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casualtheoriesandthoughts · 3 years

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The Other Side of Reality (SPOILERS FOR KH MoM)

In this post, I’m going to talk about a theory of mine that may not impact our understandings of the KH universe that much but one that I think is important to discuss. I’m not necessarily making hard claims about what is or isn’t happening (such as Kairi being a Chirithy or Xehanort being Riku’s dad), but trying to clarify the stuff happening in between. Warning again: Spoilers for KH MoM ahead!

As I said in a previous post, memories in Kingdom Hearts are almost like the existential glue of reality. They are what ties beings to reality and to their full selves. Nobodies require their memories (at least some of them) to be able to pursue re-completion. Memories can rescue someone from the brink of falling into the darkness (Sora, Aqua, Ventus and Terra). In the absence of memories, one could legitimately fade from existence (Xion being the notable example, and also Sora while he’s in Castle Oblivion).

This all ties into a theory I have about Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory’s basic premise and its connection to Sora’s fate. People have been speculating about what the actual nature of Sora’s disappearance is, especially since Chirithy provided critical details as to the costs Sora incurred at the end of KH3 and Re:Mind. Then we get Apprentice Xehanort (aka Terra-Xehanort) telling us about a “world that’s neither of light and darkness”. Ansem the Wise interprets this to mean a realm that is on the reverse of reality: unreality, or fiction.

Some believe that this is a meta-comment on Sora’s transportation to a possible proxy for the real world. However, Yozora and the Verum Rex-FF Versus XIII connection make this less likely to me. I found some interesting speculation on YouTube about the latter, namely that Quadratum could be the world of FF Versus XIII repurposed (since it became FFXV, Versus XIII never came to be, hence unreality). Then we have the original epilogue of KH3, where the Lost Masters (minus Ava) return. Where they come from is not known, but as Yen Sid remarks at the end of Melody of Memory, the ancient masters (presumably people in Union Cross, if not only the Masters) had the ability to travel to other realms beyond the universe of Kingdom Hearts.

But what does this add up to for Sora? I believe that Sora has not been erased (as Xion was) and that it is indeed possible for him to return. My theory consists of three connected premises:

Sora still “exists” within the ambit of Kingdom Hearts (the embodiment of all hearts, not the universe; I’m going to use KH as the abbreviation for the latter)

Kairi and Riku both use the power of waking the wrong way

Quadratum exists on flipside of Kingdom Hearts

I’m going to call this the Other Side of Reality theory for convenience (OSR). Without further ado, let’s get into it!

1. Sora exists accessibly

Before anything else, we need to establish conclusively that Sora actually exists in an accessible way (please note my previous post about access to hearts and memories).

In my previous post on memories, I attempted to show that memories are proof of someone’s existence. Xion is the best example, as she literally disappears from people’s consciousnesses despite the mark she left on many characters like Roxas, Riku and Axel. Sora also similarly vanishes as he progresses through Castle Oblivion, though this is more due to Naminé’s magic than the castle itself. In the strictest sense, Naminé is not eliminating but tangling and obscuring Sora’s memories (and she can only do this to Sora). Therefore, we can say that if someone remembers an individual, that person has and does exist materially and metaphysically.

Sora is clearly not forgotten given that his friends are searching desperately for him. This, all despite Chirithy and Young Xehanort’s warnings about how misusing the power of waking would cost him greatly. In the end, Sora is shown to disappear from the world, but as I theorize, not from existence. Hearts are also the fundamental necessity to exist, which themselves require memories to take form. Sora’s accessibility is demonstrated by the fact that Riku is able to travel to Quadratum through the Nameless Star’s heart-portal.

The notion of accessibility is important, because Kingdom Hearts is the bedrock of reality. Sora cannot be found or even known to exist if Kingdom Hearts does not encompass him in itself. Worlds and beings all arise from Kingdom Hearts, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable to make this claim. Anything in Kingdom Hearts’ sphere of influence (or rather all things that it creates) are accessible by beings within it, which includes those beings themselves. I believe that this is the premise of the power of waking, as one might say that the user “awakens” to the nature of reality through its use.

This brings me to my next point:

2. Kairi is using the power of waking in MoM, and Riku is too; but both are using it the wrong way

MoM takes place as Kairi traverses her memories of all the events of the Xehanort Saga. It is important to note that this is from her perspective, not a simple recap of everything that has happened in the Kingdom Hearts games to date. We’re explicitly told that this takes place over the year when the Guardians of Light are searching for Sora.

However, there are potentially some discrepancies here. Many of the events displayed in the cutscenes are not things that Kairi could have personally witnessed (even as a disembodied heart inside Sora). However, if we consider that Kairi’s Nobody, Naminé, is able to manipulate memories connected to Sora’s (a power no other character is known to have), this may make more sense. Because Naminé is her Nobody, I believe that the power of memories is tied to Kairi somehow (since Sora can’t do it), which isn’t outlandish considering she has a unique Nobody despite being a Princess of Heart. Kairi is then traveling the links of memories connected to her, even if they are not her own. Now, what does this sound a lot like? The power of waking.��

The power of waking (PoW) is described by Yen Sid in KH3D as freeing a heart from sleep. However Young Xehanort goes further, describing it as the power to traverse hearts to find worlds, contrasted with traversing worlds to find hearts. Multiple characters, but particularly Young Xehanort, point out that the latter is a “misuse” of the PoW, which Sora does when he rescues his friends in KH3. This is because it is essentially the inverse of the normal PoW, as he rapidly traverses worlds in search of his friends’ hearts and apparently across time. It is stated by Chirithy that the inverted PoW transgresses the laws of nature by altering history.

Memory Master Xehanort (the apparition in the Final World Kairi encounters in MoM; MMX) says that Kairi’s journey took place across her own memories and her own heart. However, that doesn’t explain why she witnesses events that didn't happen in connection to her (ex. BBS and 358/2 Days). Sora also travels back in time and witnesses events from his friends’ hearts, which makes many important events in the final chapter of KH3 happen. Chirithy even states that this much closer to the true PoW, but still isn’t because he causes an event to happen that wouldn’t have happened otherwise (Kairi remaining whole). If we accept that Kairi traveled across memories and events that didn’t happen to her, like Sora did, it makes sense to suggest that she is also using the PoW improperly (albeit much more safely since she doesn’t alter any events).

This reveals important information about where Sora is metaphysically because Kairi embarked on her journey under the assumption that Sora’s heart could be found in her memories (and those of others). Chirithy mentions that Sora can only return from the other side of reality through the PoW which would ordinarily suggest that Quadratum is in the Realm of Sleep. However, let us remember that Kairi is using the PoW the wrong way, and was attempting to find Sora but failed to do so. MMX’s statement about where Sora is suggests that the version of the PoW Kairi was using was the right one but not in the right place.

