptionally delightful story

Clavis turned his back toward Chevalier as he continued to speak looking only at Nokto

Clavis: Luke was born at a territory that a certain margrave is managing

Clavis: So I went to check that territory's birth registration and death registration documents but.....

Clavis: It seems Luke had died once on the day of bloodstained roses

Nokto: You mentioned it earlier didn't you. That after Jin killed his little sister, Luke was crushed by the debris and died

Clavis: According to Jin's testimony that is

Clavis: Even if he survived that, he was so gravely wounded that death is pretty much guaranteed however......

Clavis: A year after that, Luke was employed as a mercenary in town

Clavis raised two fingers

Clavis: There's two problem here. Who saved Luke. And what happened during that 1 year gap

Clavis: For Luke to have a death registration means our military doctor wasn't the one who saved him

Clavis: But at that battlefield there was only two group at war. If Rhodolite didn't saved him......

Nokto: You don't mean......

*Note: Yes. Obsidian, specifically Gilbert, was the one who "saved" Luke. (This is revealed in both True Love and Passionate Love ends, with each end giving us more details on Gilbert, what went on, and what he’s up to.)

Clavis: I'm just speaking of possibilities

Chevalier: ............

Clavis: Cheva, since when did you realized all this?

Chevalier: When do you think?

Clavis: .........

Chevalier: There was the incident at the embassy wasn't there. I anticipated this ever since then

Clavis: .......So it's like that huh

Nokto: It's like what?

Chevalier: Think about it yourself

Chuckling, Chevalier stood up from his chair

Chevalier: If his connection to that country is clear, then there's no reason for us to remain silent about this

Chevalier: Immature as he is, it seems he had given us the answer to what his life is worth

Clavis: You......

Chevalier: I have no mercy for traitors to the country

As his white mantle fluttered, Chevalier heads toward the door

Reflected in his eyes was a cold gaze of the ruthless and cruel beast

Chevalier: It's time for a hunt

————

[Quotes from Luke’s passionate love end (Chapter 21 - His POV)]

??? (Gilbert): The reason for being born is all given afterwards

??? (Gilbert): What are you able to leave behind while alive? I think that’s the value of one’s life...

??? (Gilbert): Well then, I wonder what you’re able to leave behind?

It was at some point, his savior gave an eloquent smile.

Luke: (While I’m still alive, there’s only one thing I can leave behind.)

That is to kill the royalties he loathed that beheaded his little sister.

The value of his life was all condensed into that.

—

[Spoilers from Luke’s passionate love end (Chapter 21 - Normal POV)]

A summary of what went on now what we know from the common route that Jin killed Luke’s sister, Leila, and Luke was crushed by debris but had somehow survived that. It turned out that not only is Obsidian military development more advanced than Rhodolite... But also their medical technology.

Rhodolite's current medical tech: If someone is crushed by the debris of a building, they can no longer be saved.

Obsidian's current medical tech: Even if someone is crushed by debris, their bones broken, their internal organs injured, as long as they're still "alive", saving them is "not impossible".

Jin mercy killed Leila under the assumption of Rhodolite's medical tech but Luke who was even more heavily injured than Leila was saved thanks to Obsidian's more advanced medical technology.

Luke told Jin how he have seen Obsidian's medical tech first handed (thanks to Gilbert) and it's much much more advanced than Rhodolite's.

—

Luke: .....Of course it wasn’t something cheap that anyone can afford.

Luke: But I happened to catch the eye of “that guy” (Gilbert)

—

[A flashback scene to after Luke was retrieved from the debris of his house that had crushed his body]

??? (Gilbert): Rhodolite had abandoned you but Obsidian saved you

??? (Gilbert): Because you see, how could someone take away the life of such a young child

??? (Gilbert): But it's such a pity..... had your younger sister been alive, we might have had been able to save her too

??? (Gilbert): It's just that her life was taken away by someone with no medical knowledge

??? (Gilbert): Rhodolite's royalties really are so nasty aren't they?

—

Jin: ......You, don’t tell meーー

Jin: Were you saved by the “eyepatch bastard” (Gilbert)?

Luke: ......That’s right.

*Flashing through his mind was... Obsidian's generalissimo. The supreme commander, a young man with an eloquent smile. [This line is from Luke’s His POV story]

Luke: The one who saved me was the guy you called “eyepatch bastard”

Jin: Nh.. No, I’m glad you’re alive. But to think you could be saved because it was Obsidian...

Jin: If it’s with that bastard’s authority and military control, getting the highest level of medical care would certainly be possible.

Jin: But the price for that is...... dammit!

