#Ultimate goal of becoming the one before creation

[utilitycaster]

Daggerheart Character Build thoughts!

I am actually out at work and haven't checked the version that's since come out, but I did participate in the character build beta, and the NDA is officially lifted, so here's my thoughts from that! It's definitely limited since I just made a L1 character and didn't go through gameplay, though I surmise about some aspects of gameplay.

Overall, it clearly seems to be made by people who love a lot of things about D&D 5e but wanted both more flexibility and more simplicity, which is difficult. I think they succeed.

To that end, it takes away some of the crunchier aspects (precise positioning, exact amounts of gold) and I think for some people that will be a problem, and that's valid, but ultimately this game wants to both allow for interesting mechanics in and out of combat while also not being terribly math/map/resource management heavy. It is a hard line to walk; most systems either go hard crunch or go entirely gooey.

The dice mechanic (2d12, Hope and Fear system) is fantastic; look it up but I think it handles mixed successes more gracefully and interestingly than a lot of games.

The playtest was not super clear on armor and evasion choices (or indeed what evasion means; it seems to be sort of initiative but sort of dex save, or maybe more like the Pathfinder/old school D&D varying ACs by scenario?). It was much, MUCH clearer than D&D on weapon choices (part of why I play casters? Weapon rules in D&D are annoying and poorly explained and many people rightfully ignore them) so I'm hoping this becomes clear when there's a full guide rather than just the character creation info.

The character creation questions by class were fantastic and in general, and this is a theme, this feels like it guides people towards collaboration. FWIW I feel like D&D has that information, but the way it's presented is very much as flavor text rather than a thing you should be doing. Daggerheart makes this a much more core part of creation. The Experience mechanic is particularly clear: you better be working with your GM and really thinking about background, rather than slapping it on as a mechanic.

The other side of character creation questions is that it really encourages engagement with the class, which is something I've talked about. I think either subversion for the sake of subversion, or picking a class for the mechanics and aesthetic but not the fundamental concept, will be much harder to justify in Daggerheart, and I think that's a good thing because when people do that, their characters tend to be weaker.

The downtime is designed for you to write hurt/comfort fanfic about and this is a compliment. There are a number of mechanics that reward RP, particularly one of the healing mechanics under the Splendor track. I feel like a weakness of D&D is that when you try to reward RP it's really nebulous because there's not actually a ton of space to put that - you can give inspiration, but, for example, the empathy domain Matt homebrewed actually feels kind of off because it's based on such fuzzy concepts amid mechanics that are usually more rigid. Daggerheart comes off as much cleaner yet still RP-focused, and I'm excited to see it in action.

A judgement of Candela and I suppose Daggerheart might be that it's designed for actual play. I've mentioned before that I know people who are super into the crunch and combat and numbers of TTRPGs and are less story-oriented, and again, that's valid, but actual play is just storytelling using a ttrpg and so yes, a game that encourages RP while also having mechanics to support that and influence it is an extremely good goal. I am not an actual player, but I do like D&D games with a good plot and not just Go Kill Monsters, and I want to play this. (I also have some real salty thoughts about how if you modify an existing game for AP purposes that's staggering genius apparently, but if you make your own game how dare you but that's another post).

And now, the classes/subclasses. I am going to sort of use D&D language to describe them because that's a point of reference most people reading this will understand, but they are not one-to-one. A couple notes: everyone can use weapons and armor. HP is not totally clear to me but it seems to be threshold based - everyone has the same HP to start but people have different thresholds and armor, so the tank classes have the same amount of HP but are much harder to actually do damage to.

All classes are built on a combination of a subclass and two domains. There are 9 classes and 9 domains. This technically means that if you wanted to fuck around and homebrew you could make up to 36 classes (27 additional) by just grabbing two domains that weren't otherwise combined, which is fun to consider for the potential. Anyway I cover the classes and briefly describe domains within them. You can take any domain card within your domain, regardless of subclass.

There are six stats. Presence, Instinct, Knowledge, and Strength map roughly to Charisma, Wisdom, Intelligence, and Strength. Dex is split into Agility and Finesse; Agility covers gross motor skills (jumping, most ranged weapons, "maneuvering") and Finesse finer ones (lockpicking and tinkering, though also it does cover hiding). The really big wins are first, no CON score, so you don't need to sink stat points into something that grants no skills but keeps you alive. The second one is that the "hybrid" classes spellcast from their physical stat. This is fucking fantastic. The thing about ranger or paladin or the spellcasting subclasses of rogue and fighter in D&D is that if you don't roll pretty well you're locked into the core stats and CON and nothing else. (This also doesn't have rolling for stats: you assign +2 to one stat, presumably your main, and then distribute two +1s, two 0s, and one -1.)

Your HP, Evasion, and Thresholds are set by class, and there's a core ability; the rest is all from the cards you take for subclass and domain.

Leveling up is very much based on taking more domain cards (abilities) but has a certain degree of flexibility. It's by chunks: in leveling up anywhere levels 2-4, you can, for example, increase your proficiency by +1 once, so if you wanted to do that at level 2 but your fellow player wanted to wait until level 4 and take something else at level 2 instead, they could. It allows for more min-maxing, but also everyone has the same level up rules and differs only in the abilities on the cards, which is very cool.

Bard: Grace (enchantment spells) and Codex (learned spellcaster stuff; the spells available are definitely arcane in vibes) based, Presence is your main stat. The two subclasses map roughly to lore-style stuff and eloquence. Core class ability is sort of like inspiration but not entirely. It's a bard; I like bards a lot, and this is very similar vibes-wise to your D&D bards. If you like D&D bards you will like this.

Druid: Sage (nature spells) and Arcana (raw magical power spellcaster stuff), Instinct is your spellcasting/main stat. The two subclasses are elemental but frankly cooler than circle of the moon, and a more healing/tranquility of nature focused one. I really think Marisha probably gave feedback on this one, because the elemental version is really strong. You do get beastform; it is quite similar to a D&D druid under a different system, as the bard, but the beastform options are, frankly, better and easier to understand.

Guardian: Valor (melee tank/damager) and Blade (damage). Strength based for the most part (Valor mechanics assume strength) though you could go for like, +2 Agility +1 Strength to start. This is barbarian but like. 20 times better. It is, fundamentally, a tank class, and it is very good at it, with one even more tank-focused subclass and one that is more about retaliatory damage. You do have a damage-halving ability once per day, but really guardian's questions are incredible. I think Travis and Ashley likely gave feedback. Also rage doesn't render you incapable of concentration as that doesn't seem to be a thing, so multiclassing seems way more possible (you are, I think, only allowed to do one multiclass, and not until you reach level 5 minimum, which I am in favor of). Yes, you can be a Bardian.

Ranger: This is what I built! It is based on Sage and Bone (movement around the field/dodging stuff) and it is Agility-based, including for spellcasting, which is a MASSIVE help (as is, again, the fact that CON isn't a thing.) The subclasses are basically being really good at navigation, or animal companion. Most importantly to me you can be a ranger with a longsword and you are not penalized; Bone works with either ranged weapons or melee.

Rogue: Midnight (stealth/disguise/assassination spells and skills) and Grace-based. Yes, rogue is by default a spellcaster, which does help a LOT with the vibes for me. One subclass is basically about having lots of connections (as a spy or criminal might) and the other is about magical slinking about. Hiding/sneak attack are also streamlined. I will admit I'm still more interested in…almost everything else, but I think it evened out a lot of rogue weaknesses.

Seraph: Splendor (healing/divine magic) and Valor. This is your Paladin equivalent. It is strength-based for casting, again making hybrid classes way less stressful. Questions for this area also incredible; you do have something not unlike a lay on hands pool as well. Your subclasses are being able to fly and do extra damage; or being able to make your melee weapon do ranged attacks and also some extra healing stuff, the latter of which is my favorite. Yasha vibes from this, honestly. Single downside is this is the only class where they recommend you dump Knowledge. I will not, and I never will. Now that I don't have to make sure CON is high? I am for REAL never giving myself less than a +1 Knowledge in this game.

Sorcerer: Arcana (raw nature of magic/elemental vibes) and Midnight based. Yes, sorcerers and rogues now share a vibe, for your convenient….less enthused feelings. Instinct-based, which intrigues me, and the core features are in fact really good. The two subclasses are either one that focuses on metamagic abilities, or one that is elemental based. I would play this for a long-running game, though it's not my favorite, and I can't say that for D&D sorcerer (except divine soul).

Warrior: Blade and Bone, and the recommended build is Agility but you could do a strength build. Fighter! One subclass is about doing damage and one is about the hope/fear mechanics core to the game that I have NOT talked much about. I will admit, the hybrid martials and Guardian are more interesting to me but you do have good battle knowledge.

Wizard: Codex and Splendor. Wizards can heal in this system; farewell, I will be doing nothing else (jk). Knowledge-based, and you can either go hardcore expertise in knowledge, or be a battle wizard.

Other scattered thoughts: healing is not as big a deal here; there is no pure cleric class! There is also no monk, warlock, or artificer. There is not a way to do monk as a weaponless class really though you might be able to flavor the glowing rings as a monk weapon and play a warrior. Wizard, meanwhile, with the right experiences and high finesse, would allow for some artificer flavor. Cleric and Warlock are the two tough ones and I will admit those are tricky; I feel like you'd have to multiclass (which you cannot do until level 5) between perhaps seraph and a caster class and you're still going to come off very paladin.

[emmkitt]

CONNECTION: LOST AU

(Inanimate Insanity + HFJONE + BFDI)

IVE WANTED TO MAKE AN OSC AU FOR SOOO LONG AND I FINALLY HAVE AN IDEA ahem

shoutout to @somebean81 for helping me figure out some of the details of this. GET READY FOR A LOTTA WORDS

—>”i” is an Algebralien. Within this universe, Algebraliens excell not only in arithmetic, but understanding of the concept of death. The Radio— which exists in The Waiting Room after an object becomes deceased— is monitored and controlled by the Algebraliens, and the sequence of numbers input within the machine determine the universe the object will be transported to.

—>’i’ became enamoured with this technology, but frustrated with the fact they were excluded, as they were not a number themself.

—>’i’ began to experiment with The Radio, managing to hack the systems and create a new input, that being “i”, which would instantly teleport an object to him. Being as the input was figuratively and literally “imaginary,” the only being capable of producing the input was ‘i.’ An object would input a numeric value into The Radio and ‘i’ would hack it before the antennae could be raised.

—>Almost immediately, when strange objects began running about, the other Algebraliens discovered ‘i’s shenanigans.

—>One of the biggest offenses was to tamper with The Radio systems, which led to ‘i’s immediate exile to Earth.

—>As ‘i’ could not appear as an Algebralien on earth, he was forced into an object disguise, that being a character he deemed ‘Steve Cobs.’

—>The Algebraliens had yet to understand simply how Cobs had managed to hack The Radio, and until then, Cobs was able to continue hacking the system. He would only teleport a single object on occassion, as a means of ensuring the Algebraliens would not catch on.

—>A new type of object Soul Cobs had not yet known about was discovered immediately, called a Wandering Soul. Wandering Souls are deceased objects which have existed in The Waiting Room for centuries, leading to the object no longer retaining any idea of their former identity. These souls appear as amorphous blobs and tend to be quite disoriented.

—>Cobs initially felt pity for these souls, and in his first experiment he created a robotic phone-shaped body for one of the souls. The first experiments, however, proved unsuccessful, and the souls were completely destroyed in the process of attempting to ‘revive’ them.

—>After three failed experiments, however, Cobs finally managed to perfect his creation. Mephone4 was the first Wandering Soul successfully revived.

—>Mephone4S, who was created shortly after Mephone4, was another success, however unlike 4, 4S retained the knowledge that he was once dead. 4 was programmed without this memory. When 4S sacrificed himself to save 4 (which ultimately destroyed his soul), Mephone4 received the memories about how he was technically not ‘alive.’ (Cue the existential crisis!), along with some of 4S’s memories.