This brings us to Riku, who travels to Quadratum to find Sora. Quadratum cannot be in the Realm of Sleep because it is implied by Ansem the Wise to be on the other side of reality, at the exclusion of the worlds of data, dreams and memories (as well as of darkness, nothingness and light). Therefore, Riku isn’t using the ordinary PoW to reach Quadratum. He seems to successfully arrive in Quadratum after using the PoW through the Nameless Star. Even though he’s using the heart-portal of the Nameless Star, he is also traveling across the boundary of reality and unreality to find Sora’s heart. He is deliberately using the PoW the inverted way to find Sora.

The million-dollar question is: where is that? My claim is essentially that Sora must return through his novel, “inverted” use of the PoW, which is why Kairi and Riku were using it the way they did.

3. Quadratum and the flipside of Kingdom Hearts

This may come across as the most bizarre part of my theory, but bear with me! I believe that Quadratum is located on another side of Kingdom Hearts, not unlike the allusions to Roxas being the other side of Sora’s heart in Re:CoM.

Despite the numerous attempts to summon and control Kingdom Hearts’ power, we never actually witness what it is. Not even in KH1, where Ansem SoD vainly calls to Kingdom Hearts to fill him with the power of darkness. That door in the abyss of the End of the World is the Door to Darkness, a gateway to the Realm of Darkness. It seems that Kingdom Hearts shined its light from within, perhaps as the manifestation of the hearts lost in the depths.

But we are left without any clues as to what Kingdom Hearts might be, other than the collection of all hearts that exist. It manifests as a heart-shaped moon, though likely as a representation of the greater reality. It seems most accurate to say that Kingdom Hearts is the “heart” of existence, through which any of the realms may accessed. This is the reason it can be witnessed in the Realm of Light and Nothingness, and why Xehanort believes it can grant the ability to literally unmake and remake the universe.

Quadratum is anchored to Kingdom Hearts in a realm of its own, precisely because it can be accessed through the inverted PoW. That anchoring is clearly demonstrated by the fact that Sora still exists throughout the various realms as the chain of memories that bind him to his loved ones is intact (and that he can project his “voice” across the boundary to fight MMX for Kairi). Just as the Realm of Darkness, Nothingness, Memories, Data and Sleep all require special means to be entered (and conversely, this is true of re-entering the Realm of Light, as seen in KH2′s ending), Quadratum’s own realm can only be accessed by the inverted PoW.

Clearly this realm is special, not being accessed ordinarily by the PoW and Sora needing to disappear to go there. However, it’s not as if no one knew about it. Xehanort apparently was aware that it might exist, and Yen Sid’s comments about the ancient masters suggest that the Lost Masters could freely travel to it by special means. It even seems that the Lost Masters were sent into hiding as Luxu mentions in KH3 Secret Reports 12 and 13. In Secret Report 12, Luxu writes that the “The Lost Masters will awaken” (emphasis added).

This suggests the Lost Masters are dormant or otherwise sequestered, perhaps not totally free to traverse from their present positions to the Realm of Light or other realms for that matter. This is suggested by the fact that Luxu summons the Lost Masters, which indicates he has the power to beckon to beings across realms, like the Master of Masters (who appears in the alt-Shibuya in which Riku and Sora find themselves).

The Lost Masters’ unreachability by most characters in the main realms further points to a connection between Sora and the Lost Masters’ conditions. That said, I’m not necessarily suggesting that the Lost Masters’ used the inverted PoW themselves, though this is possible seeing as Ava “didn’t make it”. The Lost Page of the Book of Prophecies may have something to do with it, as Luxu states that he disclosed his own role to Ava, which prompted her to take action of her own. This could mean Ava is on the move elsewhere, or has perished in the conclusion of her own role. On a related note, the reappearance of the Lost Masters in the ending of KH3 is the second reason that Quadratum must be in a unique realm, as time flows differently between realms and none of the foretellers aged (from what we can tell). Similarly, Aqua didn’t age at all despite spending ten years in the Realm of Darkness.

If all the known realms are existentially anchored to Kingdom Hearts, the nature of Quadratum becomes more plausible.

Concluding thoughts

Only time will tell whether or not Quadratum is going to be the start of a more Square-Enix-leaning KH multiverse with more Final Fantasy characters. Although Nomura might have gone and dashed this idea by saying NEO TWEWY and KH3′s ending aren’t connected at all.

Personally, I have a head-canon where FF characters in KH are in fact from across the boundary and that their appearances and forms are changed in the process of coming to the KH universe.

This is a working theory, and there’s stuff I still need to learn/incorporate from KHUx Dark Road, so that’s all for now! Hope this theory interests some people!

#khfantheories #kingdomhearts #kh #khfandom #khmom #melody of memory #kingdom hearts 3 #kh3 #kh3 re:mind #quadratum #kairi #sora #riku #namine #powerofwaking #kingdom hearts

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thegeneralsnotebook · 5 years

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October Feature: FF Pre-Ban Card Ratings

Click here if you want the full numbers.

In the winter of 2018 the three members of Meticulous Talks got together to share their ideas on the shape of the newly-forming Friends Forever Core meta. At the time, this was myself, Hithroc, and SolvingProblems. For the most part, our ideas were in accord, with the exception of a few key cards upon which we were far apart (more on those in a moment). In accordance with tradition, we had a stream to talk about what we thought, and I kept all of the numbers in a spreadsheet so that, when the Core meta had wrapped up, I could look back at things and understand just how wrong we all were. (Nobody expected to be right, but if we could be better than last year, that would be nice!)

Now, you might think, “Hang on a second, the Friends Forever Core meta isn’t done!”, and to a degree you’d be right. Indeed, just this next weekend we’ve got probably the biggest tournament of them all to get through. But unfortunately, when we met up at the start of the year, we couldn’t have known that Old Money and Portal were going to be banned. Naturally, if we had, it may have changed our ratings a bit! So any results to come in after the bans can’t be considered for comparisons against our predictions. Which means that for all intents and purposes, the FF Core meta that we were trying to predict has already ended, and that means that it is indeed time to tot up the numbers.

First, the headlining question: did MT as a whole do any better with FF than we did for SB? Well, kind of, but not really. As always, MT assigned each card a rating from 1 to 5, where 1 means no play at all, and 5 means it sees consistent, defining play at the highest level of competition. With all of the numbers in, I’ve assigned each a True Rating based on where it actually did see play. The total difference between the Predicted Ratings and the True Ratings for the whole set constitutes our Accuracy for the set. So here are those numbers:

SB Accuracy: 125 FF Accuracy: 124.3 Improvement: 0.56%

Not exactly much of an improvement, but I suppose we’ll take it. Where did we go wrong though? There may be a lesson to be learned for the future in seeing which cards cost us the most.

It’s worth pointing out that on the whole, our predictions weren’t that bad. Looking at all of the cards, we have a median deviation of 0.7, meaning that for fully half of the cards, our accuracy was at least as good as that. If our deviation of 0.7 had held over the entire set, our full accuracy would have gotten down to just 98.7. It’s the cards on the top-side of that number that we need to worry about.

