#and also to make sense of why he had the Lor

[kirby-souljourney-au]

Mmm… someone had a Doomerlor AU, I can’t remember who made it, but I like the idea of him at least from Another Dimension.

In this AU, he’s from Halcandra’s sister planet. It’s kinda like the Mars of its solar system.

soooo if magolor didn't come from halcandria where did this creature originate

[yuvany]

WHEN YOU TEASE ENHYPEN

not kissing bf!enha

HYUNG LINE x fem!r CONTENT / WRANING(S) skinship + slight suggestive content(?) + est relationship + close proximity + minor fluff WORD COUNT 605 CHECK BOX !!

𝗟𝗘𝗘 𝗛𝗘𝗘𝗦𝗘𝗨𝗡𝗚 has wanted to kiss you the whole day, but the separation of work had come in between the two of you. Maybe it was urgency, or maybe it was just love, but Heeseung looked forward to coming home. He imagines pulling you into a long and tight hug and pressing his lips all over your face. He rushes home and urges the port to swing open, knowing that you were already home. "Hello!" You call, upon hearing the signal of arrival, and Heeseung makes his way over to you with a wave as he eagerly guides his hands around your waist and letting his lips come closer to yours. You can sense his eagerness, and gives him a kiss on the cheek. Whe he aims for your lips, you just dodge. "baby, don't play with me like this." he pleads.

𝗣𝗔𝗥𝗞 𝗝𝗢𝗡𝗚𝗦𝗘𝗢𝗡𝗚 knows what he wants and will let you know he wants you in his arms. Jay sees you leaning your head against his shoulder, looking so comfortable with this proximity, the smile on his lips enlarges at the sight, and his fingers trail across your back and rest on your shoulder. You had captivated his attention with your half lidded eyes that seemed to be closed for a lor longer than they were open, as if you were fighting off sleep. Jay notices this and bends his neck to check up on you closer. You flutter your eyes open, and sees his face in front of yours. "Hmm?" You hum, and rub your eyes with your knuckles. "You look exhausted, let's get you to bed." When he tries to give you a kiss on the cheek, you swiftly dodge it and stand up on your own. He thinks nothing of this and tries again, only to fail once more.

𝗦𝗜𝗠 𝗝𝗔𝗘𝗬𝗨𝗡 "I think I deserve a reward, baby." "A reward for what?" You scoff. Jake is standing in the kitchen with you, helping you wash the dishes. "For coming over?" You continue, and nudge him by the shoulder with a teasing grin. "I mean, why not?" He smirks and returns the previous gesture you gave him, which causes you to jerk to the side slightly. You look up at him with knitted eyebrows for doing it so aggressively. "Well, now you wont get a kiss. Blame yourself." You mockingly sulk, continuing to play with the bubbles formed by the dish soap. Jake sighs from your side, and finish up the last plates before drying his hands. "babe, please." He pleads, giving you the puppy eyes. "Let me think about it." You feel his warm palms wrap around your waist as he buries his face in your neck. "Have you thought enough about it yet?" "It's only been ten seconds, sweetie." "Sooo?" "No."

𝙋𝘼𝙍𝙆 𝙎𝙐𝙉𝙂𝙃𝙊𝙊𝙉 isn't one to exactly say what he wants, but right now, he was contemplating if he should just tell you that he had missed the feeling of your lips against his, or if he should stay quiet and just imagine it all in his head. You had seen how he sneaks a glance here and there from your peripheral vision, but decided to ignore it, becuase you did not want to excuse the fact that you were also glancing over at his handsome face. Slowly, but surely, Sunghoon comes closer inch by inch. You notice this as well as his constant touches on your arms and tugging on your shirt. When you turn to see, his face was a breath away from yours. You just smirk at this and push him away, enjoying the shocked expression on his face.

[leonawriter]

I have another (bigger) post in the works, but the concept and argument of "Would things have gone better if Angela had been allowed to be kind to the Sephirah?" keeps sticking in my head, because I have my own arguments against it based on the setting and the concept of the Seed of Light Scenario.

(Post has spoilers for the end LobCorp/LoR.)

Thing is, going through Angela's memories in LoR makes what she went through seem unreasonable. Which I think it's supposed to, since you're seeing things from her biased perspective. It's also fair to show her perspective; she's the main character of her game, and as she herself points out, she's the only one who didn't get her own catharsis and conclusion from Lobotomy Corporation (an argument can also be made for Ayin himself not having a perfect conclusion, but that's for another time, and other people have talked on it).

The problem with Angela being able to simply be kind the way she wanted to at the start lies purely and solely in the very nature of the Seed of Light, and also in the tagline of the Corporation/game itself:

Face the Fear, Build the Future.

In order for each of the Sephirah to "Face their Fear," each one has to break the veneer of their shell, have their meltdown, and air their ugliest thoughts.

In other words.... the selves that they have as Sephirah - Gabriel vs. Yesod, Daniel vs. Chesed, for example - are masks for their insecurities and traumas. "In the past, [x trait] caused me to fail, therefore I will have nothing to do with that trait and be better that way."

In that sense, Angela encouraging them to be the best that they can be as Sephirah is encouraging them to remain happily in their own masks, not requiring them to take said masks off, and in theory things could remain the way they are like that in perpetuity (ironically, much like Hokma wanted in his meltdown).

Sure, they'd get what they want... but would they be getting what they need?

Answer says No, Not Really. With a loud buzzer. And flashing lights.

Because what was that tagline again?

Face the Fear, Build the Future.

In order to face the fear, you have to accept that it exists in the first place. The first step to solving your problems is to recognise them.

You have to, quite literally, face your fears. The Sephirah had to each face the fact that they were running away from their problems.

Only by remembering who they were (in the correct way) and allowing them to process the grief, despair, rage, and turmoil of their past selves could they hope to accept that fully, and to build themselves into better versions of who they are, starting from that moment on.

It's pretty much a certainty that Ayin, who studied the brain, who almost certainly knew a lot about psychology, and who would have listened to the specialities of the others, would have had all of this in mind while writing the Script.

So like... yeah. Yeah, it IS cruel to Angela. Unconscionably cruel!

Personally I abide by this being part of the reason (much like how he couldn't face the others while they were dying) why he could never look at Angela the way she wanted him to; much like with them, he could see the suffering she was going [to] go through, and couldn't face her.

All of which is the reason why Library of Ruina was necessary for her own character development. She is justifiably upset over never having been given the same catharsis in Lobotomy Corporation - but with how much anger she has at Ayin, would she have accepted him trying to help her? No matter how different she could tell that he had become? I highly doubt it.

I think that it's only because she herself had, by the end, gone through an arc similar to Ayin's, where she (knowingly or not) follows the footsteps of both of her "parents" that she's able to hear Ayin saying "I'm sorry, and good job" at all. She's reached a point where she's able to see more of who Carmen truly is (a bad influence) and who Ayin was outside of some of her own biases (even if she hasn't forgiven him).

[the-glorious-evolution-fanart]

It's crazy how cringe Arcane S2 Viktor is. He's a Machine Herald without the "machine". It's just like calling Mordekaiser as the "Iron Revenant", and taking away the "revenant". It makes no sense at all, and destroys the whole character. It's like making Jhin with his face visible, when everything that makes Jhin himself is the anonymity of his face.

Suffice to say, I'm disappointed, and if they choose to make Arcane Viktor as the in-game one with the VGU & Rework, I'll quit playing Viktor. I don't want to play as another corrupt mage like Brand or Xerath. I want to play as a cyborg man from Zaun. Closest we have is Urgot, but even then, he's not a ranged character. Camille? Again, close range character, and from Piltover. And they're not quite the same as Viktor, who is fully set on prosthetics, and helping people, and being a scientist who builds golems.

It's like Viktor will become a completely different character, and I'll continue to prefer his current LoR version as the in-game canon since I love that version of him right now. Welp, guess the only place where we can play as his original version will be LoR. Such a shame.

The whole plotline of "Piltover-Zaun becoming one against Viktor's and Noxus' armies" makes me cringe so hard, you have no idea. Weren't we supposed to have an animation series about Piltover and Zaun? When did it become about "Noxus vs Piltover and Zaun"? But I liked Jayce. He's become Giga Chad, basically. Sure, doesn't fit his S1 character, but which character stayed loyal to their S1 versions? I didn't like S1 too because it didn't set up the base for Viktor becoming the Machine Herald at all (not into robotics, no comment on human emotions, etc.), or for Jayce to be an arrogant guy who's very hard to work with. No, instead we had their "better" versions. It makes me so angry. 😭 I'm not even starting with what kind of abomination they've turned WW into. He's supposed to talk. Not act like an animal %90 of the time and just speak one word the whole season.

Swain crows and Mel allying with LeBlanc was cool, ngl. Doesn't make a lot of sense as to why Swain doesn't move a finger to stop Ambessa and her army whatsoever, but whatever. Also what was the "subtle foreshadowing" they did on the last episode? Geez.

Ambessa fighting scene is literally what happens in every movie: the guys who are shooting all the time suddenly stop and let the main character(s) kill them. What a classic.

Betrayal wasn't expected but didn't surprise me.

Viktor model is just outright cringe. Mask looks ridiculous. Hair looks ridiculous. Cane? A whole another level of ridiculous. Voice not at all Machine Herald's. Human face still visible under Reddit Upvote button, disgusting. Halo of runes(?) behind his head, forced Biblical stuff. Has magical husk slaves like Evelynn in LoR who has the ability to fly and infect, apparently. SUS. He also has gone to the full "people shouldn't have control" mind-set, which I don't appreciate since even the Convergence Comic Viktor at the start was hating the cult, blaming them for twisting his ideology for their own sick beliefs. His third arm just looks like a horrid monster from S.O.M.A. game, but in a really bad way. Also wow, Viktor now apparently has the power to telekinesis.

Wow, apparently Caitlyn is such a powerful and lucky(!) character that she can fight while being stabbed by a dagger. Wow. Not plot-armor at all.

I appreciated how Ambessa's men literally do nothing to help their commander, which should have happened since Noxians use any and all means necessary to win. They used Singed's chemical weapons during the invasion of Ionia. Guess they forgot about their own principle: "Guile" 💀

WW can teleport now?! Wtf. Also impenetrable skin. They're really going for that "Shuriman Ascended WW", huh? Everyone can fly now, apparently.