—>As time went on, Cobs began to program his creations to be less and less human and more robotic in nature, completely stripping the once living objects of their humanity. He figured that would make it easier for him to inevitably send his Mephone creations to get revenge on the Algebraliens.

—>During his quest to find more Wandering Souls, Cobs accidentally teleported a regular soul to his laboratory, that being a copper lantern known as Airy.

—>Cobs debated between simply killing Airy to send him back to The Waiting Room, but the other convinced him to let him live, with the offer of his knowledge of The Waiting Room and The Radio.

—>With his apathetic personality, Airy became a great assistant to Cobs, and proved to be quite intelligent with the technology. Cobs soon programmed robotic enhancements for Airy, as a means of ensuring Airy would not be easy to kill.

—>With the newfound invention of Recovery Centers, the amount of Wandering Souls available was becoming scarce. Cobs, being dead set on his goal, begins to resort to living objects, figuring that any soul should work.

—>Obviously, theres a bit more moral and ethical conflict there, especially since these souls understand who they are, unlike the Wandering Souls, and Cobs was essentially forcing them into a new form and role.

—>The first victim to this was Fan, who was immediately discovered to be missing by Test Tube.

—>One of 4S’ memories which Mephone4 retained was that of Cobs’ plans to resort to living souls to create more Mephones. Initially brushing it aside as a silly dream, Mephone4 realizes this is serious, and that Fan had probably been kidnapped.

—>Next, Tissues and YinYang also disappeared.

—>As a Mephone, Fan (MeFan1) was programmed with the least humanity. He’s essentially a shell of the formerly enthusiastic and friendly object he used to be. Fan was Cobs’ first target, as he has almost unlimited knowledge of the II contestants, which was the only memories Cob’s allowed him to retain.

—>As a Mephone, Tissues (MephoneT) glitches a lot (condishawn) and is deemed a failed experiment by Cobs because of this.

—>As a Mephone, YinYang (MephoneY) was a bit of a tricky case for Cobs. Not realizing that they essentially shared two souls, Cobs wiped their memories and unknowingly only wiped Yin’s successfully. Yang retained their memories, and because of that they talk back to Cobs and refuse to aid in his plans. Yang eventually becomes distressed, as his brother is basically gone.

—>Mephone4 realizes something must be done about this before he can lose more of his contestants. Something involving The Waiting Room and The Radio. However, Mephone4 realized he could not die again, otherwise his soul would not be recoverable.

—>Eventually, an Algebralien is finally sent to earth to investigate after The Radio signals start going haywire. That Algebralien is Two, an Inter-Dimensional Manager, who disguises themself as a kiwi.

—>They meet Mephone4 and the II contestants, who are immediately suspicious of the newcomer. Two ends up disabling their disguise as a means of gaining trust. Mephone4 remains skeptical, but the contestants are desperate to get their friends back and agree to listen to the Algebralien.

—>The plan is simple; A contestant would die to enter The Waiting Room. They would use Two’s notes to defend the radio against Cob’s hacking, and then Mephone4 would recover them.

—>Test Tube was the one who volunteered for the job, as she desperately wanted Fan back.

—>Everything seemed to be going according to plan, however shortly after Test Tube entered The Waiting Room, the II cast were under attack by Cobs and his mephone army.

—>During the fight, Mephone4 ended up sacrificing himself to save Bot. MephoneY (YinYang), as they had some of their memories retained, managed to rebel against Cobs and also died protecting the living objects from the mephones.

—>By successfully disabling The Radio, the Wandering Souls Cobs had collected to create his mephones glitched out, and his army collapsed.

—>In the EPIC FINAL BATTLE!! Two was able to use their power to transport Cobs and Airy (I didnt forget him) to The Waiting Room permanently, with a radio that does not work.

SIDE NOTES:

-When a soul is transformed into a Mephone, living or wandering, the soul becomes no longer recoverable, meaning when they die they’re permadead.

-Test Tube is stuck in The Waiting Room now, sorry :(

-As they were not Wandering Souls when transformed into Mephones, Fan and Tissues did not ‘die’ when The Radio was disabled. However, they are not able to be reverted back to their old form.

-Airy received several robotic enhancements from Cobs.

-Two is one of the head Algebraliens, and is responsible for maintaining balance between universes and managing The Radio systems. This is part of the reason why they are rarely at the equation playground; they’re often bouncing between universes to deal with dimensional nonsense. They have a radio built into their ‘stomach,’ which allows them to quickly travel through space and time.

-Along with Inter-dimensional management and radio system management, Algebraliens all have an object disguise form, and occassionally visit The Waiting Room to help newly deceased objects grow accustomed to the place.

-Other characters not mentioned, such as MePad, other II contestants, etc. DO exist but dont really divert much from their canon lore so I didn’t feel the need to mention them here.

UHHH THATS A LOT. if u have questions about the au feel free to ask im soo normal about this idea you dont even know

[rovingotter]

Hollow

SPOILER WARNING FOR SCAVENGERS REIGN.

Many people have remarked on the parallels between Levi and Hollow. One is a human creation changed and given sentience by the planet, the other is a native of the planet altered by her experiences with a human. Both have a connection to Fiona: Levi because Fiona programmed them, Hollow because memories/visions of Fiona are the primary way she communicates with Kamen.

From the get-go, Levi is established as a character with agency. One of their first on-screen actions is to troll Azi by burying her wrench, and when Azi asks why, Levi replies, "I don't know. I was curious about how you'd react." Levi is bipedal and verbal, things we associate with humanity, so even setting aside their quirky behavior, we are already primed to see them as human-like, if kinda weird. Throughout the show Levi continues to perform autonomous actions, to be motivated by curiosity and wonder, and eventually to assert their own personhood, establish boundaries, and form a meaningful relationship with Azi. They have goals, they have motives, they have an arch. Before this, Levi was just a machine. They are uplifted by the planet.

Hollow, on the other hand, often comes across less as a character and more like a blank slate onto which the viewer is invited to project metaphors: metaphors about Kamen's psychological dysfunction/moral failings, metaphors about the corrupting influence of humans on the natural world, metaphors about avarice or addiction or any number of things, none of them good. Even the name (never spoken but present in subtitles) implies an empty vessel. In contrast to Levi, Hollow is non-verbal (she uses psychic projections to communicate, but has no voice of her own), small, and quadrupedal. We are primed to see her first and foremost as an animal: an innocent, living in (from our outsider human perspective, at least) harmony with nature. A little creepy, a little cute. But also a being lacking in any real self-awareness or moral agency. This, though, is presented as her ideal state. Her growing power and agency, throughout the narrative, is framed as a downgrade, as borrowed, inauthentic, and destructive...and is ultimately ripped away.

True, Hollow is given a bit of characterization when we first meet her. She is being bullied/intimidated by a larger member of her species, and she appears discouraged by this. But for the most part her motives and choices are either impenetrably alien or presented ambiguously. Maybe she decides to adopt Kamen as her thrall, despite his alien nature, because she feels frustrated and powerless and has decided to take a risk on something new...or perhaps even sees him as a kindred spirit, a fellow outcast. Or maybe she just happens across him and is reacting to her environment in the stimulus-response, amoral kind of way we associate with less complex animals.

All her choices after that feel similarly ambiguous. When Kamen first gives her fresh meat and she eats it, it feels like crossing a boundary. She's obviously an omnivore or she wouldn't be able to digest it, but this moment has an almost Original Sin type of vibe, Hollow the Adam of her planet and Kamen as her Eve offering the forbidden fruit...or is she just eating whatever her human puts in front of her, like a Golden Retriever? Does the blame lie with her "owner"?

From there it's a spiral. More and more meat, then experimenting with cannibalism, then becoming increasingly ruthless with her thrall as a means of pushing him to hunt larger prey. Is that her, or is that Kamen's greed and insecurity leaking into her? Is it both?

When Kamen remembers his wife's death and pleads with Hollow to take away the pain and she straight-up unbirths him and bids him sleep, is she doing this out of empathy for him, or is she (again) simply responding in a stimulus-response way to the alien emotions seeping into her? Her face gives few clues; a slight narrowing of the eyes, an implacable blankness.

And yet there are indications that her species has human or near-human intelligence. The ability to psychically manipulate a codependent thrall, to present him with narratives laden with emotional cues that push him to respond in certain ways, is a skill that feels ethically dubious by its nature and therefore linked with personhood. As humans, we are defined by our narratives, by our capacity to manipulate each other through them. She becomes the model of a person she has never met inside another person's head. Does it feel like writing a character?

And she does not merely pick and choose memories, she speaks through them. When Kamen is about to flee the safety of the cave and blunder out into a storm that will likely kill him, Hollow becomes Fiona and reminds him of the time he took the canoe out and nearly drowned. "Remember? You were so helpless," she says. Did Fiona ever speak those words to him? Is it like replaying a recording? Or is Hollow RPing her?

When Hollow found Fiona's corpse, what did she think? What did she feel?

In the end, Levi rips away Hollow's physical strength and power, reducing her to what she was before any of this happened. We are left to assume she will return to the forest, go back to her vegan diet and her pre-verbal ways: human notions of purity. The nobility of beasts.

But she looks back.

I don't think she's forgotten. I don't think Levi, the uplifted being who was so very afraid of losing the ways in which they had changed, would have made her forget.

[voidarchivefiles]

Ancient void practices

I went through some success stories and tagged the ones that entered the void through yoga nidra and lucid dreaming cos these two ancient practices have always fascinated me since they're deeply centred around our state of consciousness and are also known portals to out of body experiences/shifting/the void. Read them if you need some motivation! Also see my recent post on lucid dreaming if you're interested in entering the void through that.

Anyway, if you have doubts about the void, I think a great anchor is leaning into practices that have roots dating back to ancient times and researching them and of course, reading more widely than just Tumblr. When you do this, you'll know that this state isn't something that was invented by Tumblr and has existed since.. forever because well, it's pure consciousness lol. And the void/turiya/samadhi has been known way before Neville's time. From my research, it's the main goal of yoga practitioners as well but they pursue it for the purpose of enlightenment and peace as opposed to manifesting desires.

The rest of this post is a dump of interesting excerpts from my research on yoga, samadhi and turiya and its links to manifesting, reality shifting and the void state. You can also do your own research although there's no need to overdo it :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This extract seems to be talking about reality shifting/manifesting/instant creation. I am curious on where we could learn more about yogis doing this!

Trapped in Your Own World Many yogis have created their own worlds and been trapped in realities like this. I am going into an area which is a twilight zone, but there are many yogis who have created their own world around themselves. A yogi goes into a cave and actually creates his own universe and lives there. This is not a joke. He creates everything that he wants – his own kind of planets, his own kind of earth, his own kind of everything – and lives there very happily. A universe is contained inside the cave. You can create a whole universe in an atom’s space because “here and there” and “this much and that much” are a creation of the mind. There are many yogis like this, but they are no closer to realization than you. He lives in a different world, that is all. He is probably more caught up than you, because he is also the creator. He has learned the art of creation. This does not become an ultimate release. This just becomes a different kind of action, a different way of doing things. An artist draws a new world on a canvas. A yogi actually creates it. The artist’s creation is two-dimensional, whereas the yogi’s is three-dimensional. This is more deceptive. An artist can get so involved in the world he is creating that he starts believing it is true, and it is true for him. A poet believes that whatever he writes is the truth. Similarly, a painter deeply involved in what he is doing believes what he is painting is the truth. When two-dimensional things are like this, if you create three-dimensional things around yourself, you are definitely going to be more caught up with them. Source

To be honest, I have no idea what the difference is between samadhi and turiya in yoga terms. I tried looking into it but it's still not clear to me. If you research into both terms, they come up with very similar definitions.

Yoga nidra and the void (turiya)

By means of Yoga Nidra, skilled practitioners seek to access Turiya, not just when in meditation or absorbed samadhi states, but in all variations of consciousness- encompassing waking, dreaming and deep sleep. They seek lucidity in all states. Yoga Nidra is a powerful practice that guides us beyond mind and in fact turns mind upon itself where its obscuring nature is dissolved to reveal the inner Light that is perennially Bright, with eyes closed or open. Source

What is turiya?

