#been thinking about radiance lore while trying to kill her

[flooficandii]

thats got me thinking actually . i havent rly had the energy nor the interest to update nuniq's doc to include interactions w/ the newest agents . including harbor and tjats literally her boyfriend lmao 😭😭😭😭 but anyway lemme make some poorly drawn depictions of what nuniq thinks of the newer agents (starting from clove to gekko)

clove

honestly. nuniq wasnt too jazzed about the idea of hiring a kid (grown adult but theyre a kid to her), especially an untrained one . she understands they might have a link to omen going rogue but is still iffy about the whole situation

also oof. the whole immortality thing? yeah it must be a lot to bear for clove, theyre just very good at hiding it. but like with a lot of the young radiants, nuniq lets them know they can approach her about this stuff bc shes been through it too

she can admit she gets pissed at clove bc their immortality causes them to make more reckless decisions on the field . she wants to get it in their head that you still have to be smart about these things no matter how much power you have

but! she thinks clove is very nice. very silly very sweet guy who is an excellent storyteller. storytelling is very intertwined in both nuniq and clove's cultures so she loves listening to whatever clove can whip up

clove has probably dragged her into dnd at least once

she took a while to grasp it but thats ok shes trying her best

anyway yeah clove talks a lot and sometimes nuniq cant understand them so she has to ask them to slow down

iso

valorant hired him because he was a kingdom killer and nuniq was ALL FOR THAT !!!!

she can tolerate the cocky smug little shit thing bc hes professional at least

hes not very hard to work with and is very cunning and calculating. nuniq likes that

iso has most definitely heard about nuniq before and was surprised to see her alive bc a lot of media made it seem she was dead to quell the uprisings against kingdom

nuniq is fascinated by iso's radiance but it definitely makes her think about how fast and how complex the concept of radiance itself is evolving . to think he could create his own pocket dimension with prismatic energy

besides that i feel like they mostly mind their own business

theres a mutual respect for eachothers skill and grit and they just *nods*

deadlock

like the thing says. theres currently some weird tension between deadlock and nuniq rn (and its surprisingly not gay)

theyre both so cold its kinda hard for either of them to approach eachother

deadlock is. working on her relationship with gekkos creatures! which nuniq appreciates

but idk nuniq never forgets anything and its hard for her to get over the fact she almost killed wingman multiple times

+ proposed awful countermeasures to keep the radivores in check

yk that one headcanon someone made about gekkos friendliness and critters winning over a lot of the protocol?

and how they immediately had beef w deadlock because of it?

yeah thats the situation with nuniq

things have simmered down with the creature situation but nuniq mostly ignores deadlock outside of work

and frankly i think deadlock's scared of nuniq too so

gekko

last but not least GEKKO !!!!

nuniq loves gekko!!! hes so silly

hes fun and lighthearted while still being a good fighter

being around gekko makes nuniq feel. Friendlier idk how else to describe it

also his critters have 100% stolen her heart sometimes she asks to babysit wingman when gekkos busy

she has had to apologize for aput using dizzy as a chew toy though

gekko has dyed nuniqs hair temporarily; it was northern lights-colored streaks that looked really cool when braided, she kept it for about a month until it washed out

overall she thinks hes very sweet and she and reyna can get along over being protective of him

anyway yeah i think thats every agent so far after harbor! wow !!! i cant believe we've already made it this far to agent 25 .. and agent 8 still hasnt been revealed yet i love valorant lore (tired

[icedcaramelcake]

Overanalyzing hollow knight characters episode 1: Hornet

Hi I don't know how to write intros but I've had SO MANY THOUGHTS about this game for the longest time and with the encouragement of my friend I'm here to dump them on this wonderful website! This is the first of hopefully multiple posts in this style with hopefully different characters and hopefully different games or shows I enjoy.

DISCLAIMER(s)!!

1. There will (obviously) be spoilers in this, if you haven't at least watched a summary and/or don't want to be spoiled I highly recommend clicking off and coming back later when you're up to date!

2. English is not my first language and I am slightly dyslexic AND I tend to ramble so I'm sorry if any of that shines through, I'll do my best to reread and cut out unnecessary parts but some might slip through so I apologize in advance.

3. I tend to read into characters wayyy too much, especially characters I like, so some of this might tread into headcanon territory even though I'll have a headcanon section at the bottom for that. Also I consume way too much fan media so that might skew my view on things too.

And last but not least 4. REMEMBER this is 100% my opinion, not law. This is just how I interpreted the character's overall arc and it's by no means canon, I'm just sharing my silly little thoughts on silly little fictional pixels on my screen, I'd love to hear what you think or if you want to add onto anything I said!

With all that out of the way let's start with probably my favorite character in this entire game, Hornet! <3

When I first got introduced to Hollow Knight it was through some challenge videos I believe, I heard of the game before but it didn't seem like something I would be interested in (spoiler alert I was wrong). As I kept diving down the rabbit hole I found myself getting more and more fascinated with the lore and especially with Hornet but it wasn't until my own playthrough that I crowned her as my favorite.

On the surface Hornet already has a lot of traits I really enjoy in a character. She can be sassy (as shown in the Silksong trailers which fdjhkfdjhksjkfd yes), she can be cold but she can also show kindness and gentleness every now and then.

Being the daughter of the Pale King but not ever receiving royal treatment from the bugs of Hallownest, having Deepnest's queen as her mother but being forced to leave her home due to the infection and never having a parental figure besides...Midwife...if you can count her as "motherly", all these shaped her into a powerful, agile but most of all determined bug that wants to get rid of the Radiance for good even though she's aware she doesn't have the means for it.

Her meeting the player character (who I'll call little knight for the rest of this post for the sake of simplicity + it's cute) is completely by chance, might be her first chance at "recruiting" a vessel in years, she has no way of knowing if she'll ever have this chance again. This might be her only shot at protecting the kingdom and her home, uncovering its secrets, basically fulfilling her life's goal! What will she do??? Befriend it, help it and defeat the Radiance with the power of friendship????????

Of course not, you've played this game you know exactly what happened.

Hornet attacks the little knight with little to no hesitation with OBVIOUS intent to kill (see: the dead vessel that's literally in the arena) despite this being a massive risk. She's dedicated, she knows that if the vessel is too weak nothing will work, she puts her desire to quickly solve the problem behind her and does what she thinks is best for the kingdom, trying to see if the vessel is strong enough to not only replace the Hollow Knight, but maybe even destroy the infection. She's been at this for so long, she has probably killed or seen so many other vessels getting killed and she knows they're not infinite but she still takes the risk and thinks of a farther future.

As the game progresses, her attitude slowly changes. While she never outright states this as far as I know, she doesn't treat the little knight as her sibling, downright pitying it for its heritage. But I think she starts to sympathize for it. They have the same goal, and while Hornet maybe thought she would be the one to save Hallownest, she sees why that would never happen. So she starts to guide the knight, helping where she can in her own distant way.

She starts being more open, less formal and while she never fully lets her walls down, her dreamnail dialogue from right before the true ending Hollow Knight fight show her being hopeful. She doesn't outright say it but I know for a fact (I'm speculating) that no matter what would happen she would accept her fight with the infection being over, she would be thankful for the little knight and dare I say proud (let me have this it was the only thing I could think of while watching the true ending cutscene ueueueueue).

Besides the in game playable lore I wanna touch on something I noticed while staring at her wiki for the 7381297th time today, and that is how Hornet has a piece of every "region" with her (at least mentally) if you squint. This is rllllllly iffy but I thought it was poetic and this is mY POST AND I GET TO WRITE WHAT I WANT DAMMIT.

Anyway

She has a piece of deepnest, kingdom's edge, city of tears and crossroads + greenpath + queen's gardens through Herrah (her mother), Vespa (who she was trained by), the Pale King (her father) and the White Lady who isn't explicitly said to have met Hornet but she knew of her existence and of the Pale King's... liaison for lack of a better word. I'd like to think she was part of Hornet's childhood if only for a little bit because i think it's cute and it has no lore evidence besides something Team Cherry said on their kickstarter

Anyway this is getting dangerously close to headcanon territory so I should probably summarize all this lmao.

Overall, Hornet relies on herself. She's independent, she's motivated, she's strong, she's everything you'd expect from a perfect princess. But she's also sassy, she takes risks, she has growth and passion and wants to help and do her part. I love her sm. She is an ice princess but the ice can help protect small critters from the harsh winds of winter.

FROM HERE ON OUT I'LL START RANTING ABOUT MY HCS SO IF YOU DON'T CARE ABT THEM TY FOR READING THIS FAR ILY HAVE A GREAT DAY <3

This. This entire video was the reason I wanted to make this. GOD. G O D. I KNOW IT HAS NO WAY OF BEING CANON BUT I ADORE IT???

Most of my hcs are gonna stem from this video so yeah watch it and like it and give it all the love it deserves.

I'd like to think that the Hollow Knight was some of the only family she had, even if it was only for a brief period of time. I'd like to think that one of the main reasons she wanted to get rid of the infection early on was to save her big brother. But as she grew up she realized that wouldn't be possible anymore. I think that was her tipping point, the thing that made her into the Hornet we know today.

I'd like to think that at the start she saw the vessels as pieces of her, potential siblings that could help her get her family back, that they could all be one big family. She loses that hope quickly until the little knight comes along. As she watches it walk around, discover the world with one goal in mind, she can't help but see herself when she was younger. She knows it won't make it out of this alive no matter what it does but she isn't sad. She knows this is what is supposed to be done. She knows that they'll be free of their cursed life once the fight is over. That doesn't mean she wants that. She tries to deny it but it can get lonely.

In the sealed sibling ending I'd like to think she feels guilty for becoming a dreamer but she knows she chose this path and she only hopes her mother can forgive her for it.

In the embrace the void ending when she readies her nail to fight the Hollow Knight I'd like to think some part of her is happy that it's alive, but she knows it's not the same as it was before.

I have more but I've been typing for an hour and my brain hurts and I can't think of them rn but I hope you enjoyed reading this! Lmk if you have any other ideas and I'll see you again when I have too much time on my hands<3

[everbrilliantheartbreaker]

5, 8, 18!

5. What game would you recommend to someone new to the series?

on one hand, I feel very underqualified to answer this because I haven't played any of the older games, so I don't exactly have the most well rounded opinion. on the other hand, though, I got into FE through one of the new games! so, while I've been told by friends that it plays a lot differently than older FE games, I do think that Three Houses is a fun way to get people interested in the franchise (and also in RPGs, which I also have never really played but now would like to). the game mechanics are neat, I think a lot of the characters are really fun and interesting, and I think the lore and plot are super fascinating. AND it succeeded at making me want to play every other FE game I can get my hands on (*stares at Path of Radiance* some day...)

8. Least favorite lord/protagonist?

Manna out here tryin to get me sent hate mail again, I haven't played very many FE games yet, so I don't really know most of the lords beyond names + faces, but right now my least favorite lord is Edelgard,,, I think she's a really interesting character and an excellent villain and I definitely don't hate her, but the more I reflect on 3H and CF specifically, the more she frustrates me. I could write a whole thing about it but my biggest issue is how much she just. lies and twists everything to suit her narrative. especially the way that she lies to Byleth, who she supposedly loves. there's a lot about how CF treats Byleth that I don't like, and this is one of my bigger issues.

as for protagonists...Shez is probably my least favorite so far. and it's not even that I dislike them; I actually thought that they were an interesting contrast and opposite to Byleth and I really like their relationship with Dimitri specifically. I just don't feel a huge amount of affection for them. granted, their case is not helped by the fact that I. really fucking hate 3 Hopes. I despis e that game it made me so angry. so unfortunately for them my freshest memories of them are from my least favorite route in the game, wherein they are partially (unintentionally) responsible for the reason the route sucked (although the actual reason is bad writing). like I said I don't dislike Shez tho. they're alright and they deserved a better game (everyone in 3 Hopes did).

18. How do you tend to play Fire Emblem? (es. casually, doing Ironman runs, playing it like a visual novel)

hard + classic full recruit perfectionist run lmao i.e. I try to recruit all characters, complete all paralogues, finish as many support chains as possible, and finish main missions with as many surviving NPCs as possible (VW Fort Merceus kicked my ass this time around tho and half the Almyran forces died :/ ) I would kind of like to go back to a more storyline-oriented recruit style tho. I full recruit because I can't bear to kill anyone I don't have to and I still have a lot of supports + end cards I haven't gotten; but, for instance, the first time I played Golden Deer I only recruited Ashe, and the first time I played Black Eagles I only recruited a small group of characters like Felix, Sylvain, and Lysithea. I don't like killing characters, but I do think it would be a nice change to go back to a smaller recruit group where I could focus on completing a set number of supports and sort of play out a storyline with them like I did with those two routes.

[elvesofnoldor]

diversity wins! the poisonous light that’s been killing and possessing the minds of thousands from the land of dreams and the dead is a woman and also maybe the sun! 

[ofstormsandfire]

other than *gestures* the obvious, whats pk lying about ? in general i didnt really understand the question of what everyone's theories were supposed 2 be on ?

i havent played in a while but did pk like.. say his machinery was the best or ?

I mean, I think everything he's lied about is obvious now, but I've also been invested in HK lore for. a while now.

Rather major spoilers ahoy, proceed beyond the cut at your own risk:

Still here? good. anyway, unsure what counts as the obvious for ya, so I'm just going to cover everything because I feel like ranting tonight lmao

So, let's start from the beginning. All that stuff about Hallownest being the first, last, and only kingdom?