Wow, galactic god Viktor. So cringe. Old Viktor. Viktor paradox. How worse could it have been?

Aaand, "happy" ending because why not. 💀

Jinx using herself as a bullet? Now that's a first. Was Jinx's death supposed to be sad? Sorry, I was cringing over every other thing wrong with the act that I couldn't find it in myself to feel bad.

What I didn't understand is how did Orinna came to be??? Hello??? Can we get an explanation please??? Because she's not the Orianna we know at all.

NOOO THEY'LL DESTROY NOXUS NEXT!!! NOOOOO 😭😭😭

^^^ it's over.

Orianna got injected with Viktor's and Warwick's blood I guess, so now she has 3 dads!

[thesummerstorms]

@raven-6-10

Okay, so, keeping in mind that I do not speak French. And I played with English audio still so I could match up the lines. But in English, the conversation goes:

Viago (to Caterina): His ship was attacked. We knew someone sold him out… so you kept your suspicions to yourself. Rook: But you've brought it up now. Why? Caterina: I've had eyes on the Venatori ever since they took my grandson from me. They were hunting your Dread Wolf. And what you did to his ritual threw them into disarray. They made mistakes. And now I have a location. The Ossuary. Where the Demon of Vyrantium is kept. Find this Ossuary. Free Lucanis. You'll have your god-killer. And I'll have my grandson.

In French I got this for the subtitles:

Viago: Son navire a été attaqué. On savait que quelqu'un l''avait trahi... Donc tu as gardé tes soupcons pour toi. Rook: Mais vous en parlez maintenant. Pourquoi? Caterina: J'ai gardé les Venatori à l'œil despuis qu'ils m'ont enlevé mon petit-fils. Ils traquaient votre Loup implacable. Et ce que vous avez fait lors de son rituel les a completement désemparés. Ils ont fait des erreurs. Et maintenant, j'ai un lieu. "L'Ossuaire". Là où le Demon de Vyrante est retenu prisonnier. Trouvez l'Ossuaire. Libérez Lucanis. Vous aurez votre teuer de dieux. Et j'aurai mon petit-fils.

The "vous" in Caterina's line threw me, but I just spent a minute down a Google rabbit hole, and I think what is happening here is that

Viago is using the informal you towards Caterina

Rook de Riva is using the formal you towards Caterina

Caterina's you is plural as in "you [the Veilguard squad as a whole] disrupted the ritual."

Which makes more sense to me than what they did with the Spanish and Italian, ngl.

Source:

For the sake of interest, I recorded all the way from meeting Teia to meeting Lucanis, and I actually think Caterina is still the only person earning the formal you.

Teia & Rook de Riva:

Teia towards Rook: You made it! I hear you go by Rook these days. // Tu as pu venir! Il paraît qu'il faut t'appeler "Rook", maintenant. Rook towards Teia: It's good to see you. // Ça fait plaisir de te voir.

Viago & Rook de Riva:

Viago towards Rook: Did you finish that contract? // Est-ce que tu as teminé ce contrat? (I don't think Rook uses "you" towards Viago in this mission at all.)

Illario & Rook:

Rook to Illario: Which makes you... // Et donc, toi, tu es... Illario to Rook: Illario Dellamorte, her grandson. What brings you here? //Illario Dellamorte. Son petit-fils. Qu'est-ce qui t'amence ici?

Illario & Rook once Rook knows who he is:

Illario to Rook: Did you think the Venatori would keep a normal prison? // Tu pensais que les Venatori avaient des prisons normales? Rook to Caterina: You're not happy Caterina kept this from you. // Tu n'as pas apprecié que Caterina le cache ça."

Lucanis, Rook, & Neve:

Rook, to Lucanis: I'm guessing you're the reason we're here. // J'imagine que c'est pour toi qu'on est là. Lucanis (to Rook AND Neve; I checked the verb conjugation): Who are you? Who sent you? // Qui êtes-vous? Qui vous envoie? Rook: My name's Rook, House de Riva. I'm here to bring you home. // J'e m'appelle Rook, Maison de Riva. Je suis venue te ramener chez toi. Lucanis: House de Riva. You're a Crow. // La maison de Riva. Tu es avec les Corbeaux.

I actually find this really fascinating? Since we do see Rook using "vous" towards Caterina, it means that the use of "tu" everywhere else might actually be a deliberate translation choice, which I wouldn't say I'm convinced is true with the Spanish and Italian.

So now we have Rook de Riva, who not only calls Teia, who is yes Viago's romantic partner but is ALSO the Talon of another, theoretically rival House not only as "my friend" but also as "tu", which I feel like could potentially say a lot about where Rook sat in the Crow hierarchy before the Antaam?

Notably, in the scene where Illario and Caterina are present, she doesn't use "you" for either Teia or Viago (though I bet Viago would get "tu"). So she uses "vous" for Caterina, then immediately turns around and uses "tu" on Illario, whose identity is unknown to her, and doesn't correct herself when she learns that he's a potential heir to the Fifth Talon.

There absolutely may be nuances I'm missing from the outsider's point of view, but I kind of feel like that would piss him off.

And then of course, she jumps straight to "tu" with Lucanis, despite a conversation minutes before where Neve asks if she's nervous about the job because "The Demon of Vyrantium? He's sort of a big shot among the Crows, isn't he?" and Rook replies "The grandson of the First Talon? The Crow who almost wiped out the Venatori? You could say that."

Lucanis returns the favor, jumping straight to "tu" as well. "You (informal) are a Crow. (said almost in wonder or disbelief)"

IDK if the Crows are a lot less formal than I imagined, if Rook has a high opinion of their own standing, or if the fact that this is a prison break means everyone gets real informal real fast.

[galactic-ambitions-jester]

Dreams and Lies

Day 7 of Hero and Partner Week: Reality, Remembrance, and Hopes (Prompt: Free Day) @heropartnerweek

Magolor was having a normal day.

Key word: was

He was having a normal day until that blasted black hole in the sky opened.

The Lor Starcutter was with Marx for the month, so he was on the Halberd, which by the way, was on the ground! NOT IN THE SKY!

He tried grabbing something. Anything.

It failed.

He tried his magic.

It failed! Again!

He was unable to resist the pull of that black hole.

Magolor begun stirring, absolutely weakened.

“Okay… things you can feel.” he mumbled, then listed them off, and when he got to the temperature, his senses slammed into full force.

“Warm. No, wait. It’s so hot. Oh, no. WHY IN NOVA’S NAME AM I IN A VOLCANIC AREA?!”

He had to compose himself.

But his instincts all yelled one thing:

To get away from the laboratory on top. As far as possible.

And he let his instincts take over. Floating fast, yet… why does this seem familiar? Fleeing as if he were being hunted.

A dark world. A green gecko(?), a floating fairy, a brown fox, and an ogre, surrounded by a ghost, and some purple gem-like creatures.

He shrugged those thoughts out now. But while he was dealing with his mind, he never realized that he got surrounded.

“Damn it.” He hissed. He tried spinning a spell circle. It fizzled.

The Awoofies and Primal Awoofies had no trouble taking him down.

And they didn’t waste time.

He was dragged into that laboratory.

A lion spoke. A big creature behind him.

A pink burst.

And all went blank.

In Winter Horns…

Kirby, Bandana Dee, Meta Knight and Elfilin had just defeated Dedede, who got possessed. Again.

“Gah! Ya lil’ headaches! Wai’… who’s that there blue guy?” The king gestured to Elfilin.

This made the others sigh in relief. Elfilin looked confused.

Alas, the quintet celebrated too early.

“Kirby, HELP!”

In one blink, you’d miss it. The blur that took Elfilin.

“Ah, Elfilin!” The pink puffball turned around. Everyone did. And there floated Magolor.

Whose yellow eyes had a tint of pink. Like he was in a daze. His expression, normally with a smile, now was blank.

“Magolor?” Meta Knight asks.

He got no response.

Magolor’s mindscape was a mess. He was reliving everything

The Future of Darkness.

Meeting Celebi by chance.

Meeting the Treecko that would evolve into the Grovyle that was framed in the past.

A chance encounter with a unique looking Dusclops.

Traveling to the past with Grovyle, only to get attacked.

Meeting Everly and retrieving her Relic Fragment.

The guild.

Fogbound Lake, and the rest of the dungeons Everly and Magolor himself went through.

Dusknoir.

The Time Gears.

Dusknoir betraying them.

The deceit of the Reaper Pokemon revealed.

The return to the past.

Temporal Tower.

Primal Dialga.

And everything else, all the way through his disappearance.

“I-it hurts… make it stop….” The mage mumbles.

It kept going.

“Stop…” he tried again.

“Y̶̱͝ȯ̵ͅu̷̳̓ ̷͙̓n̶͕͛e̶̺̔e̷͋͜d̶͚̋ ̶̣͗n̶̗͘ö̷̮́t̸̺̏ ̴̫̕w̵̤̕o̵̹͑r̴͙͋r̴̦̊y̶̡̆.̷̪̂ ̴̻̇I̵̜̾ ̴̙̈ṣ̴͐h̸͖̍ä̸̖́l̶̼̉l̶̰̒ ̵̹͗h̷̫̽ê̵̘l̶̖̔p̴̼̕ ̵̝̈y̸̝̎o̴̺̕u̶̜͛,̴͇̕ ̸̨͆R̷̠͗e̴͙̊ṅ̶̲e̵͉̅g̴͓̈a̷̯͝d̶͚̉e̴̠̎ ̵̐ͅM̵̰͂a̸̧͐g̶͍̒e̷̥͐.̴̛͖ ̴̳̕Y̸͍̑ȯ̶̭ů̴̘’̴̤̽l̸̢͒ḽ̵̅ ̴̺̂ş̵͗e̶̡͌e̷̻̍ ̵̺̒t̷̝̄ḧ̶͉e̷̢͌m̶̮̃ ̴͇͌a̴̖̍g̴̪̃a̸̠͗i̴̥̔n̶͉̍.̶̭̊ ̴̧̔T̴͚̕h̷̩͊a̸̱̓t̶̡̍ ̷̾ͅi̷̯͑ś̴̟ ̶̯̀w̸͔͛ḥ̵͘à̴̪t̵̢͋ ̴̻̊ỹ̵̪ö̷͎u̵͓͝ ̴̝̕d̴̗̆e̴̩̒s̶̩̕ḯ̶̧r̵̨͛ẽ̶̟,̷͇͒ ̵̗̑ỹ̴͙e̷͔̅s̷̯͌?̵͍̎”

There it was again. Everything hurt. But that voice hurt even more.