Source: Radiant Rest: Yoga Nidra for Deep Relaxation and Awakened Clarity by Tracee Stanley

Turiya is not a state apart from the grosser states but pervades all levels of reality as superconsciousness. Ramana Maharshi interprets turiya as the natural state that permeates the other states, the only whole reality. The Mandukya Upanishad discusses turiya as pure consciousness, which is indescribable, incomprehensible, and unthinkable by the mind, but ultimately realized as the one true self. Source

The four states of consciousness are jagrat, svapna, shushupti and turiya. Jagrat is waking consciousness, svapna is the dream consciousness, shushupti is the deep sleep consciousness and turiya is higher consciousness which is beyond all previous states. Entering the state of turiya requires inner silence. It can be achieved when the mind is free of mental blocks and bondages with time and space. The goal of yoga and meditation is to achieve turiya, where oneness is felt with the universe. Source

There are three states only, the waking, dream and sleep. Turiya is not a fourth one; it is what underlies these three. But people do not readily understand it. Therefore it is said that this is the fourth state and the only Reality. In fact it is not apart from anything, for it forms the substratum of all happenings; it is the only Truth; it is your very Being. The three states appear as fleeting phenomena on it and then sink into it alone. Therefore they are unreal. Source

[ghostinthegallery]

Re-reading Twice Dead King, the character I was most struck by on a second viewing was Mentep. Now there’s a tragic figure. Simultaneously a mentor, an ally, an antagonist, someone so terribly understandable who I want to smack upside the head for being a lying liar who lies.

Ultimately, Mentep is a penitent. He has committed terrible acts (that we only get scant details of) and he wants to redeem himself. Thanks to his tampering with his own memories, he doesn't fully know what he is repenting for, which puts him in a bind. However, he knows that he played a role in creating the flayer curse/longing sickness, so he goes to a planet where a high concentration of them have gathered and works on his cure. He's respected, he's able to do his work with only occasional interruptions from the local angsty youth. Things are good-ish (until the armada shows up.)

Mentep and Oltyx have a weird relationship. Despite being his normal asshole-teenager self, Oltyx does respect Mentep more than most. Trusts Mentep enough to let the guy perform experimental brain surgery on him. Twice. And Mentep is able to be much more candid with Oltyx in return. He's one of the few consistently calling Oltyx out for his bullshit. On the surface, it is a standard mentor relationship, but what got me on a second reading is that there is hardly a single conversation Mentep has with Oltyx where he isn’t lying to and/or manipulating him.

It starts early with Yenekh. Mentep knows Yenekh has been suffering from the curse, he hasn’t told Oltyx, and when he finally has to tell him, he conveniently does so right before distracting everyone with the “oh btw, we’re all gonna die to a giant human armada” news. This is done with the best of intentions. Mentep wants to protect Yenekh (and Oltyx, in his way), so he delivers the news this way to get the bad news out of the way and then both of them on the same side. But it is the start of a pattern.

Which we get again when Mentep fails to mention a that Antikef is a flayer den ruled by a “We have Illuminor Szeras at home” Vizier, and boy does that end badly for Oltyx (see the last 60% of Ruin). Naturally, Mentep has a good explanation:

But it is another lie, one that costs Oltyx dearly (put a pin in this, I am coming back to it.)

There's some little fibs and ommissions along the way as they go to Carnotite, but it all builds up to The Big Lie. The one that sends Oltyx spiraling and gets Mentep killed. Because you know what really helps with paranoia? Finding out your mentor and your best friend have been hiding a secret blood pit in your basement! Again, it makes sense why Mentep is lying about this! He has every reason to believe Oltyx would have rejected the flayed ones he and Yenekh were sheltering (he in fact does exactly this), and Mentep's entire goal is to cure the curse to atone for his role in its creation. However...

I think Oltyx is correct to call Mentep out here (Oltyx is wrong about most things, but not this). Somewhere a long the way he became a means to an end for Mentep. Mentep was focused on The Curse and not the person in front of him who was cursed. He used Oltyx's friendship with Yenekh, his need to save his kingdom, his trust, his fears, all in service of admirable goals, but he was using Oltyx. Is it any wonder this is where it ended?

The lies were Mentep's undoing from the start. Remember the lie about Antikef? The one that led to all the events of Ruin? Yes, Oltyx and Djoseras did talk and avoid a civil war, but Oltyx also went through hell. He saw his home turned into an abbattoir, his father reduced to barely more than an animal. Oltyx was literally vivisected and almost consumed by his own dysphoria. And then committed regicide after leaving his brother behind to die. Antikef is where Oltyx truly learned that compassion was weakness and saw how horrific the flayer curse could become. So how was he ever going to accept the flayed ones as Mentep wanted him to? Oltyx experienced the comically perfect combination of traumas to ensure that would never happen, thanks in part to Mentep's manipulations.

I cannot stress enough that Mentep's individual lies all made sense at the time. May have even been the best option, at the time. But the consequences piled up, and even as he is dying he still refuses to give Oltyx even a scrap of the truth. That is the core of his tragedy for me. Well, that and this:

He bases all of his manipulations on his understanding of people's psyche's, which are usually accurate, but it also traps them. It gives them no room to grow or surprise him or for outside factors to come in and intervene. Contrast this with Zultanekh, who is upfront to a fault. He gives Oltyx advice and resources, but what Oltyx does with those things is up to him. Even when he is screwing up royally, he's allowed to make those mistakes. Mentep causes ones of Oltyx's darkest hours (the secret blood pit), while Zultanekh lifts him out of another (the Blood Angel's attack). In the end, Zultanekh is the one who sees Oltyx's true growth and witnesses the birth of his kingdom. A birth that comes not from curing the curse but embracing it.

There was never a sickness to be fixed, which means Mentep never would have achieved his redemption because he was focused on the wrong things. Which does make his death and rebirth as Xott a bit of a reflection of Oltyx. He was too burdened in his first life, but in his second he (or at least a version of him) was able to witness the people he hurt reaching a place of peace.

[iamthat-iam]

Hi Bry ("Bry" 🤔 lol you know), I hope you're having a lovely day! Thanks for your patience with me as I always send a thousand questions haha 💀 I wanted to send this one over asks in case anyone else is wondering about it. No worries about getting to this ask if you can't, I know you probably have a bajillion and I am grateful for your time!

I wanted to ask you a question related to something I see ND blogs talking about a lot, related to the ego's desires (don't worry, this is NOT a manifestation related question but rather a clarification question on ego vs Self). I see a lot of ND bloggers talking about how once you drop the ego and realize Self you can then experience anything and everything you want and dream any beautiful dream because you know that you are everything and are absolutely, 100% limitless. But the phrase, "anything and everything you want" is a confusing phrase to me, because Self doesn't have any preference towards the ego's desires and instead feels lovingly neutral and blissful towards everything, including suffering. So then why do people say you can have everything "you want" once you recognize Self in reference to becoming aware of the ego's desires? Even the idea of changing the channel if "you" don't like the show you're watching, that's still the ego wanting to be free of itself and not liking the show. So why would Self ever want to change the channel once it has been realized, or, why would Self want to dream a specific dream if it has no preference towards that dream?

My interpretation of it is that once you realize you are the lovely, limitless Self, manifesting the ego's desires for the ego's enjoyment is just a bonus FOR the ego. You (as self) have the power to give the ego that You used to identify with anything it wants. This is because You absolutely love Your creation (the character You used to be identified as), because Self loves all of Its creations, and it is fun to give the sweet character You've been playing the gift of everything it wants, because it's fun to love it up. Or maybe You as Self want to give the ego a little boost of everything it wants before identifying with it again, because it's all part of the fun game of awareness and getting lost in the play. These are the answers I've come to myself, but I wanted to ask another person to see if they had a different interpretation.

I guess what the question boils down to is this: why would one want to "become aware of a different channel/dream/ego/character" once you realize Self, if Self is lovingly neutral towards it all? Isn't that just re-identification with the ego? Ultimately I know it comes down to love and fun and enjoying the play and I should probably just relax and have fun haha, but this definitely has confused me a little when I see ND bloggers talking about it. Maybe it's just because a lot of us come from LOA and that's where the need to address it comes from. But yeah! Was just curious what you think about this.

Anyway! I hope this makes sense, it's a little hard to put into words but I am hoping it is clear this isn't a manifestation question and more a question of clarification question haha. Thanks for your time and energy and I hope you are doing so, so wonderfully!

Hi "Bunny"! 💙

So it seems that we have similar interpretations. The Self has so much love for it's creations so why not give them all better circumstances to live under?

The Self wanted to experience life in all sorts of ways possible, including the suffering aspect, and it's done it, billions of times. The goal has already been accomplished right?

Now that you are awake and you aren't attached to anything that is going on because it isn't you, the illusion is gone. You no longer think that it's you going through circumstances. The game is pretty much over. You won 😂 At some point you go, "well that was fun. Time for me to do something different."

So it's not exactly changing everything so the ego is satisfied, it's more like, "well... What more is there to do here?" If you DID choose to create a new dream or change the channel. You do it because you can.

[kradogsrats]

Aaravos and the Purpose of Dark Magic (It’s Control)

Okay, buckle in because, like Viren, I’m back on my dark magic bullshit. We’re gonna do some thinky-thoughts about what the nature and effects of dark magic are, and why it was specifically created to be that way.

So first to clear up a few assumptions: most of what we’ve been told so far about the history of Dark magic--and what the principal characters believe to be true--is partial or incorrect.

Specifically:

Humans were solely responsible for creating dark magic: False. We’ve suspected for a long time and it now seems pretty clear that Aaravos had at least some hand in creating dark magic.

Before dark magic, humans were miserable outcasts struggling for survival: False. At the time of dark magic’s inception, humans were doing quite well for themselves. Elarion had been a thriving city for hundreds of years.

Humans had no other magic than dark magic: False. There were human primal mages.

So here’s the truth, or some shape of it based on what we have so far seen: before dark magic, even before the dragon monarchy, Elarion had become a thriving city. Humans were on the rise--they had access to magic, though the path to being a primal mage was long and arduous.

Eight hundred years after the founding of Elarion, the dragon monarchy was put in place--and given the subsequent pattern of escalation, I would not be surprised if Aaravos had his fingers in that. Then 200 years after that, Aaravos was involved in the creation of dark magic, whether he created it entirely himself or influenced its creation. Everyone then freaked out, humans were driven from Xadia, Elarion was (maybe) destroyed, etc. etc.

We still don’t know what Aaravos’s goal in all his manipulations is, but it seems to heavily involve humanity and Xadia being pitted against each other. He spends the 700 years after the expulsion of humanity apparently playing both sides, presumably in escalating conflict. It’s almost certain that he was responsible for both Luna Tenebris’s death and Queen Aditi’s fate, either to create chaos in Xadia that humanity could take advantage of, or possibly even introducing a third front in the conflict if dragons and elves could be turned against each other. 

So simply by introducing dark magic when he did, Aaravos was definitely escalating the frictions between humanity and elves. He surely knew that the mechanics of it would be repulsive to the other peoples of Xadia. He probably knew that the staff would further escalate the conflict when it came to a head. And ultimately, even if everything after the creation of dark magic was by chance, Aaravos could not have gotten a better result if he planned it: the world is split into two explicitly enemy factions that he can play against each other at his leisure, and as a bonus, humans have been destabilized in a way that makes them reliant on dark magic to survive for the next few hundred years.

That second part is important, because we also know that dark magic is a means of control. It opens you to Aaravos’s influence--up to and including total erasure of your free will.

Therefore, Aaravos grows more powerful the more dark magic propagates. Zubeia says he targeted mages as being susceptible to manipulation, but I think, in the case of dark mages, it was more than that. He deliberately made dark magic to be this way, and we can see it in how dark magic affects people.