Propaganda. A number of things in Hollow Knight confirm that, not least of which being the Weavers having departed to their original homeland, presumably not Hallownest. Silksong's entire existence disproves this further, because while you could make an argument for the Weavers' homeland not being a kingdom, I'm like 90% sure that some piece of official material has described the setting as the kingdom of Pharloom.

Honestly, I can't think of a single thing in King's Pass that isn't at the very least cast into serious doubt later in the game. "Only this kingdom could produce one such as you?" ...I mean, technically yes, because only the Pale King would be willing to dump a bunch of eggs into the void pit to do so, but also how does he know that a Vessel is reading that? He doesn't. Just because it happens to be true in this specific situation doesn't mean that it's true for everyone.

He also lied about having the Infection under control, because he didn't at all lmao. Lied to the Dreamers by promising that through their sacrifice, Hallownest would be safe. And sure, you could make an argument that he thought he did, but...

...buddy.

I can't remember if the whole seeing the future thing was canon or fanon, but if it's written anywhere, oh boy. Either he was lying about that too, and he just claimed to be able to see the future. Or he was telling the truth about being able to see the future, and he knew exactly how his plan was going to fail, and lied about that.

There were other options. The game isn't unclear about what prompted the Radiance to start a plague. She was afraid of being forgotten. The fact that we only see one character who has any idea of who she was before the Infection (who dies in front of you, if you finish her questline) and the fact that the only symbolism we see of her anywhere is very far out of the way says a few things: being forgotten entirely was a very real threat.

It's possible, I suppose, that PK did try to resolve things with the Radiance in a more diplomatic manner before he resorted to the dead baby pit. But there's no evidence for anything like that I can recall.

This isn't to say that the Radiance is blameless. She isn't! But I'll take her over PK any day, because she (in her 0.005 seconds of dream dialogue) doesn't lie to you. She's at least open about trying to kill you.

PK, on the other hand... he lies. There's probably more stuff I've forgotten about, but I'm pretty sure the other post is referring to the whole "oh only Hallownest could do things like this!" thing.

So, who knows. Maybe people will stop taking PK's propaganda as gospel sometime soon. Maybe people will stop assuming that characters in games (and shows, and movies, and books, et cetera et cetera) will always tell you, the player, the truth.

I kinda doubt it. But there are few things that rub me the wrong way as much as being lied to, and I'm sure I could find more examples of PK's lies if I were to replay Hollow Knight. Maybe I will, just to prepare for Silksong.

[feralphoenix]

HOWMST BELL THE CAT? - A treatise on one aspect of how the Pale King sealed the Radiance

sup hollow knight fandom, i’m back with the picante takes again after having Noticed A Thing.

as with my previous essays i’ll put this guy up on dreamwidth later for accessibility purposes, since my layout text may be too small for high-res pc users. i will attach that in a reblog at a later point.

CONTENT WARNINGS FOR TONIGHT’S PROGRAM: This essay discusses canon-typical body horror and bodily boundary violations, with some side mentions of colonialism.

all game screencaps are mine. the screencap of the wiki is from the “developer notes” (style guide) section of the “cut content” page.

ALSO: if youre from a christian cultural upbringing (whether currently practicing, agnostic/secular, or atheist now), understand that some of what i’m discussing here may challenge you. if thinking thru the implications of this particular part of hollow knight worldbuilding/lore is distressing for you, PLEASE only approach this essay when youre in a safe mindset & open to listening, and ask the help of a therapist or anti-racism teacher/mentor to help you process your thoughts & feelings. just like keep in mind that youre listening to an ethnoreligiously marginalized person and please be respectful here or wherever else youre discussing this dang essay, ty

HOWMST BELL THE CAT? - A treatise on one aspect of how the Pale King sealed the Radiance

We understand more or less how the Pale King’s plan was supposed to work. Stuff Radiance into a no-thoughts-head-empty and silent Pure Vessel to trap, isolate, and silence her, both putting an end to the Infection and killing her for good. Stick that vessel in the Black Egg, which harnesses Void BS to both keep the vessel alive indefinitely and to cover Hallownest (and its neighbors) in a time-defying stasis so that the Pale King could successfully hoard his favorite shiny FOREVER, threatened by nothing. Then put a seal on the Black Egg to prevent anyone from getting inside and harming said vessel while it’s strung up and helpless. And THEN, put protective seals on the anchors (the Dreamers) to the Black Egg seal to protect them from any external harm: The stasis means the Dreamers won't die of old age or starvation.

All in all, a pretty foolproof plan!

...except that the Dreamers are still vulnerable to having their minds breached with the moths’ magic... and the Pale King failed to take into account that his Pure Vessel was a person actually and the amount of toxic stress his training/upbringing put on them made them REALLY POORLY SUITED FOR THEIR JOB... and also that killing 99% of his million children and turning the Abyss into a landfill for baby corpses would take enough of an emotional toll on his wife and #1 enabler the White Lady that she would walk out on him, ensuring he’d only ever have one shot at this whole deal...

Basically it’s the sort of plan that an emotionally constipated, low-empathy sort of guy who pours all his points into INT and has a big fat zero for WIS might think is foolproof. It has big holes in it that the Pale King did not consider to be big holes until he got owned by the various consequences of his actions and fell down said big holes, making the shocked pikachu face all the while. Rip in die, my guy.

Anyway, there’s a lot of incidental information scattered about the game that gives us more insight into the stages of TPK’s plan. Looking at Monomon’s notes in the Archive suggests that she was probably involved in designing the Black Egg; the hidden room in the Weavers’ den points to their being the ones to blueprint the Dreamer seal; the White Palace’s hidden rooms reveal both TPK’s morbid fascination with the Void and his mea culpa wrt his motives and the Path of Pain is certainly suggestive of a lot of things. The White Lady tells us straight out that she walked out on the Pale King because she wanted no part in a second vessel batch, but how TPK didn’t handle that is only revealed via map design and some incidental dialogue from the Old Stag.

This stuff presents us with, if not a full picture, then at least a decent connect-the-dots of certain aspects of crater politics and Pale Court drama at the time, and how exactly TPK’s plan came together.

But there is still one glaring question that these cookie crumbs do not provide us an answer to:

Who shall bell the cat?

How did TPK et al manage to stuff Radiance into Hollow in the first place?

This is the subject of a lot of memes and jokes within the fandom because it's so absurd. Radiance fuckin hates that dude! She’s probably gonna be pretty wary of him considering how he stole her people in the first place! And considering the anti-colonialism slant of the writing - beyond the general sympathetic view Team Cherry gives of each indigenous bug society, Seer makes it very clear that Radiance has very good reason to take violent action against Hallownest - the answer is probably not something like “she’s just that stupid” or “she rolled a crit fail”.

Well... I have an idea of how TPK managed to get Radiance in there. It raises about as many questions as it answers, mind, but it may be someplace to start.

[desc: the hollow knight's entry in the hunter’s journal. top text/ghost’s comment reads: “Fully grown Vessel, carrying the plague’s heart within its body.” bottom text/hunter’s comment says: “The old King of Hallownest... he must have been desperate to save his crumbling little world. The sacrifices he imposed on others... all for nothing.”]

Here we have Hollow’s bestiary entry. Most of what we’re concerned with here is the top text, which says the seal has literally trapped Radiance inside their body. (First of all, ew, TPK.)

We already knew Radiance is literally actually inside Hollow, though: The Infection is leaking out of their body, and to get to fight Radiance, Ghost has to go traipsing into their sibling’s mind. So what’s significant about that here?

[desc: screencap of the outside of the black egg temple, post-infected crossroads. there are large infection blobs in the foreground and background, connected to each other by veins that come from inside the temple.]

The infection blobs are weird and get weirder if you kill enough Lightseeds for the Hunter to tell you their origin story, i.e. that the literal actual sun has been having a very long bad day and cried a lot, and some of the liquid coalesced into living flesh, and some of that living flesh took on a mind of its own to become Lightseeds. (Hollow Knight is a WILD place.)

Lightseeds are Radiance’s accidental children and share a lot of her traits: They are harmless creatures that try to avoid conflict if possible but if pushed will get creative and find ways to fight regardless of their physical limitations. (For the Lightseeds this involves hiding inside Broken Vessel’s corpse and puppeting it around to try to stab you.) They even have her same distinctive yell. And according to the Hunter, they’re born from the infection blobs. These enemies only ever appear in the Ancient Basin, which both Radiance and the Void have ransacked, and in the Infected Crossroads.

The infection blobs are connected to and sort of a weird extension of Radiance because the Infection itself is sort of a weird extension of Radiance. In the game’s internal style guide Team Cherry explains that the Infection started as an accident, not her original intention but what happened when Hallownest tried to block her out.

[desc: screencap from the wiki of style notes attached to seer that describe a sketch of radiance’s finalized backstory. text reads: “The moth tribe were (perhaps) descended from Radiance. However, the King convinced them somehow to seal Radiance away. I guess so he could rule Hallownest with his singular vision, as a god/monarch with no other gods. The moths sealed Radiance away by forgetting about her. Hallownest was born and flourished. However, the memory of Radiance lingered (eg [sic] the statue at hallownest’s crown) and soon she began to reappear in dreams and starting [sic] exerting influence. The King and the bugs of Hallownest resisted this memory/power and it started to manifest as the Infection. Thus the first attempt to seal Radiance failed, and the King had to try another method - the Vessel.” emphasis mine.]

Some fans have posited the blobs as deposits of pupa juice, but given Team Cherry's description of the Infection’s origins I don’t know how likely that is. Since the Void also sticks its squamous tentacles into things via veiny looking things and the Nightmare’s Heart has similar veiny nonsense in the Nightmare Realm, I wonder if it isn’t just a Meddly God Shit thing in general.

Whatever the case, the blobs are very much connected to/a part of Radiance.

And when you’re hanging around them, you will notice two things: They pulse like they’re part of a circulatory system, and you can hear Radiance's heartbeat emanating from them.

[desc: screencap of the game’s title screen with the infected menu theme in use: a glowing orange ball at the center of a lot of black tendony webbing.]

Let’s also think of the Infected menu theme, which you unlock after getting either of the endings where Ghost takes over from Hollow and absorbs Radiance out of them. Ghost is infected and then sealed inside the Black Egg in Hollow's place. It’s suggested by the animation’s staging that Radiance briefly struggles to get out of Ghost after absorbed but is ultimately stuck in them, at which point the seal is reestablished.

If you haven’t used the Infected menu theme yourself, the... interesting thing about it is that it moves organically. The light ball expands and contracts - y’know, sort of like a living organ - and so does the black webby stuff around it.

Also, Radiance’s heartbeat is included in the theme's ambiance.

[desc: hollow’s bestiary entry again]

To cut to the chase, this part of Hollow’s bestiary entry that says “the plague’s heart”? I don’t think that’s just Ghost/Team Cherry being poetic. I think there’s a good chance it’s LITERAL.

I think TPK is the sort of person who could cram a native woman’s literal living beating heart inside his own child’s body so they can use it as... say, a focus to absorb and trap her mind/spirit inside their body, too. Mr. No Cost Too Great is capable of a lot in the name of keeping other people’s claws off his Big Shiny kingdom. This is kind of his whole brand.

But also, like, yuck.

This fits the worldbuilding too; generally speaking Hollow Knight is Body Horror City. Also there’s the case of Grimm: While he and Radiance are loose counterparts at best with WILDLY disparate outlooks and ethoses, his existence serves as precedent that a Higher Being’s heart specifically can be separate from the rest of them.

As I said before, though, this DOES raise as many questions as it answers. If this is another piece in the puzzle of how TPK belled the cat, we’re now left wondering how he got Radiance’s heart to use as Hollow's focus to begin with.

We know he has access to the Dream Realm because that’s ultimately where he hid when Hollow’s seal failed, but who did he send to do the stealing and how did they get away with it? (TPK certainly wouldn’t have gone; his own life’s the one cost too great for him to willingly pay.) Was Radiance’s heart separate from her like the Nightmare’s Heart, or was it a part of her body? (I think the latter is more likely just from her personality; Grimm’s hidden heart makes sense because of how he keeps even his own servants at arm’s length emotionally, whereas Radiance is all heart all the time. I think this makes more sense with their equal opposites schtick too. But this would make for a WAY riskier mission.)

I can imagine all kinds of possibilities. None of them are definitive, but the thing they have in common is that they are all Awful... and how on-brand that is for Hollow Knight as a whole is, maybe, the most persuasive argument for It’s Literally Actually Her Real Physical Heart there could be.

[the-world-of-enterra]

Enterran Lore - Higher Beings, Astrans and More

((Note that a lot of this is directly from my main universe, but some concepts changed to fit in with a Hollow Knight AU. These aren’t my theories on the game itself. I see Enterra and the stories I am crafting here as an entirely separate entity from the game, - simply a world inspired by the game, which allows me to be far more creative and have more fun with worldbuilding. :3))

Higher Beings (Also known as the Touched)

(Touched is a placeholder name until I can come up with something better, and it’s loosely based on the concept of Myschakkans from my original universe, modified to fit Enterran lore and flow with the Hollow Knight setting itself better)

Enterra is packed full of powerful magic. It’s soaked into every fiber of the world, able to be harnessed through Charms, which manifest naturally into items around that Enterrans, often from their final wish through death or crafted into Spellcharms for various effects, or packed into ancient caves full of powerful Crystals. Found in pools of water packed with Soul, or seas of Void full of lashing tendrils and dangerous Eldritch forces or simply flowing wild and free through the world as a whole. For natural charms, think something somewhat similar to Artifacts from Warehouse 13 in how they work.

Sometimes... an Enterran can become Touched. This natural raw power combines with the Enterran, effected by who they are inside. Things they love, things they are affiliated with.. things about they themselves effect what sort of Touched they become.