But what hurt the most, was that he couldn’t separate reality from imagination.

He didn’t know which one of these memories were real.

It hurts. That’s what he keeps saying.

Because it really does.

And that voice isn’t helping

But again. Everything went blank for him

The Redgar Forbidden Lands would normally be a no go for Meta Knight due to the area being volcanic. But with Magolor looking different, not just in robes but also in personality, it didn’t take a genius to know that Magolor was possessed.

And they were right.

Magolor’s robes were very different from what Dedede had worn when he was possessed. The cape that the mage wore now had green, the patterns reminiscent of Ogerpon’s.

And Magolor was wearing a mask.

And he hit hard. With zero hesitation.

“Hey! Chill out!” Dedede snarled, almost getting singed by a well aimed Revolution Flame.

Meta Knight noticed. It wasn’t the same Revolution Flame Magolor normally cast. No, that was like a spell to kill.

“Magsie, snap out of it!” The knight, forced to use a Galactic Counter to counter an incoming cudgel attack

Since when was he skilled in using one?! Last Meta Knight recalled, the mage had been practicing on sword and archery.

Never had he seen his Magolor use a cudgel.

“Poyo!” Kirby swung a hammer. Sending Magolor away from Meta Knight.

Magolor wordlessly spun a spell circle. Sending a Magolor Cannon to the puffballs’ way

“Mags?” Kirby tried, but immediately got pushed away by Meta Knight, his wings defending himself.

Although one of Meta’s wings were injured by taking the full brunt of that attack, he went straight for Magolor, holding the mage in place, then spoke

“This isn’t like you. You never fight to kill. Magolor, you have to wake up.” he hissed in pain, but didn’t let go as the mage thrashed, trying to free himself.

Inside his mind, Magolor was having the time of his life.

And living in those memories was everything he ever wanted. He was with Everly again. With everyone.

Yet he didn’t know that it was a lie. A dream he wasn’t meant to wake from

“Yeah, Ever, on it! What time is it though? It feels like I’m forgetting something…

Say, Ever. What was the last thing I said before disappearing?”

“What do you mean? You’re here. Alive? Don’t joke about death, Mags!”

Magolor paled.

He tried to feel. Something. Anything. And he realized. It was a dream.

Cracks began to appear. The sunny realm around him faded.

And that voice rang out again.

“Ĝ̶̙e̵̘͒t̷̜͋ ̵̫͛ŕ̶̥ǐ̷͜d̴̻̏ ̴̼͠o̸͉̾f̸̞̏ t̴̮͒h̵̤͠ȏ̷̧s̵̗̋e̷̤͊ ̷͉̋į̸͂n̷͉̈́t̷̰͝r̴̢̃u̵̞̎d̴̾͜ȩ̶͠ṟ̶̋s̵̟͋!̵͇̽ ̸̲̈́Ì̷̬ ̵̩̍g̵̙̍ă̴̹v̶͚͠ę̸̆ ̷̲͆y̶͙͝ȍ̶̗ǘ̸̫ ̷̝͛ḛ̸̾v̷͓͋e̴͕̐r̷͉͛y̷̨̎t̶̙̀ḩ̸̉i̷̱̔n̴͎̈́g̶̝͒ ̵̞̄ÿ̶͙́o̵̪̎ủ̵̡ ̷̠͗ẅ̶̙a̴̛̳n̵̺̈́t̴̠̍e̵̻͆d̴͙̑!̵̺̂ ̶͉̅T̵̟́h̴̝̀ó̴̝s̴͉͆e̶͇͝ ̸̬̀m̸̲̈́e̸̹̒m̷͓̆ó̷͎r̴͚̈́i̷͈͛e̶͈͗s̴̻͒ ̴̳͗ǒ̶̥f̷͉͂ ̷̪͊ý̸̳ȍ̵̹ű̷̩r̵̢͘s̴̮͘ ̶͉̿t̴̋ͅh̵̘̚ą̵̔t̶̢̓ ̶̼̂y̶̘̽ö̶͇ű̶͕ ̷̱͊l̴̥̀o̸̹̓s̴͍͑t̸̳͑ ,̴̢̛ ̵̲̒I̸̩̿ ̸͍̒r̴̖͑e̴̘͗t̷̀͜u̶͚̅r̴̤̂n̷̤͆è̴̞d̵̬͑ ̴̻̾t̴̲̀h̷̭̃ẽ̸̡m̶̝͛ ̶̼̑ț̶̽ő̶̥ ̴͕͠y̸̛̥ö̸͚́ŭ̷̬.̴̱͠ ̴̒͜Y̵̲͝ò̶̖u̶̧͝ ̵̪̉c̸͚̚a̶͎͗ñ̷͖ ̸̩͗s̶͉̍p̶̻͠ä̷̢́r̸̦̽e̸͑͜ ̶̪̔ẗ̶͚́h̶̤́e̵̳͑ ̶͓̓k̸̯͌n̶͔͑ḯ̵̤ġ̸̺h̴̫̾t̸̗̃,̶̢̊ ̵̟̐b̸̤͒ǔ̵̲ẗ̷̠́ ̴̮͝g̸̦̒e̵̤̊t̵͋ͅ ̶̟̽r̴͇͗i̷̪͝d̴̹́ ̷͈͐o̴̹͌f̷͕̒ ̶̧̉t̵̝̎h̸̤̃ẹ̴̀ ̷̛̮ō̶͎t̸̹̃h̶̡́è̷͙r̷̞̃ś̷̞!̶̨̾ ̵̛̛̰̠͈̝̥̖̈́̕͝ͅ”

Magolor hissed in pain.

It always hurt to listen to that voice.

But unlike these last few… hours? Days? He didn’t know. But he fought back.

“No. I reject it. This sick fantasy, this sick dream, and you! I’m done. I don’t know what you said earlier, and even now, I don’t. Yet I don’t want it anymore.”

The voice tried to retaliate.

But a light shone bright.

And in the real world,

Magolor’s eyes shot open. Open with tears.

“I-I’m so. So. Sorry.” He muttered like a mantra as he snuggled into Meta’s embrace, not caring anout anything else.

“Rest. And we’ll handle the rest.”

“B-but those beasts…” Magolor muttered as Kirby and Dedede set the Waddle Dees free, as members of the Beast Pack came.

“That way, NOW!” Dedede yelled, ushering everyone in the elevator’s direction. Magolor, leaning on Meta for support looked back. And saw a Waddle Dee trip.

Without hesitation he yanked Meta Knight’s hand, as the knight was gripping hard on him, and was dragged like a ragdoll, and quickly cast a Magolor Cannon, similar to the one he used against them in the fight.

“Magolor?! What are you-“ Dedede began but the Waddle Dee got flung in his face.

“Go! I’ll hold ‘em off! You too, Knighty, go!”

“No. This time, I’m staying with you.” A resolute reply from Meta came, as Magolor hid a blush

The elevator was beginning to close. They wouldn’t make it.

“Though the parting hurts…” Magolor began with a smile and turned to Kirby amd the rest as the doors were closing, “the rest is in your hands!”

“Wait, Mags, Meta!” Was the last thing both heard before the beasts approached.

“Ready, knighty? I’m not the same since you last saw me. And I am currently shoving everything down in a ‘I’ll deal with it later’ bin in my mind.”

“Always.”

[efadefoks]

I decided to put everyone into one post and to talk about some assosications I have with the characters and their cards

The Fool (Folly, mania, extravagance, intoxication, delirium, frenzy, bewrayment. [If the card is] Reversed: Negligence, absence, distribution, carelessness, apathy, nullity, vanity.) Of course it is Han Juwon in the begining if the story. "In many esoteric systems of tarot card interpretation, the Fool is interpreted as the protagonist of a story, and the Major Arcana are the path the Fool takes through the great mysteries of life." He is a Fool afterall: careless in his investigation, doesn't think about the people around him. He thinks he is the smartest guy in the room and the bestest boy in the area.

The Lovers. Here I decided to interpret it in the most literal way. But the card itself provides quite a nice explanation too. "6. THE LOVERS.—Attraction, love, beauty, trials overcome. Reversed: Failure, foolish designs. Another account speaks of marriage frustrated and contrarieties of all kinds." I really love the ending. The whole reunion thing is straight out of the romance story. That's why I chose this image to represent this card. The moment of piece at last.

The Hermit. When I first thought about this collage idea I was absolutly sure who should represent this card. "9. THE HERMIT. Prudence, circumspection; also and especially treason, dissimulation, roguery, corruption. Reversed: Concealment, disguise, policy fear, unreasoned caution."

The High Priestess. Oh Jihwa my beloved. There were several posts about her recently. She is a wonderful character. "Secrets, mystery, the future as yet unrevealed; the woman who interests the Querent, if male; the Querent herself, if female; silence, tenacity; mystery, wisdom, science. Reversed: Passion, moral or physical ardor, conceit, surface knowledge." Tell me this is not about her, I'll wait.

The Sun. The Moon. The Star. I thought it would be really symbolic to choose three young (and dead) characters to represent this cards. (of course, LDS is alive and old now but I think we can considr his younger self to be buried somewhere really deep in his mind. He wasn't the same person he'd been before his sister disappearance). Another thoought that I had in mind while making these three pieces was that scene from the first episode. The dialogue with Mother and her friend. "You are so lucky to have your daughter. Such a pity the God decided to balance it with your son." How almost everyone thought that Lee Yuyeon was a blessing and her brother - just a delinquent.

19.THE SUN.—Material happiness, fortunate marriage, contentment. Reversed: The same in a lesser sense.