—

Jin: Realize it idiot! that guy isn't someone who would save you with a good intention

Jin: Everything is a trapped he laid for the sake of this! To fuel on your hatred and destroy the royal family from the inside out

Jin: ........No, not just that. But the soldiers who harassed you and your little sister might have done so on the order of that man too!

Luke: No.

Luke: Because those soldiers were all killed by that guy

Jin: ............

Luke: He said "I have no need for hideous soldiers who harasses children on the battlefield" and such too

*With an eloquent smile on his face, he ordered his own soldiers killed. It was a memory that gave him the shivers. [This line is from Luke’s His POV story]

Jin: .........Isn't that to buy your trust

Jin: Ah, shit. For real..... I can't stand the way he does things

Jin: In our country we have "a genius born every thousand years" (Chevalier) but... that eyepatch bastard (Gilbert) too is like that.........

Jin: That guyーー is a genius in brainwashing through grasping the minds and hearts of others

—

Additional information revealed in Luke’s passionate love end is that both Clavis and Sariel also knows Eyepatch Man (Gilbert von Obsidian) as well as how much of a threat he is.

————

[Spoilers from Luke’s true love end (Chapter 21)]

Luke: Let me just ask one thing first. ........is this for my crime of trying to kill a royalty?

Chevalier: Who cares about that. It's not unusual for brothers to kill each other if it's royalties we're talking about

Luke: .......

Luke: *(Well.... I see. If that kind of thing is a crime then Clavis would fave already been killed by now) [This line is from Luke’s His POV story]

Luke: Then is it because I stirred on the anti-royalty faction?

Chevalier: Who cares about that too. That's well too inadequate to be called a threat

Luke: Then what is it? I can't think of anything else

Chevalier: You have connections with Obsidian don't you

Luke: ...............

Chevalier: Oh, don't misunderstand. Just having connections with Obsidian doesn't matters too. There's someone else (Clavis, as confirmed in passionate love end) who's building a friendship with them even more than you are.

Luke: ..........What?

Luke: Then why are you pointing your sword at me??

Chevalier: You're acquainted with the "eyepatch man" (Gilbert) aren't you?

Luke: ................

Chevalier: .....As I thought

Luke: How did you........know?

Chevalier: 10 Years agoーーYou were gravely injured

—

Chevalier knew it's Gilbert because Obsidian aren't so compassionate that they would save a child. Much less a dying child of an enemy's country. For them to do so must mean someone on their side instructed the soldier to do so, and for them to specifically save Luke, means they know this boy can possibly kill Rhodolite's royal family. But on top of that, they must know that this boy has royal blood in his veins, and there's only one person in Obsidian who is in the position and has the authority to pull that off together with that knowledge in their handsーー and that person is Gilbert.

—

Chevalier: That man is a disaster. He's great at manipulating people.

Chevalier: As long as you're within his palm, your hatred and grudge will never disappear

—

[Spoilers from Luke’s true love end (Chapter 23)]

Luke reached into his jacket

What he pulled out wasn’t a sword, but it was a “jet black lump of iron” (a hand gun)

Jin: You.... That’s......

It was a firearm used in the war in recent years but a much smaller version.

The fruits of military technology which had “advanced by hundreds of years” was within Luke’s hand.

Jin: ......You’re kidding me right

Jin: The one backing you is the “eyepatch bastard” (Gilbert)?

Jin: Nh.... Luke!

Luke: ーーGood bye, Jin

—

[Spoilers from Luke’s true love end (Chapter 24)]

In the shadow of the forest, Chevalier, Leon, and Clavis were watching the scene unfolds.

Leon: Hey, more importantly... What do you think “that” is?

What was reflected in his eyes was the lump of iron that had dropped down on the grass

Clavis: Do you see it as something else other than a gun?

Leon: A gun that small that’s not only portable but also super accurate and can be fired continuously? I’ve never seen such a thing on the battlefield before.

Clavis: I’ll collect and analyze it later but, it’s probably not something that can be reproduced given our technological development.

Clavis: I shall presume that thing was “given to Luke to have him on to”

Leon: .....There’s only one person I can think of who would be able to create such an unimaginable weapon though?

Chevalier: It’s a declaration of war from “that man” (Gilbert)

Chevalier’s lips turned into a smirk

Chevalier: He’s intimidating us with the fact Obsidian’s military technology is beyond our knowledge

Chevalier: “Get ready to be trampled on” is what he wanted to say isn’t it? This uncouthness is just like him.

Clavis: .......

Leon: Seems like this is no situation for us to be splitting up

As Leon walked away following Chevalierーー

No one noticed Clavis whose smile has disappeared from his face as he was left behind.

————

[Spoilers from Extra Scene at the very end of Luke’s true love end Chapter 25 (End Chapter) after “Fin” already showed up.]