I broke down the numbers by section to see where our good and bad points are. What you see in the table below is the average difference between a card’s deviation and the set’s median deviation, averaged out between the categories. So for example, the -0.75 for Manes means that on average, our prediction for each Mane was 0.75 points less accurate than our median prediction for the entire set.

Manes, we see, emerge as a stand-out problem area. Only the uncoloured cards at -0.89 were a worse category, and with only three cards there isn’t much systematically to say about them. Generally, we were way too excited about EEA, and not nearly excited enough about Sclerite. Where the Manes are concerned, Gallus and Ocellus were the big misses, both more than a full point off of the median.

Here are the other notable outliers, as well as how far off the median deviation we were for each one. Daring Do, in bold, was our biggest miss of the whole set.

Daybreaker, Blinding Light (under) 1.3

Ember, Dragon Lord (under) 1.3

Garner, Record Keeper (over) 1.3

Gilda, Ice Breaker (over) 1.3

Scales, Opportunity Knocks (over) 1.3

Trixie, Hat Trick (over) 1.7

Sweetie Belle, Field Twirler (over) 1.3

Delivery Mare, Wrong Address (under) 1.3

Valley Trend, Like, Whatever (over) 1.3

Daring Do, Crafty Collector (under) 2.7

Starlight Glimmer, Great and Powerful Assistant (over) 2.3

Tymbal, Talk it Out (over) 1.3

Sclerite, Two-tone (under) 1.3

The EEA Council, Strict Guidelines (over) 1.3

Friendship U (under) 1.3

Gemstone Feast (over) 1.7

Herd of Adoring Fans (over) 2.3

School Shut Down (under) 2.3

And about those disagreements. There were several cards where the difference between our top and bottom ratings of the card was two or more. Let’s see who came out ahead on those disagreements:

Gallus, Full of Surprises (CC 4, SP 2, H 3) -- True 1

Daybreaker, Blinding Light (CC 2, SP 3, H 4) -- True 4

Gavin, Fledgling (CC 1, SP 3, H 3) -- True 1

Gretchen, Low Flier (CC 3, SP 2, H 1) -- True 1

Silverstream, Student of Friendship (CC 1, SP 3, H 3) -- True 1

Flash Sentry, Announcing Her Majesty (CC 4, SP 2, H 3) -- True 4

Scales, Opportunity Knocks (CC 2, SP 3, H 4) -- True 1

Scalio, Mischievous Grin (CC 3, SP 2, H 4) -- True 2

Pharynx, Hive Patrol (CC 4, SP 3, H 2) -- True 2

Thunderlane, Meals to Go (CC 4, SP 1, H 2) -- True 3

Sclerite, Two-tone (CC 4, SP 1, H 2) -- True 4

Pegasus Chariot (CC 4, SP 2, H 2) -- True 1

Rockhoof’s Shovel (CC 1, SP 4, H 4) -- True 4

Sanctuary Construction (CC 2, SP 3, H 4) -- True 4

Flash Magnus, Pillar of Bravery (CC 5, SP 4, H 3) -- True 3

Rockhoof, Pillar of Strength (CC 2, SP 4, H 4) -- True 4

School Shut Down (CC 1, SP 3, H 2) -- True 5

Key Takeaways

On the whole, we got a bit too excited about the tribal decks. We see the griffon, dragon, unicorn, and changeling synergy cards all overestimated here. Outside of that trend, the truly aberrant misses are Daybreaker, Daring Do, and School Shut Down, all underestimated by a good margin. I’m not sure if I can properly speculate on precisely why we missed the boat on these, although it’s interesting that they’re all Blue and Purple. The most likely scenario, I think, is that we didn’t see the Tempest/Blue deck emerging in the future. But there’s individual lessons here for each card as well, which we’ll try to take into account as we head into review season for Leaders and Legends.

I may have more insights into this data at some point in the future, but in the meantime, feel free to take a look over the spreadsheet yourself, and see where your ideas and impressions stacked up against the reality.

#mlpccg #friendsforever #statistics

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juliabohemian · 6 years

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A little rant about Loki and “anonymous” fan-fiction reviews

AO3 is my main fan-fiction site. I continue to post on FF merely as a courtesy. Because that is where I originally started posting my fan-fiction.

I recently posted a post Infinity War story that involves Thor using the Time Stone to return to the time period of Avengers 1. He talks Loki into handing over the scepter and uses it to close the portal before most of the Chitauri can enter through the wormhole. It wasn't terribly long. It was just a little something that I churned out one morning before work. At some point in the story, Thor asks the Avengers "are any of you without transgression?"

Now this “guest” reviewer at FF (because we can only moderate guest reviews now, instead of blocking them altogether) decided to say “They don't willing commit murder in the name of Their selfish desires at the expense of others. Not to mention genocide and subjugating the world.”

Now the first thing that comes to mind, other than how idiotic a comment this is, is what the point is of leaving such a comment in the first place. It’s not like you’re going to change MY point of view about this character. I clearly went to all the trouble to write this story, meaning that not only do I see Loki a certain way, but I do so to the point that I am willing to elevate it to art. I’m just disappointed that I can’t respond to this asshat, with the meta they so rightly deserve. So I will post it here instead.

It’s important to note that when Thor asks this question, there’s no one he’s addressing who hasn’t killed someone, at some point. And yes, I include Captain America. Killing is killing. I don’t care who it was. I don’t care why you did it. If we are using killing as a criteria for Loki’s evilness, then we will apply that same criteria to all characters.

Now to address this person’s claims:

Loki willingly commits murder:

I suppose that’s true. He did kill some people when he landed on Earth. Except that I subscribe to the theory that Loki was under the influence of the Mind Stone when he did this. So outside of his behavior in Avengers, Loki’s violence is limited to that which would be considered acceptable by the warrior society in which he dwells. He did still kill people, though. I guess my point is, if that doesn’t make the Avengers “bad people” then it shouldn’t make Loki bad either.

Loki does things in the name of selfish desire:

Nope sorry. This is just plain wrong. Loki isn’t greedy. He’s not looking to amass an empire. The worst we saw of Loki was when he was under the influence of the Mind Stone. It took his worst qualities and magnified them and made him say stupid things, like KNEEL. But about that -kneeling before royalty is a common practice where Loki comes from. His own mother knelt before him when he took over as King in the first Thor movie. So clearly it’s a sign of respect and not subjugation. Loki’s primary motivation, outside of the period during which he was under the influence of the Mind Stone, was to win Daddy’s approval. That’s not really selfish. It’s kind of pathetic. But it’s not selfish.

Loki committed genocide:

No. No he didn’t. This has never happened. Why do people keep saying it? Loki wanted to, yes. But let’s talk about that. Let’s consider for a moment that Loki was thoroughly convinced that killing all the Frost Giants would earn his father’s approval. You know who else thought that? Thor. That tells us that to these two, slaughtering your enemy is an acceptable idea. It’s not a sign of wickedness. It’s a bi-product of living in a warrior society.