18.THE MOON--Hidden enemies, danger, calumny, darkness, terror, deception, occult forces, error. Reversed: Instability, inconstancy, silence, lesser degrees of deception and error.

17.THE STAR.--Hope and bright prospects, Reversed: Loss, theft, privation, abandonment; another reading says: arrogance, haughtiness, impotence.

Kang Minjeong is a little star flickered out too soon.

The Magician. "Tarot experts have defined the Magician in association with the Fool". "While the upright Magician represents potential and tapping into one's talents, the reversed Magician's potential and talents are unfocused and unmanifested."

The Strength. One of my favourite cards and my favourite brave girl. I need to come clean I am not a fan of a lor of women portrayals in asian culture. But Yoo Jaeyi just stole my heart. She is kind, she is angry, she is loving, she is grieving. She is real. She is her own person. I love this image of her. "8. FORTITUDE.—Power, energy, action, courage, magnanimity; also complete success and honours. Reversed: Despotism, abuse of power, weakness, discord, sometimes even disgrace."

The Devil. Do I even need to explain myself? Well probably yes. Another candidate for this card was you guessed it - Han Kihwan. But after some thinking I finally decided on this one. "15. THE DEVIL.—Ravage, violence, vehemence, extraordinary efforts, force, fatality; that which is predestined but is not for this reason evil. Reversed: Evil fatality, weakness, pettiness, blindness." While Juwon's father is the evil person and the real villain of the story I do consider Kang Jinmuk the Devil.

[cyborg-squid]

I'm thinking about the moment with Meursault in Canto 6, when he talks about ensuring Heathcliff's safety even if it means forsaking the Golden Bough, as well as Heathcliff stabbing himself with the Bough which I couldn't help but think was inspired by when Yi Sang was stabbed with one, and what I love about it, more than just Sinners becoming friends, 'found family' sort of stuff, is that it comes after this period where. Dante really has a lot of doubts about the Sinners relationships with each other and themself, the fact that the Sinners, and even Vergilius, are all in this for their own reasons and goals. And there's Ishmael pushing everyone away in SEA and her Canto, and even back at the very beginning with the Sinners just murdering each other at 1st meeting.

It'd be one thing if it was like "Oh, they're friends now because they've been fighting alongside each other and have good chemistry" or whatever, but because this improvement in Sinner (and Vergilius!) relations comes after Dantes understandable doubts, and moments of downright unfriendliness and hostility between some of them, makes it so much better.

And of course, it also makes sense after the experiences we've had with the Golden Boughs so far, them showing and reflecting the past of the Sinners, as well as going up against people from their pasts; the characters with the most 'successful' Bough acquisitions, with them more fully confronting their pasts and manifesting EGOs (Yi Sang, Ishmael, Heathcliff), they come to better understand themselves, and of course, the others Sinners (and Dante) who witness it would come to understand and empathize with them as well, at least to an extent!

In a way, it mirrors the Floor Realizations of Library of Ruina; Angela's relationship with Patron Librarians starts in a much worse spot than the Sinner relationships, but it's through these Floor Realizations that the pasts of Angela, and then Roland, and the Sephirot themselves are put on display, are shown truly to one another, where motives and intentions can be understood, even if not agreed with. And of fucking course, doing all the Floor Realizations is the only way to get the true ending, understanding and acknowledgement and change is not only beneficial, it is necessary, not only to the individuals themselves, but to the City as a whole.

It is somewhat of a glib simplification to call the Floor Realizations and then the Golden Bough encounters 'therapy', but it's really not all that wrong.

I'm sure other posters have expressed it better before, but the way the Golden Bough successes have been helping their Sinners, makes me think of the end of LoR, how Angela and the Library can and will change the City and the people of it, for the better, contrary to the apathy expressed by Roland and others earlier in the story. "That's that, and this is this." That's just the way things are. But things don't have to be that way, and structural change begins at the individual level, starting with people being more honest with themselves, an overlapping belief of both Carmen and Angela (which is part of why there's this fine line between Distorting and manifesting EGO, two sides of the same coin).

So what I'm getting to is that I think the Golden Boughs have, in some way, been intentionally released from the Library in an attempt to bring about change to the people of the City, to have people go through positive changes like those some Sinners have had so far. From 'Lament', "stolen from the tree's hand", as well as Dante's new ability having the text "Sapling of Light" (iirc), you have these connections to trees and nature, specifically the Seed of Light project, as well as the 'boughs' of Golden Boughs.

Now, I do think things might not be going exactly as 'planned', the Limbus Company swooping in and taking the Golden Boughs; this attempt at mass self-help being caught up within the corporate gears of the City. Faust, Vergilius, others might have the proper idea of what the Boughs are all about, but you get the feeling that who (Dias???) or whatever is backing the Limbus Company has different motives.

I feel like all this, this idea of what the Golden Boughs might be and their intent, is kind of old news at this point and it's probably already been figured out by a lot of players, I've had it in my head for a while but was only able to properly articulate it now.

[galacticnova3]

when will you address lor ex pause screen description

I kinda already have? Part of it, anyways. Though I suppose not in a direct “this is the pause screen description and this is how I’m gonna interpret it based on my own headcanons and such” way.

For those who don’t know what it says: “Lor sensed something was amiss when it met Magolor. It can travel to far-off paradises with ease… so why didn’t it? Perhaps it hid its true power, wanting to be stopped after stealing the crown…”

The way it’s written… Imo doesn’t really make sense. The way it’s phrased implies Lor stole the crown even though we know that isn’t what happened. We also see Lor use her dimensional travel abilities on two occasions prior to Magolor fucking around and finding out stealing the Master Crown, which definitely doesn’t seem like hiding that power to me.

The way I interpret this description is that it both isn’t chronological and is meant to be read as partly speculative, just like the classic “ooooh is Lor sentient or not? who knooows” stuff that even gets reflected in her other description.

If you’ve read the fic or even just some of my headcanons regarding the early days of Magolor and Lor knowing each other, you’d know she was absolutely suspicious of him when they first met— after the events of RtD, because she wasn’t conscious until the time of the ending cutscene when she helps everyone escape the void. Some guy she’s never met in her entire life shows up in a horrific state, knows a bunch of stuff about her despite being from a wildly different time period, doesn’t want to elaborate on what the hell happened to him or how he knows what he knows, and can’t even explain how he somehow ended up in her interior of all places when it’s supposed to be a pocket dimension inaccessible except through the designated entrance? Of course she’d be suspicious. Frankly, it’d be harder to do something that was more suspicious!

Lor can travel to far-off paradises… Hypothetically. There’s just one minor detail that gets left out of that statement because it kinda defeats the magical, hopeful vibe it was probably meant to give off: the first part of getting to paradise is confirming that paradise actually exists. Unfortunately there’s been no luck there so far. You can go as far as you want, travel through as many dimensions as you can find the boundaries of, but you’ll never reach a place that isn’t actually present in reality. If it does exist and has normal dimensional properties, the second part is figuring out the location. Once she has confirmation that a place exists and the place’s location, Lor has the capability to get there. It’s just that nobody has gotten either of those things yet.

Also, it’s kinda vaguely implied Lor continues to hang around Dreamland after everything goes down; besides the cutscene where she’s seen flying off through a portal to somewhere we don’t know(which I did explain in the fic but am happy to explain here as well if you want), we basically only ever see her(and Magolor) there during events that had to take place after RtD. Dream Collection challenge stages intro, Star Allies, that one storybook about Kirby eepy, etc. Maybe the real paradise was the friends we made along the way.

Lastly, Lor never had any direct contact with the Master Crown, but during his power trip, Magolor did use its power to control her. She’s somewhat aware of it, in that she knows there was some external influence acting on her prior to her actually being conscious, and said influence remotely activated her combat mode and used her to fight a group of eight(she knows who they are now but initially only recognized Landia). However, she doesn’t have any specifics as to how she was being controlled or what specific actions she actually took(or more accurately was used to take) during that period. Parts of the data is nonsensical nothing code, and the rest is outright corrupted and unreadable. Shockingly, it turns out that “the limitless power of the Master Crown” isn’t a valid programming language.

It’d be like reading code for a machine that’s supposed to be written in binary, except there are so many things in it that are not 0 or 1, ranging from other numbers to letters to fucking emojis, that you only know it’s supposed to be binary because the system itself should only be able to express things in binary. Like it should literally be impossible for it to display most of what’s being treated as “binary code”. And the scariest part is that this is code that the machine successfully operated on at one point when you weren’t there to see it, and also you are the machine. She could not recreate it if she tried and honestly wouldn’t want to. “>Oh, that’s gore. That’s gore of my programming” situation.

I’m not sure whose perspective the pause screen description in RtD(DX) are written from. I’ve always seen the more lore-y ones as omnipotent narrator moment(I.E. Master Crown one that explains what it really is, Metal General’s origins/background, etc) and the more speculative ones being from the perspectives of the main gang and/or Magolor. None of them knew(for certain) that Lor was sentient but unconscious through everything until a while later. For the gang, if the situation seemed like this seemingly inanimate spaceship just suddenly decided to finally help out right at the end, after everyone had worked their asses off fixing it and fought for their lives a few minutes ago, it’d be easy to ask “Hey why the fuck didn’t it just do that earlier and save us all the trouble?” For Magolor, ignoring that he wanted the Master Crown even before finding Lor… He’d also been operating with the information that Lor can just go to paradise any time, so of course he’d question why she didn’t. I can absolutely envision him at the start of Magolor Epilogue sulking in the rain thinking “Maybe I wouldn’t have stolen that crown in the first place if that stupid boat just did what the book said it could!”

Lor had a lot of explaining to do to clear things up after all that, and it wasn’t even her fault.

“Why did you fight us after we fixed you?” “>I was unconscious and had no say in fighting you.”

“Why didn’t you help us sooner?” “>I was unconscious up until the self-preservation programming kicked in and booted up my AI due to a lack of other options to keep me from crashing.”

“What are your pronouns?” “>I was unco- oh wait, finally a normal question. She/her thanks.”

[goldenkamuyhunting]

I found your post mentioning the possibility of Ogata working as a geisha if he had been born female (…com/post/176037618768/). As a result, I couldn't help but wonder how much her life would differ from his. (I’m surprise nobody had made fan content about such scenario before.) What do you think?