A Touched Enterran can then start to grow in power, in connection to the natural magic around them until they become almost entirely magic themselves over time.Touched can be as minor as just a small bit of power, that doesn’t effect their lifespan too much, though higher level Touched can stop aging and become effectively immortal unless something kills them. Their power does not usually pass on to their offspring in any significant manner. Touched will have normal children; aside from a strong affinity to magic and the aspect/s that their parent. Touched always happen naturally. The process can not be forced or triggered artificially and the attempt to do so always results in the death of the Enterran who attempts it.

Less powerful/minor touched are far more common than the more powerful ones often worshipped as gods. Touched, however, have a weakness. They depend on those around them, the energy around them, once they get powerful enough. The more Enterrans surround them and believe in their power, the more powerful they become until they become like gods. They come to embody these aspects so much that they become a part of their very being. They will begin to lose power as they lose influence and will often die, or go dormant. Some Touched become terrified of this; and things like the Radiance happen where they lash out in an attempt to keep their power and stay alive. 

Some powerful Touched can manipulate life around them, but can not properly create it. The offspring of Touched do tend to be a little longer lived than normal Enterrans and more durable, depending on the power of the Touched that brought them into being. 

Astrans (Sometimes called Gods, as close to gods as Enterran lore gets)

Astrans are as close to gods as one can get in Enterra. They are, for all intents and purposes, Gods; but still thinking beings with limits to their power. Their aspect is very important to them, and they can not do something that conflicts with what htey are. They are not all-powerful, but their power is beyond even the most powerful Touched. They embody an aspect, and that aspect forms a huge part of what they are. While most Astrans do not directly interact, some will at times depending. Astrans can, under certain circumstances, create life and bring new species into being, though these creatures are based on the one that made them. An example is Azmodeus, the Dreameaters he created being directly related to his aspect. He is also one of the rare Astrans who prefers to keep a physical form and walk among mortals especially since he fell for the old Dravhokonus King, Daemarus. In his physical form, he is a Dreameater himself, following their biological processes.

 Astrans are generally aloof, and don’t require worship to fuel their power; however, belief in them will increase the scope of what they can do in the area they are believed in. They are generally silent beings, and many exist, unknown and simply watching.Unlike the Touched, Astrans pass on their power genetically if they take a physical form and interbreed with a mortal Enterran. Astrans tend to mimic, to a point, the beings of the world they watch over. They form groups known as Pantheons, and while they are often recognized and worshipped as gods if they reveal themselves in some manner, they are above most of that and simply do their thing in silence.

Astrans have two types

Primordial/Primal - The first Astrans, they were born with the universe, and all Astrans came from them. Very powerful, aloof, rarely seen. A Primordial Astran can give rise to a new Astran without combining energy with another Astran. Primordial Astrans are more powerful than regular Astrans, but incredibly aloof. They interact rarely, if at all, with mortal worlds.

Astran - Born from other Astrans, they must combine energy to reproduce. Aloof and powerful, they tend to quietly watch over things and affect the world when needed, but they do so carefully.

Lesser Eldritch

There are many levels of Eldritch beings, from lesser creatures that can become a new race or species. Given long enough, many Eldritch will gain a mind of their own. While most Eldritch, even Lessers, are dangerous, not all are. They are fairly rare, and most that have spawned that are still around have been around for a very long time. Lesser Eldritch tend to take on forms somewhat affected by the beings around them; but often look different or off in some way. Perhaps having extra limbs, strange tendrils, extra eyes, or other strange features.

Greater Eldritch

These powerful beings dwell outside of Reality and never directly interact with mortal beings; but they can have profound effects on the universe. They tend to embody primordial things. Examples are The Conservationist and He Who Sees All. Neither of them directly interacted, but gifted their power through a gentle touch, not sensed by any. 

They are far too powerful to be in the realm of Reality itself, and they are usually neutral in their alignment. These beings never try to enter Reality, as if they did they would cause a cascade of effects that could destroy numerous worlds and cause massive problems. Eldritch are not worshipped as gods, and prefer not to be seen or recognized. They only interact with very few unless what they do is a part of the mortal world; as it is with He Who Sees All. It embodies reincarnation, and only interacts with the souls of the dead by placing them into new bodies to make right what they did wrong before. 

The Conservationist is a Greater Eldritch that only acts in its own self interest, that being to preserve rarities and beautiful creatures. It is responsible for the Vhessen becoming a proper species; as well as Kavuta being returned to being a Dravhokonus. Its meddling has caused problems more than once; as it enabled the Shadowed King Zarkhan to get ahold of Vhessen and selectively breed them to create a powerful army of Warbred, which he used to conquer several other Kingdoms before he stopped his conquest when he felt his borders were big enough.

Voidborn/Etherborn

These are ancient and powerful creatures that rise from the Void and Ether at the same time. They don’t rise any more, and any that are alive are truly ancient. They help balance the universe.

For every creature that rises from the Void, a creature descends from the Ether. The two are counterparts with eachother, connected deeply, almost like siblings.

The light ones are known as Etherborn. They are shining and otherworldly, but general softer looking than their dark counterparts. They glow bright and can blind a person if they are not careful. They often have wings, and like to embody beauty and grace.

The dark ones are known as a Voidborn. They are dark with glowing white eyes, sometimes seeming to have a "noise" effect to their body. They are often gaunt looking. They often have horns or spikes, and look spookier and more frightening.

Most who enter the world craft amulets for themselves, allowing them to rein in their power and avoid doing damage to the world around them. An example is Xonoth, who lives in the Abyss where he was once worshipped as a god then taken and used for his power. He was chained down there for ages, until he was freed by Hornet in return for helping her save the life of Kiolos before she disappeared. Xonoth’s counterpart, Bharavi, hasn’t been seen in a long time; but she’s alive. If she were dead, he’d be dead too. A Voidborn can not exist without their Etherborn counterpart and vice versa.

[vagrantblvrd]

@rogueghost​ Tumblr’s still acting weird for me so I had to do the old DIY reply to your ask, but here you go. :D?

Oh, friend! There’s so much lore to Destiny that I haven’t kept up with myself because ~lazy. The AUs I’ve written are a mishmash of Destiny universe and ~artistic liberties on my part, so yeah.

(There’s an amazing video here about the lore thus far that I hope to watch One Day? But, again, lazy and lack of time to sit down to properly absorb it.)

Quick background on the games/Ghosts for those who don’t play the game/want to see me ramble on about A Thing:

The game tells us is the Traveler (giant white space orb/messiah/McGuffin showed up in our solar system which resulted in what’s called the Golden Age where human technology advanced like whoa. (But surprise, surprise, the Traveler was being pursued by an enemy referred to as the Darkness and things got messy for humanity, something that happened to several races that happened to run into the Traveler before us.)

There was an extinction level event several centuries before the events of the Destiny games called The Collapse when the Darkness caught up to it. The Traveler “died”, creating the Ghosts as it did to seek out Guardians...who tend to be dead at the time (they get better) who then join the ranks of the Guardians (who for the most part) fight to save humanity/the universe and/or engage in shenanigans such as flinging themselves off the Tower for funsies and the whatnot. (Guardians have no common sense, btw. Also, lunatics.)

BUT.

Back to your amazing prompt???

It would be this entire Thing on its own because I want to set it before the games back in the days before there was a Vanguard, which from what I gather from the lore I have read was not unlike ye olden medieval days/wild west with sci-fi twist, because yes. (Also, it was referred to as the Dark Ages, so yeah.)

Geoff and Jack are among the first Lightbearers that are referred to as Risen in various bits of game lore, right? Before the Iron Lords and the whole “Guardian” business with the Vanguard and the Tower and all that good stuff.

Back in the days where there were some like them who abused their powers over those who weren’t like them. Grabbing land and wealth for themselves and gaining followers through fear and the whatnot?

They spend a long, long time trying to figure out what the hell is going on because no memories of their past lives and this hellish world they’ve been brought back to with Fallen and God knows what else wandering the lands.

Just these little glowing balls of Light and sass nagging them about finding shelter and armor and weapons,  getting them into hiding when Fallen patrols or other bandits go past.

Abilities before there were proper classes and sub-classes and all that.

Geoff and Jack both lean more towards the floofy jumps and glides of Warlocks. (not that they know what a Warlock even is at that point, of course.)

Jack’s abilities and whatnot lean more towards a support role, but he’s not defenseless, oh no. He learns to use his Light as a weapon and that goes for Geoff too.

They carry guns and knives and in a pinch whatever is at hand.

Run into each other in a little settlement somewhere and at first it’s this Thing where they’re keeping their Ghosts out of sight – Warlords and so on who flaunt their little Ghost friends and the way people have learned to react to them. (And also? Just smart not to go about advertising the fact you��re harder to kill than most, that if they don’t know you have a Ghost you won’t stay down once someone tries to put you in the ground.)

There’s an attack, Fallen or human bandits or some Warlord’s goon squad trying to terrorize the settlement into rolling over for them. Pay a tax or whatever they’d call it back then to “protect” them from the roving bands of Fallen and other enemies.

Can’t do much without giving themselves away – and why would they? They don’t owe these people anything, and that old woman scooping her wares off the ground where her booth’s been knocked down tried to shortchange Geoff less than an hour ago.

The asshole with the weapons parts Jack needed is – okay, he’s kind of dead now, but he lied to Jack’s face about not having them in stock. Said he’d have to ask around, and wouldn’t you know it that would cost more. (Jack can see the parts he was after spilling from a box hidden at the back of the guy’s booth and into the grass, blood all over them and what a mess.)

Still.

Jack quietly takes the parts he needs and leaves the money he would have paid fairly for them and a little more with the boy crouched beside the booth. (His mother’s a settlement over, said she’d be a bit before joining his father with the parts she was bartering for there.)

Sighs as he looks down the road the goons left on and starts after them. Geoff’s munching on an apple he got of a nearby tree and watches him go, all thoughtful about it because there are people mourning here and they don’t owe them a damn thing, and what does that idiot think he’s going to do about it?

So of course he follows, just to see.

The end up killing everyone at the Warlord’s little castle, wherever he’s holed up because none of them will listen to reason and the man’s a blowhard. Full of himself because he’s clearly been chosen for a reason, and what else could it be than to rule over the weaker, lesser people in this section of the world?

And Geoff, God, Geoff.

Died several times getting to this asshole, right? Snipers and assholes with knives and other melee weapons and he was in dire need up upgrading his armor before he waded into this fight, but he’s got his trusty Ghost buddy and this stubbornness that just won’t quit. Smiles because this pathetic weasel playing king and is just like, “Oh, buddy, have I got news for you.” and behind him Jack pops his super, Radiance lighting up the Warlord’s pitiful little throne room.

Geoff lets that sink in for a moment before he fricking nova bombs the Warlord in the face.

It kind of hurts a little, when they see the asshole’s Ghost hiding in a corner of the room waiting for the right moment to resurrect the bastard, because their own Ghosts and the bonds they’ve built with them, you know?

But the little Ghost floats out to the center of the room, looks down at the body of its chosen and sighs because it knew a long time ago it chose poorly. (Maybe the Warlord could have done great things with this second chance, but he chose to do terrible things instead.)

They could kill the Ghost, make sure the Warlord didn’t come back, but -

There’s no point to it now. The Ghost is surprised at their decision, maybe disappointed. (Easier for things to end and not have to consider everything that went wrong because of its choice of course. Having to go on however long with that hanging over it? Nothing like mercy, is it?)

So.

They leave the Ghost behind, and all the dead in the halls and rooms where they fell. Find the path that leads away from the settlement and that small little Warlord and keep walking. (Swear they see a light in the woods along the castle grounds following them for a distance, but they leave it be and eventually it vanishes, wandering as aimlessly as them.)

And then!

They kind of fall in together after that, aren't really friends but there aren’t that many directions to go in, you know? And sometimes the Fallen patrols and whatnot are tricky for one Risen to deal with alone and it’s just.

Convenient.

They’re not bad guys, really, certainly no villains, but wouldn’t you know it? There are a lot of people out there who claim they are?

All these warlords with their bounties and other thieves and grifters with grudges to bear against them. Settlements who aren’t sure what to make of them and are wary of strangers because it pays to be paranoid.

And sometimes they kind of do bad things, pilfer some goods off a settlement where the leader’s an asshole and it’s doing well enough for they won’t miss just a little and so on and so forth. (Ignore the fact they maybe stop ‘round a poorer settlement or homestead kind of place to barter their stolen goods for a place with a roof over their heads for the night and so on. Because unimportant and definitely not a Good Deed or anything.)

Eventually they happen on this little asshole of a Hunter, a kid, really. (Well, no. Just. Young.)

Skittish, almost, the way he acts around them and after they win his trust by sheer dint of doing nothing he joins them beside the campfire they’ve set up.

Well, not nothing. Just. Something?

They set up camp in a clearing of the forest they’ve found themselves in this time. Tired after crossing a snowy mountain rage and it’s warm enough where they are they won’t freeze to death at night. (Once was enough, thanks.)

Hunt and fish and forage for food and leave the Hunter they spot lurking about alone when they realize he’s no threat to them.

Eventually Gavin gets curious enough, or maybe something else because he comes to their campfire with tidbits of food of his own. Treats and delicacies he’s made himself or bought or traded for somewhere else to supplement whatever Geoff and Jack caught/foraged for themselves.

They share stories, mostly Geoff and Jack about their adventures up to then. Little ones, because they’d hate to spook Gavin, scare him back into the forest and probably gone off somewhere they don’t stand a chance of finding him again.

After a while Gavin offers up some of his? Mostly advice for the area around them, dangers to look out for like Fallen patrols and the like.