Loki tried to subjugate the world:

You know who wasn’t affected by Loki’s visit to Earth during Avengers 1? About 99.9% of the world’s population. Loki frightened some people in Germany. He blew up a S.H.I.E.L.D. base and he destroyed a lot of property in lower Manhattan. Overall casualties were under 100. Did Loki actually plan to rule Earth? Not, as Phil Coulson pointed out, with any degree of conviction.

And we found out in Ragnarok what sort of ruler Loki would be, given the chance. I’m American, and you know who we’ve got at the helm right now. I would take Loki as the replacement leader of my country in a heartbeat.

Now I don’t mind people disliking Loki simply because they don’t like him. I dislike characters sometimes and I know I have no decent reason. They just annoy me. I DO mind people disliking Loki because they have sufficient critical thinking skills to assess his character properly.

#loki meta #loki fanfiction #anonymous reviews #stupid people are stupid #infinity war spoilers #lokimeta #juliabohemianfanfiction

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severalbakuras · 6 years

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s2e13 and 14!

dungeons, dungeons and more dungeons:

mabel how.

IT’S KIND OF CUTE HONESTLY…

OK MAYBE NOT.

mabel approach > stan approach for the most part

does ford appear in the intro now…?

back to full length so maybe?

aww i don’t think he does. or i didn’t catch him in time.

i feel like the ‘rents would want to know more details than that mabel.

DND EPISODE? it’ll be nice to watch one of these for once.

mabel think of it as crafts with numbers and mind powers.

there was a larp society at my university they had some seriously huge battles rain or shine. like easily 15+ a side.

woah dipper that’s rude.

ANOTHER BASEMENT???

oh no it’s the same one.

ford how do you not notice the new skylight?

‘too dangerous for a single living soul’ ford are you implying what i think you’re implying????????

i’d play 90s version.

real question time dipper!!!

that’s a lot of dimensions.

ooooooooh mabel yeah he got you.

not so fun the other way around huh mabel?

sfjkdfjsd speaking for the fandom there stan?

k no ford chill.

K NO STAN CHILL

AAAAA

MATH IS NO MATCH FOR GUN

oh it is.

TELL HIM MABEL

very stanlike response there ford.

hot elf you can do better than these shmucks.

thank u grenda.

grenda is hardcore.

TINY ADORABLE ELF DIPPER

that is horrifying mabel.

that’s like a really fucked up bill thing. or am i just seeing bills in everything vaguely triangular.

poor grenda.

yeah saw that coming.

EVIL TWIN DUCK

so meta

oh sure because keeping secrets from your family served you so well in the past man ffs.

the stanchurian candidate:

mabel why.

dipper i approve.

so hey if you two work together you could sell those lights. just saying.

nice dodge, he’s a better huckster than stan.

poor tad strange.

ooh that’s his game nice.

your son almost killed his grandkids you’re lucky he’s not built the mystery shack mark 2 over your house man.

eagles wouldn’t give a shit about seeds though.

well he’s got the kids vote.

MEMEING FAST

UM FORD HOW DEEP WERE YOU IN WITH THE GOVERNMENT.

YOU TWO LEAVE SOOS ALONE

STOP IT IT’S NOT AWESOME.

he’s got my vote.

oooooooooooh boy.

these kids could be terrifying politicians one day.

and he can’t relax his mind with the blind eye anymore…

i know the page said one time use but it really seems like gideon’s taken over his mind before for him to react that way...

you’d think he’d react the way soos did once control broke.

and here it goes.

NO YOU LEAVE SOOS ALONE HE DOESN’T DESERVE THIS.

i support the get’im guy.

CHANGED MY MIND I SUPPORT SOOS JUST SO HE DOESN’T HAVE TO SUFFER FOR NOTHING ;A;

oh his name’s tyler.

he’s teletubbying!

fuck OFF gideon.

SAVE THEM STAN

they didn’t even hesitate to agree lel.

IS HE FREE FROM GIDEON???

MAYOR PINES

guess not.

HE KILLED A LLAMA??? STAN THAT COULD’VE BEEN THE LAST SYMBOL I’VE FIGURED OUT ALL THE REST BUT ONE AND IT’S THAT ONE.

aww stan.

and ford once more demonstrates he hasn’t learned anything from his pre-portal solitude.

TRIANGLE BAAAAAAAA oh it’s bill.

BILL BAD.

gideon he already failed you once so that must’ve been one hell of a deal he offered you, you don’t strike me as a second chances type of guy.

#gravity falls #sb watches gf

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Marvel’s Loki Episode 6: MCU Easter Eggs and Comics References

https://ift.tt/2UfmlQd

This article contains Loki episode 6 spoilers, and potential spoilers for the wider MCU.

The Loki season finale (and thanks to the mid-credits scene we know it’s a “season finale” not a “series finale,” thank Odin) is here, and it’s got bigger ramifications for the Marvel Cinematic Universe than we ever could have imagined. Loki episode 6 may be light on Marvel Comics Easter eggs (and after last week’s egg-fest, don’t get greedy!), but it’s BIG on characters and concepts that we’ll be dealing with and talking about for years to come.

Let’s get to work and see what we found in Loki episode 6.

The Opening

The opening space sequence is a clear homage to Robert Zemeckis’ Contact. The 1997 sci-fi film begins with a similar CG pullout from Earth into the known universe and beyond while we hear clips of historic speeches and songs. These fade away until there is silence, and then the camera reveals the universe has been inside the protagonist’s eye. As Loki’s opening tails off, we hear Sylvie shout “open your eyes!”

This isn’t the first Contact homage we’ve seen in the Disney+ MCU shows either, as WandaVision embraced one during Monica Rambeau’s transformation sequence as she forged through the Hex. And it’s not the only sci-fi movie reference we get in the episode, either!

What are Those Voices?

There are plenty of famous quotes from the MCU all through that wild, cosmic opening, but as far as we can tell, none of them are especially significant to the events of this episode. There are also some famous quotes from real life figures. They include:

“One small step for man…” – Neil Armstrong

“How dare they!” – Great Thunberg

“My dream…” – Malala Yousafzai

“We have fought for the right to experience peace.” – Nelson Mandela

“I will rise.” – Maya Angelou

“We think of time as a one-way motion…” – Not identified by closed captioning but possibly Carl Sagan

“Motivated by women throughout the world.” – Also not identified by closed captioning

This beginning features several prominent songs from throughout human history. The opening of Beethoven’s “Für Elise” pops up noticeably yet briefly, and we think we heard strains from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake.