I had to go check the post because I couldn't remember it...

and here it is:

"A geisha wouldn’t permanently stop working because she had a baby. Ogata isn’t a little girl who can become a geisha so it would be fine if his grandmother were to come take HIM away, but she doesn’t need to bring home his mom as well."

Honestly I wasn't wondering what would be if Ogata were a female, it was more an observation on the fate of geisha's daughters... and, in truth, it would have been possible for Ogata to remain with Tome even as a boy.

In fact for example geisha's kimono are so tight that they requires a male helper, to help the geisha put them on and tightly knot the fabric in the back... so Geisha's sons could remain there and become helpers who do this and other jobs that were more fitting for a male, though this wasn't as likely as it was for daughters, so it would have made sense for Tome to send Ogata away.

If Tome had a daughter instead than Ogata, of course her life would have been seriously different from his own as back then expectations on boys and girls were pretty different.

Honestly it would probably make her a character completely different, not just genetically but also character-wise due to a radically different upbringing, resulting her into being another, completely different, character, if done realistically.

So I guess it probably doesn't get explored much because she would basically be an OOC.

Now, I don't know why people do something or not but, as a general line, fans rarely have interest in OOC characters so this might be why people don't explore this venue.

As for how the life of Tome's daughter would be... well, it would be the same as the one of a geisha's daughter, in short the same as her mother with the plus she was born in the okiya so she'll adapt to it a lot more easily and would view the people in it as her family a lor more easily.

She would clearly have zero expectations on Hanazawa as she would know it was foolish from her mother to expect more of him and that he would surely not come from her or his daughter.

Hanazawa might have been interested in his male firstborn but a daughter... that's something that would likely not interest him at all.

No one would consider giving her a rifle and letting her try shooting at ducks.

At 15 she would have started as Maiko (geisha's apprendice) and would become a 'full-fledged Geisha' around the ages of 20 to 22.

If you're curious for more I would recommend reading something about geisha in that time period. It's interesting... but they lead a life that's very, very different from the one a boy would lead both in education and expectation so really, Tome's daughter would have likely not have anything in common with Ogata beyond the birth parents.

Sorry, I fear this wasn't the answer you were hoping for and I guess people can think differently from me so just take this for what it is, my two cents. Thank you for your ask!

[deafblindshorty]

Okay, I know this show ended almost 4 years ago, but...

I have a theory about the First Order spy in Star Wars Resistance, but it would only make sense if you've read the Poe Dameron comics. In those comics, while Poe looked for Lor San Tekka, he made his own real enemy: Agent Terex of the First Order Security Bureau. Long story short: Poe humiliated Terex, outsmarted him, and ruined his life. Venisa Doza also mentioned escaping Terex, which only added fuel for the theory.

Now for the theory itself:

Venisa made Terex look bad to the FO. Then soon after was Poe's turn. Terex wanted revenge on both Venisa and Poe. After Poe rescued LST from being stranded out in space, Terex planted false evidence that there was a spy on the Colossus. He also leaked the info to the FO, which is why Vonreg attacked Kaz and his friends in the premiere. Terex figured the Resistance would send someone to the Colossus and found out Kaz had been sent there. The pirates were patsies/pawns. He set the pirates up on that freighter in Sector Six.

Terex thought if the Resistance suspects Doza, then it would cause a strain on his marriage to Venisa. It would also make Poe and both Dozas look bad.

TL:DR. Poe's old enemy (who is also Venisa's old enemy) planted false evidence that there was a spy on the Colossus to make both Poe and Venisa look bad and used the pirates as patsies.

Actually, that kind of reminds me of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Janet Van Dyrne made an enemy of Kang the Conqueror, Scott is dragged into that drama and is also Kang's enemy. Also also, Kang's variant Rama-Tut is also enemy to Khonshu, and Khonshu's avatar, Marc Spector is played by the same actor who plays Poe.

Venisa makes an enemy of Terex, so if Terex comes after Venisa for revenge, Kaz will undoubtedly be dragged into it (especially once Terex finds out Poe recruited him).

So, basically, it'd be a cross between Quantumania (a woman who returned to her family after being gone a long time and in the meantime making an enemy who came back for revenge and a goofy character gets dragged into this mess) and Spider-Man: Far From Home where a kid hero deals with his mentor's enemy (Kaz, Poe).

...Well, Disney/Lucasfilm did want to be like Marvel, so... (shrug)

[musicfeedsmysoul12]

Day 2 of: Look at my shiny TAVS!

This one was one I rolled: Druid Drow, Nonbinary. I knew I wanted to do a spore Druid but wasn’t sure how it would fit with a Drow until inspiration struck.

Name: Hallor

Race: Drow

Class: Circle of Spores Druid

Age: 85

Background: Outlander

Note: the following contains child death, mentions of abuse and decomposition.

Backstory: Hallor was born the second child of a proud wizard. They were born sickly and their mother, Lyazith, would have simply killed them if it wasn’t for her husband, Regulus, staying her hand. Regulus was a Seldarine Drow who had been captured in a raid on his village and taken as a slave. He’d managed to win freedom but had to marry the cruel and cunning Layzith to do so. He looked upon his children as blessings and upon seeing Hallor he was reminded of his dead mother. He begged his wife to be allowed to try and nurse Hallor back to health. The woman agreed but named her Hallor. Hal, meaning weak and Lor meaning fool (according to a google search).

Hallor survived, of course, and grew up for the first few years loved by their father and elder sister Revin, who adored the little child. Love is a weakness to most Lolth sworn Drow but these three showed it in secret.

Of course, somethings come to an end and Regulus was killed by his wife when she discovered he showed affection to the children. At age 9 (Revin) and 5 (Hallor) the action was horrible but it taught them well. Hide things better. And the two did.

Lyazith was a cold and cruel mother to her children. Revin was barely worth anything in her mind due to a lack of magical talent and Hallor was still the weakling they’d been born as. Sickly and would one day die. Of course the woman boasted of Revin’s skill on the training floor and Hallor’s studies going well but behind closed doors the woman just screamed.

Two years after the death of Regulus, the family was walking home from a party hosted by rivals to the family when they were attacked by assassins. Layzith fought them off but her children where shoved down a hole into the dark. Not that she cared to much; it was just annoying to go through the process of finding a good husband to pass on her genes.

The two children tumbled down and down. Revin, caught her younger sibling and held them close, absorbing the shock when they landed. A spike drove its way into her neck and decapitated her. The much shorter Hallor passed out and woke up hours later in the embrace of their dead sister.

For three days they lay there, unable to think or move. When they finally did, they began crying upon finding their sister’s head. It took another day to move away from the body, and to follow a tunnel away from the pocket they were in.

They took their sister’s head in a macabre way of comfort. Carrying said head was unpleasent after a while, for while the maggots had not come yet, the flesh was still beginning to take a turn. Yet Hallor couldn’t leave their sister behind.

They survived in the dark thanks to their studies of safe food and drink in the Underdark, finding pools of safe water and carrying a flask they’d had snuck into the boring party full of their favourite juice. They are mushrooms and caught some bugs running around. While doing so, death played constantly on their mind. They did hold their sister’s head after all.

Why was death so… strange? So bizzare? It didn’t make sense? The rotting flesh in their hands felt strange. And cold but also warm? How could that be?

Walking and walking, they also began noticing other things. Such as the fungus of the underdark and the various creatures that ran from their steps. The darkness and loneliness got to them, causing them to start trying to talk to the creatures. Few listened.

Spiders and rats and bats did. They listened and slowly Hallor began to have a following of them. They did not know they touched the bit of magic Druids used and wouldn’t know for some time.

The creatures of the dark led her to a group of Myconids who while wary, cautiously helped them to where a wizard had set up in the Underdark. The wizard, Malachi, was happy to have them stay while he tried to figure out where to bring them home to. Around this time Revin’s head was quite decomposed though free of maggots and other vermin kept it mostly fleshy. Malachi had books on keeping bones intact, so Hallor looked through them to find out how to preserve a skull. They did and would forever keep the skull of their older sister.

After a while, Hallor was suspicious of Malachi for he made no real motion to bring them back to the Drow city. It didn’t take long for them to uncover that Malachi hoped to keep the child with him until they were older before performing a ritual to let a demon posess them to bind said demon to his will.

Hallor killed Malachi and ran soon after, stealing his camping supplies along the way. People, they decided, weren’t worth it. Only the creatures who tried to help them and the dead were worth talking to. They would wander the dark for the next few years, becoming more attatched to the animals they found and the nature within. For while the Underdark was cruel, there was some forms of beauty within.

Along the way their skills with Druid magic improved and they even began to connect to the death more, leading to them able to communicate with Revin though her skull. It was fantastic and Hallor was so happy.

It would be ten years after they’d fallen down the hole that they would stumble upon the city they’d lived in once more. During that time they got closer to nature, the dark and death. It consumed them and made them very… strange.

Their coming home surprised Layzith and her new husband Cassin, but they capitalized on the whole thing and happily used this as proof that their children were powerful. Hallor hardly noticed that, to far off in their head as they got to know their new sister, Lev. They were a good sibling, and enjoyed spending time with the five-year-old.

Hallor stayed in the city for a long time, becoming well known for Druid magic and necromancy. Their skills were great enough that they became well known. However being around other people was difficult after so long in the dark and Hallor was a recluse. Their mother didn’t mind, finding their habits wrong for high society.

15 years after they came back they would leave again to live in the dark, visiting home every so often to speak with their sister and to show up at random parties their mother wanted them at. They would delve further into Druid magic and necromancy as they did. Up until their capture at the hands of a Mind Flayer ship, where their adventure began.

[questionablecuttlefish]

Timebomb and Lightcannon (and why we're tugging at the same oar in the same boat)

Okay, this is good, let's talk about this too. I think this raises some interesting points.

Starting with the end here a little bit, yeah, looking back, the fact that she jumps is interesting to me. I've seen it interpreted as her both trying to avoid hurting him more and as her trying to circumvent whatever he's doing to stop her by getting farther away, but I lean more toward the first point. It's subtle, but it is an interesting point.