To start with, we’ve been told that dark magic attracts a certain personality profile--this actually could be said to be one of the earliest things established about the setting, given the concept pilot and the way proto-Claudia leans in to the magic while proto-Soren shrinks away from it. This is mostly a similar profile to the way Zubeia describes mages Aaravos’s targets: insatiable thirst and fascination with magic, etc. However, with the introduction of dark magic, you get an additional facet--a person pursuing dark magic instead of primal magic is one who wants something badly enough to take shortcuts and make tradeoffs, and to continue to do so as long as what they want is held in front of them. Whether that is a desire driven by greed, fear, pride, or whatever doesn’t matter, the desire itself is a shared attribute that Aaravos can easily exploit.

We are also told that dark magic then amplifies the emotional traits of its users. So whatever fears or desires, whatever insatiable thirst initially lead someone to dark magic are only going to intensify--Viren’s pride and persecution complex, Claudia’s fear of loss and desire to prove herself, etc. These are features, not bugs. The vector for manipulation already exists, and the dark magic persistently reinforces it.

Viren’s spiral through the first arc is a good illustration of this: he gets progressively more and more... like that, because his grief and anger and paranoia are in a full feedback loop. But in addition to his emotions and desires being amplified, he’s drawn more and more into Aaravos’s influence. Even given that Viren must already have been compromised on some level to even consider doing something as dumbass as an unknown blood ritual offered by someone he knows nothing about and can’t speak to, that Viren of season one would be asking a lot of questions that the Viren of season three does not. 

In my opinion, this is not because Aaravos has actually done very much in the way of earning his trust. It’s because his influence has wormed (ha) its way deep enough that he can just say shit like this: 

That is not the face and words of someone who thinks he needs to be subtle. He knows that at this point, he could literally punch Viren in the dick and Viren would be like “yeah, great idea, thanks.” I won’t say that Viren would be making good decisions without Aaravos nudging him, but I don’t think he’d be making the same decisions--by fairly early in season three, it’s clearly Aaravos’s plan that’s being implemented and Viren is just along for the ride as a figurehead and eventual fall guy (ha).

We even have a visual marker for the progression of Aaravos’s influence over Viren--Viren’s corruption. Now, my belief is still that the visible physical effects of dark magic corruption are basically magic overdose to the point of tissue damage. Corruption explicitly builds up and gets more severe with continued dark magic use, producing effects like being able to sense magic and cast small spells without primal reagents. But we are told explicitly that Viren is corrupted “inside and out,” so there is also an internal, mental/spiritual effect of consistent, repeated dark magic.

This internal corruption isn’t “evil”--this isn’t a setting where “good” and “evil” are absolute, tangible forces, for one--it’s Aaravos’s influence. Sympathy, trust, receptiveness... it’s all laid in with the dark magic corruption. One very subtle but also quite explicit place we see this is when Claudia and Soren argue in season 4--Claudia describes the belief that humans have always been and will always be persecuted by elves (and that Aaravos is a savior) in terms of generational trauma, and as something she knows to be the truth on a physical, bone-deep level. And Soren doesn’t get it:

The dark magic corruption that Claudia carries is enough to make her instinctively believe Aaravos’s version of the narrative so deeply she’s not capable of questioning it. Soren, unaffected, is able to step back and say, “that sounds fake, but okay.”

So the use of dark magic is emotionally cyclical, and the corruption builds with its use, and Aaravos’s potential hold over every dark mage only increases. This is all by design, laid out by the one who designed it. It’s serving its purpose.

But back to the possession for a moment: “Callum only used dark magic the one time and that still left him vulnerable to full possession by Aaravos!” I hear you cry, “Why doesn’t Aaravos ever possess Viren the same way?”

Well, he almost definitely does, he just goes to some effort to keep Viren from realizing it. We have two occasions where Viren exhibits the same eye-glow effect as Callum does while possessed: 

One is here, where Aaravos has Viren very blatantly resist arrest, basically eliminating any chance he has of talking his way out of Opeli’s treason charges. Viren explicitly thinks he’s still in control here, that Aaravos is just offering up his power and knowledge to him. He argues with Aaravos that he can continue to fight, and even win the battle--but that doesn’t suit Aaravos’s purposes as well. Viren alone and on the run is a lot less useful than Viren positioned within range of the throne, even if he’s imprisoned. 

And the other time is at the top of the Storm Spire, where Viren is in so deep that he still thinks all of this is somehow for his benefit: 

There’s actually a close-up shot of Viren’s eyes going from dark magic purple glow to Aaravos blue/iridescent. They very specifically and deliberately showcase the moment it happens. But Viren still believes he’s the one steering.

So why does Aaravos handle Viren differently from Callum? Well, to put it simply, you don’t need to kick someone’s legs out from under them if they’ll kneel when you ask. Furthermore, one of Viren’s strongest personality traits is that his pride makes him crave control--so removing a level of control as basic as his own bodily autonomy would be an incredibly hostile act in what is ostensibly a friendly relationship. Aaravos maintains the illusion that Viren is the one in control all the way to the end, because forcibly puppeting Viren the way he does Callum is probably one of the only things that could actually turn Viren against him.

Callum, on the other hand, is already hostile. Aaravos knows that he can’t manipulate Callum the same way he did Viren--Callum’s personality and desires are too divergent. The only way he’ll bring Callum to do his bidding voluntarily is through fear, anger, or despair. (CHET fans insert your own meta here.) Forcibly possessing Callum then actually serves that goal, in that it’s a demonstration that a) he has total power over Callum and can do whatever he wants (fear), b) there’s nothing Callum can do to stop it (despair), and c) he’s a massive asshole to everyone Callum loves (anger). It’s a little appetizer, so that when it’s time for the main course, Callum will know what the stakes are.

And where does Viren fall in this at the end of season 4? Well, in this recent interview, Aaron Ehasz describes Viren as having been “forced to make the decision to use dark magic.” This is an interesting phrasing, because it specifically suggests both agency and lack thereof. 

Viren spends most of season 4 making the choice not to use dark magic--I’m not going to dig into why, at this time, but between the start and end of the season’s arc he refuses to either use dark magic or even touch either of the staffs. This is most dramatic when Claudia tries to defer to him for the chrysalis-opening spell since he is (in her mind) the more powerful and experienced mage, but he also explicitly refuses the staff when Claudia brings it back from the Storm Spire, and from that point on it is generally Terry lugging it (and frequently the Sunforge Staff, as well) around.

And then this happens:

I need to think about this line for another hundred years or so, because it’s just... so much. So, so much. But a couple immediately notable things:

This the last clear, full line Viren speaks in the season. His only other voice line after this is his “You!” when recognizing Rayla.

The length of the shot in which he reaches to pick up the staff, combined with the music cue, is really over-the-top dramatic. Some of that is due to the drama from the other side, with Rayla suddenly encountering her two-year fixation, but it’s not a coincidence.

And from there, he’s casually melting their way out of the mountainside. He’s back to full-drama magic use--Claudia could certainly have gotten them out of the mountain, if she had to, but now he’s the one taking the lead on magic, again. He’s apparently all-in on freeing Aaravos, given his satisfaction with Claudia’s summary of next steps. And, of course, he’s got his corruption face back on, after us having not seen it all season. In short, while he doesn’t have the posession eyes, he’s still firmly back on his Aaravos’s bullshit.

This also brings in a factor that I haven’t talked about yet--the staff. 

The Staff of Ziard, the Relic Staff, whatever you want to call it. (Personally, I’m going to stick with Relic Staff, just because I think focusing on Ziard muddies things too much.)

The Relic Staff, we can pretty much assume at this point, was crafted by Aaravos to be given to Ziard, the first dark mage. And in the same way that Aaravos set up dark magic to his own advantage, he definitely has shit going on with the staff. It has seemingly unique properties related to dark magic, in terms of spells it’s able to act as a power source for--most notably the spirit entrapment (coin) spell, and the massive magic drain spell cast by both Ziard and later Viren. It’s specifically required to open the chrysalis. (According to Aaravos, that is--it could very well be that it will be necessary for something else that he doesn’t want to reveal, and isn’t related to the chrysalis at all.)

At the very least, it makes sense for the staff to enhance Aaravos’s influence over its bearer--it’s a powerful relic, passed down from the first dark mage (even if, as I suspect, history no longer remembers that). People are going to fight over it. It’s going to naturally wind up in the hands of the most powerful person around... who is then firmly in Aaravos’s thrall.

One interesting thread here is, if we work with the assumption that Aaravos is on some level directing both Claudia and Viren’s impulses toward his own ends, is that Claudia spends the whole season trying to give the staff back to Viren. Even after he won’t take it, she prefers using the corrupted Sunforge Staff. Granted, she’s been using that one for two years now and so probably likes it quite a bit, but given the Relic Staff’s nature and properties, I would have expected it to also have the effect that once you’ve got it, you’re extremely reluctant to let it go. In the end, Claudia doesn’t even stop at just pushing the staff back on Viren, she straight-up leaves it behind on the floor.

And Viren--to go back to the interview quote--both makes the choice to pick it back up, and is forced into all that entails. He’s also explicitly not picking it up for Claudia, but for himself. It’s a choice he makes with as much agency as any he has ever made.. but it’s definitely a choice Aaravos wanted him to make.

There was a lot of speculation before season 4 came out that Aaravos would be discarding Viren in favor of Claudia, but at this point I think the opposite is true--Aaravos wants Viren’s hands on that staff, so Claudia isn’t as compelled by it. Claudia is, as Aaravos noted, a valuable asset, but she’s still just a secondary piece being moved around in order to get his real goals back on track. Viren is still central, and there’s some reason for that we have yet to see.

Anyway, both the Relic Staff and dark magic itself were built from the ground up by Aaravos specifically to allow him to easily influence/control humanity and have that control both propagate and filter to the people who would be most useful to him as pawns. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk about how humans are fucked.

[bradsmindbrain]

Phantom/Calamity Ganon Headcanons

● Ganondorf created it shortly before his assassination of Sonia. It was brought into the world through a dark ritual in which Ganondorf sacrificed some of his own flesh and blood, allowing his Malice to take shape.

● Despite what its physical appearance may suggest, it is an entity almost completely separate from Ganondorf, one with its own personality. That being said the two share some kind of mental connection, and Phantom Ganon possesses all the physical abilities and some of the magical ones that make Ganondorf such a fierce opponent.

● It was Ganondorf’s foremost lieutenant during the Imprisoning War, and still is in the current day. Its shapeshifting, combat skills, and loyalty have secured its place as Ganondorf’s most trusted subordinate.

● When Ganondorf was imprisoned, Phantom Ganon was trapped underneath Hyrule Castle with its master in a severely weakened state, but over time, Ganondorf’s subconscious resentment allowed it to grow and grow, eventually managing to escape the catacombs to try and free its master. This was the first Calamity, with Ganondorf’s name becoming lost to time and Phantom Ganon being dubbed “Calamity Ganon.”

● Ultimately, its second release was enough to unseal Ganondorf after its second defeat, meaning it had accomplished its goal.

● It is The Malice, and it is The Gloom, effectively meaning that it can control both substances as an extension of itself.

● Compared to Ganondorf’s skill in combat, Phantom Ganon is far better at tactics, specifically creating the Blights to counter the Champions and hijacking the Guardians to ensure its second coming would be harder to stop.

● It was actually the one to come up with the plan to divide Hyrule’s people and disguise itself as Zelda to sow discord, Ganondorf was far too weak at the time and had to regain his strength by absorbing the life that The Gloom siphoned.

● It generally tries to mimic Ganondorf’s appearance, as some kind of show of loyalty to him.

● Since it is The Gloom, it can’t technically be killed unless all Gloom is destroyed. Meaning any defeat is a minor setback for it.

● Highly adept at illusions and shapeshifting, and terrifyingly good at posing as someone else. It’s also capable of manifesting in multiple places at once.

● This also means it’s capable of generating any weapon that it needs, usually ones that Ganondorf used.

● Compared to Ganondorf, it’s far colder than he is, and much more directly cruel. It greatly enjoys twisting the knife whenever possible.

● While it is good at imitating people, its cruelty sometimes shines through, revealing its true nature.

● Enjoys manifesting as Gloom Spawn for initial attacks, before reconstituting into its humanoid form.