The majority of it, however, is set to the strains of The Harry James Band’s version of “It’s Been a Long, Long Time” a song that is heartrendingly familiar to Captain America fans as the song that plays over Avengers: Endgame’s perfect final moment. The song first popped up in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, when Nick Fury was playing it in Steve’s apartment (clearly, Steve had plans for this song), but here the “Long, Long Time” in question is referring to the lifespan of series villain, “He Who Remains,” better known as…

Kang the Conqueror

(quick disclaimer: for simplicity’s sake, we’re referring to He Who Remains as Kang in this section, but for reasons that will become clear, there’s some nuance there, so just bear with us)

Kang’s backstory as laid out here also pays tribute to the idea of “The Council of Cross Time Kangs” which is both an assortment of variant Kangs from assorted timelines and also the people who battled/defeated them…and thus took on the mantle of Kang in their respective timelines. Does your head hurt yet? Because…

There was also an “Interdimensional Council of Reeds” from Jonathan Hickman’s run on Fantastic Four. Like Kang, various Reed Richards from various realities met up via portals and decided to help out areas of the multiverse in need using their combined intellect. Initially, they were mostly killed by a bunch of Celestials. These days they’re back, but led by the corrupt Reed Richards from the Ultimate Universe (the Maker). Things are going to be absolutely bonkers when the MCU finally brings us the FF.

Despite Jonathan Majors having signed on to play Kang the Conqueror in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, he’s never actually identified as such here. In the credits, he’s the Miss Minutes-approved “He Who Remains.” The closest we get to him being called Kang is when he mentions that he’s been referred to as “a conqueror.” He also mentions that he’s been called a “ruler” which could very well be taken as a reference to the character’s time as Pharaoh Rama-Tut.

When Sylvie takes a swing at Kang early on, he teleports and ends up laying down behind them in a smug pose. This looks to be a reference to his first comic appearance (1964’s Avengers #8), where the Avengers find him casually laying down in mid-air.

Loki Episode 6 Review: For All Time. Always.

By Kirsten Howard

Movies

Who is Kang the Conqueror? Powers and Marvel Comics History Explained

By Jim Dandeneau

Kang isn’t rocking any of his familiar comics looks here (although the color scheme is vaguely appropriate), but at least one of the “miniatures” he uses to illustrate his story appears to be.

He Who Remains

While the “He Who Remains” we meet here is definitely meant as a Kang variant of some kind, the character exists independently of Kang in the comics!

He Who Remains has only made a handful of appearances in Marvel Comics, with the first (and most substantial) being in 1976’s Thor #246 by Len Wein, John Buscema, and Joe Sinnott. There, it was Thor and Jane Foster entering the “Citadel at the End of Time” to meet He Who Remains, and they have ALMOST a similar moment to Loki and Sylvie in that one wants He destroyed while the other wants to listen to what he has to say.

The comics He Who Remains was later revealed as the founder of the TVA (just like we see in the MCU) and the actual creator of the Time-Keepers. And while he shares Kang’s fondness for purple, he was never defined as a Kang variant in the comics, and in fact was pretty explicitly not that.

Secret Wars

The Multiversal War idea that plays so heavily throughout Loki also ties into Jon Hickman’s Avengers run where the multiverse has been collapsing onto itself due to the machinations of the Beyonders. As entropy destroys everything, various Earths are pitted against each other and are given the choice of destroying the other or both dying. While this led to a single world run by Dr. Doom, Reed Richards was eventually able to overtake him and bring back the multiverse.

Also with Hickman’s run, there was a moment of Captain America coming across a group of Kangs from different eras (regular Kang, Iron Lad, and Immortus) and explaining that allowing so many to die in order to save so many more is immoral. After the inspirational speech, Kang simply told him, “No one here…cares.”

Ravonna Renslayer

Well, we share the FDR High School pen mystery with this episode, that’s for sure!

After Renslayer decided she wouldn’t be steered towards a complicated future with Kang in the pages of Marvel Comics, she betrayed him and then assumed the name “Rebecca Tourminet,” which we see printed on her diploma back on Earth when B-15 is introducing the TVA Minutemen to the Real Her.

Interestingly, MCU Renslayer doesn’t appear to be aware of Kang or He Who Remains just yet, so perhaps there’s more interesting things coming down the pipe for these time-tossed lovers.

The Ending

“You know you can’t get to the end until you’ve been changed by the journey,” Kang tells Loki and Sylvie. It seems as though Kang has a surprisingly thorough understanding of what makes a good story. This could potentially be a shoutout to Dan Harmon, creator of Community and Rick and Morty, the latter of which Loki showrunner Michael Waldron wrote on. Harmon is famous for constructing “story circles” to help young writers understand the proper beats of storytelling.

The final shot of a confused Loki looking at a massive (and mostly comics-accurate) Kang the Conqueror statue is definitely a reference to the ending of the original Planet of the Apes (a franchise which also has some wacky timeline shenanigans of its own) which gives us a huge twist by having the main character come across the Statue of Liberty and piece together the truth of his world. Then again, it could also fit with the Tim Burton remake where the protagonist comes across an ape version of the Lincoln Memorial.

There’s also a serious Invasion of the Body Snatchers vibe to that ending, with a dazed/crazed Loki trying to explain the impossible to a skeptical audience who clearly don’t believe him.

We wrote in more detail about all the implications of that ending right here.

The Post-Credits Scene

We can’t help but feel that the mid-credits scene that literally and explicitly spells out in actual words that Loki season 2 is happening is a meta-joke at the expense of sites like Den of Geek, who make a big deal out of “explaining” every Marvel post-credits sequence. To which we say…yeah, cool, fair enough!

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Spot anything we missed? Let us know in the comments!

The post Marvel’s Loki Episode 6: MCU Easter Eggs and Comics References appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3hF0FWP

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sleepyowlwrites · 9 months

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Dragon Ask:

Wing: share a snippet that you daydreamed about before writing it (or a snippet that you were really looking forward to writing.)

Talon: share a snippet that tugs at your heartstrings- can be sad or happy!

Teeth: share a snippet that was difficult for you to nail down/required a lot of revisions.

Scales: share a snippet that describes something. (can be a person, a place, a feeling, etc.)

Fire: share a snippet with some dialogue you’d like to show off.

Ice: share a snippet where a character is taking a risk.

Poison: share a snippet that’s all about relationships (good or bad).

Breath: share a snippet that makes you laugh.

Storm: share a snippet where a character is angry.

Tail: share a fluffy or cozy snippet.

this has been sitting here for ages so I'm going to use my fanfic for it because I can, because I want to. because sometimes I reread my own fics as a comfort/coping mechanism and they're good stories! I want more! oh no!