She was still fine with blowing him up at least the first few pulls, though, so my point still stands, too.

I would caveat that I don't think their stories taking different directions would be 'throwing out the groundwork' at all. Because all of that groundwork is character development, too, and, together or separate, both characters carry that with them, wherever they happen to go from here.

So an Ekko/Jinx reunion and romance could build on that, yes, but so could a return of the Powder AU (I get a nagging sense we haven't seen the last of AU!Powder, her knowledge of the Z-drive, the art Ekko made of grown-up Vi and the gems in her drawer feel like a whole battery of unfired Chekov's guns), so could future relationships with Lux, Ezreal, or Zeri, whatever those might be, and so could non-romantic, non-shippy storylines of Ekko growing into his own as a Zaunite leader and Jinx going on her journey of self-discovery and self-redefining.

It's all valid and possible from here.

Moving on though, i think it's interesting what you said about the "had a crush" line because this takes me to another thing I Feel Strongly About which is: the relationship between Timebomb and Lightcannon.

Because y'know we're in the same boat, right?

Timebomb had "I had a crush, until you started talking to the gun" and "Powder..." and "I miss you" in LoR. And more recently that Wild Rift trailer of them fighting together. And Chroma Crash!

...but meanwhile, Lightcannon had "Lux makes even boring beautiful" and "don't forget to miss me, Lux" and "This almost breaks my heart Lux" and a bunch of others in Star Guardian. Lightcannon also had a whole ass sapphic music video:

Lightcannon also had this:

And this:

And even this:

Which was one of the first teasers for the mysterious new punk Zaunite champion and apparently the first thing that inspired/teased the Jinx/Lux ship before Jinx was even released as a Champion.

So it's not only an older ship than timebomb, older than Ekko, it's older than Jinx, and that's freaking nuts.

At one point we even had an official Riot artist (who still works there) drawing off-the-books comics and art with Lux and Jinx kissing both in the SG and mainstream universes.

But my point here is not to try to 'gotcha' Timebomb or make it seem like Lightcannon is more legit. It's not. We are talking about ships from league of legends here guys.

I'm pointing out that until Arcane S2, we were both in the same boat. We were both non-canonized crack ships based on a couple of voice lines and a few ship teasy bits of promo art and videos.

And in some ways, we still are, because of where S2 left Timebomb off.

So you'll have to forgive Lightcannons for being a bit cynical when people come at us about 'canon'. We've been at this for ten years. We've had our thing teased and yanked away and teased and yanked away from us by Riot, again and again.

Star Guardian, yay! Burning Bright, they're childhood friends turned comrades turned rivals, tsundere Jinx who took the oath to protect Lux leaving the team and Lux pining for her until she returns to save the day!

Next SG comes out, suddenly Ezreal.

And they never share a skinline again until - but we'll get to that.

Oh wait, there's Wild Rift! Look at the two cuties adventuring together! Jinx rescues Lux from her boring life and they're running and fighting together and Jinx watches Lux unleash her light with 😍

Oh they're releasing all the Timebomb/Ezlux skins on Wild Rift? Oh okay. Valoran Town, Jinx is Lux's only friend, she's helping Lux sneak away from Demacia to move on with her and THEY WERE ROOMMATES and they're hugging and Jinx is on Lux's phone background screen and they're so cute toget-oh there's Ezreal again.

Oh, they're sharing a skinline again? Oh, it's Lovestruck? Oh, it's another Ezlux/Timebomb skinline, with paired hetero valentines skins? okay.

The biggest difference between Timebomb and Lightcannon is that Timebomb has a champion. Timebomb has Amanda Overton. Let's not be blind here, until she decided it was her ship and she was going to make it canon within Arcane, Timebomb wasn't 'canon'. Ekko's spinoff game, his comics, his short stories, never had a whiff of timebomb in them, even the boss fight in Convergence and that's the only time in the pre-Arcane lore he actually interacts with Jinx outside of the voice lines, and his line there is: "We interact a perfect amount, Jinx! Never!" Before Arcane, timebomb was in the same boat as Lightcannon. Just a fun cracky ship based on a few crumbs and a couple of voicelines.

That's where Lightcannon still is. We don't have Overton, we don't have a champion trying to tell our story. In fact, call me cynical, but to me the above evidence suggests someone at Riot actually hates our ship, or is afraid of it getting in the way of Ezlux, despite their bizarre avoidance of actually making Ezlux in any way a legitimate romance and not a weird one-sided stalker crush played for laughs.

But they don't hate us enough not to string us along. Not to give us Star Guardians and the WR trailer and Valoran Town and even to make those new Lovestruck skins actually kinda match each other's partners more than the hetero pairings.

Why? Well we're still a demographic, we might make them some $$$. They don't want us to leave, heavens no.

So you'll have to forgive us if we look at the new crop of Timebomb fans screaming and crying about not getting their endgame and tiredly thinking:

"You got most of a 40 minute spinoff episode, a dance sequence, a French love song on the soundtrack, and an onscreen kiss? And one of the showrunners loves you? And now you're getting future spinoff teases, a bunch of voice lines in the $250 Jinx gacha bullshit and a Valentine's skin?" "And it's not enough? You think you're hard done by....? Really?"

We survived a decade on crumbs and spite, and you won't let us have the faintest, slightest possibility that just this once, just in one universe, Jinx might even meet Lux?

Because make no mistake, Lightcannon shippers are only dreamily sighing at possibilities when we talk about the airship going to Demacia.

Now would be the perfect time, Demacia show on the way, Jinx on her way to new horizons, a calmer, sadder Jinx in desperate need of healing, a Lux unsure of her place in the world, a beautiful bond possible between two young women struggling with their identities in a world that hates them.

It would be perfect. Now or never.

But we don't have hope. Not really.

Because Riot has burned us, over and over again, Riot has lined up that football and yanked it away

Timebomb has Overton in its corner, so we will very likely never see our thing. We're most afraid of course of someone getting pilled on the "Game of Thrones" possibilities in a Demacia show and forcing Sylas/Lux canon, despite them being only a broken platonic friendship turned enemies in the existing canon, and the truly messed up age / power dynamics inherent in that ship.

To be Lightcannon is to suffer. Old Timebomb fans understood this. The new ones cannot comprehend. They've been indulged and inundated and then had the slightest taste of disappointment and can't handle it.

But we get it, we do, because we've lived it for ten years. Welcome to our world, even if you're just passing through.

We'll still be here.

But that doesn't mean we're not still together in that boat, for now, with one hand each on the paddle.

Maybe we can even listen to each other while we're at it.

Okay Fine Let's Talk Timebomb and Season Two.

I do want to talk about this because I have a Lot of thoughts and feelings and it has been building up and building up, not only based on what's happening in other social spaces, but what people keep bringing into mine despite my best efforts to avoid it.

This isn't any kind of hatepost, I don't think I could hate Ekko or the ship if I tried, I just want to explain my very mixed feelings about the whole thing.

My likely-to-be-very unpopular take on Season Two's Timebomb romance is that it left me feeling uneasy and uncomfortable.

Not with what was in the show itself, I feel like that was perfect. Powder and Ekko sold me completely. They made me feel things. I even liked how Ekko and Jinx's story ended. I think it was beautiful, poignant, perfect...

...until.

'The Discourse' since, the way the fan culture has exploded around it, and particularly some of the creators' commentary on it, has made me sour on the whole thing.

It feels like I'm suddenly part of an increasingly small subset of people who saw what they did with S2 Timebomb and applied our media literacy to what was on our screens and got something very different to what the fandom consensus seems to be.

For context, I semi-shipped TB before this. Though I've always been Team Lightcannon, I had a lot of respect for timebomb, I understood it, I had read a few very good fics, I was just in the space of "Jinx has hurt Ekko too much for him to ever fully forgive her for murdering his friends, they might come to an understanding, and there will always be a silent undercurrent of love beneath the hurt, they may fight together on the same side again someday, but whatever bond they had as kids is broken and they can't go back, and both know it."

I respected, and still do, people who shipped them romantically, but I've always seen them as a broken childhood friendship being a much more interesting dynamic, and being hot for each other lessening that to an extent and not really adding anything to it.

All of his interactions with Jinx in season one are violent; she murders five Firelights point-blank in front of him in her intro scene, and Ekko reacts particularly upset to the pink-haired girl, Eve or Eva, whom Jinx shoots in the back. It's clear this isn't even the first time she's fought them. We don't know how many of Ekko's found family she's put on the Memorial Wall or how close he was with any of them.

Ekko is clearly convinced that "Powder" is gone, and the person who replaced her is a cold-blooded killer who can't be reasoned with. Leading to the Bridge confrontation, and this:

This is the first time Ekko catches a glimpse of "Powder", yes, but more importantly, this is the first moment he recognizes Jinx's humanity. He's hurting her, killing her, and he can't do it.

....and she knows he can't do it.

So, to save him the weight, she pulls a grenade, with the intent to kill them both, foreshadowing quite neatly where Ekko/Jinx (but not Ekko/Powder) is going to go in S2.

Fast forwarding from Season One here, Ekko disappears for 2/3rds of the second season, completely offscreen.

When we catch up with him he's woken up in the S2E7 AU; the Powder Timeline.

Here's where I start to get a little confused by the fandom take. Because, you know, I've seen enough Star Trek and Stargate and Supernatural and Batman the Animated Series and Quantum Leap to know exactly what this is.

This is the 'bottle episode', this is the 'Perfect World' trope, where the protagonists find themselves in an alternate universe - or trapped in a dream - or they've died or think they've died and this is their 'heaven' - where they have everything they ever wanted.

This is familiar storytelling and E2 follows a familiar pattern, the protagonist struggles to adapt to the surreal new circumstances, they are seduced by the illusion, particularly falling in love with someone in the Perfect World, but eventually, they start noticing something incongruous - something isn't quite right - (In this case, it's Vi's death, and Powder holding back her genius and hiding her grief to be support girl for others) - that reveals the Perfect World to be not as perfect as it seems.

And the hero has to choose to go home, because he realizes that this isn't real, it doesn't belong to him, he doesn't belong here.

Which is exactly what happens with Ekko in E7.

Which brings is to AU!Powder and Jinx.