Geoff asks after this human bandit encampment he heard about from a settlement nearby and Gavin goes quiet. Shifts uncomfortably before he tells them it won’t be a problem anymore and leaves it at that.

They don’t ask because they have stories of their own that end like that and it would just be rude after the goodies Gavin shared with them, so they don’t press.

The three of them wander around the forest for a few days, a week. Headed the same direction to another settlement nearby and it’s pretty nice having someone else around for a change, you know?

But once they reach the settlement Gavin vanishes on them and knowing how skittish he is, they don’t go looking for him.

A few years – twenty, thirty, maybe more – go by before they run into Gavin again.

They’ve left Earth a few times since then, gone wandering in these Jumpships that fell apart on them before too long and they ended back up on Earth.

By that time there’s a new group of Risen calling themselves the Iron something or others, and they’re out there giving the Warlords a time of it to hear the stories.

(A few from this shady guy who owns a bar in this little settlement that grew up to be a tiny town. Tells them about this lady named Efrideet responsible for the hole in the ceiling of his fine establishment, but he doesn’t seem too annoyed about it, so it’s probably fine.)

Run across this kid in a town somewhere, angry as hell and taking on some Warlord’s stooges with just his fists. Seems weapons would just slow him down because he’s doing just fine resolving whatever argument or debate he’s engaged in by punching the shit out of his opponents.

When it’s over they buy him a drink because it saves them the trouble of handling things themselves – picked up a bounty not too far away the kid took care of for them – and they offer to split the reward money since he did all the work.

And Michael, okay.

Squints at them because he sure as hell doesn’t know them, but who is he to turn down a free drink?

He agrees to taking a quarter of the reward because it seems they won’t accept anything less, but whatever. He would have have kicked the shit out of those assholes anyway for trying to bully the people here and this way he’ll have a little extra money in his pockets. (Whatevers.)

They part ways there, but he tells them if they need a hand they’re welcome to in touch with them.

Geoff and Jack wander a little more. Hear about these Iron Lords or whatever they’re calling themselves these days and are understandably concerned because the warlords business and who says these idiots are going to be any better?

(Say they’re out to protect people and all that, but entire settlements, towns, have gotten caught in the crossfire between them and the warlords and the only ones to walk out of it are these Iron Lords. So. Yeah. They’ve got some trouble thinking anyone’s a good guy in that scenario.)

More time goes by and they’re at some little outpost somewhere when Gavin pops up out of nowhere.

Strained look on his face and eyeing Michael who’s with them warily.

Says, “I could use your help,” which is a first because whenever they run into him he’s the one helping them out.

Hell of a sniper and no one better they’ve met when stealth is needed and anyway, anyway, they say yes because of course they do.

Like this little idiot who creeps around the wilds like it’s second nature, goes delving into Darkness Zones looking for God knows what. All kinds of trouble he gets up to and no one watching his back and just.

They worry, okay? They do.

More so with the way he’s all wound up about something. Won’t even tell them what it is until they’re out of the outpost and miles into the woods. Ghosts telling them no one’s around to listen in and even then he’s nervous.

Michael, who’s been quiet through all this loses his temper, snaps at Gavin to get on with with it already, fuck’s sake.

Jack goes to rein him in because Gavin and skittish and just, not what they need right now?

Only as it turns out, it kind of is because Gavin just.

Spills this story about coming across a crashed Fallen ketch in the mountains nearby. Too deep into Fallen territory – and treacherous terrain besides – for anyone to have reason to go up there.

But because Gavin’s an idiot and his Ghost is just as much of one, they went up there anyway.

Snuck past Fallen patrols and the whatnot to get into the ketch and found a Ghost in an odd little device that kept it from transmatting somewhere safe. Little thing begging them to find its chosen because the Fallen had caught them by surprise.

Overwhelmed them in an ambush and caught the Ghost in the cage it’s stuck in, kept its chosen because they thought he had answers they wanted.

Gavin glosses over the interrogations the Ghost told them about, how they’d torture its chosen to the point of death and have it resurrect him to do it all over again and the worst part is its chosen honestly didn’t have the answers to the questions they kept asking him? Resurrected a year ago a most when they were captured and wandering through the area by chance and just bad luck all around.

Anyway, anyway, he knows they don’t know this poor bastard, but Gavin can’t just leave him there, okay? He can’t get the guy out himself, but if they don’t want to help that’s fine, he understands, he’ll find a way -

Geoff and Jack are just like, no, you little idiot no, we’ll help. Just. Don’t do anything stupid okay?

Gavin is like “...okay?” because he didn’t know if they’d say yes – none of their business and sure, they’ve been pretty vocal about not getting involved things that don’t involve them, but that’s all just talk.

(They’ve been getting into trouble that didn’t concern them for a long damn time before now, and hey, Gavin’s kind of their business because they like him okay?)

Michael doesn’t know what Gavin’s deal is, but he’s always up for a fight and nothing better to do and when Geoff and Jack ask if he wants to go along he’s just like, sure, why not?

Gavin isn’t sure about him because Michael is a stranger to him? But he doesn’t seem too bad and Geoff and Jack like him and anyway, the more the merrier?

Thy follow Gavin up to the Fallen ketch, take out Fallen patrols and whatever else in their way headed there. Gavin has to sneak in ahead of them because there are traps and security measures the others would trample their way into and just.

“Be back in a moment,” and goes invisible because he’s got all them Hunter abilities and the whatnot.

There’s this uncomfortably long bit of time where the others are in hiding to avoid being detected and wondering if Gavin got caught by the Fallen. This whole argument about having to break in and save him too, which is when Gavin reappears, all “Took longer than I expected, but it’s all clear now,” and scares the bejesus out of them because Hunter and stealth and where the hell did he come from?

Gavin shrugging and totally not laughing at them as he takes the lead.

They get pretty far in before they’re noticed, and then it’s all fighting and shooting and maybe dying once or twice to be resurrected by their Ghost or picked up by a teammate.

Gavin makes for the trapped Ghost first, figures they might need it by the time they reach this captured Risen which, yikes? (But also smart, and also it’s easier to get and on the way and just. It works out.)

The Ghost they rescue sticks close to Gavin and his Ghost, nervous little thing after all it’s gone through and then there’s more fighting and the whatnot to get to this idiot who got himself caught.

Dicey moments and definitely some dying on their parts because there’s a Fallen tank in the ketch - naturally - and all these Vandals with their fricking wire rifles they don’t see until it’s too late, and anyway.

It’s a hell of a fight to get the guy.

Have to deal with a Kell, because of course they do, but four Lightbearers deal with him better than one or two would have and then they get to rescue the poor bastard.

His Ghost tutting and fussing and Ryan – because of course it’s Ryan – is just like, I’m alright, stop worrying and also?

Suspicious of his rescuers because he’s never seen them and four Lightbearers? Makes him Concerned, okay.

Things aren’t as bad as they were before the Iron Lords or whoever showed up, but it’s still.

He’s not very trusting, is the thing.

Grateful for the rescue and all, but not super friendly. (Which, understandable considering his recent experience.)

The group sticks together for a few days after they get out of the mountains and back down to a nearby settlement. Aren’t surprised when Ryan goes his own way – tells them he owes them one and goes off with his Ghost for more adventures or what have you.

No one is surprised when Gavin follows him all stealthy-like.

Well. Not as stealthy as he could be, because he doesn’t want to make Ryan jumpy about feeling like he’s being watched? But Gavin kind of bonded with Ryan’s Ghost a bit when he first ventured into the Ketch. Couldn’t sneak out right away and ended up living inside it avoiding Fallen for a few days. Crept down to see Ryan, talk to him when he could to tell him he’d find a way to get him out of there, you know?

(Hiding out in some little corner somewhere in the Ketch – too risky to sleep or too paranoid and there’s one or two Fallen watching Ryan he can sneak around to see him. Think about how it’d feel if he was the one in Ryan’s position and how easily that could happen to a lone Lightbearer and how awful it is that Ryan’s been there all that time and no one knew and just. He’s attached now, alright?)

Ryan too out of it most of the time to know about it, but his Ghost tells him about the idiot who went snooping where he really shouldn’t have been. Lurking about the Ketch even after he could have gotten out to make sure he had the layout and patrols memorized before going for help and just.

Everything.

So he’s not worried when the same idiot follows him when he goes on his own way, getting more bold or just bored/curious when he stops pretending he’s not following Ryan and walks into the little camp he makes somewhere.

The two of them traveling around together for a while, a few years, maybe more before they get a call from Geoff and Jack because Michael’s in a situation thanks to this asshole he fell in with somewhere.

Nothing too dire, just need the extra firepower and they help get Michael and his buddy Jeremy out of a Cabal base somewhere.

And then they go somewhere to celebrate and just. Stick together for a while?

Nothing more pressing to deal with – the Iron Lords have things pretty well in hand and all, warlords mostly gone and a semblance of order to things.

But there are still baddies out there, places the Iron Lords don’t have resources to protect just yet and they make a living out there.

Bloody, ugly living sometimes because baddies who were born that way and no one else to handle things and they’re not the bad guys here, but they’re not good either.

The SIVA clusterfuck happens and there’s this...chaos, panic for while. Things get hectic, threaten to go back to the way they were before the Iron Lords and it’s awful right?

This little group of Lightbearers out there doing what they can to keep things from getting too bad even if it means liberating goods and supplies from people hoarding them, refusing to share with those in need. Stopping the more aggressive assholes from trying for power grabs and the lot.

Maybe a few of them think twice about forming the kind of bonds they have when they see what happened to the Iron Lords because they’re not invincible even with their little Ghost buddies, you know?

But they keep on keepin’ on and watch as more and more Lightbearers show up, the City grows and Titans built its walls and the Vanguard come into being. Lightbearers start calling themselves Guardians, of all things.

And that gets derisive snort from Geoff because pretentious much? But the Guardians grow in number, fight against the Fallen and whoever – whatever – else threatens humanity. (Their City.)

Put out patrol beacons and organize strikes and all that nonsense and all these freshly resurrected Guardians going out and doing good things with their second chance. (Some driven by the desire to help mankind and all that, others by the promise of loot and prestige, and those with nothing better to do and a Ghost nudging them in the direction of being helpful.)

Still they hold out for a while, not wholly trusting in the staying power of the Vanguard and what they’re doing in that City of theirs or their Tower after seeing what happened before them.

Eventually though, they get curious.

Or maybe the Vanguard’s heard about them and they got curious.

Whichever one it is, they end up running a few strike together. Do some patrols on the side because guaranteed glimmer for some menial task they would have done for free. (Would have gotten parts and supplies anyway, handful of glimmer, but now? Better pay and earning trust in the bargain.)

Stop having to scavenge for the stuff they need and – this is bonus in Gavin’s mind at least because he’s never forgotten what happened to Ryan – someone besides one of them who’ll notice if they’re in trouble or go missing.

Who will send others to look for them (how many times have they done the same for the Vanguard already? Asked to find some wayward Guardian who bit off more than they could chew) and mourn them if they can’t be saved.

To be honest, Geoff and Jack are all about that side of things with the idiots they’ve joined up with, you know? Michael and Jeremy are one thing, get into trouble for the hell of it sometimes, but Ryan and Gavin?

Those two get up to trouble because they’re too damn stupid. Go off on their own into Dead Zones and everything else all the damn time, wander the wilds for weeks on end where communications are spotty and they won’t know they’re in trouble until long after the fact.

Ray’s even worse, but he’s one of the most capable Lightbearers any of them have met so it’s. Bad, but the whole trust thing?

(And anyway, there won’t be a time they aren’t worrying about any of their idiots, so. Yes.)

Maybe this Guardian business isn’t such a bad thing after all.

Still takes a while before they decide to throw their lot in with them, move to the Tower, but eventually they do.

Have this hidden base of sorts in the wilds all nice and locked down in case something goes wrong – Cabal attacking the city and cutting off their link to their Light, for example – and other hidey spots and boltholes all over the system because.

Paranoia for good reasons and being prepared, and anyway, anyway.

They have this little section of the Tower for their group, little clan, if you will. Pick up new Guardians every so often. Freshly resurrected or ones they hit it off with when the Vanguard sends them on strikes and the whatnot.

Lindsay and Trevor and this whole slew of new idiots Geoff and Jack watch over in their own way.

Gavin is thrilled at not being the only Hunter in the bunch when they find Alfredo. (Or maybe he finds them???)

Anyway, there’s this feeling of safety, security they have now they didn’t before being part of something bigger than themselves. (Not perfect, because the Vanguard can be horrifically shortsighted at times, but they’re doing their best.)

Also?

Loot.

Lots of loot and glimmer and that’s the important thing.

Really.

[langwrites]

Lang Plays Fire Emblem: Three Houses

I’m playing them in this order: Blue Lions, Black Eagles, Church of Seiros, and then Golden Deer. (I organized them by how likely it is to have a true final boss who is actually as relevant to the lore as the opening cutscene. And also because I thoroughly spoiled myself about that.)

So, after sinking what the game tells me was eighty hours into a single playthrough, here’s my thoughts on the first thing I tackled.

Spoilers below the cut.

Very Early Game (Blue Lions):

It’s the Fire Emblem Dad! (I played Path of Radiance. I’ve seen this dude before.)

Hi Claude. Sorry, I’m gonna steal every single one of your peers I can catch. Same to you, Edelgard.

Dimitri is so awkward it’s almost palpable.

Aww, Ashe and Annette are adorable. Mercedes has that dead anime mom hairstyle that sets my teeth on edge, but she’s super nice. It’ll take me longer to warm up to the boys, I think.

Felix is the token “I MUST BECOME STRONGER” myrmidon character. Gotta have at least one per game, apparently.