● Calamity Ganon was merely a role it played, making itself appear as a mindless animalistic force when that was the exact opposite of what it was.

● Can alter The Gloom’s properties as it sees fit, but it only does that in scenarios where regular Gloom wouldn’t be effective.

● Aside from freeing Ganondorf, it considers its greatest achievement to be gaining control over Naydra, even if it wasn’t absolute.

● Plants wilt and die where it has been, water becomes sullied in its presence, and animals avoid it like the plague. Nature itself rejects it.

● Despite being Ganondorf’s creation, it has killed astronomically greater amounts than he has, be it through assassinations or through The Calamities.

[hubrisbracket]

Hubris Bracket Side A Poll 9: Javert (Les Miserables) vs Lucilius (Granblue Fantasy)

Propaganda below (may contain spoilers):

Javert

(this image is from the movie, but there was no version specified, so it could be the book/stage musical versions as well)

My man was born in the French prison system and his exposure to that system and the people inside it led him to believe that the law is a moral imperative. He becomes a police officer with an incredibly ruthless sense of justice. He doggedly trails Jean Valjean (whose only crimes were stealing bread -breaking a window to do so- in order to feed his sister's starving children as they were all destitute, and trying to escape prison, which extended his sentence from 5 years to 19. He does this because he firmly believes that redemption doesn't exist. At the end of the story he has Jean Valjean cornered in the sewer and is convinced to let him go in order to allow the life of a young man (Marius) to be saved. Jean Valjean even goes so far as to give Javert his home address to that the police officer can come and arrest him in the morning. However Javert is thrown into a crisis of both faith and identity and that drives him to dispare, he takes his own life that night by leaping from a bridge after coming to the conclusion that he was in the wrong, after all those decades of chasing and locking up 'scum' 'from the gutter'.

Lucilius

Literally tried to destroy the world to piss off god

Lucilius is the clone to a Speaker of the God of Rebirth and Destruction, Bahamut. He's been plagued by dreams of a life he didn't live because of that, and interpreted it as "God is making fun of me in particular. well if he's so funny, i'm going to be hilarious" and he basically came up with various world ending plans in order to climb the Tower of God, and dethrone him, and destroy the whole world into the void. To do so he creates creatures he ends up neglecting and torturing in a way i think, ironically, makes him very similar to the God he hates so much. He even makes himself a clone that is the "perfect version" of himself, whom he calls Lucifer. Lucilius gets beheaded by said clone, but gets brought back to life by Belial, another one of his creation who loves him despite the fact Lucilius hates him. To bring him back, Belial beheaded Lucifer, and sewed Lucilius's head over the corpse of his original killer. With this amount of power, he takes down the Speaker he's the clone of and almost manages to reach his goal before one of his creation, Sandalphon, whom he wrote off as being completely useless and that he had almost discarded if not for the fact Lucifer cared for him, manages to take him down, thanks to powers Lucifer had passed down to him before dying, and Lucifer watching over him. Lucilius is currently locked into an interdimensional prison with Belial, thanks to the Speaker's last attempt at using his powers for good (the Speaker, Lucio, is okay now). His Hubris was to take down God for making his life a joke but in so, he mistreated his creations. He was taken down twice, by his most loved creation, and by the one he found the most useless. A wannabe God, resentful of God, meeting his end because his own creations resented him enough to end him the same way he wanted to end God. What's not Hubris about it. His boss battle, Zero, is the ultimate propaganda: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr08k6Y4wbo the vocals start at 3:15 and it says it all. "Give praise, for he has no equal. Worship him. A God has been born unto the world."

[analexthatexists]

Undertale AU Ideas involving Alphys

Because not everything can be about Sans Undertale, right?

(I had so much fricking fun writing, these oh my god.)

TW: Suicide and other heavy topics

1. Reincarnation

Alphys kills themselves and is revived similarly as Flowey.

This part of one of the Betrayed Undyne Endings stook with me for a bit. What would happen if she unsucessfully pulled it off and was brought back to life by Flowey or some other person? Perhaps even Undyne? They'd probably come back as maybe a robot or some sort of technological-based body.

And then like...Everything resets but Alphys stays the same and is basically now trapped in the role Flowey is. RESET after RESET trying to get back to their normal life and all of their friends, Alphys would realize that they can't go back and that this is their life now, going down a similar path as Asriel once did, but resorting to violence and hurting others far slower than Flowey did. Eventually they just become hopeless and go a bit crazy. Their goal however wouldn't be to become the GOD OF HYPERDEATH or TO STEAL YOUR SOUL or anything like that. They just want to be able to die and move on, maybe even reincarnate into a better life, just anything but THIS. And instead of teaching "It's KILL or BE KILLED", they teach "It's FIGHT or BE FOUGHT" (Less about hurting and killing people and more defending yourself from others), letting you learn how to fight and attack before how bullets and attacks work.

2. Destabilization

In an attempt to continue her plans in experimenting with DETERMINATION, Alphys chooses to inject herself with some of the substance over gathering fallen down monsters, only to eventually turn into an Amalgamate.

I have a feeling this idea has already been done, but screw it. Yes, I'm aware it's similar to things like Alphys NEO and Alphys Takes Action but WHO THE HECK CARES!?

After a few trials, Alphys decides to push their research further and, seeing as they don't want to risk any lives (and basically stopping the Amalgamates from happening), decides to test the stuff on herself without permission from or telling Asgore. The idea was less about making SOULs persist and more about a monster becoming as strong if not stronger than a human, potentially being able to shatter or cross The Barrier if successful. She was already dealing with low self esteem anyways, thinking that if this did fail and she died, would anyone even miss her? It wasn't much a loss, which motivated her further to do this to herself, injecting a SMALL dose of DETERMINATION into herself with the help of some complex machinery. At first, it worked and she was fine, and she took down notes about herself and continued her studies mostly normally, but as time progressed and she grew more stressed, more determined to finish her work and more obsessed over doing this for everyone, her body began to deteriorate as the DETERMINATION began overwhelming her. Eventually she wasn't able to leave the True Lab and had to send out Mettaton, who was growing more and more concerned about the doctor's condition, to do stuff for her via text messages and other forms of communication. Eventually, she went totally silent all together, resulting in Mettaton and Undyne going into the True Lab to check on her, only to find she'd transformed into something monstrous and unrecognizable. A fate almost similar to Gaster, actually. Brilliant scientists being shattered mentally and physically to their own creations.

3. Recollection/Reformation

Alphys tries to save Undyne before she dies after the Undying battle, but fails horribly as the rest of the Underground falls, Undyne ultimately becoming an Amalgam.

While evacuating everyone in Hotland into the True Lab, Alphys sent Mettaton to Waterfall to ensure Undyne escaped the battle alive if all went to Hell. Mettaton was able to stop the Human from landing the fatal blow and escorted Undyne out of the area, much to Undyne's disliking. They wanted to FINISH THE HUMAN, not RUN FROM THEM! Mettaton brought them back to the True Lab with Alphys, who recognized Undyne was moments away from melting and dusting away. The human had not landed the blow that would kill them instantly, but their health was slowly draining and the DETERMINATION was wearing off. In a state of panic, Alphys decided to simply inject MORE DETERMINATION into Undyne in hopes that would stabilize things. After all, Undyne had been pretty stable up until now when it came to having DETERMINATION. It should be fine, right?

It was not fine.

After injecting Undyne with more DETERMINATION, Alphys left the room for a second to reassure herself and find some things to help bandage Undyne up or ease their pain. When they came back, Undyne had vanished. She heard monsters from the hallways screaming and roaring, and quickly realized that, not only had Undyne transformed into an Amalgamate, but was actively getting into fights with the other Amalgams, who weren't happy about this newcomer's sudden arrival. Alphys was unable to stop any of it, and had to bare to the Amalgamates sloshing around and trying to eat each other alive, which then resulted in ALL OF THEM FUSING TOGETHER, Undyne having most control over the newly formed "monster" while the other, more scattered brains took a backseat. Alphys, both mortified and thankful to see Undyne in this state, was a tad bit more relieved to find that Undyne had actually kept most of her mental state and would in fact be staying alive. However, the issues popped up when it came to monitoring this giant amalgamate and breaking the news to everyone else in the area.

EXTRAS

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

4. Fragmentation

Alphys tries to off themself in a different way, choosing to dive into The Core hoping to plummet to their death. However, they end up shattering themself through time and space like Gaster presumably did.

I don't have much of a story or idea of what could happen from here, perhaps Alphys meeting Gaster or taking their place. You could do a lot with that idea, but I'm not sure where to even begin.

5. Ascension

Flowey makes a big frick-up and turns Alphys into a God. It's similar to The Thought where Sans absorbs the 6 Human Souls, but it's with Alphys and the reasons are drastically different.

While preparing to extract the DETERMINATION from the 6 Human Souls in the True Lab, Alphys encounters Flowey, who politely asks her for the SOULs to become a GOD, else he'll kill Alphys and take them by force. However, Alphys refuses and tries to run off with the SOULs, to which Flowey is quick to stab her with vines. The SOUL containers fall to the floor, shattering and releasing the SOULs, which Flowey proceeds to begin absorbing. However, before he can, Alphys retaliates and absorbs them HERSELF.

Not too sure what could/would happen afterwards though.

[worldssmallestghost]

Ibara should exist, actually

Hey, another little essay about a book series that hardly anybody even thinks about anymore, but I do!

If you're a fan of the Pendragon Adventures series, you're likely aware of the... Ibara paradox. If you're not, let me explain:

In the book series, it's explained that there are "travelers" from each "territory", which are different times and places in the vastness that is the greater universe, called Halla. The main antagonist, Saint Dane, has the goal of throwing each of these territories into chaos by forcing them to go against their set timeline. Most of the time, he loses and moves on, but sometimes he succeeds and gets stronger. He views his losses as inevitable wins, as each fallen territory is like a domino effect.

Book four brings upon his first win.

He relies on the local traveler's knowledge of the world in order to trick her into programming a computer virus that is supposed to make people realize that the virtual utopia of "Life light" isn't perfect so they'll willingly leave their perfect worlds to keep their real world alive and functioning. However, Saint Dane's trick is that it straight up kills people before they can get out. The world falls and, is implied to have created a separate timeline and whole new territory in the form of Ibara, a distant future version of itself.

Travelers are not of the worlds they inhabit. They are, for all intents and purposes, gods that maintain order without having any personal effect on Halla. Saint Dane, being one of them that broke order and left, wants to watch it all burn so he can become the ultimate god. Aja is a traveler, and thus, by series logic, she's not supposed to have effect. She was never supposed to exist to create the virus (the reality bug).

Hence where people start screaming "PLOT HOLE!". And I have been guilty of that until recently.

Saint Dane has never been the kind of man to create problems. He just exacerbates them. In book three, he messes with the morality of the travelers by forcing them to leave the Hindenburg to its fate. The Hindenberg was supposed to explode. In book two, is one of the few times he gets as close to creating a problem for a while. Poisoning fertilizer that the ship-inhabiting people of Cloral need.

I believe that Saint Dane just pours gasoline on turning points to accelerate things. Like putting nitrous-oxide in a car to make it careen into a wall. It's the speed that makes it hard to turn things the right direction.

Ibara was always going to happen. Veelox was doomed from the get-go. Saint Dane, time and time again, puts down humanity by calling us selfish and self destructive. In The Quillan games he breaks Bobby down by telling him that it's just human nature to refuse change. The people of Veelox wouldn't want to leave Lifelight, why would they? They get to have perfect dreams forever until they die. Reality can be whatever they want.

The Reality Bug was just to speed things up. Forcing a slightly different version of Ibara to exist.

"What about Aja Killian helping with the creation of Rayne? If she removed herself from the equation, how could she have been there to help people build a better future?" I think that, alongside Saint Dane speeding up the inevitable, Aja was never supposed to be the person leading the charge, it was supposed to be someone else much later. She was forced to fill a role that would eventually be taken by someone else under different, but similar circumstances down the road.