And here's where I really start to struggle with the seeming consensus that the romance between Ekko/Powder automatically leads to Ekko/Jinx, like you can just transfer the one to the other.

I'm sorry, fam, I thought my basic media literacy was telling me that this girl:

Is not the same person as this girl:

....and I am not getting into any debate about "Jinx" vs "Powder" as identities within our current Jinx. I'm talking about Powder in the E7 AU.

AU!Powder is literally a different human being.

She may have been the same person up until the explosion in Jayce's laboratory, but from that fork in the timeline, she becomes a FUNDAMENTALLY different person to Jinx, shaped by different experiences, different relationships, different life events.

Powder's physicality with Ekko, as you can see in those GIFs, the casual intimacy, the clear affection, the way she touches him, looks at him, her awareness of him in her space, is so utterly opposite to the way Jinx interacts with him that if anything, it nailed home to me how savagely absent this kind of feeling is from his relationship with Jinx.

Powder loves Ekko. She leans on him, snuggles into him, touches his hands, dances with him, kisses him.

Jinx cares so little about him she barely makes eye contact and would casually kill him without blinking.

And I thought that was the point.

I really thought that was the whole point of E7. Being in the perfect world, getting his perfect love story with his perfect Powder, the girl Jinx could have been, but can never be, drove home for Ekko that his feelings for Jinx, both romantic and resentful, were tangled up in his illusions of "Powder", and it took living those illusions as a physical reality for Ekko to see his mistake.

To be true to himself, and true to her, Ekko had to let that go and go home.

To face his world's Jinx, and be there for her in her darkest moment, even if it meant giving up the love he'd found with Powder, a love that belonged to a different Ekko, for someone who could never love him back.

To me that was Ekko's most heroic moment, an act of selfless sacrifice. But that's what it was - a sacrifice.

Meanwhile, Season Two Jinx is not aware of any of this. The last time she saw Ekko was on the bridge where she nearly killed him, and for all we know she might have thought she succeeded.

She never talks about, thinks about, refers to, or even has scribble-nightmares about Ekko, not even once.

Season Two Jinx is, instead, having a love story of her own.

And Isha was and is a PUZZLE to me. Because she's more plot device than character, she isn't necessary except as a way to give Jinx a villain-to-hero arc and a way to reconnect to her humanity.

But she could have been Ekko.

If they really, really wanted us to have Timebomb Canon, instead of confining the entire arc to a bottle episode in an alternate timeline with a literally, physically different girl, they could easily have given all of Isha's considerable screentime to an Ekko and Jinx romance.

I'm sure Amanda Overton would have been on board with that. But that's not what we got. It's almost like reading two different fix-it-fanfics for the same character, put into the same show and running in parallel.

I'm not crazy, this is what's happening for Ekko in s2;

While this is happening for Jinx at the same time.

But Jinx's love story, too, ends with a tragic sacrifice.

And here's where the two stories finally intersect.

When Jinx is in her darkest moment, her absolute rock bottom, Ekko comes back into her life, a miracle, impossible, a Boy Savior.

But she's still ready to kill him.

Because she didn't dance with Ekko. She didn't invent a time machine with him. She didn't sit and watch the city lights with him and share a tender kiss and a heartfelt gift.

That was Powder.

Jinx and Ekko are resuming right where they left off on the bridge, right back to "I pull this pin and we both blow up".

They've both loved and lost, but their stories are absolutely unknown to each other. Ekko Doesn't Know About Isha. Jinx Doesn't Know About Powder.

It's only when Jinx (a genius, a reminder here) sees monkeys of her own design inside the Z-drive - recognizes her own handiwork, but knows SHE didn't make those - that, I think, sheer curiosity stirs her out of her darkness.

She has to know what that was about. She hesitates, just long enough for Ekko to speak. And, though offscreen, he tells her his story, and maybe she tells him hers.

And it's enough, just enough, to set Jinx back on her Redemption Arc, to become the hero Isha always saw in her.

Maybe even the hero Vi and Ekko saw in her, too. Her new costume is full of references to all of the people in her life who never gave up on her.

(side note, the yellow stars and crowns puzzle me, though - they're quite prominent, but who are THEY for? Isha? Maybe? Yellow isn't a color associated with anyone in Jinx's life, but that crown's identical to the one she scribbled on Demacia in Fortiche's map, is... this a very subtle future Lightcannon tease? Nah. I'm not that crazy.)

I mean her costume is also almost literally both a Fishbones and a Fiddlesticks cosplay, with her hair as Fiddle's tongue, so take from that what you will.

It's clear Jinx and Ekko war painted each other for the battle, but the Firelights are also similarly painted up, and (with Linke even confirming this) there really wasn't time to develop anything else, guys.

And I am, honestly, fundamentally angry at anyone who would suggest that, even if she'd been in any space to want it, our boy Ekko, one of the most genuinely good men in recent fiction let alone in Arcane, would take advantage of a girl he just talked out of suicide.

Moving on. During the battle, Ekko is knocked out and lying not far from Jinx. She doesn't even look at him, she leaps up to defend Vi instead.

And that's their final interaction on the show.

Instead of returning to Ekko, Jinx chooses one final act of sacrifice.

Ekko's final shot of the show is this.

He's sitting, alone, burning a mourning paper, where he sat with AU!Powder - where he and AU!Powder kissed - a place that has no significance to himself and Jinx, whatsoever.

It's little wonder who he's thinking about here, and which name he's burning on that paper. The girl he truly loved and lost.

For all he knows, Jinx is dead. But it's not only her he's mourning.

Or maybe he does know, or suspect, she's alive.

But either way, he's making one final act of sacrifice, too, with that paper burning into the breeze.

He's letting her go.

He's choosing his own story.

He's staying where he belongs.

Jinx may have become a symbol of the revolution, but it's Ekko who is, and always will be, the true hero of Zaun.

And this is Jinx's final shot.

Because let's face it, we all know she's on that airship.

She's "breaking the cycle". She's "walking away". She knows that Jinx has left too many scars on the people she still loves - on Vi, on Ekko, on the cities of Piltover and Zaun - for her to pick up the pieces.

She knows that if she's going to find out what "Jinx" might stand for now, she has to go very far away from everything and everyone. She has to leave it all behind and find something new.

Maybe even someone new?

And ultimately, that's why I feel the Timebomb we got was perfect, they shouldn't touch it, they shouldn't try to force it to be "Endgame", not because it couldn't have worked, but because that's the opposite of the story they told.

For the rest of my analysis, lol, this got a bit long but i have FEELINGS.

Now, I'm not saying I wouldn't buy Jinx and Ekko as a love story if they had actually told that love story. But they didn't. It had no screen time. They have less interactions in S2, maybe even in both seasons added up, than Vi and Loris. Let that sink in a bit.

We know it's Amanda's favorite ship, so she may have intended more, and may even actually give us all more at some point, but please, dear god, let's stop pretending they fucked or kissed or even held hands offscreen.

That's honestly a bit insulting to both of these characters, to insist hell or high water that this very important milestone in their relationship happened, but they just didn't even bother to depict it. That an entire love story (because it would be a whole one, remember, Ekko and Powder had a romance but Jinx did not experience any of that, she and Ekko are back at Square One) would just be cut for time.

They both deserve better than that.

Let's stop pretending there was some grand, horny, Forever Love story with 60 minutes of cut footage, all of it timebomb content, somehow left on the cutting room floor of an animated show where every single frame has to be deliberately hand painted.

Because if in some insane universe they had written, storyboarded, voice acted and animated an entire 60 minute additional timebomb storyline and then cut it from the show, that would itself be a searing indictment of the quality of the storytelling in that imagined arc, but that's not what happened. Anyone who knows how filmmaking works would shoot this one down, and the showrunners already have, so let's leave it behind.

I know Timebomb blew up hard, and I get it, but what we got on the screen is not confirmation that there is any relationship at all between Ekko and Current Timeline Jinx. If anything, Ekko and Powder's beautiful romance only highlighted the tragic 'never to be' of Ekko and Jinx.

And it's absolutely fine to look at the art book, look at the creator comments, and imagine what could have been. Draw the fan art, write the fanfic, imagine the what-ifs and the fix-its, those are all beautiful and valid expressions and deserve their space.

But don't go insisting it's "the canon" and going after the shippers of other ships for these characters as "not canon" or somehow offensive theirs, some ships that, yes, have been around much longer than timebomb, is uncool.

I think this is mostly people who are New From Arcane, it's Baby's First Ship and they don't know how to share space. The timebomb fans I knew pre-season two didn't do this, at least not often enough for me to notice or care.

But I'll just say to them, if a Timebomb follow up happens and they actually tell a good love story for Ekko and Jinx, I will accept it. Grudgingly, because I think Lux/Jinx is an untold, untapped story full of incredible character dynamics that would complete Jinx's story in ways that as much as I love Ekko, he's too tied to her past, he can't.

But I love Ekko, and I love Jinx, and I will accept it.

But I'll also say to them, if the followup doesn't eventuate, if things take a turn you don't expect, if Jinx's airship is heading for Demacia, maybe they'll have to experience just a taste of what it's been like for Lightcannon fans for ten long years.

And maybe that's healthy. Maybe that's okay. Maybe our endgames don't need to be 'canon' to have value and that's a lesson we should learn.

Maybe there's a new Light on her horizon, and that's okay too. Maybe Ekko won't be alone forever. Don't forget - until Arcane - his story had nothing to do with Jinx, and there was a whole lot of it.

More with the firelights, the lost children of Zaun, his inventions, his parents, all could yet be in his future. Who knows? He might find a way back to AU!Powder - or she might rebuild what they worked on together, and come to him, no matter what butterfly effects that could set in motion...

But if Jinx is heading for a Light on her horizon, maybe Ekko might Explore some of his possibilities. Find a new Spark of connection. Just saying. Jinx isn't his only ship, either 😌

And it is okay for people to move on, and let go. Maybe, for two characters whose themes are letting go of the past, living in the moment, redefining their identities, and moving on, that's what their story should be.

[galactic-ambitions-jester]

Alone

Day 6 of Hero and Partner Week: Alone/Last Adventure

//Mags’ side of the temporal reset (for him only)! Yes, I know this may have little PMD content and more KRTDL and KATFL but the prompt fits! Also, Metalor is real in this fic.