ーーAt same time, at a certain place, in a certain region

The "man wearing an eyepatch" gives an eloquent smile to the soldier clad in black kneeling before him

??? (Gilbert): Today is Luke's big day huh...... I wanted to go congratulate him directly

??? (Gilbert): Just kidding. Putting aside such a thing that's not even on my mindーー

??? (Gilbert): I too, thought of giving him a "gift"

??? (Gilbert): Having someone precious to him taken away for the second time, I wonder what kind of feelings that would give him?

————

[Spoilers from Luke’s true love end epilogue]

One day, MC was at the bookstore she was working at. Her work was already done for the day but she stayed to read the books there to study some more. Rio told her he'll head back first and warned her not to stay too late.

A while after Rio left, just as MC finished reading a book.... she heard the door opened.

MC: Rio.....?

......But it wasn’t Rio. Some men had entered the bookstore and judging from there expression, they obviously do not mean well. MC thought how she better escape as soon as possible but unfortunately, it was already too late.

Later in the forest...

Luke was dealing with some illegal immigrants from Obsidian ....They were the ones who took MC

—

Illegal immigrant: Luke? You, betrayed us!

Luke: Betray? Did your "master" (Gilbert) say that?

Illegal immigrant: ..........

Luke: To begin with, I'm not that guy's servant. Unlike you guys

Luke recalled a line he often heard eyepatch man (Gilbert) says

??? (Gilbert): Trampling over a weak country is boring

Luke points his sword at the face of eyepatch man's servants

Luke: It's that guy we're talking about. He knew about how I became a legitimate prince and this time has a "gift" for me doesn't he?

Luke: Then I better give him a proper thank

Luke: Let him know I'll give him the most deserving return gift that will make him regret if he ever lay his hand on MC!

Luke: ーーWell, that's if you get to meet your master again that is

—

Clavis has been watching the scene unfold from the side

Luke: What, you're here too?

Clavis: It's my job as an older brother to cheer on my cute little brother on the first time he's going solo

Luke: You're noisy so just go back already

Clavis: Hahahah, well, that asides

Clavis: ......With this, you really became that man (Gilbert)'s enemy

Clavis: It would be nice if you..... don't regret it alright?

Luke: ーー!

On reflex, Luke roughly grabbed Clavis by his shoulder and pulled him away from the carriage where mc was held in

Luke: I had this thought before but, you.....

Luke: "who" are you?

Luke sensed "something" and it put him on guard as he stared at Clavis

Clavis: Isn't this a bit too late for that. I'm your wonderful older brother, the 3rd prince who loves delights aren't I?

Luke: .........."That rumor" isn't true now is it

Clavis: Well, what if it is. What are you going to do?

Clavis: ーーNh, haha, if you grip me any harder your older brother's shoulder is going to break

Luke let go of Clavis

Clavis: If you want to protect MC then bare your fangs at everything like what you just did. Doubt everything

Clavis: But with the man that you had turned into an enemy of (Gilbert), even that much vigilance is still isn't enough

—

After they safely made it back to the castle MC apologized to Luke and thanked him for saving her. Luke told her it's not her fault because rather, she got "dragged into" his mess. MC was confused so Luke told her how he got info from Chevalier that there's been illegal immigrants entering the country recently and it turned out those illegal immigrant had came for the sole purpose of kidnapping MC

Note: It was Gilbert's order, his "gift" to Luke = to steal MC away

MC was confused as to why someone would want to kidnap her because she's not Belle anymore

Luke: You know I used to be on Obsidian's side right?

To protect mc as a prince of Rhodolite means going against Obsidian, and the one who used to back Luke (Gilbert) is offended by that. Luke told MC how he think he (Gilber) is thinking that if he's able to take the woman Luke is intimate with as hostage, he would once again, be able to get the upper hand on Luke.

Luke: Well, but the means he used was too sloppy. Rather than trying to kidnap you seriously, it's more like he's making a declaration of war.

Luke: It's as if to say..... If I turn against Obsidian, it's not me..... But it's you that they'll hurt.....

————

Andddd that sums up what we know so far about Gilbert von Obsidian, the 1st Prince of Obsidian first introduced as Eyepatch Man!

#ikepri #ikemen prince #イケメン王子 #asks #ikepri jp #ikepri act 2 #luke route spoilers #MAJOR luke route spoilers #ikepri eyepatch man #long answer #SUPER MAJOR SPOILER #potential triggering content #seriously this is SUPER MAJOR spoilers like FOR REAL it's that much of a spoiler that I'm repeatedly saying it that many times #gilbert von obsidian #ikepri gilbert

94 notes · View notes