The series has, in my opinion, never made itself quiet about its ideas of how important fate is. Even after the travelers are given the chance to either go back to being immortal spirits, or mortals, they just live normal, unexceptional lives. Like a tiny little bug in a much bigger program, a little quirk that in the end, changes pretty much nothing.

Anyway, if you made it this far, damn, I'm sorry you had to put up with my fan theory for a very, very small fandom lmao. But thank you.

[fantasyinvader]

So, the “Edelgard was designed as a rival for Byleth”-thing just clicked for me. I mean, let's look over some details.

They both have the Crest of Flames However, Byleth's came from his (I'm going to use male pronouns because Engage uses male Byleth) mother, who was an attempt by Rhea to resurrect Sothis (still believe Sitri was Sothis without her memories, a reincarnation if you will), begging Rhea to give Byleth her heart. Edelgard's came from Thales experimenting on her and her siblings to create a weapon against Rhea.

Their fathers have the Crest of Seiros and initially push their children to distrust Rhea. However, Jeralt comes to see that running away from the monastery may have been a bad idea and that maybe he should have trusted Rhea. Ionius, on the other hand, is said to be a puppet of Thales.

Byleth knows TWSITD killed Jeralt and, by default, won't side with Edelgard and them by proxy. Meanwhile, Edelgard is stated to know her father is their puppet, their influence on the Empire, and what they are doing to Ionius. She continues to work with them for her own goals.

Sothis is the ancient Greek name for Sirius, the brightest star in the heavens, and by fusing with her Byleth gains the Enlightened One class. Thales' personal class, Agastya, is the Indian name for Canopus and can mean “one who brightens in the darkness.” Thales' people became drunk on their power, viewing themselves as gods, and scorched the earth with their wars, Sothis otoh used her power to heal the damage resulting in floods. Thales creates the Flame Emperor, an allusion of Chinese folklore, while Byleth becomes the leader of Fodlan and is part dragon, much like how the Flame Emperor was defeated by the Yellow/Dragon Emperor.

Building off of 3, Rhea was the creation of Sothis while the Agarthans created Nemesis. Rhea in turn created Sitri, who birthed Rhea's successor Byleth, while the Agarthans manipulated Edelgard into being Nemesis 2.0.

Byleth has trusted allies listed under his likes (though admittedly smiles in the Japanese), whereas Edelgard was based around the idea of a lord betraying the player.

Byleth also lists helping people as one of his interests/hobbies. Edelgard, on the other hand, believes that people need to be self-reliant and that by relying on others they become weak while at the same time expecting Byleth to help her when the time comes.

Byleth is said to have the merits to lead Fodlan after being appointed Rhea's successor. Edelgard, otoh, takes credit for Byleth's leadership of the BESF to bolster her own image, needs Ferdinand to figure out how to make her ideals work (seriously, she never even thought of educating the commoers to give them a chance), Hubert to put down threats to her regime from the shadows, pilfered Agarthan tech to maintain the peace according to Byleth/Constance's ending. Byleth is appointed by Rhea to lead the Church ultimately chooses to be a the new King of Fodlan, while Edelgard complains about the responsibility thrust upon her simply because of her birth.

Byleth is a commoner, Edelgard is a princess.

Jeralt did not educate Byleth about Fodlan, leading to him needing to figure things out on his own. Edelgard's “secret Imperial knowledge” came from her father, and she ignores information that contradicts her narrative.

Byleth is a teacher, tasked with guiding his students. Edelgard is a student that wants to sway Byleth over to her side when she attacks the school.

Byleth's time at Garreg Mach results in him showing emotions for the first time in his life. He enjoys being a teacher. Edelgard's time, according to Girl from Hresvelg, causes her to grow attached to the place and makes it harder to move forward with her plans before she decides to throw it all away and start her war. However, Edelgard does not encourage Byleth's arc and instead insists he not question her when she says he is just like her in being cold and distant from others.

Byleth's paralogue is unlocked by having a support level with Rhea, but is lost if they join Edelgard.

Options that unlock Safflower are presented as “changing the story.” Byleth's story, in it's natural state, is fighting against Edelgard.

Edelgard drops her backstory in White Clouds, while Byleth learns his in Silver Snow.

Byleth's personal class is Nirvana in the Japanese, named after the path of liberation. Alternatively, Edelgard's path is called the path of the beast in Japanese, the antithesis of Nirvana. When faced as a final boss, Edelgard turns herself into a beast unit.

It really does create a narrative surrounding these two, how they are actually polar opposites to one another despite Byleth being a silent protagonist. If anything, the game plays out like this. Byleth and Edelgard are opposites, but by joining her Byleth can become like her. Byleth does not become a leader at the end. Dimitri and Edelgard are also opposites, and at the end Dimitri and Byleth lead Fodlan together. Claude is like Edelgard initially, but Byleth's influence makes him more like Byleth resulting in both kingdoms being friends with each other.

[2lim3rz]

So I Got Emotional Over Ultrakill's Music.. Again

I get so emotional about the soundtrack of Ultrakill. The hopelessness, the despair, the dream for it to be over. For it to just be a nightmare you'll awaken from when in reality there is nothing but hell left. There is no Earth. Just a wastelandic mire of ruined dreams. There is no heaven, just a barren wasteland of abandonment.

The Prelude is heavy, violent. An uprising of one machine's unstoppable might. It is Wrath incarnate. The constant drumming and upbeat pace that just doesn't stop. Even when there's no enemies it's going-going-going. You can't stop. You won't stop. There is no goal other than destruction of those who Stop you and even then it is a competition of how much blood can you spill before you are forced to end it?

Then.. Limbo.

Peaceful. Calming. There's no reason to fight, why would you do this? There's no one to inhabit limbo but machines and the husks that lurk amongst its false leaves and speakers droning elevator music. It is a place of waiting. A place of passing.

Now destroyed. Shattered. Broken apart. Discordant chimes clashing with the drums of your Goal.

Then you get to A Complete and Utter Destruction of the Sense. It's ear-ruining but in such a fun way. Yet you can feel it. The Havoc your are causing. You feel the devastation in what you are doing. Are the Streetsweepers trying to truly go after and kill you or are they simply trying to destroy what it is you are? What of the happily chirruping Drones?

And then V2's association with Clair de Lune. He is a machine of Peace. Of Protection. Like other machines, driven in their objective of remaining, at minimum, online. At remaining alive. They have no other way of staying alive other than blood.

V2's calm guitar clashes with V1's shaking drums. Two sides of the same coin. V2's heavier armor against V1's thin absorption plating. Contest. Competition. War.

Then...

Lust.

A skeleton of hopeful times. It feels one of the saddest layers after all of the heavy drums and upbeat music with Limbo as the exception. The Corpse of King Minos looms in the distance, an ultimate goal to keep getting your way.

All of humanities dreams are dead in their waking nightmare.

REQUIEM - A MASS FOR THE DEAD.

Minos, and Lust, are Humanities last song. You are the epitome of their creation. Of their rage.

The slow rise as you ride the train to your oblivion. What is it V2 thinks? It's clear that these robots have intelligence, after all Swordsmachines mimic themselves in the light of their Idol, the Swordsmachine. Drones chirp and whrr in their animal minds.

Gabriel and his Organ. There is no holy trumpets to signal his arrival. He's calm in his anger, at first. He even gives you warning. Hope of some sort of humanity remaining in the soul of a metal husk? A Judge needs citizens after all, and with Machines destroying all of hell..

Something must be done. Gabriel's theme almost feels as much of a lament as Minos' does. There is no hope. In Gabriel's theme, there is only power. Only the desire to dominate and destroy. He is the only one to destroy all of his foes single handedly. He is the one the Council always sends.

He is the Council's dog. The one time he fails, there are no third chances, only a second and even then Gabriel has lost everything except for the single-minded goal to destroy you.

Two faces, one mirror.

MINOS.

The polite King. Yet his theme is so tragic. Hoping for peace, even after all this time, yet after being destroyed he has no more choices but to fight and fight he will. He will become the adjuctator once more. The almost weary feeling of his theme song.

The power of it.

Then GREED.

To fight and fight is what you'll do. It's what you must do. It's fast. It's quick. Almost as if you're getting close to the Goal.

Darkness after so much light. Wandering and wandering.

And then, once more, your friend and foe; V2 returns. His motif of the guitars remains but they're quieter, more subtle. It's no longer competition for who is better, it's winner gets all. Winner gets life.

Neither side will back down. All until the decider of the contest isn't guns or fists; it's simple gravity. All that fighting, and it's gravity in the end that kills your foe.

Yet hope is gone.

All aboard the ship! Behold the realms of Wrath: unexpectedly you are greeted by the massively overflowing Styx. The ship is your transport and the ferryman greets you, before you disrespect and try to board without paying the toll.

Then.. you behold it.

L E V I A T H A N.

A monster of biblical mass. The largest foe you have fought yet. Its theme feels of blaring horns and might. Yet ever marching onwards (ever swimming?) it's stubborn.

Yet it falls all the same.

You are in the finality now. The music feels similar to what you hear when you first fight Gabriel. The rise has descended into the Fall. There is no stopping you. Not even the Hideous Masses. You will destroy him and continue ever onwards in your quest to stay alive.

And Gabriel suffers. He has nothing to live for. He plays possibly his last refrain on the organ as you approach. It's melancholy, draining after all of the fighting you had just done.

His theme is brutality. Yet weary and sad. As anything, Gabriel has no plans of dying. Of what he had dedicated everything to was ripped callously away. And for what reason?

You took it.

It took you to make him realize, however, that everything was wrong. Everything was false. That the Ones he looked to guidance had lied to everyone. The one thing he served was dead. Was gone.

Vengeance was all he knows. V1 taught him this. You taught him this. The hatred fuels him on. It's pure in its feeling. It's ecstasy.

Yet V1 fights on. Finding the causer of the Sisyphean Insurrection. Yet unlike Minos, Sisyphus's theme doesn't feel weary or sad in the slightest. It's excited. Elated. Absolutely joyful with the power he has. There are no regrets in what he has done or will do. In a sense, V1 is the closest friend he'd have. A companion in his contest for strength.

White. All white greets you. Beholding the Mannequins and their perpetual torment. How lost all feels journeying in the depths of the Forked Paths. Of the porcelain Labyrinth. Turn back, machine, there is nothing for you here. All before the Minotaur forces itself upon your path. Anger at its own torment. Indignant at what has been done to it.

The music feels warped. It's angry. It's hopeless. There is the feeling of a music box underneath it all. It's dreams of seeing the Sky. Why can't it be allowed to see the sky? Truly was it not judged too shamelessly before it had even a chance of freedom? What had it done to deserve its fate asides from appearing so monstrous?

A gift sent to damnation.

Yet you must run. It must run. There is an exit. To get in is to get out. Run. Run. RUN. V1's demise is not its goal, it is the way out. You entered somehow..

Then the sirens of war come to your doorstep. Guttermen greet you, you discover the danger of mines. It is no longer just Hell itself fighting you; but your own brethren from the start. Who are you to do this? Whose side are you on in this constant war? It is madness. It is disgrace. It is...

The gardens of silence. Is this peace like limbo..? One can only assume.. until hell breaks loose once more. The Trees are hungry.. feed them. Feed us.

All to return to the constant madness.

Guttermen guns blaze at you. Their bloodbags inside suffer indefinately. Guttertanks charge at you. Sentries prance and their guns roar. It is a dissention of what humanity has created. The epitome of their wrath.

All culminating to the Earthmovers which have had no interest to you. They fight on. There is only the Enemy ahead of it. It will do what it sees best.

Intruder.

Intruder.

Intruder.

The horns of its internals roar at you. It could do nothing to save itself except pray that the denizens that turned a machine of death into a machine of life to defend it.

It was made to destroy; yet it became a beacon for home. It traversed the realms of Earth until its fostering creators could no longer withstand it. Now a sentinel for hell; it's horns and sirens become the Earthmover's death cry.

The Machine trudges on. Constant in its quest of death.

[morethanwonderful]

ALSO while I'm losing my mind over the Note of Desolation page and how it lays out John's arc: look at this!