Magolor shot awake in the Lor Starcutter, remembering that… voice. That voice with so, so, much sorrow.

Was it him that they mourned? He wasn’t dead, that’s for sure.

He couldn’t make sense of it. Figures, names, colors, all a blur.

He decided to shrug it off. The four were returning with the ship’s mast.

He put on that smile, thanked them, yet his gut screamed to not lie. Not lie about anything.

A few months later.

Everyone loathed Magolor.

Except Kirby. Nothing can make that puffball give up on someone.

Like someone he knew

Meta Knight merely let him live in his ship to observe him.

Then the Dreamstalk incident happened. He helped Kirby save Dedede. He got back a bit of the Knight’s trust. But something nagged at him when he saw the sun rise as Kirby defeated Sectonia.

“Maybe it’s because we were in the future for so long, but I never thought a sunrise could feel this renewing! The sun rises, then it sets. We take that fo granted and it’s only natural. But the things we take for granted… they’re really the most essential things, and they’re precious.”

And another. It seemed that whenever and wherever this was, he merely listened.

“All I’d ever known is the future’s world of darkness. Upon coming to this world… and seeing the sun for the first time… It was staggering. Seeing it… it strengthened my resolve to turn history away from a future of darkness.”

And after that, he remembers speaking, but can’t remember what he said.

More months passed. Magolor and Meta got closer. More than just friends. Yet, even with his hard earned happiness, something was still missing.

It was like he was still alone.

Meta Knight noticed that something was wrong. Off. His normally upbeat Magolor just looked… lost. Alone. Like he was missing something. And was thinking more often.

“Magsie? Are… you alright?” He tried, and for the first time in the three months they were together, Magolor chose to let him in.

“I-I dunno, Knighty. I really don’t know. I’m… supposed to be happy… but… I don’t know. It always feels like I’m missing something. Like I forgot something that I shouldn’t have.”

It was needless to say that Meta Knight was shocked. This made him think,

“How much do I really know about him?”

Yet he stayed.

It already had been a whole year since his arrival. He had lived with him. Dated him for three months. And since he let him in, it would be a breach to his trust if he left, right?

“Magsie… you don’t need to hide it from me.

I’m right here with you, even in the dark. And…

I’m staying.”

Was what he said.

And he planned to keep it.

Finding his Magolor hurt by Elfilis, possessed him. Meta Knight ensured that it would pay.

Ever since that possession… his smile wasn’t the genuine ones Meta Knight loved seeing. It felt like a nightmare to see Magolor suffering.

Turns out, that possession had finally jogged Magolor’s lost memories back. And after giving him time to process it, he cried. Endlessly for days.

“Oh, dear Arceus… I broke my… own promise… Mety, I don’t know what to do! That’s why I’ve been feeling so alone! Everly… Grovyle, Celebi… and then we fought Dialga and…” theage tries to tell him everything, but Meta lets him take his time.

Seeing him like this… Meta Knight couldn’t bear it. So, he stayed and consoled the mage.

And he vowed to himself, that as long as he’s here, Magolor won’t feel alone again.

//wasn’t lying this time.

// PMD SKY WHY THE HELL ARE YOU SO EMOTIONAL?!

@heropartnerweek , it counts, right?

[relamune]

Kael'thas for the ask meme thingy please i need

favorite thing about them Okay I'll try not to write a novel here but there's so little I don't adore about Kael'thas & it's hard to choose just one thing for this lmao. Like you can tell he cared/cares about his people a LOT, he just made some very poor decisions. I love that despite everything he tries to put the blood elves first, he definitely shouldered way more responsibility than he really needed to even for their leader imo, he had other people he could have relied on to share that burden! but he didnt!

Even before the scourge or the outlands, kael had SUCH an interesting personality? Like hes sometimes this bratty childish prince that can be stubborn as hell if he doesnt get his way but he's also easily one of the most powerful mages at the time, even getting on the council of six seemingly relatively easily because of it. So he may be a bit spoiled but he definitely clearly knows how to reign himself in & be serious when he needs to be & that makes him such a fun character with depth beyond just leaning into one trait or another.

Blizzard really shafted themselves when they tossed him away, I would have LOVED to see him progress through the expansions beyond being forgotten about until Shadowlands. least favorite thing about them how blizz threw him away :) I will never recover from the knowledge that they used him PURELY to fill a raid boss slot. He had SO MUCH POTENTIAL. I guess on the other hand we probably wouldn't have nearly as much content with the triumvirate as we do but I'm still not happy about nerfing Kael like that. favorite line "This is your brain, say hello brain. (brain says 'Hello!') And this is your brain on fel magic: (fel magic burns)(brain cries in pain) Any questions?"

(Honestly any of the HoTS quotes are gold this one just made me laugh the hardest) brOTP Hot take perhaps? Sylvanas pre-scourge. I like to imagine he kept trying to play matchmaker with her & lorthemar at that time & both of them hated the concept (but unfortunately kael is a stubborn bitch) but otherwise their friendship was equal parts business and jovial (as much as Sylv could be anyways) OTP honestly a BIG tie between Kael x Rommath & Kaellidan nOTP Controversial take in the Kael fandom probably but Jaina. I like them as friends or friendly rivals but don't really understand why there would be romance between them. random headcanon okay idk if this is gonna make sense & this is more of like a character study headcanon rather than a legit "this is how I think he goes about life" sort of thing but i have a big hc the triumvirate are just...sections of Kael. His laidback/care free traits being Hal, His leadership & determination & drive to protect the blood elves being Lorthemar, & his passion for magic & everything scholarly being Rommath. Idk maybe I'm looking to far into it but the fact Lor has reminded Rom of Kael on more than one occasion & vice versa really has me thinking on this.

If you want like a legit headcanon tho I definitely think Rommath got his humor and love of puns from Kael back from when they were younger. Kael said one (1) pun once, Rom laughed his ass off (& still refuses to admit it), & has come to appreciate the crafty wordplay of puns ever since.

Also another for you as an excuse to put it somewhere :: his title "the sun king" was actually from Illidan, back during one of their first meetings. Illidan meant it more in a derogatory way towards kael but kael thought it was brilliant & adopted it unpopular opinion i,,, actually dont like his VA in TBC. Nothing against the guy personally, imo it just doesnt fit Kael? I liked the one they used in Heroes of the Storm & SL (which i...THINK is the same person? idk im bad with remembering names but they sound similar so im sticking with that assumption) song i associate with them I have way too many actually that are just ship songs but I do associate this one specifically with Kael

Glass Animals - The Other Side of Paradise favorite picture of them his hearthstone battleground illustration does very gay things to me

[fruitsofhell]

(RTDL DX LORE STUFF RAMBLING)

This is a genuine question to anyone reading, does the lore given in RTDL DX not feel a bit shoddier than the series' writing is?

Atleast in comparison to KSA and KatFL. I know people have gripes with the 3ds games but they didn't pull stuff as confusing as sending a canonically sending a character to a spinoff universe or erasing a point of origin.The more I think about the new Magolor stuff the just more confusing it is to me in a way I definiteky did not feel with KatFL. Like Elfilis's origins before being captured were vague, but you get the idea it was a force of nature - an "invasive species" - and then when you meet Forgo it has clear motivation if being upset for being trapped for so long.

The Jamba are from ancient times and have a blood feud, Haltmann was an inventor who was consumed busy his company, Sectonia was a monarch from the sky consumed by greed because of a corrupt mirror; and originally I would say Magolor was a Halcandran who wanted to rule over the ruins of his wasteland home, but now he isn't. And I'll be fair, that was totally speculative, but atleast because it was left open it was valid speculation. The thing now is we know he isn't from Halcandra. Alright, where is he from then? DONT KNOW! What brought him to Halcandra and the Lor? He's a traveller and was enticed by all the machinery there because he's an engineering nerd, he wants to build a theme park. AWESOME. And he read a book about stuff so now he's interested in Halcandran history, cool. Why does he want the Master Crown then?

I was personally staked in him being from Halcandra cause I could gleam motivation from that, from the removal of that background and the new info given, his motivations for wanting the Master Crown don't make sense anymore. He is a cunt, yes, but not really in such a universe conquering megalomaniac way? Even Marx just wanted to mess around with Popstar and have power, Magolor wanted a crown, a source of limitless power, world-ending and for what? What does that have to do with engineering marvels and theme parks? These are silly kiddie platformers and "because he's evil" is a valid motivation, but not usually for Kirby these days?

There's usually this underlying layer of tragedy or past slighting that motivates characters in Kumazaki's games, even ones who came off as comically evil like the Jamba. And I'm just confused, cause Magolor was one of the first characters he and the team wrote so I would think a remake would be an opportunity to better flesh out him out, but a lot of it feels like details sloppily added to flesh stuff out meaninglessly. And with how much Kumazaki emphasizes keeping stuff open for interpretation, it really would have been wiser to leave some of those details behind.

Oh lord and then I haven't even gotten into Merry Magoland and Kirby Clash. The Magolor theme park thing had been established for over a decade, a year after the original game it was set up as Magolor's "redemption". And admittedly both that and his appearance in Clash were established in spin-offs, but the first one was established forced s d most cleanly. Magolor Epilogue could have just been him returning to Popstar but instead we throw him in an AU and leave the pre-established conclusion as dubiously canon? And there is totally more character arc to be gleamed out of him being in the Clash universe, but we also could have gone through that with the Epilogue...

And then on top of that, I had higher expectations for the world building in Magolor Epilogue. Forgotten Land weaved together its plot and characters with the history of the world very well, and I was hoping Magolor and HALCANDRA could get similar treatment too. It is a tiny little mode, but we all noticed how much text space for the bosses were taken up by repeating that line about how they're collecting apples for their boss, right? It was a big missed opportunity. And (very personal nitpick here) if you were going to remove a character's connection to Halcandra, it would be nice if that void of connections was filled with actual lore.

I'm still working on my organized theory for all this new stuff, and I totally admit I'm biased and some of this disappointment is coming from personal headcanon, but I cannot shake the feeling that there was something off about the writing in this remake.