Wing: a snippet I daydreamed about before writing

from Meta-portal, my great fantasy kpop crossover fic (the rewrite) that I have abandoned. sometimes I can still hear its voice.

we gotta start the story somewhere, so I'm starting it here, in Soul City, on the night that Younghoon decides to investigate the lion he's convinced he saw in the woods the other night. since his brother is busy researching, Younghoon gets Haknyeon to come with him, because his brother Juyeon says he's not allowed to go into the woods by himself. this is wise, because Younghoon has a lousy sense of direction and will get lost. turns out it doesn't really matter about direction or not, because they've barely made it past the tree line before Younghoon spots something shiny and runs after it. Haknyeon sort of hurries along behind and is consequently too late to stop Younghoon from tripping and falling into a bush. the bush has a discarded mirror in it, for some reason, and instead of hitting his head, Younghoon goes through the mirror and disappears. Haknyeon stares at it for a few seconds in shock before somebody else pops out of the mirror. then the mirror cracks and starts smoking a little. the new person is not very perturbed by this and instead just asks, "is this northern scarlentis?" "no," Haknyeon answers with some difficulty, since he's still in shock. "this is amarantis." "oh wow," the stranger says. "I came somewhere totally new this time." just then, Jacob - the witch who lives in the woods - comes through the trees, a little out of breath. "I sensed trouble. was I right?" "I hope not," the stranger says. "I'm Jisung." Haknyeon rubs at his eyes. "see that mirror? Younghoon went through there." "and I came out!" Jisung should really be perturbed but maybe he goes through strange portals all the time. Jacob inspects the mirror. "it's a portal," he says, rather unhelpfully as all present understand what it is, or was. "I guess you better come home with me. we'll talk in the morning." it's not even midnight but Haknyeon agrees to sleep over and they tromp through the woods to Jacob's house.

Talon: a snippet that tugs at my heartstrings

from Good Brother, my KinnPorsche fic that I wrote based off of several gifsets and my love of complicated brother relationships

It's five in the morning. Kim can't stand being in this bed, in this room anymore. He doesn't want anyone to see him, but he can't stay here. He leaves the confining space of too much empty space on unsteady legs and creeps out of the house.

The garden is quiet and the sun isn't up yet. A line of pale yellow lurks at the horizon line, waving hello. Kim knows his movements are being tracked. There’s no true solitude in this house. Just another reason why he hates it. He chooses to be alone, but he fears it.

Kim stands in the garden, shivering in the early morning despite the heat already sitting dead in the air. He’s good at being alone. He despises it.

Footsteps sound from behind him. Someone is going to break the illusion. Kim doesn't know whether to be grateful or not.

"I hope you know I don't get up this early for just anyone."

Kim pretends he isn't startled to hear Tankhun's voice. He certainly wouldn't have predicted it. "No one asked you to get up."

"I did," his brother sniffs, coming around into view. "Kinn said you were sick and I told Arm to wake me if you tried to sneak out, which I knew you would do."

"I'm still here," Kim points out, feeling too tired to argue further.

Tankhun rolls his eyes, something he's good at. "You want to run out, though." His tone is matter of fact.

It is fact. Kim just shivers more.

A blanket is draped around his shoulders.

"Thank you," Tankhun says to someone behind him, drawing the edges of the blanket together and securing them in Kim's hand.

Kim needs to say something, snap out a witty retort, shove his brother away. He accepts the blanket and turns his face a little. It's just as hard to look at Tankhun as it was to look at Kinn.

Teeth: a snippet that was difficult for me to nail down/needed revisions

from Blood Curse, the fifth part of my Blood Cultivation series, a The Untamed fanfic. honestly, this part STILL needs another edit, but it's been three years so I don't know if I'll ever do it.

Meili had expected it, honestly. She’d been expecting it since her father had first appeared in front of her in Lanling some days ago. Even with the brief encounter during their nighthunt, he hadn’t really tried anything extreme. It had been surprising that he’d waited so long to make a move, choosing instead to bait her and let her friends work on the problem that she’d been living with most of her life and never thought anyone else would know about. Meili had assumed that she’d spend her days cleaning up after other people and avoiding her father and eventually her cultivation would get the best of her and that would be that.

She had never dreamed of developing close friendships or befriending sect leaders or telling anyone the reasoning behind her unorthodox cultivation. Secrets were her close friends; breaking her silence was the enemy. Sharing a secret had the power to kill, but she’d just handed it over without even a struggle. Besides the obvious one. She hadn’t tried so hard in years to tell anyone all her greatest regrets. The loss of her core and her choices on certain matters had ceased to be something she mourned, being instead something she just accepted. If she couldn’t speak about her horrors, she would at least avoid them. She would refuse to commit more sins.

Watching her father pace back and forth in front of her was like a nightmare come true. Everything she had ever hoped to conceal or ignore stood there, imposing his insistent chaos on her desire for peace. Meili traced the sigils drawn in blood on the ropes binding her hands. She’d found them almost immediately, erasing what was written and instead pricking her finger on a sharp bead embedded in her robe and writing her own in their place, infusing the blood with an energy signature so faint that her father would never sense it.

Wei Wuxian probably would, if he decided to ignore her warning and come after her. It was all the help she was willing to ask for at this point. Couldn’t her father see that he would never get anywhere with her? Wasn’t her initial refusal so many years ago enough? What he’d asked of her a few days ago was of course going to be refused as well.

“You’ve valued your own life well enough this far,” he’d snarled at her, flitting in and out of focus like a mirage. “If you can value it so preciously all these years and keep your silence, then you will value it enough to do this for me, for us. And there’s not nearly so much time now. You will either kill Sect Leader Jin or you will die and then I will take control of you and all your running away will have been for naught.”

Meili had no intention of being anyone’s puppet. That was what the talisman stuck to the inside of her robes was for. When the new adjustment to the curse inevitably killed her, her body would burn to ash, leaving her father with nothing. Sure, she wasn’t eager for death, but if there was something she valued more than her own life, it was those that deserved to live were able to. Also, it would be satisfying to know that her father would lose his greatest creation.

“I really don’t know why you expected anything else from me.” She said it to the air, not interested in seeing the rage on her father’s face.

Jin Feng had enough quiet madness in his voice to set her on edge anyway. “I never expected much from you. You were the one always surpassing my low expectations. If you hadn’t been so clever, I might have given up on you years ago.”

“You wouldn’t have. Once you’re obsessed with something, you won’t change your mind. I was a plaything and you strung me out to dance for you.” Meili tried not to let her own anger cloud her senses. The sound of her father chuckling to himself was hard to ignore. “And of course, once Xue Yang saw something in me it was all over. Even if I’d played dumb you would have just killed me and made me a puppet right there.”

“A child puppet would hardly have been useful,” Jin Feng said, far too casually. Meili dug her nails into her palms to keep herself steady. “I would have simply hurt more people to coerce you. If perhaps you were less of a wilting flower, able to see justifiable costs, I might have taken longer to reinvent you.”

Scales: a snippet that describes something.

from Heartbeat, my first The Lost Tomb Reboot fic. sensory descriptions my beloved.

Liu Sang watches the sky crackle along its seams and flash purple for a moment. There’s a pause that seems too lengthy, making him wait in unearned agony until the following crash of sound reverberates throughout his whole body, hissing at the tips of his fingers. There's a sizzle across his collarbones, a fresh sting in his cheek when he bites the inside.

A storm is a natural, normal occurrence. The air hums with humid energy around him, there are birds beating hard against the wind and trees bending gracefully beneath it. Liu Sang breathes and the same air catches in his throat and hurts to swallow. The natural is fast becoming the unnatural.