One fundamental underlying aspect of John is that I think he feels really lost when he's not given external purpose and doing Main Character Stuff. He seems to just kind of stall and wallow at home in his depression during the end credits and pre-prologue epilogues. He has a huge breakdown seemingly out of nowhere after two years of idling on the ship between worlds. And here, we see that's not just something that comes from the trauma of his first session of the Game.

To some extent, for the whole first twelve years of his life before sburb, John Egbert has felt like he's missing something.

There's two different ways that you can read this, and I think they work in tandem.

On one hand, there's the meta reading. John as a person was born to be The Main Character. Sburb's whole thing is meta narratives and turning its players into characters in a creation myth. John is the main character of his story. He's the first to boot up Sburb, the first to enter the medium, and the first to go god tier. He's the friendleader. He's the one that does his world's ectobiology. Of course, in the context of Sburb and its narrative, he always feels like something is missing from mundane life. He exists to play the Game and serve its story, and he's divorced from his purpose if he's not Being The Protagonist.

But at the same time, this also works really well as a mundane symptom of depression. For as long as he's existed and had the capacity to feel complex emotions, John has felt like something is missing from his life. The Game only works as a temporary distraction from this feeling. Sburb gives him urgent concrete goals to focus on, and it's hard to feel empty and listless when you're constantly in crisis mode trying to keep yourself, your friends, and your universe from dying. But running on adrenaline and living a task-driven life can't actually cure his depression, and in the quiet moments between sessions and after Game Over, he's left with that same feeling of something missing. Something empty.

Given all that, it's fitting that this emptiness is first raised as an issue when John looks in his mailbox and sees that Sburb isn't there. In line with the meta reading, it's impossible for him as an entity to feel complete when he's missing the Game because he's the main character. Not getting his hands on the physical game might not be the cause of his listlessness, but getting divorced from his protagonist purpose is. He's nothing without Sburb.

Yet, we're told Sburb isn't really the true cause. He feels desolate before the game, he feels desolate at points during the game, and he'll feel even more desolate after. He feels like his life is a trick played on him by some "unseen riddler," whatever thing that might complete him held constantly out of reach. Not having the game, be it the physical disc or the Game that gives him purpose as a god, is ultimately just one more frustration in a life full of the feeling of lack.

John's the Main Character and incomplete without his protagonist role to play, but he's also depressed. And in the end, even becoming a god, creating a universe, and fulfilling his glorious purpose can't fix the sense of lacking in his life.

It's a cruel trick—fulfilling the plot contrivance that helps bring about his sense of Absence in the first place cannot actually fill the hole or help him move forward. Not in any long-term sense.

[pochapal]

quite early into the Umineko analysis you raised a Kanon Culprit Theory with central consideration given to his particular ability to give the umbrella and letter to Maria, motive in regard to protecting Sayo, and connections among the servants that provide possible accomplices. Do you still think this is a part of the truth, after his death in chapter 14? Why / why not?

Kanon Culprit Theory is something that's developed quite a bit since my initial suspicions in chapter 7. for me i think the logistics of the theory remain true (kanon is the one who appeared in the garden and is the one who gave maria the umbrella and the letter) and i do think kanon's ultimate motive in a lot of what he did was to save shannon, but i'm leaning less towards kanon being a mastermind and more kanon being an unwilling accomplice with an agenda of his own.

i think Kanon Culprit Theory worked well as an opening wedge to considering the ways a conspiracy between servants would work, since regardless of his agency in the crimes kanon still sits at the intersection of all these schemes as an easily tuggable thread. i think kanon's desire to save shannon and his rage against the abuse on rokkenjima holds true, although it's now more evident that this was fuel for his act of rebellion at the very end than necessarily a drawn out revenge plot against the ushiromiya family. don't get me wrong i think kanon isn't necessarily opposed to the idea of people dying to get what he wants, but i think painting him as the orchestrator is wrong.

my prevailing thought is that the beatrice narrative is a posthumous scheme thought out by kinzo and enforced by genji, using the trappings of loyalty and abuse to keep the servants on side as useful accomplices (aside from maybe gohda). they sing songs of beatrice to the ushiromiya family well enough and this will guarantee their survival of the massacre to come. the ultimate goal of this plan was, i believe, to lead to kanon solving the epitaph and inheriting kinzo's wealth and for shannon to become his "beatrice", perpetuating kinzo's will and the cycle of violence in a way that leaves the ushiromiyas with the short end of the stick. perhaps as an iterative echo of whatever warcrimes landed kinzo the gold in the first place - the kinzo myth and the beatrice myth perpetuated through groomed inheritors who should lack the ability to say "no".

shannon and kanon are assumed to comply due to their positions as powerless orphan servants who aren't even permitted their own names. the wrinkle in the theory is genji doing this, but it works if you consider genji to be motivated by some kind of deep devotion - almost love, if not explicitly - towards kinzo. he sees himself as the man's "furniture". the one thing furniture can always be counted on to to is uphold its master's will. genji has little to live for outside of rokkenjima and kinzo, and with kinzo dead, he has no reason not to carry out this final commitment to the man he dedicated half a century of his life to.

of course this plan went awry from the outset, given the fact that shannon died in whatever struggle led to the creation of the first twilight, and then kanon has since that moment been biding his time to rebel against the plan at the optimal moment. i think so long as at least one of the two of them lived to the end then the plan would be a "success", but both of them dead before the epitaph murders are halfway done is a screaming sign that this scheme has been derailed. i'm not sure what will happen vis a vis genji and The Plan now, since i think chapter 14 makes it evident there might be another element at play (i am still puzzling that one out in the writeup, so more answers on this area will be forthcoming then).

[howlingday]

My idea for a potential DEATH BATTLE! #7

2023, Nov 28, 29, Dec 1, 2

PREVIOUS POST: SIXTH POST

MASTER LIST

Darth Sidious vs Master Xehanort (Star Wars vs Kingdom Hearts)

Which evil wizard of darkness behind the curtain will prevail?

FIGHTER 1: Darth Sidious, the sadistic and mean megalomaniacal mastermind behind the Galactic Empire.

FIGHTER 2: Master Xehanort, the darkness-seeking body-snatching chess master of Kingdom Hearts.

Wiz: The evil mastermind. The malevolent entity behind the curtain. One of the greatest evil is the one that presents itself as a friend. It leads to the demise of many heroes.

*CLIPS: Evil mastermind: James Moriarity. The malevolent entity behind the curtain: MHA's All For One. Evil fakes being friendly: the ego Death scene from Guy Ritchie's Revolver (Watch that movie, it's cool).*

Boomstick: These two may be geriatric, but they've put their wits to use and have formulated an entire chess plan to carry out their dreams and designs and are just as strong to boot. He's Wiz and I'm Boomstick.

Wiz: And it's our job to analyze their weapons, armor, and skills to find out who would win... a Death Battle.

PREFACE (What to know): I am fully aware of how popular this MU is, with its 2021 DBX and its high-ranking position in 2023's Champion Poll, so I wanted to get this out before it becomes an actual episode. I wanted this MU since I played KH: Birth By Sleep in April and May 2020 since the lockdown had started and I had a collection of KH games to play. There is a large collection of Star Wars media and there is the old Legends content to consider alongside the vast history of Kingdom Hearts, so I will try to be careful with how I treat these characters, but as usual, my efforts will go into the "fight" more than anything else. If I am to consider them at their max, then we have Palpatine at the end of the Skywalker Saga and Xehanort with the χ-Blade. I WILL BE TREATING THIS AS A SEASON FINALE because of how much there is to go over for both characters and because it would serve as a beautiful contrast to Yoda vs. King Mickey: one season starts with the light and another ends in darkness. Also, I wanted this to be my 13th suggestion, but I should get this out before DB! beats me to it.

WHY:

Connections (What do they have in common):

1. Both are the main antagonists of the first saga of their series, The Skywalker Saga and the Dark Seeker Saga. (As of me writing this, the main series of SW and KH is those two sagas).

2. Both have concocted master plans in which they would spread their influence insidiously across reality, namely through manipulation and subordinates while maintaining a guise of reliability. Darth Sidious trained Darth Maul, turned Anakin into Darth Vader by manipulating his fear, and used his identity as Chancellor Palpatine to further his political career and deceive his way into accomplishing his goal of orchestrating the fall of the Galactic Republic and the Jedi Order through the Clone Wars, and then established his reign over the galaxy while Master Xehanort manipulated Terra who trusted him as a teacher into killing Eraqus as well as Ventus through Vanitas to create an ultimate weapon and Riku by exploiting his wishes to explore the outside worlds and even Maleficent. He also created Organization XIII to prolong his life.

3. Both are known for how they cheat death. Palpatine had his clones and attempted to possess Rey's body whereas Xehanort body-snatched Terra, had his Nobody, Heartless, and Organization XIII as his vessels, and even had a time-traveling younger self.

4. Both have dabbled in scientific or science-like research. Palpatine is mostly known for his experiments in Sith Alchemy and Xehanort is mostly known for the creation of the Nobodies and the mass release of Heartless. These are not their only contributions, but I am not listing all of them.

5. Their goal was to have ultimate power in some form. Palpatine wanted supreme control over every being in the galaxy and Xehanort wanted to conquer Kingdom Hearts to obtain ultimate power/knowledge and recreate the worlds the way he saw fit.

6. Both are among the most dangerous warriors trained in their respective ancient ways (Sith ways + the Dark Side of the Force, and Keyblade mastery + Darkness), if not, they are flat-out the most dangerous. Despite that, their greatest attribute arguably is not their strength or their tenacity to see their dreams come true, but their manipulation of others.

Personal reasons (Why I want this battle/like this MU): Back in March and April 2020, I played KH II, BBS, and 0.2 A Fragmentary Passage, and then I played DDD and watched Back Cover. Needless to say, I noticed similarities between KH and SW, namely comparing the plots of BBS & Revenge of the Sith, Terra & Anakin, Xehanort & Palpatine, and the plans of the antagonists. Shortly after, I watched this video, this video, and this video and then looked up more stuff online and found this beauty by Naitsabes89:

Since then, I tried to get a very good friend of mine who's into Star Wars to play KH, crowned Grand Master Yoda vs. King Mickey as my favorite DB!, and listened to BY's "Destined for Darkness", "Birth By Exile", "This Heartless Empire", and Skye T.'s "Insidiosa Tenebrae", none in that specific order. There was also an old article that mentioned how Nomura was wearing his love for Star Wars on his sleeve and how both had a giant conflict that wiped out the ancient wizard knights, namely the 100-Year Darkness and Keyblade War, but I can no longer find it. I also really want to add to DB!'s collection of great SW episodes of the 2020s: 2020's Obi-Wan, 2021's Yoda, 2022's Boba Fett (I wouldn't call it great, but I did enjoy it a lot), and 2023's Darth Vader.

Also, I want their personalities to play off each other: the cunning masterminds trying to coax and manipulate the other to fall into a trap while showing off merciless power.

More than anything, this is my most wanted matchup.

THE FIGHT:

Art and animation: Easy; make it 3D like the DBX and all Star Wars episodes since 2020. 2D may be easier, but the grandiosity of the characters and the matchup demands something of great animation. I do not mean to disrespect the 2D/sprite team considering the phenomenal work from just 2023 alone, but 3D models can allow for more fluid movement and better blade-to-blade combat. If possible, get DevilArtemis again and take inspiration from The Clone Wars' lightsaber duels and high-tier KH III combos (I will do my damndest to do the same).

Possible setup: Cue the Death Star, floating in space, with ominous music and equally ominous vocals. We see the two combatants playing chess like Eraqus and Xehanort in KHIII, both doing their iconic smirks/evil grins; shenanigans are afoot.