Sylvain = Sain. Token womanizer cavalier. His support list is pretty odd, though.

Dedue = the guy who done punch things. And he *has* to punch things, because he’s slow as hell and his speed growth isn’t great.

What the fuck is that strength growth, Dimitri. What the fuck is that Charm growth.

I was so close to making him my team’s designated Dancer unit, you guys.

Beleth is gonna be their teacher and somehow I don’t imagine this going super well.

Pre-Timeskip School Life:

Once again, I regret not being able to support with characters who’ve firmly attached themselves to the other two houses. (Which is only like three people in my “gotta catch ‘em all” playthrough, but whatever.)

But I can support all the recruitables, which is...something that took me a long while to do.

The first person I stole for the Blue Lions was Caspar. The first person who straight-up joined was Flayn. Yay, auxiliary punchers and auxiliary-auxiliary healers!

Ashe, your adoptive father really didn’t need to die. You were right. It was all bad all the way down.

Flayn gets kidnapped and I fuck around for a month raising everyone else’s supports and realizing Seteth’s too distraught to train my Lance level. Dangit.

I missed the opportunity to support with Leonie entirely because her personality put me off for the first few in-game months, and it turns out you can only start her support chain while Jeralt is alive.

Dammit. Now I’ve gotta train with lances.

What’s-his-fuck over at the village sure did do a thing, didn’t he. And if he hadn’t dropped his disguise just then he could have gotten away with it.

Their scheme would’ve failed faster if anybody around this fucking monastery could apply logic to shapeshifter shenanigans.

Seriously, no one should have trusted Monica.

You vanish over the course of a year, and come back with your personality totally inverted.

Tomas/Solon had just demonstrated what it looks like when these dickbags drop cover, and then everyone subsequently failed to make the correct deduction. If they hadn’t, Jeralt would’ve lived.

Dad-stabbing: A theme of Fire Emblem games. Seriously. Check out the huge list of dead dads (which goes all the way back to the first game in the series.)

Also dead moms, but for some reason moms are less prominent in the series as a whole.

For the purposes of this analysis, we are also including every single boss who had kids. Which isn’t most of them, but god damn there are still a lot of dead dads.

Dorotheaaaaaa be my frieeeeeeend

Yoinked Linhardt after finally showering him in enough gifts to get his sleepy ass to sign transfer papers.

Swiped Marianne, Bernadetta, Petra, Ignatz, Alois (kinda), Shamir (sorta), Manuela (iffy), Hanneman (yoink), Catherine (see previous), Hilda (how), Lorenz (woop woop), and Leonie (sigh).

The Death Knight remains, for the moment, unpillaged for his Dark Seal drops. This time it was an accident: I killed everyone else in the room except for him and a priest/mage, but then that last dude squared up with Felix and died.

All the points I poured into their associated skills and their supports, however, left one big gap:

DAMMIT FERDINAND, I’M TRYING TO SAVE YOUR LIFE. WHY DO YOU CARE SO MUCH ABOUT HEAVY ARMOR. RAPHAEL JOINED UP DESPITE THAT.

(I got a B-rank support with him and he popped into my office to say he was transferring, nbd. Ferdinand’s B-rank is locked until after the timeskip.)

tl;dr: The only recruitable character I missed was Ferdinand.

Seteth and Gilbert don’t do shit until post-timeskip and Rhea isn’t playable, so w/e.

As soon as I say that, Seteth and Flayn have a paralogue. It’s a beach level. I hate beach levels and desert levels. Seteth gets to be MVP because he’s the only jerk who can fly.

They have a little speech after the paralogue level that reveals that they’re actually father and daughter, not siblings. And the whole story of this little subplot basically confirms that they’re dragons.

Neither of them transform over the course of the game, and that’s okay.

Ruh-roh, Raggy. Let’s see who’s really under the Flame Emperor’s mask--

“AND I WOULD HAVE GOTTEN AWAY WITH IT TOO, IF NOT FOR--oh wait teleportation exists. BYE!”

Dimitri proceeds to thoroughly lose any chill he ever pretended to have, and I’m 99% sure the villain in question isn’t actually old enough to have caused the Tragedy of Duscur. Unless the biographies in the notes were lying.

Now, the backup dancers over there sure as shit are, but logical reasoning has its time and place.

Whatever. Time for stabbing.

WE ALREADY KNOW THESE PEOPLE ARE CAPABLE OF MAKING THEMSELVES LOOK LIKE ANYONE, MASKS TOTALLY UNNECESSARY. THE VICTIM ONLY HAS TO DISAPPEAR FOR A WHILE.

WHY AREN’T WE CHECKING THAT AS A BASIC PRECAUTION.

THERE HAVE BEEN THREE OF THESE CREEPS ALREADY.

Their name is too long and I should call them Morlocks.

But seriously, check for infiltrators.

What passes for strategy around here: Take Paladin Dimitri, plunk his overleveled ass down on a corner where all the enemies’ targeting reticles converge, and wait five minutes for all the counterkill animations to play out.

If I wanna try the same with Sylvain, he needs to be backed up by at least Annette and probably Felix. Maybe even Mercedes if she’s not already busy slinging Physics around.

Dimitri’s fine with just sitting around with a forged Steel Lance and poking holes in everything.

Beleth can do the same, but is much more reliant on dodging and not just facetanking axes.

The little “no damage!” sound effect is still very satisfying. Yes, game, my Defense/Resistance has escaped the bounds of your damage curve.

Dorothea became my Dancer unit, because despite Dimitri having twenty-eight Charm to her nineteen, he begged me not to and also is better sitting on a corner and killing everything.

Huh, the monastery is sure being invad--you know, Edelgard, if it wasn’t already really obvious that your faction is basically the “villain route” in Samurai Warriors parlance, using giant mop-headed demonic beasts as shock troops would probably give it away to observers. If they weren’t already running away in abject terror.

The principle from How to Train Your Dragon still applies: A downed dragon is a dead dragon. If Rhea didn’t want to basically get mobbed, she should’ve stayed in the air and acted as flying artillery for the Knights of Seiros with her mouth laser. She could’ve sat on top of a wall and fired with relative impunity.

Sure, some demonic beasts can fly, but there weren’t any in that cutscene and the flying ones have, mechanically, one less health meter than the landbound ones.

Also, they’re pushovers.

And there’s the washed-out creep brigade! They look like the Grimleal, but with more feathers and less of a tan.

...And there goes Beleth, off to have a five-year nap.

Welp.

Post Timeskip:

Oh good, it’s been five years. Beleth, I hate to break it to you, but you’re probably at least slightly dragon at this point. Check your ears if you have a chance.

Tiki canonically napped for like 99% of her three thousand years in Awakening, ironically enough, so it’s not like dragon-people are exactly early risers.

Poor rando gets asked “what year is it” like that question is ever used outside of fiction. Beleth doesn’t read time travel books, I take it.

“oh you probably shouldn’t go to the monastery, it’s like super haunted and shit”

“sorry what was that i couldn’t hear you over the sound of me climbing up to the monastery”

Eyyyy, it’s a lance-wielding pirate.

...Hi, Dimitri. Where’d your macaroni hair go.

You know, it’s not surprising that Dimitri would think Beleth was a hallucination. He spent a lot of time yelling at his inner demons even pre-timeskip, after taking a couple of severe psychological shocks.

But he absolutely should have walked into her and been surprised when he knocked them both on their asses.

He’s been spending the last five years stabbing people, hasn’t he.

Yep.

He looks like he fell out of Game of Thrones.

Blue Lions! Rah rah something team chant. Rah rah Rasputin, lover of the Russian queen~

None of you people trained any of your skills. In five years. Dimitri you were a paladin. Did you eat your horse.

You are all getting sent to boot camp.

Hi, Gilbert. Why are you playable now all of a sudden. Why is your speed a fucking two.

THIS IS WHY MIKLAN HANDED YOU YOUR ASS.

Once again, the “plunk Dimitri’s overleveled ass down on a corner and watch people die” plan is still a valid strategy. I still don’t know where he gets all this strength (and charm). Like, goddamn.

Annette got cornered for like five turns because I was too cowardly to put her in range of a Brawler.

Then she killed him with a critical Fire.

So, I guess Felix’s remarks about Dimitri’s issues make some sense now, but he should still stop making them. I know he’s a tsundere par excellence, but still.

STop TalKing AboUT KilLing PeoPle

Warning: Sympathetic Boss Approaching.

Look, most “sympathetic” bosses in Fire Emblem kinda fall flat. The better ones are placed in the way of the player characters while they’re in the middle of a low point in the emotional arc and get utterly wrecked in a flurry of misdirected fury. Sometimes the characters even feel bad about it afterward. The worst ones are the ones who are just utterly devoted to someone who’s earned everyone’s ire by being a utter fucking asshole.

Good: Mustafa from Awakening and Shiharam from Path of Radiance. Good people forced into bad situations. Or just cornered. Henry talked up the former long after he got a Chrom to the face, and the latter was probably the best-written of the “aw, I wish I didn’t have to kill him” bosses I’ve run across.

Bad: Levail from Radiant Dawn. There is no getting around the fact that General Zelgius was a bad dude. Levail holding him up as a paragon of knightliness and swearing to serve him out of sheer admiration did not make him even marginally better.

We sure did kill Caspar’s uncle, didn’t we. I’m sure that won’t come back to bite us square in the ass. Not after he had that “this guy is a person who cares about stuff” cutscene to remind us of his pixel humanity.

I’m sure it’s fine.

Bwoop, bwoop, everyone say hello to Ferdinand and Lorenz! And say goodbye to Ferdinand, because he didn’t allow himself to be recruited pre-timeskip, isn’t recruitable post-timeskip, and then I had Felix kill him with Thoron.

Lorenz can rejoin us, though. He doesn’t count as an enemy commander once he’s been smacked down to 0 hp.

HI, DEDUE. WHY ARE YOU ONLY LEVEL TWENTY. GET IN THE BACKLINES AND DON’T TALK TO ME UNTIL YOU CAN ACTUALLY DAMAGE ANYTHING.

(Seriously, tho, I was waiting for Dedue to come back for two reasons. One: I did that paralogue of his way back in Part One and he did not get to die after all that. Two: Part of Dimitri’s epic slide into “spear-wielding mountain man who runs around killing people with his bare hands” had to do with Dedue “dying” during the timeskip. That jackass cracked a smile for the first time in ingame years thanks to the world’s punchiest bodyguard coming back alive.)

(Fortress Knight is still the worst class.)

I totally didn’t pay any attention to what, if anything, actually separated Master classes from Advanced classes other than my inability to get my hands on Master Seals. So Ashe is a Bow Knight now, while Felix made it to Mortal Savant (wtf is that name and why is the class model basically a samurai) and I spent a very long time level-grinding Sylvain’s Reason skill to make him a Dark Knight. I aimed for Gremory with all my spellcaster girls, but I admit to not really paying attention to specifics.

(I ended up with five Gremories: Annette, Flayn, Mercedes, Lysithea, and Dorothea. Bernadetta became a Bow Knight and Marianne promoted eventually to a Holy Knight. Dorothea also ended up taking Mortal Savant, which she didn’t ever use.)

(Seteth became a Wyvern Lord and Dedue eventually made it to Warrior.)

(Byleth qualified for Mortal Savant and used it precisely no times.)

(It became pretty clear that I just threw Master Seals at people whenever the possibility of promoting them came up.)

(Certification is a weird system.)

I stopped paying a ton of attention to supports around the time I realized that Ferdinand wasn’t going to be recruited no matter what I did in the final month before Shit Went Down.

Then I started paying attention again like two chapters from endgame, because I remembered some A-ranked supports meant that the characters could get paired endings.

I also stopped ignoring Cyril and started using him as an adjutant, though his stats never quite caught up to Seteth (also known as the only instructor unit I ever consistently used).

Cornelia is absolutely a Morlock plant. That is a face she just made, even in flashback.

I wish we could've seen Dimitri’s now-dead uncle, if only because I’m curious. Also, what did Edelgard’s mom/Dimitri’s stepmom look like?

Why is there always a fire level. I saw it earlier thanks to doing Ingrid and Dorothea’s paralogue, but it’s a Fire Emblem stock level type and I hate it.

Okay, yeah, this area totally got nuked. Magitech nukes, but still. It’s still on fire centuries later? Why??

Felix’s dad is a Holy Knight. Why do I have to keep his ass alive on a field when half the enemies are barely Advanced classes, never mind Master classes.

Oh right, because I want the exp for myself.

Rodrigue is possibly the single person here who can make Dimitri’s murder-bender change direction even slightly. He also gets along with his actual son so much worse than that. He’s like Annette’s dad, but with actual verbal confrontations.

There’s Caspar’s not-exactly-forgotten aunt, here to “secretly” avenge her dead brother. Dude, could you say something about that?

Three levels later: I thought we were done with the dad-stabbing. 

Felix has officially lost Too Many People in pursuit of keeping Dimitri alive. As has everyone else, frankly.

In other routes, Dimitri absolutely runs his campaign off a cliff.

Here, he turns his life around. More or less. Gotta make the choice to get better.

Time to take back the Kingdom’s capital, like we’ve not been doing for four chapters now. Finally.

Cornelia is absolutely a Morlock plant. This is like the fourth character who supposedly did a complete characterization 180 after a period of being actually useful to other people. Goodbye, civil engineer we never knew.

I think the only infiltrator who did things properly was Solon, but he still dropped his disguise for no good reason early in the game. That operatic level of drama is not a trait that helps him survive a month later. Just goes to show that the Morlocks don’t have more than one type of good judgment at a time, I guess.

I know I’m supposed to avoid the giant doom robots, but...