He can hear it, surrounding him. He can hear all of it. He can hear Wu Xie’s strong lungs, unperturbed by the weather, can hear Pangzi’s slightly wheezier breath as they hike along the trail. He can also hear Pangzi mumbling under that breath about dinner and how he’s going to have to fend off Wu Xie as he cooks. Liu Sang can hear his ouxiang at the back of them, hear how his heartbeat never changes pace no matter how rough the climb gets, unless Wu Xie slips on a rock, in which case it trips for only a singular beat before relaxing again.

It’s a comfort, or it usually is, when Liu Sang can measure his breaths along with the others’ and calm himself by the mere reassurance of their presence around him. But here, the sky splits and spits and the thunder answers its signals with a coarse trail of anger and Liu Sang feels himself drifting. And falling. His feet catch on a root, which seems to become a hungry claw in the dark, and he doesn’t have the breath left in him to shout as he tumbles.

The trees morph their shapes in front of him and the dirt under his feet becomes a smooth stone floor. There is darkness around him and the air tints green and the thunder is everywhere. Liu Sang is surrounded by both silence and sound and he can’t hear a thing.

He can’t- he can’t hear a thing. There are shapes in the shadows, there are specters creeping past. The ceiling lights up in one moment and descends upon him the next, burrowing past the pillars and soaking him in rain. The shadows cloak him in colors, there is hurt, hurt, he can’t hear the enemy but it kills him regardless, it wraps him in terror and laughs at his pain. Liu Sang can’t hear the mockery, he can’t think with these things, these things clinging onto him. They want to bury him, to erase his existence.

He’s being buried by purple sunlight, by the birds he can’t hear, by the trees made of bronze; the dirt on his skin welcomes him. He’s a thing of nothing, he’s alone, he can’t hear-

He can’t see-

He can’t breathe-

Something strikes his chest like the lightning in the sky. Liu Sang opens his mouth and fresh, mountain air floods his senses. His head aches. The birds are rustling in the trees above his head, can he hear that? Is he only imagining what he believes should exist? He peers out between the raindrops as sees nothing but blurry branches and lumbering shapes above him.

He can’t hear-

He can’t see-

“Jinx, I swear if you don’t say something I’m going to punch you and then both of us will hurt and it will be a bad night for all of us-”

Liu Sang blinks. And breathes.

Fire: a snippet with some dialogue I'd like to show off.

from Beating Hearts, the sequel to Heartbeat.

“Are you still mad at me?” He says to the jacket across from him, his voice coming out a lot croakier than he intended.

Pangzi lets out a noisy breath, shaking his head. He shakes his coat a little, causing the tiny flames to waver and wilt for a moment. “Who said I was mad at you?”

Liu Sang shivers in his wet clothes. They sit uncomfortably on his skin, like they’re trying to become the next layer. “I underestimated you. Again. So you’re upset with me.”

“Honestly, Jinx, it’s just a wonder you can think of such a thing when you’re so cold. Take your coat off and let it dry a little.”

“It won’t help very much.”

Pangzi’s exhale is even noisier this time, the frustration clear in how he stutters into it, how his heartbeat hitches along with his temper.

“Liu Sang,” he starts, and it never bodes when when his real name is brought into things, “I’m trying to take care of you. I’m always trying to take care of you. Why won’t you just let me?”

Liu Sang slowly strips off his jacket to give himself something to do, the squelching noise of it making up for his lack of an answer, at least temporarily. He’s colder without it, but he bites his lip to keep his teeth still. He spreads his outer garment out over his knees and on the ground, holding the side of it up like a wall between him and Pangzi. He measures his breaths, counting them as they go in and out. As he does, he catches himself counting Pangzi’s breaths, too. They’re not any calmer than his own, which is distressing. His fingers slide along the edges of his jacket, feeling the stiff material of threads swollen with water and dirt. He’s distressed to know that Pangzi is distressed.

“How can I let you,” Liu Sang says, slow and hesitant, with his eyes still on the ground, the words like acid as he forces them off his tongue, “when I know that nothing will last?”

He can’t look up at Pangzi, he can’t bear to, so he listens for cues in the other’s heartbeat instead. It gets louder, angrier, and Liu Sang has caused it.

“I used to think, sometimes, that Xiaoge wouldn’t return to us. That maybe I or Wu Xie would die, or that something would separate us, and all three angles would be left alone, or one would be left without the other two.”

Liu Sang brings his head up without meaning to, startled by the strange color in Pangzi’s voice. It’s not resignation, and it’s not fear. He’s just musing, thinking out loud.

“But those sorts of thoughts are useless. Someone must die first, or leave first. That will happen eventually. Until then, we just have to press on as we can and enjoy everything. Xiaoge will outlive us all, but he keeps coming back to us even so. Why does he do that?”

It isn’t a real question, so Liu Sang keeps silent.

Pangzi continues, his face tilted up toward the ceiling. “I won’t speak for him. He can do it himself. But I know that he believes in us, in our friendship. And it didn’t happen overnight.”

Liu Sang keeps his gaze steady when Pangzi drops his eyes to meet his. He doesn’t waver, doesn’t flinch.

“We built this,” Pangzi says, with so much feeling that it’s palpable in the air. “We built our triangle from the ground up and grew to trust each other gradually. It took time. But here we are. And here you are, with us. And you’re not just with us. You’re part of us, okay? We chose you and you can choose us, too.”

Liu Sang trembles under the weight of those sentences. “It’s hard to trust,” he hears himself say, distantly, like his voice doesn’t really belong to him.

Pangzi nods. “It is.”

Ice: a snippet where a character is taking a risk.

from Blood Energy, part two of my Blood Cultivation series.

Blood and poison, her two true companions. As Meili spun the resentful energy into clean energy and send it spiraling down the path, she couldn’t help feeling the pain of it all a little deeper than she normally would. She had been introduced to people who accepted her and talked to her with respect. How was she supposed to be satisfied with the loneliness of her persecuted wanderings now?

And then a real, audible scream echoed across the field from the mountains behind, followed by shouts from her companions in response to it.

Mountain demons. This task would remain unfinished, then. Meili slowly separated her blood from the resentful energy and drew it back into her body, some of the poison coming along and burning through her veins. She couldn’t allow it to remain, but would have to purify it later. In the meantime, it would give her enough strength to fight the demons. As she emerged from the cloud of resentment, Sizhui and Jin Ling hurried up to her, their faces taut and serious.

“Senior Lin, it was only one scream and there was no answer. It’s only a single demon. We should be able to take care of it ourselves. Are you able to fight?”

“I am.”

“Come on, we can’t let it attack the villagers.” Jin Ling was all business after his initial gaze of scrutiny washed over her, his earnest desire to protect the innocent people below him bringing out a bit of pride in Meili even though she’d only just met him.

“Let’s go, then.”

—

In retrospect, Meili could’ve done better, could’ve fought better, could’ve protected herself and her companions better.