"I am disappointed you declined my offer to rule the galaxy with me. Your power and wits would make for an excellent emperor." Palpatine hates how that sounds, but he doesn't stop the smirk; he has a plan, but he does respect the power and wits of his adversary. After all, he foresaw Vader's power surpassing his and even congratulated Maul for surviving his wounds and for his attempt to take over Mandolor. The title of emperor was his and his alone, but he needs to be careful; he can sense the darkness of his foe and he has wits to match. He moves a black pawn, removing a white pawn from the board. We see Stormtroopers and droids aiming and shooting at a giant mass of Heartless, Nobodies, and Unversed, beating them back a bit.

"I am not interested in your galaxy or your army. I do not have any interest in your dark magics or sciences." Xehanort moves a white pawn and removes a black pawn. The forces of Darkness start to overrun the forces of the Empire. "I wish to know of the Force and its Dark Side, and conquer it."

"You think you can match the Dark Side? Your feeble skills are no match for its power."

"Your arrogance and power blind you. They are your weakness." After a few more moves, the black pawns are off the board, but there are a few white pawns left. The forces of Darkness across the Galaxy have killed the Imperial Troops.

"Your faith in your pawns is yours." He does his iconic evil chuckle and moves a black rook. Darth Maul draws his Lightsaber and starts to fend off the dark mass with his wrath, weapon, and the Force, but then Vanitas swoops in and the two engage. Xehanort had moved a white rook, but all the pawns started to disappear off the board in a few short moves; Palpatine had moved his forces. Palpatine moves his second rook. Kylo Ren fights Young Xehanort. Xehanort then moves a knight. The Nobodies of Organization XIII engage the Inquisitorius. Palpatine moves a bishop. Asajj Ventress confronts Ansem SOD. Xehanort moves his white bishop. Xemans duels with Tyranus. Both move their queens. Terranort and Vader clash weapons. Then, we cut to the board: only the kings stood, and they knew what that meant.

Xehanort draws his keyblade, No Name. Palpatine draws his lightsaber, but even its evil red glow does not compare to the wickedness in Palpatine's voice.

"You will experience the full power of the Dark Side."

"The Darkness will end you."

FIGHT! :

1. Palpatine launches himself like in Episode III, but Xehanort only blocks it and parries. They start to duel as Sidious did against Windu. Sidious may be channeling the Dark Side, but in typical Palpatine fashion, he's going to play with his food for a bit. With his sadistic smile, he duels like in the cut fight between himself and the Jedi Council/Mace Windu from Episode III. Xehanort keeps up, playing more on the defensive. He dodges and counters, but Sidious parries and also counters.

2. Channeling a bit more of the Dark Side, Sidious outmaneuvers Xehanort, strikes him hard, and attempts to impale him, but Xehanort teleports away. Sidious chuckles. "Not confident in your skills? Feeling slow?" "I've kept pace with quick opponents before. You're no different." They engage again, like how Sidous dueled Savage Oppress and Maul, only for Xehanort to summon orbs of dark energy, forcing Palpatine to parry and dodge, but Xehanort gets in his Continuous Attack, slashing fast and teleporting. Sidious blocks a strike, kicks Xehanort away, and draws a second lightsaber, rushing Xehanort, and even though Xehanort can successfully parry a lot of the attacks, Sidious is in his element. He is channeling the Dark Side, flipping around and moving dexterously, dodging Xehanort's orbs of darkness and Fire spells. The two engage in a blade-lock, their golden eyes staring the other down. Xehanort is overpowering him a bit despite using two lightsabers, so Sidious pushes him away with the Force.

3. Xehanort is pushed against the wall but uses his telekineses to launch projectiles. Sidious then moves his own, but Xehanort redirects all of them and then uses a lot more objects to form his Blade Tornado. Sidious then uses the Force to stop and rip apart the projectiles. He then uses his iconic Force Lightning only for Xehanort to teleport away, who then casts Thundaga. Palpatine raises his two lightsabers to block the lightning and then leaps at Xehanort again, but he then uses Rising Ground, raising the ground in front of Palpatine, but Palpatine slices it and pushes it like Obi-Wan did to Kakashi's Earth justu and throws it with telekinesis.

4. Xehanort teleports behind the Sith, but the Sith blocks him and they start to duel with blades again, but Sidious channels Force Lightning again. Xehanort struggles a bit, but he uses Firaga to keep his distance. Seeing an opening, Xehanort disarms Sidious, grabs Sidious, pushes him down, and then hits him with cold air, attempting an Ultima Freeze. Sidious uses Force Lightning like he tried to on Darth Vader like in Episode VI, but Xehanort does not stop, so he uses the Force to draw in a lightsaber.

5. Xehanort dodges the attack but is caught off guard by the second lightsaber drawn to Palpatine and is hit, and Palpatine then starts to use Force Drain, recovering a large amount of health, bringing Xehanort to his knees. "You old fool. Now you see the folly of your ways. I have UNLIMITED POWER!" Sidious follows this up with more Force Lightning. Xehanort, struggling in pain, summons the almighty χ-blade. Xehanort then uses Call Calamity, throwing the χ-blade. Sidious uses the Force to throw the χ-blade back, but the χ-blade is cooling the air, smashing 3 fireballs together, and dropping three lightning strikes on them. Palpatine narrowly dodges, and then parries several dark shots, even using the Force to redirect attacks again.

6. Xehanort then uses XIII Combo, attacking using his avatars and several light rays, but Sidious simply "kills" the avatars (I don't think this is possible, but it looks cool in my head) and parries the light rays. Sensing his foe near, he blocks Xehanort's attack, χ-blade having become a double blade. The χ-blade then turns into a pair of chakrams, but Sidious keeps being agile and evasive, but he does not get far as Xehanort then turns the χ-blade into a whip and draws Sidious close. This does not deter the Sith lord, however, as the then uses the momentum to slash Xehanort. Xehanort then turns the χ-blade into its normal form and then, there's another blade clash. Xehanort wins and destroys the lightsabers. (If it was only one lightsaber, he draws in the second one, he destroys it.)

7. Xehanort then summons Kingdom Hearts and attempts to drain whatever light he can from Sidious, but he is unsuccessful. Sidious senses this and laughs. "You fool... You do not understand; I AM the Dark Side! You will be destroyed!" Using Force Lightning again, he shocks the Keyblade master and pushes him away.

8. Darth Sidious wins by using the Dark Side. He pins Xehanort to the wall, immobilizing him so can't even use the χ-blade. He then uses Force Drain again, severely weakening Xehanort. We then see the rest of Organization XIII being defeated; Xehanort can sense it and Sidious knows. "Only now in the end do you understand. You were no match for the Dark Side. You have paid the price for your lack of vision. Now, you will die." Using Force Lightning for a final time, Sidious ends the old master, proving the Dark Side, nay, himself to be the ultimate power.

9. Master Xehanort winds by using his magic and the χ-blade. Pushing through the Force, Xehanort uses Stopza, leaving Palpatine frozen in time. Xehanort ends the fight by using a beam of Darkness like at the end of KH III's final fight. We can then see Organization XIII overcoming the Empire and Sith. “Checkmate. And so, darkness prevails.”

11. KO!

RESULT:

Strengths and weaknesses:

Darth Sidious:

+ Has options for an instant kill.

+ Much more agile in physical combat.

+ Much more ruthless.

+ Precognition.

+ Could likely use Force Persuasion or Possession.

+ Force Heal and Force Drain allow for healing.

+ Drain Knowledge could allow for psychological damage.

≥ Likely the better manipulator.

= Likely equally skilled as both have had extensive training.

- His sadism and wanting to play with his opponent could give Xehanort a chance to attack him.

- As far as I can tell, he does not resist cold air or freezing.

Master Xehanort:

+ If scaled to King Mickey, then he's physically faster, stronger, and more durable.

+ Greater versatility and ranged options with the χ-blade's transformations and his magic, so it is highly likely that he can overwhelm his opponent and keep himself at a distance.

+ His two armor sets allow for greater defense. The first one extends his offensive versatility and even gives him the ability to turn his Keyblade into a defensive wall. The second one even comes from him powering up.

+ Considering his versatility in magic, it is very likely that he has access to Cure.

+ Greater mobility with teleportation and Corridors of Darkness.

+ Stopza allows for instant kill setups.

+ Could likely transfer his heart to Palpatine with complete ease due to the darkness in Palpatine's heart.

= Likely equally skilled due to training and experience.

- It is fair to assume that he has a limited magic pool like Sora and King Mickey, so if he runs out, he would be more vulnerable while it recharges.

- He is very likely to end up winded and tired like in his solo fight against Terra in BBs.

Ending puns:

"Palpatine Sidiously had it coming."

"Xehanort did not have the heart to win it."

MUSIC:

Name: "Imperial Chessmasters"

The name refers to the Galactic Empire and the characters' complex multi-generational plans that involve the manipulation of others for domination and power.

Art:

Foreground: Xehanort's chess piece but the head is the emblem of the Galactic Empire with lightning emerging from the center to the left and darkness emerging from the center to the right.

Background: on the left, it's the Death Star; on the right, it's Kingdom Hearts succumbing to Darkness.

Sound: DUEL OF THE FATES + KH III FINAL BOSS THEME (FRAGMENTS OF SORROW, BUT GRAND), BABY! Slow, dramatic building with slight vocals and piano, and a pinch of drums. It doesn't play during the chess scene, starting when we see that only the kings are left sounding like the introductory strings of the KH III final boss theme. There are strings when they first clash blades. Then the vocals, piano, and strings just keep going from there. It is tense, dramatic, and of course, there are sorrowful moments, changing pace along with the fight: dramatic and fast with the deeper strings and choir or slow and tearful with lighter vocals and higher note strings. Therewolf Media is the ideal pick as he has done Hearts of Light which also beautifully mixes the orchestral sounds of SW and KH. If you want a good idea of what this song could sound like, check out these beauties and gems...

1. Duel of Sorrow ( KH style Mash up Duel of Fates/Fragments of Sorrow)

2. Kingdom Hearts 3 - Duel of the Fates (Battle Theme)

Or I could leave it to the imagination. Seriously, I can imagine it in my head and it is beautiful. Listen to the themes I referred to the original themes you'll hear something great when you try to mix them in your head.

1. Duel of the Fates

2. KH III Final Boss Theme

(strikethrough: I think it'd be something so great that John Williams and Yoko Shimomura would acknowledge it. I wanted to add another element to this mix, but I'll save it.)

FINAL THOUGHTS AND WORDS

I know how weird it would be to have Maul, Ventress, and Kylo Ren as part of Sidious' army, but I did not know who else to use, and I didn't put this in the preface because I wanted the chess army to be a surprise.

I don't know if this will surpass my suggestions of Azula vs. Cinder or Trunks vs. Luminary, but I don't care. I LOVE this MU, and I already said that this is my all-time most wanted. I had fun imagining the choreography and especially the music. I am the least bit worried about the MUSIC because there is so much to take inspiration from whereas the fight itself will need a combination of character interactions, swordplay, and ranged attacks. If it ever becomes an actual episode, I'll temper my expectations because the battle is most certainly not going to be like this idea of mine.

This is my last MU idea for the year.

CHESS PIECES

Kings: Darth Sidious vs. Master Xehanort

Queens: Darth Vader vs. Terra-Xehanort

Bishops: Darth Tyranus and Asajj Ventress vs. Xemnas, and Ansem, Seeker of Darkness

Knights: Inquisitorious vs. the Nobodies of Organization XIII

Rooks: Darth Maul and Kylo Ren vs Vanitas and Young Xehanort

THANK YOU AND I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS! SEE YOU NEXT YEAR!

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Once again, I am impressed with your presentation. I've seen quite a bit of Star Wars, but I always forget Palpatine has a lightsaber. Also, Xehanort's fight in KHIII forever sticks out in my brain as one of the most frustrating final bosses of the game.

And as for what you've shown, I like it. The poster at the top was hilarious and thinking on it, KH could include Star Wars due to a mutual benefactor (Disney). The videos you have linked well in here are also a neat watch.

And while I absolutely LOVE that opening to the fight, my only criticism is the name of the soundtrack. For me, while clever, it doesn't really invoke anything... I dunno, flashy? Maybe something more along the lines of...

DESIGNS OF DARKNESS

Happy holidays and thank you for your fine creations.