No, it turns out I can just have Dimitri and Beleth stand in the middle of the killzone and destroy them for fun and profit.

Ding dong the witch is dead.

Welp, time to go save the Alliance, which is getting schooled by the Empire.

HI CLAUDE.

I MISSED YOU AND YOUR FAITH IN HUMANITY. And specifically in Dimitri, for some reason? I think he kinda stabbed your soldiers a lot the last time you two met, but feel free to keep being the Best Character.

Your bodyguards are top-notch, man. One of them got hit with anything over the course of the entire battle.

Your general Judith, however, necessitates Flayn using ALL of her Rescue spells just to keep her alive.

I still had to send Ashe to keep a Falcon Knight off you, but no big.

And also had to send Hilda and Petra to kill the Asshole Reinforcements to nick their stuff.

Dimitri sat there and dodge-tanked all of Arundel’s attempts to kill him until the team killed everybody else. Then Dimitri poked him and he died. Dimitri OHKOs everything except monsters now, and that’s only because they have multiple health meters.

And then Claude fucks off to become king somewhere else. Okay then. It was a nice speech, though.

Killing the Death Knight for fun and profit and now Mercedes is crying. Shit.

Doesn’t this place get vaporized in every other route?

Did killing so many Morlocks by accident lock us out of seeing an intercontinental ballistic missile?

(And it is by accident, because this route is like the only one where the Morlocks are incidentals instead of the main problem, partly due to Dimitri’s tunnel vision and partly just because they don’t drop their disguises upon death.)

Well, I guess it’s time to confront Edelgard.

It’s completely valid of her to look at the guy who was threatening to rip her head off with his bare hands and hang it from the gates of the Empire’s capital a little while ago, and then go “Yeah, diplomacy’s shot.” That Dimitri stopped being quite so all-consumingly homicidal a bit ago is not actually reason to try throwing herself on anyone’s mercy. I feel kinda bad for her, since she’s been pushed into this corner and her ace-in-the-hole allies are basically decapitated, and I stole all her potential friends back during the school phase of the game.

Also, sunk cost fallacy.

Still walloped the entire roster of the second-to-last level, down to killing Hubert with Lysithea. Hilda and Cyril killed all the bird demons.

On the final level, which starts immediately after the previous one, three characters got totally destroyed by the sheer number of mages floating around: Dimitri (whose Avoid finally failed him four times in a row), Hilda (same), and Dedue (thirded). Seteth miraculously survived taking 68 points of damage from a single attack, and then later went on to take Edelgard’s last health bar off with a crit.

Weirdly, Beleth’s Avoid was just fine. Finally let her use the Sublime Sword of the Creator and she killed most of the Gremories that took out Dimitri and Hilda.

And everybody we could save per plot constraints got to live! (Except Ferdinand.)

I’m willing to save him on subsequent routes because killing him made Dorothea sad.

Next time: Lang plays the route that screws over most of these people in service of killing the God-Pope.

[supergenial]

The Byleth Diatribe

clickbait title: if you thought Byleth was creepy, wait until you read this!

Intro

In the past couple months it's really gotten my attention the fact that some people cannot stand looking at images that depict the teacher character from fire emblem three houses (Byleth) with their students in a romantic manner. They arrive at this disgust due to the parallels it traces with real life teachers who take advantage of their students. While I don't share this sensibility, I do think it's an interesting topic to think of so I'd like to explore why these people are correct in their conclusion that Byleth is creepy, but entirely wrong in their logic-path to it.

1) Byleth is just not an actual character

To address the elephant in the room, Byleth is literally a non-character. In a game filled with wonderful dialogue that fully exposes character motivations for a massive cast, it's hard to think of this one silent teacher as a real character that normally exists in that world. Byleth's "character" is purely an afterthought to their role as the Player Avatar. Surely enough in previous installments of the series you had Robin, Corrin and Kris, but their situation was partly different.

Robin and Corrin were proper characters as much as every other character in their game. They held conversations with the other characters, they expressed themselves in regards to the events that happened to them, some would even dare to argue they were better written that some other characters in their respective games if only because their heightened importance to their respective plot lines inevitably helps them have more dialogue, and even a bad writer has to stumble into writing something good eventually which means in some scenes they’re able to overcome the barrier of being bland by design.

Byleth however has none of this. At best they're given 2 or 3 text choices at any given time, and any bipartisan conversation that involves them is more of a soliloquy by the other character, with the player input being largely irrelevant to the flow of the conversation aside from changing the very immediate reaction that follows that same input.

As such, the notion that Byleth is a creepy teacher who's grooming their students to be their personal sex slaves is misconstrued in the fact that Byleth simply has no real motivations, hence no intent. It is equally as valid to assume they could be a straight laced no-nonsense teacher or a deviant who preys on children, because no conjectures can be traced to their personality, as it doesn't exist. We can't deduce what is it that Byleth wants out of life because the avatar has no life and exists purely as a videogame terminal. We don't know what they enjoy outside of the very few things we the players are allowed to do as the character, which is why so much Byleth fanart involves fishing, cooking, or drinking tea, the few hobbies we indulged in while playing as them.

There is however something innately perverse about Byleth, it's just not the fact they're a teacher, but rather the fact they're the player.

2) Player avatars are inherently creepy, and so are dating sims

Fire Emblem is a fantasy game. In Fire Emblem games you will not only find unreal things like dragons and magic, but also straight up impossible things such as kind-hearted rulers that care about protecting and improving the lives of their constituents. The three real main characters in this game all have pure motivations and genuine desire to improve the world (yes... even Edelgard). As such, we can expect the same purity and lack of reality from a hypothetical Byleth that has a personality. It's fair to assume they'd be legitimate teachers with no creepy intentions who, through the vicissitudes of life, end up inadvertently falling in love with their students. In a fantasy land where every "good guy" is pure in nature there is no concern of Byleth grooming Dimitri, or of Edelgard forcing some ill intentioned quid-pro-quo with her right hand strategist whom she is obsessed with, because it's simply fantasy where everyone is nice and pure so things just magically always work out.

There is however an insidious factor lurking over this fantasy land, and that is the player. An omnipotent being who decides who lives, who dies, who gets married to who, and who stays alone because we just don't like them that much. The player can send Ashe to get the last hit on Lonato, just out of morbid curiosity to see what is the special dialogue that they have in that situation. The player can recruit Felix and then have Felix kill Rodrigue in the crimson route, just to see what hilarious quip will the son bark at the father. And of course, the player gets to decide who gets married to the lifeless slab of meat and bones with no emotion that is the Player Avatar. If anything breaks the idea that these characters are well written or realistic, it is the fact that they can all fall in love with someone who cannot communicate with them, all because of the emotions they magically choose to believe the avatar has, or rather, we choose to make them believe it.

In a "set" story like fire emblem echoes or path of radiance, the epilogues have little to no variety because the characters will just be themselves regardless of the player's input. No matter how much you want to see Celica's reaction to Faye getting together with Alm, that is simply not going to happen because their bond is set in stone, it cannot be altered, it is a "set" story. Likewise Nyna in new mystery of the emblem will never, ever fuck Sirius regardless of what she or the player wishes. Three Houses on the other hand is more like a playground than a book, the player will mess with the lives of these characters until they get bored of them, seeing every possible unlikely combination programmed into the game just out of curiosity to see what the characters will say, to squeeze out every last bit of "Content" that the game has until they get bored of it and move on to something else, effectively reducing the characters from "characters" to mere consumables. 

Hence why I can't help but laugh at the notion that Byleth is creepy by nature of being a teacher when they're so much more than a teacher and so much more creepy than a creepy teacher. They're an in-game god (hell, lore-wise they're also a god in every ending except crimson). Byleth can quite literally mind control other characters into loving them as long as they're given enough flowers and tea. Look at Sylvain's C support with Byleth and tell me if it's natural for a guy like him to fall in love like that after saying he wants to murder Byleth (surely enough, it's even creepier for players to fall in love with him because of that support, as Sylvain is an extremely interesting character but only in his other supports).

This is why you see people saying that Felix and Annette are a great couple, or that Marianne and Dimitri are made for each other, but you don’t really see people saying that Byleth’s pairing with x is cute. When two proper characters interact all the way to their A support and fall in love that way, you’ve actually seen their story develop, you can feel happy for them. Pairing Byleth with a proper character fulfills your desire to monopolize that character and get a neat special artwork of them, but has it really been a good story and feel like this is a good conclusion for them? No. (I’d be willing to say Byleth and Dimitri do make a somewhat good couple though, but that point would be much easier to defend if Byleth could actually communicate properly)

It wouldn't matter if Byleth was a 15 year old teacher, or a 17 year old student that's a peer to the classmates, or if all of the classmates were older than Byleth AND teachers instead while Byleth is a student. By the mere nature of the player input and Byleth's lack of character, the pairing is screwed up to begin with. 

What I'm getting at is that pairing Byleth with Catherine or Shamir is equally as fucked up as pairing Byleth with Dimitri (I would argue moreso because come on... Shamir and Catherine are totally girlfriends and you're just squeezing yourself in, have some respect).

In other words Byleth is only creepy because you are creepy. You're playing a game where you can date people who cannot possibly refuse you. Even if you remove that factor, you'd still be playing at making children fuck each other in whatever way you see fit. Something is wrong with you. You're the only impure factor affecting this game.

3) Fire Emblem will always suck

This is my favorite series of games but come on guys, you know fire emblem will always suck if you care about this kinda thing. In fire emblem fates Corrin has a wide variety of about 9 flavors of incest to choose from. In fire emblem awakening Robin can marry an amnesiac woman with head trauma who can't even speak complete sentences and is entirely dependent on him to subsist. The fanbase has grown so twisted they actively wanted Byleth to get married to Alois, a married man with children, and were disappointed when they didn't fuck in that paired ending (though I understand getting upset about the lack of gay supports, but hey that's just yet another way in which fire emblem chooses to suck).

Hell this is the fanbase that considers Berkut and Rinea to be a cute couple, what the actual hell guys. Go ahead and criticize the games but as long as the shipping simulator is included in the series, the games will always be creepy in their very nature, and guess what: the shipping simulator happens to be one of the most popular features and the one that people say it's the best written part of every game, so go figure if they're going to remove that.

ps: if you want a fire emblem with no paired endings, path of radiance has your back, it is my favorite! and if you want to avoid supports altogether, try Radiant Dawn, that's some good stuff.

4) Just for fun: the actual most fucked up ships in the game

-Lysithea with Linhardt, Byleth or Hanneman, or anyone.

When I recruited Lysithea in my first playthrough I didn't know she was a strong unit, instead I simply did it because I saw this sassy lost child wandering the halls and just really didn't want to kill her. I wanted her to live on and see her have a happy epilogue. Imagine my surprise when I reached the epilogues and it turns out she just simply dies shortly after the story if you don't pair her up with anyone. The exact one thing I wanted to avert was having her meet an early death, yet the game simply has her die anyway.

At the end of my deer playthrough I was all set to click on Hilda when I realized, wait a minute, Lysithea is going to die if I do this, right? And that is in fact the case. She can only live by supporting Hanneman, Lindhart or Byleth, and I had not recruited those two. So I click on Lysithea but it's kind of a tainted click isn't it? Not that I dislike her or anything, but once you throw in that additional motivation the scales have been irreversibly tipped in an unpleasant manner. I have effectively been guilted into picking her.

On to a third playthrough. I see Felix has really cute supports with Lysithea, but I can't have them supporting each other because I know she still meets an early death with him. And Lindhart, well his supports aren't bad and he's a great guy but they're certainly not as fun supports as Felix's. Hanneman fortunately doesn't seem interested in that way when you pair him up with Lysithea (not that he has any restraints when it comes to his supports with Dorothea...) so you can still have that as effectively a "solo" end for her in which she lives, but it's still kind of messed up. By giving her the Hanneman ending I'm condemning her to miss out on love for the rest of her life so that she can live on, but isn't love the reason we live on to begin with? Overall, I'd say Lysithea x Lindhart or Byleth is certainly a creepy support in the very nature that you have to do it or else you're a murderer, because you had the power to prevent this death and chose not to.

-Flayn with literally anyone

Imagine if a grown adult man could disguise himself as a high schooler, infiltrated a school and got married to a girl less than half his age. People would hate it, people would riot, Intelligent Systems would be over. But that is Flayn everyone! Fire Emblem is no stranger to the stupid trope of "little girl who's actually hundreds of years old", but I'll argue that Flayn is markedly different from Nowi. Nowi is most definitely a cartoonish fantasy character, who still acts like a little girl despite being hundreds of years old. She's literally bait for pedophile nerds with a flimsy shield in her supposed age, which she and her fans openly flaunt as if it really meant anything when the intent of her character is so transparent.

Flayn on the other hand is a legitimately mature character (as far as maturity goes in this game...) who is pretending to be a high schooler to get hitched with a student, all while hiding her real age entirely on purpose. An actual wolf in sheep's clothing (or dragon in sheep's clothing in this case...). And she can s-support literally every single male student except for Hubert (for story reasons) and Sylvain (for Sylvain reasons). Not only that but she doesn’t support any females other than Manuela, her fellow cougar, and she doesn’t support any of the older men like Hanneman showing she’s only interested in young blood.

But hey everyone! Flayn is just the little meme fish girl trapped in the mcdonalds playplace so we all give her a pass right. Overall though I'd say her creep factor is still significantly lower than Nowi's if only because her design isn't a chore to look at.

-Rhea x Byleth

This is some galaxy brain 5D chess grandmaster type of shit I tell you. Capitalizing on the sickening mommy fetish that's been rising up recently internet the crackhead team of geniuses at intelligent systems decided to pull Joker's Trick on people who are into that kind of thing. First they have her be the oldest non-wrinkled character, then they give her Kikuko Inoue as a seiyuu (famously known for often playing mom roles), then they give players that one scene where Byleth rests on her lap like their kid, and then? Then the game tells you Rhea is the daughter of Byleth. Wait a minute, what the hell? I can't even begin to think this one out because at this point my brain has turned to tofu and I am forever perplexed by this turnaround, hats off to intelligent systems for their ultimate jest.

After fates and this I positively cannot wait to see what new incestcoaster they'll turn my guts inside out with in the next entry of the series, Fire Emblem is truly the finest series of horror games disguised as jrpgs.

Obviously, this post was written in jest. I don’t actually believe you’re an inherently creepy person for playing fire emblem, nor do I think Flayn is a predator deviant (hell I don’t even think Nowi is that bad). I just found it truly interesting how people’s sensitivities can activate in these fictional settings (and do think those sensitivities should be respected) but when I try to activate those neurons my mind ends up in a whole different place. So yeah, just having some fun.

Also check out the rest of this trilogy with Three Houses sucks actually and Three Houses is good actually. I seriously hope I never feel like writing anything about this game ever again.

[kbrown78]

Monthly Wrap Up: March

March, to put it mildly, wasn't a great month for me. I found myself in a personal slump which did have a significant impact on how this month went for me. It also meant that I found myself in a bit of a reading slump, so I wasn't able to read as much and wasn't loving the majority of what I was reading. I read a total of 10 books but 2 of those were novella's (which I though were good) and one was a DNF. I was still able to get through all the reading challenge's I was participating in, but I attribute that to making sure I'm reading a “challenge” book all the time. It wasn't all bad though. There were a few books that I really enjoyed, and I got my second 5 star book in the year, and I think I also had a pretty good variety of books.

The Singing by Alison Croggon: To anyone that isn't familiar with the Books of Pellinor series, this is a 4 book series and I read the first 2 books at the end of last month and read this one, the 4th one, at the beginning of this month. Meaning I skipped the 3rd book. Let my start by briefly explaining why I did this. I don't normally skip books in a series, but this is a reread that I wasn't enjoying and the 3rd book, The Crow, I knew was going to be my least favorite book in the series, so I already wasn't motivated to read it. Before calling it quits I wanted to see if there were any new characters or major plot points that I had forgotten that impacted the finale. There were no major new characters introduced and only 3 or 4 relevant plot points. So my desperation to get the series done with quickly mixed with the fact that I saw no real reason to force myself through a filler book, I made the decision to skip The Crow and jump right to The Singing. Onto my actual review of The Singing, my opinion of this book was about the same as the rest of the series. Through the entire series I don't think Maerad changed. She definitely became more powerful, but she still felt pretty flat and boring as a character. Despite Hem having a POV for about half this book, he didn't come across as having any distinct personality. In fact, none of the side character felt developed, except for Sylvia and her husband (whose name I'm forgetting). Granted this entire series is more plot driven than character driven, but that's not really an excuse for a lack character growth or identity, and there was almost never a sense of urgency or action. In each book there was 3,4 maybe 5 major plot points and the rest is basically filler. It's only 7 days after I finished The Singing and already I'm forgetting most of the details. The world itself is pretty generic, but it at least feels like there was effort in the development. The ending is also one of those endings where everything just turns out fine and there aren't any life altering consequences, despite this whole narrative being an epic battle of good versus evil. The only interesting and nuanced part was whenever the Elidhu or Treesong were brought up. What is the nature of good and evil? Are the Elidhu wholly one or the other? Even if they label themselves as good, are they good by human standards? What will happen to both Bards and the Elidhu if the Treesong is sung? I liked these parts, and it made the story feel like more than a basic, boring journey. Unfortunately none of it was fully developed, and to an extent I get why. Bards have distanced themselves from Elidhu and the Elementals, so they are fairly ignorant of everything surrounding them. Overall I just wanted more from this series. When I first read it I was obsessed with stories that involved long journeys (courtesy of my obsession with the Oregon Trail) but now if there's going to be lots of traveling, it has to have multiple instances of character or plot development (I do feel like it's easier to get away with this in TV or movies cause I can think of several examples of long journeys that I actually enjoy). I do recommend this for younger readers, or even people trying to ease themselves in epic fantasy since it's just 4 books that aren't even 500 pages, but as for myself I really was disappointed by this series and think it's just an average 3 star series. The Singing itself received 2.5 out of 5 stars.  

Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente: Catherynne M. Valente is an author that has been on my radar for a little while. She seems to write fanciful, eclectic novels, like Radiance and Space Opera (which I'm still interested in reading), but this was the one I was most intrigued by. It's heavily influenced by Russian folklore and history, which admittedly I knew only a little about before reading this but I don't think that left me at any disadvantage. I was aware going into this that the romance was going to kind of twisted and it's a borderline villain story, but I figured I would be able to overlook. The relationship between Marya and Koschei is very twisted and they seem to want to please the other as much as they want to make them suffer, and I really prefer healthy relationships. The romance was definitely twisted and wasn't my cup of tea, but it wasn't the biggest issue I had with this book. Marya was one of those characters where we're told she's smart and observant, but as some as she's whisked away to Koeschi's region she does a lot of stupid things and is just downright pathetic at times. In fact I hated her time with Koeschi for several reasons, but the can all by summed up by saying it felt like I was reading 2 completely different stories. I really liked the beginning, with glimpse of magical realism and folk lore, but it's still very much set in a recently communist Russia. You do question what's real or not, but the story is never confusing and Marya does seem like a well read, sympathetic character. Then there was the whole courtship between Kosechi and Marya, as he willful makes her sick and says he's going to basically control, but then implies that this is love and Marya believes him. Then this devolved into a book with no plot. There's supposed to be this constant war between Life and Death, and that one could have been interesting, but it ended up being a minor sub plot. Then she somehow ends up back in her old home, and things get even more confusing from there, with the end making me wonder if all those magical things that happened to Maya were real or if they were all in her head. Ultimately I couldn't tell you what this book was about, it's just one of those stories where things happen. This could have been much more tolerable if I liked at least one character, but I didn't like any characters. Majority of the characters were treated as disposable and were given very little identity, while the more main ones I found to be all unlikable. While there was plenty that I disliked about this book, I just couldn't hate it. The writing was very interesting (and I have read a short story by Valente so I know I like her writing style), it was interesting seeing Old World Russia with it's folklore mesh with the blossoming Soviet Russia, and like I stated earlier I genuinely enjoyed the beginning. If you're looking to read more retellings (in this case of Koeschi the Deathless) or books with a Russian setting I could recommend this one, but be warned, it's weird, there's no sense of direction, and the characters are definitely unlikable and it's debatable if they're sympathetic or not. Deathless received 2.5 out 5 stars and was my pick for the PopSugar prompt “a book inspired by myth, legend, folklore.”    

Starless by Jacqueline Carey: This was a book that I delayed in picking up because I was just losing interest in it and was worried to would be a romance disguised as fantasy. I'm pleased to say that this book exceeded my expectations for it. It's a coming of age, epic fantasy story about Khai, a young warrior monk as he trains and eventually takes up his position as the destined protector (called a Shadow in this world) of a princess. This book feels like it's broken into 3 sections that are tied into each other. The first starts with Khai as a young child, training in the desert. I think this part was a very good introduction to the world and some of the characters. There isn't too much going on in terms of plot or conflict, but it's clear that Carey is building up to this. The second part was probably my favorite bit because it contained more of what I like to see in stories as well as tying into the first and third parts of the book. Khai finally meets the princess Zhari, and the two immediately form a close bond. There's some political intrigue, looming threats of an apocalypse, and a shortage of seeds that makes the royals immortal. This shortage results in the fire deity promising more seeds if the princess is married to a foreigner (with a large dowry of said seeds). There's some time spent whittling down which suitor she will marry, and that's where things were really building up. I was eager to read the next chapter and I could see an epic conflict really up and ready to burst. When Zhari finally picks her fiance, Khai and Zhari depart with the lord to his homeland and that's where the final part of the book begins and where things start to go downhill. The plot became entirely driven by prophecy, and I was just losing investment in the story, even though the stakes were really high because now it's very obvious that the world will end if the heroes fail in their quest. I also started having issues with the characters. Through the whole book, there has been a revolving door of characters but they all felt fully fleshed out and there was chance that they could emerge again or become relevant to the rest of the story. The crew that Khai and Zhari become a part of are hastily introduced and never become fully realized characters. This is most evident when some of these characters are killed off and I just didn't care (and there's even one that turned out to be part of the prophecy and I may have rolled my eyes at that). Most of the fantasy stand alones that I read have trouble with pacing, but I don't think that was the case here. While I wasn't as invested in the plot in the final part, I do think it moved forward at a decent pace. The romance was cute, with 2 opposite personality characters and it slowly building up until the end with a love confession and the two adventuring and spending the rest of their lives together, but I didn't love it for similar reasons of why I wasn't invested in the plot in the third part. It was all fated. I think I've just found something else I really don't like in seeing in books. Had the narrative stayed on the path that it was going on in the middle of the book, I would have given this book 5 stars, but I was more than a little disappointed with how the just of the book went, the rating definitely dropped. Starless received 4 out 5 stars from me and was my pick for the PopSugar prompt “a book you meant to read in 2018.”  

In An Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire: Going into this book I was worried that it wouldn't hold up to the rest of the series. I wasn't super intrigued by the premise and the character we are following is in an earlier book and I didn't find her compelling. But it is a Seanan McGuire book and it's in a series I think is really good, so when I saw they had a copy at a bookstore, I purchased it without hesitation. At the beginning I really wasn't feeling the book at all. I didn't think there was anything stand out or unique, the characters and world wasn't interesting, and there wasn't really anything happening in terms of the plot. So there was nothing motivating me to continue, but it's a short book and super easy to get through. I'm glad I did because the ending was what really made this book resonate with me. I'm about to state an unpopular opinion, but Down Among the Sticks and Bones was my least favorite book in the series (and after reading this book I think it still is) because while I did like the two protagonists and the world of the Moors was kind of interesting, I don't think it told a very good story, there was an awkward time gap in the center of the book, and the overall theme of this book was presented in a way that made it come off as a bit preachy. This book was a complete inverse of Down Among the Sticks and Bones. I still don't find Lundy to be that compelling of a character, though she is sympathetic and almost tragic at the end, and there was so little of the Goblin Market that I don't really have an opinion an it, but everything else was done right. The beginning starts out feeling a little disjointed, with a lot being outright explained or not very nuanced, but it pays off in the end when those things the beginning become relevant to Lundy. The whole concept of “fair value” was something that really struck a cord with me because it's very relevant to just to the story but to this world too. I also liked seeing the various relationships, like Lundy and Moon's friendship, Lundy and Diana's sisterhood (which did happen a bit abruptly but still felt genuine), and even Lundy and her fathers (which was, I think, a better done example of showing the consequences of bad parenting), and seeing how the Goblin Market and “fair value” affected each one. So while In An Absent Dream still had it's slumps in the beginning, I would say it's a good story and a great addition to the Wayward Children series. In An Absent Dream received 4 out 5 stars and was my pick for the PopSugar prompt “book published in 2019.”      

The Tiger's Daughter by K. Arsenault Rivera: Similar to In An Absent Dream, I was wary about this book. When I first purchased it I was hearing a lot of good things but just never got around to reading it, and the it just sat on my shelf for over a year, maybe 2. Unlike In An Absent Dream, the problem wasn't my lack of interest in the story, it was that I was worried it was being over hyped. I've been introduced to lots of wonderful new books through the book community, but I've also been severely disappointed by books that are just raved about and sound amazing. That's why I put this one off for so long. At first I was just not in the mood for it, but then I started avoiding it because I was being consistently let down by books that were over hyped. This month I had to start it because it was my book my partner selected for me in the monthly “Pick-It-For-Me” reading challenge (which is part of why I like this challenge, it forces me to read books I wouldn't initially choose for myself). Once I started reading it I was pretty quickly immersed to the story and attached to the characters. This is a book that I honestly loved every aspect of it, and only have a few minor complaints. The entire story was so beautifully written, mostly told in the format of love letters between the 2 protagonists, Shefali and Shizuka. I will say that the chapters are enormous (like 2 chapters together was about 250 pages) and while they are broken up those sections within the chapter are still fairly large. This definitely helps pull you into the story more, but it can be a turn off to some people (and was part of the reason I got into a reading slump). I loved the protagonists, I loved how they were wonderfully complex characters with their own issues to overcome and more than just warrior women archetypes. I loved their relationship, how it felt natural (despite being fated) and watching it evolve from their first meeting as children to their eventual reuniting after Shefali's banishment. Much like Shefali and Shizuka, while their relationship is beautiful and good, it's not without it's problems, and both characters are aware of that and try to work through it. I was surprised by how good the side characters were, even minor ones that only show up a few times. Each one plays a role in Shefali and Shuizka's lives, for better or worse, and while some are awful and some were good, I thought all were fleshed out. The world itself was astounding, influenced I think by Ancient China and the Mongol Empire, and I loved the level of detail that was put into not just the human aspect of the world with the politics and various cultures, but also with the supernatural part of the world, with the black bloods and demons. As for the overall narrative, it was a bit slow, especially if you think this is going to be an epic war between humans and demons, but I don't think the story suffered from, in fact I think it flourished because of it. Instead of focusing on the supernatural conflict, we only get glimpses of it through the few times it directly or indirectly affects the characters lives. Instead the book focuses on building up the characters and world and the conflicts created by people, like corruption in the nobility and racism, and book that builds up both compelling characters, and detailed world, and nuanced themes makes for a book I'm going to love. The Tiger's Daughter received 5 out 5 stars.      

Dune by Frank Herbert: Dune was I pick I read because my Dad kept suggesting that I read it. I didn't have high expectations going into this one, and it both surprised and disappointed me. Most of the plot revolves around two things, control of a spice only native to the planet of Arrakis, aka Dune, and bringing forth this fated chosen one. I didn't like the chosen one trope in this story, at all, because it only served to emphasize just how amazing and unstoppable the protagonist Paul is. I did not like Paul, and I blame that as much on the narrative as the character himself. If you asked me to describe Paul, I honestly couldn't, there was just no defining feature about him other than being “the chosen one.” He has “the Voice” like his mother, which I think is a method of controlling people, but I honestly don't know. He comes from a noble background, everyone admires him, he's always right and always succeeds in everything. Literally everything goes right in his life, except for when he and his mother have to go into hiding and his father is killed, but in the long run it makes his life that much better because he ends up having some control over this spice that everyone wants and also marries the Emperors daughter which puts in line for succession. I didn't like him, or even get attached to him, because I knew from the beginning that everything is going to be fine for him and mostly gets things just handed to him, never failing and never having to make any significant sacrifices. The only interesting that came out of the whole “chosen one” narrative was a background element regarding the school his mother, Lady Jessica, hails from. The Bene Gesserit is an organization consisting of just women, that practice meditation to hone their superhuman abilities, and are key figures in influencing the politics and arranging marriages to continue certain bloodlines. I liked seeing women have that much power in a classic science fiction story, because I was fully expecting the opposite. That actually ties into one of the other things I liked about Dune, which was the whole political intrigue (which is something I personally love seeing in books, at least when it's well done). This book can essentially be described as Game of Thrones in space, with all these different Houses and organizations vying for power, and in this book in particular, control of the spice. There's Houses trying to undermine or alley with each other, there's the inner workings of the Fremen and how the deal with foreigners, and the Bene Gesserit wielding a silent power, and the only thing preventing a rebellion is it not being revealed that the Emperor is more willing to eliminate Houses at will. While I do love seeing political intrigue in books, I just don;t think this one went far enough with it. A Song of Ice and Fire, for all it's faults, establishes in the first book a complicated political network surrounding the Iron Throne and the severe consequences that wrong actions can have. I just didn't get that sense of depth from Dune, which is a shame because there was a lot of potential with that series. Before I break down what I didn't like about this book, I will discuss the one other thing about this book that I liked, and that was the role that the environment had. Dune is a desert planet, so water is very scarce and a huge status symbol. The environment plays a role not just in the societal structure to the people who are native there but also to the rest of the empire, which again tied into the political intrigue aspect. I told my Dad that those bits of the book made it feel like it was set in the real world (especially when taking into consideration America's push for oil in the Middle East), which was something I both liked and disliked (I'll get to why I disliked it in a minute). As much as there were things I liked about Dune, there were also some things I really disliked. I didn't really like any of the characters, except for maybe Jessica. I've already ranted about why I disliked Paul, but my issues with the other characters was that I didn't feel attached to them in any way. They were all pretty flat and empty, acting more like props instead of people, except for the Baron, who I disliked almost as much as Paul. Yes, he's the villain, but he's not a compelling villain. He's a foopish, over the top, disgusting character that I honestly question why he got a POV for 2 reasons. One is again, that he's just a disgusting character and a waste of paper, but the other is that reading from his POV took away all the suspense of the entire first half of the book because he states exactly how he's going to reclaim power and then does exactly that, which leads into one of my other major issues with this book. The writing isn't good. There was no suspense because the author choose to have the characters very blatantly tell you what's going to happen and then has it happen exactly how they said it would. It's why I generally hate prophecy driven narratives. The dialogue was also very awkward and almost uncomfortable to read at times, and the pacing of this book was all over the place, I honestly have no idea how much time passed in this book. The one other thing I want to discuss is why I didn't like the real world feel of this book. It wasn't that the themes and conflicts and characters felt grounded in reality, it's that if the names were different this honestly could have been set in the real world. There was tech present, like spaceships obviously, and the worms were kind of cool feature, but they didn't feel very tied into the story or the world itself. They were just kind of there. I went into this book identifying it as a classic science fiction, and I guess I was hoping to see more advanced tech be more relevant to this world, or spend some time on an actual spaceship, but that wasn't there, so it was a little disappointing. That isn't actually a bad feature of the book, but it's one I just wish had been done differently. The last thing I'm going to talk about is the romance. It's a minor feature of this book, but I would still like to discuss it because there's a good, bad, and terrible example. If any of you are slightly familiar with Dune, you can probably guess that the terrible one is the Baron. Everything surrounding this guy is awful, but did really have to go the extent of him being the only person on the LGBTQ+ spectrum and having him be the villain, but also he's lusting after young boys, namely Paul and his own f**king nephew. I will repeat what I said earlier, the Baron was just a waste of paper. The romance that is actually a romance but I didn't think was done that well was Paul and Chani. They meet when he becomes a part of the Fremen, and while part of my disinterest may be due to my dislike of Paul, I honestly didn't feel any chemistry between the 2 and all of their romance seemed to happen off screen, despite Paul being the most central character. The well done romance is Paul's parents, Lady Jessica and Duke Leto. They aren't officially together, due to them mutually agreeing it would be better for potential allies if they didn't, but they way they act to and regard each other makes it clear they're married in all but name. During the entire book, Duke Leto never takes another wife, and Jessica (even though she also had her own ambitious reasons) gave the Duke a son when it was made clear to her that she needed to have a daughter, because she knows it will make him happy. They seem to regard each other as equals. I didn't love the miscommunication but after the Duke is killed Paul gives Jessica a message from him which basically states his undying love and trust in her, and Jessica seems genuinely mournful of his loss. It isn't a relationship we see much of (none are honestly, except maybe Paul and Jessica's) but the glimpses that are shown, I really liked. Considering this was a book written in the 1960s, I think it still works well (mostly) with a modern audience, which is what makes it a classic. Is it one of my favorite science fiction novels? No. Is it without it's faults? In my opinion, no. Is it still a worthwhile book that I would recommend giving it a try? Absolutely. I know there are several squeals, some written by Herbert some not, but I feel fine leaving Dune as it's own self contained story. Dune received a 3 out of 5 stars from me and was my pick for the PopSugar prompt “book set in space.”

Eragon by Christopher Paolini: Since I've been doing a lot of rereading, and haven't read this series since junior high, I wanted to get to this series sooner rather than later. When I first read this series I absolutely loved it. It wasn't Harry Potter, or the Warriors series, but I found it to be an engrossing series that spawned my love of dragons. After finishing it, and as time passed, I heard more and more critical things about the series and wanted to see where I stood on the whole thing. Now having completed the first book at least I give a brief breakdown on how this review is going to go: it has plenty of flaws in it and I would say it's mediocre at best but damn if I'm not going to defend it. The basic plot is a farm boy finds a dragon egg, the dragon hatches, and the two work together to overthrow an evil emperor.  It's a very generic plot, but I still found it entertaining to read. It does have a fast pacing, but because so much of this book was long journeying I think that worked in the book's favor because it didn't have a ton of filler. Most of the world building is given through long exposition, and while I didn't like that, it was something I just rolled my eyes at and moved on with. I didn't like Eragon as a protagonist, he reeks of wonder boy, chosen one, and he frequently came off as very immature and ignorant. The supporting cast, however makes up for it, especially the females because I think they all stood out as fell fleshed characters. The one specific criticism I want to tackle in this post, and the one I hear the most often, is that this is basically Lord of the Rings fanfiction. Are there similarities, yes, but many, many, many traditional epic fantasy series are inspired by Tolkeins work. Heck, I just finished a series where the first book seemed copy and pasted from the Fellowship of the Ring. The big differences is that the book is set in a world where the bad guy has already won and is maintaining power, and dragons are an important feature. The king has a dragon, and is the only one which makes him very dangerous and the reason Eragon is so important is because he's the only one with a dragon and could potentially challenge the king. The big thing about this book is Paolini was 15 when he wrote this book. 15! I have seen experienced writers produce material that is the same level as what Paolini produced as a kid. It's not an original story and I can see why people reading it for the first time as adults would definitely get frustrated with it but I think it's a good place to start for younger readers looking into epic fantasy (be warned the last 2 books get big). Eragon received 3 out 5 stars.  

All Systems Red by Martha Wells: So over the past year I started hearing more and more people rave about this first book in a series of novella's. I'm trying to read more science fiction, and I heard that this one was also humorous. That being combined with the fact that it's short made it seem like a good pick. This first book introduced us to the self named Murderbot, a rouge security droid who hacked it's own module and spends most of the time consuming entertainment. It's on a mission with an exploratory team when things get increasingly suspicious, and suddenly the neighboring exploratory team goes quiet. It's feels a bit like Long Way to a Small Angry Planet (one of my favorite books), if the story was told from the POV of a very anti social robot. I liked what the story built up to and I did find the character of Murderbot to be amusing and relateable at times, but I didn't love the story. Part of it may be due to the fact that it is both a novella and first book in a series, so the story itself comes off as very rushed and almost incomplete. The major theme of this book is Murderbot discovering what it really wants out of life, and how the humans that it interacts with and the entertainment it consumes affects this. You see it slowly go from this very passive, borderline apathetic character, to someone who actively takes charge of their own life but still retains their core characteristics, that being it's anti social nature and love of entertainment. It's a great idea, one that I think a lot of people can relate with and one that I think has the potential for a good character arc, but doesn't really get emphasized until the end. There's a couple moment's throughout the story that indicate this is what we're building up to, but it's not the what the story focuses on. The big story is why are all these malfunctions occurring and what happened to the other exploratory team. Overall I would say that it was still a decent story, but there were 2 major failures that I think ultimately cost the quality of the overall narrative. The first is that Murderbot is the only POV and she's very lazy and keeps human interaction to an absolute minimal. While this is part of what Murderbot a good character, it means that the readers don't get much of a sense of the world, or the people around them, or even what's going on. You're just left in a haze and being told to keep walking. The second, and bigger failure, comes at the climax. As far as I understand there's a secret third team that is killing off the other 2 exploratory teams, though the reasoning I'm not clear on. When the team we've been following, PreservationAux, and the third team make contact, it's very unclear what happened or even why it happened. The only clear thing was that Murderbot was shot, and PreservationAux worked not only to ensure it's survival but also permanently bought it's contract so that it could stay with them. This leads to the emotional climax, with Murderbot leaving, and was actually a touching moment. I did ultimately like this novella, and would like to read the rest, but going through probably a third of the story with blinders on left me a little frustrated, especially due to the hype. Speaking of which I also didn't think this book was as humorous as a lot of people made it seem, there were funny moments and one of the best intros I've read this year, but after the introduction it kind of went downhill. It's a good novella, I just wish that there had been more to work with. All Systems Red received 4 out 5 stars.      

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick:  After finishing Dune, I moved onto another book my Dad liked (he has every single book written by Philip K. Dick). He did warn me going into this one that the story itself isn't great, but the ideas behind the story are generally compelling. So going into this, I expected to be decent, but not great, and that was basically what this ended up being. It's a short book, that can easily be read in just a few days, and I definitely think this worked in the books favor. The plot is very simple, being set in a bleak future America, after nuclear war has ravaged the landscape, and Rick Deckard has been assigned to “retire,” aka kill, 6 advanced androids. He takes the job because he wants to buy a real animal, the ultimate status symbol in their society. What transpires is him retiring each of the androids but there's a growing moral conflict centered around empathy and what makes something human. The plot does get a bit convoluted at times, but the story is straightforward enough so that you can still get through those parts with relative ease. I was surprised to learn that there's a second POV that focuses on a minor character. While not really relevant to the plot, it does contribute a little to the overall moral conflict. To be honest this is a hard book review without giving spoilers, and also it's one I think I need more time to really analyze all aspects of it. I will say that if you are a fan of science fiction and looking for more recommendations, especially classics, I would give this one a try. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep received 3 out 5 stars and is my pick for the PopSugar prompt “book with a question in the title.”  

When She Woke by Hilary Jordan: This is a book that I was really looking forward to reading. It's supposed to be a retelling of The Scarlet Letter, which is one of my favorite classics, but set in a future society, where people are dyed different colors based on the crimes they commit. The protagonist, Hannah Pyrne, gets an abortion and is dyed, called Chroming, red to signify her as a murderer. I thought it was going to be a thought provoking retelling, but it wasn't. There were some very obvious nods to The Scarlet Letter, but the underlying tone and world makes When She Woke actually feel like a retelling of The Handmaids Tale, which is not the narrative I wanted to read about. AT ALL. At this point I really try and steer away from overly depressing narratives (it's why I'm delaying rereading The Handmaid's Tale and the Queen of the Tearling series for as long as possible). Since there was an abortion  in this book, I knew it was going to go to some dark places, but I still expected there to be bright, even hopeful moments. There wasn't any in the first half, it was all just sad and depressing with several instances of oppression and abuse. In fact not only is depressing, it's kind of generic too, and stuffed full of things I really dislike seeing in books like Insta Love, forbidden romance, and girl hate. I ended up reading a summary of the second half to see if I was going to miss out on anything, and there ultimately didn't seem to be. I really hoped that it would be one of those books with a utopian setting but focuses on the best and worst aspects of society. This was definitely not one of those books, and it's such a disappointment that it turned out the way it did. When She Woke received 1 out 5 stars, since any book I DNF I give a one star to, and was my pick for the PopSugar prompt “retelling of a classic.”

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