But things were always easier in retrospect. At the time, she had been in severe pain from the heavy battering the resentful energy gave her as she’d worked to purify what she could as well as the vestiges of it lingering in her body after pulling her blood back to her. She was considerably weaker than either of her companions, and she was weaponless. She’d let her guard down and it had stayed down. Meili tried to swallow her anger as decisions that could not be undone and instead focus on what was happening in front of her.

Jin Ling and Sizhui were excellent fighters, she could see that. And it was only one mountain demon. Though they were fierce creatures with swift movements, a lone mountain demon was no match for the two cultivators at full strength. Meili was mostly occupied with keeping the resentful energy surrounding them all from aiding the creature in its fight. When it finally fell dead, its own negative energies quickly seeped into the ground despite Meili trying to prevent it. She was caught up in pushing the energy currently under her control behind a talisman barrier when new talismans took the place of hers and held strong.

The jolt of it sent her staggering, control lost. Absently, she watched her own blood leak from her skin and pool in the grass. In another moment, Sizhui was beside her, wrapping her hand with a cloth and Jin Ling crouched beside him, eyes full of curiosity and a little bit of fear.

“Explain.”

“Later,” Sizhui said, tapping on Meili’s face with a hesitant hand. “Senior Lin?” He set his hand on her shoulder and Meili regained control of her spiraling mind. She sat up.

And turned to spit dark, poisoned blood into the grass.

Poison: a snippet that's all about relationships.

back to Good Brother.

His little brother is silent, which is an alarm that keeps going off. Tankhun wants to shake him, to shake some words out of him, to get rid of that horrible melancholy that Kim is wearing. He doesn't, because that would be cruel, and he refuses to be cruel.

Kim sits on the couch where Tankhun puts him, clutching at the blanket like it might fly away. He lets Tankhun feel his forehead, doesn't shy away when he huffs at the heat he feels trapped there.

Tankhun tells him to sit still and not move, which is a test. Kim fails it completely, because he doesn’t move, which puts a feeling of strangulation at the base of Tankhun's throat. Kim is not like this and he hates it.

"Alright, we'll have something light that your stomach can handle. And you need fever reducers, and after we eat you're going back to bed, no arguments." Tankhun orders everyone in the room, which is only Kim and Arm, the latter nodding and leaving to fulfill those orders.

Kim just sits.

Tankhun plops down beside him on the couch. "You're scaring me," he says, returning to his usual self a bit.

Kim cracks the tiniest smile which would be reassuring if it didn't look so broken. "I'm known for being a handful," he says, finally.

"A handful that I can't get my hands on, typically," Tankhun says pointedly.

"You usually a talk a lot more. You talk and don't say anything." Kim sinks back against the cushions, closing his eyes. "So why are you saying things now?"

Thank goodness. This is marginally better, more of the sass he associates with his baby brother. Still, "You're not saying anything, not even lies and excuses. So as your eldest brother of course I will have to take responsibility."

Arm comes back with pills and water. "I told the kitchen about food. They're making it now."

"Thank you," Tankhun says with a smile. Arm smiles back and leaves without a word. He's good like that. "Take the medicine, please."

Kim peels his eyes open just a crack. "Please?"

Tankhun knows he’s out of character, or at least the character he often sinks into, but he has a baby brother to look after. That's more important. He shakes the hand holding the pills a little.

With a sigh, Kim takes them, grimacing as they go down.

"Does your throat hurt?"

"Not really." It's a lie, which delights Tankhun more than it should.

Breath: a snippet that makes me laugh.

from Meta-portal, the original version (which was written almost entirely in a friend's dms. I'm very proud of this.

And then- Hyunjae finally shows up in the story. He stumbles out of his room on the ground floor because Sangyeon knows from experience that he doesn’t mix well with stairs. He looks remarkably sober and like his eyes have sunk far into his face. “Do you need a headache cure?” Haknyeon asks, very dryly. Hyunjae squint at him. “Yes, thank you,” he says in a reedy voice. “Sangyeon, your pub is still a mess. Why do you have guests?” “Hyunjae!” Changmin interrupts, because he is an interrupter. He’s smiling very brightly. “We have need of your services.” Hyunjae looks around for a chair. Jisung coaxes Yeonjun onto his lap so Hyunjae has somewhere to sit. “Aren’t I heavy?” Yeonjun whispers. Jisung snorts. “You weight as much as two heads of lettuce and cucumber. You’re fine.” Hyunjae drops onto the chair heavily. “What can I help you with?” he says, suddenly sounding a lot more professional and awake. Jacob shoots him a suspicious look. Changmin tones down the brightness of his smile just a tad. “There’s a portal. In the labyrinth.” Hyunjae just raises an eyebrow. “We were hoping you’d make it a working portal,” Eric says quickly, happy to contribute. “You make portals, after all.” Hyunjae pauses, and his expression is so blank everyone except Eric is instantly aware that he’s hiding something. But then Sangyeon nudges him with an elbow. Hyunjae sighs. “Yeah, I make portals. But we’ve got maybe two hours before the brainwashing kicks back in and I might try and paint another volcano portal and push you in.” “Hold up.” Haknyeon has come back with a mug, presumably with headache cure in it. “You’re aware that you’ve been brainwashed?” “Well, yeah. Why else would I choose to be drunk at all hours of the day? I’m wasting all of my time, not making a living. I get a window of a couple hours before the alcohol fully washes out of my system and I get evil feelings again. And I am not interested in that. So I keep drinking.” Hyunjae takes the cup and swallows whatever was in it. “Threw in something for gut health, huh,” he comments. Haknyeon shrugs, then snaps out of it and glares at Hyunjae. “I was worried about you!” “You can still be worried,” Hyunjae says tiredly. “That brainwashing is not going to go away by itself.” Eric suddenly looks very excited. “There’s only one solution!” Sunwoo groans and hides his face in his hands. Hyunjae looks at Eric. “Aren’t you that not really lost prince?” Eric slumps a little. “Has just everybody really known where I was?”

Storm: a snippet where a character is angry.

from Blood Enemy, the third part of blood cultivation. Jiang Cheng and anger are synonymous.

Jin Ling could see his uncle ahead, looking like a simmering storm as he always did. “Uncle!” He tried to make his voice sound less happy and more dignified, but even if a potentially disastrous situation lay ahead of them, he would always be pleased to see his uncle.

Jiang Cheng looked Jin Ling over brusquely, like he both cared about his nephew’s condition and was looking for something to criticize. It was probably both. “Couldn’t even be bothered to greet me properly, huh? What kind of Sect Leader are you? I raised you better than that!”

Jin Ling flushed and came to a stop in front of his uncle, bowing with his back straight. “Sect Leader Jiang, the Jin Sect welcomes you.”

Jiang Cheng echoed the bow and immediately started to assess the addition to the party. Senior Lin also bowed, deeper than Jin Ling had, murmuring, “Sect Leader Jiang,” in a pleasant tone. “Who is this?”

“This one is called Lin Meili,” Senior Lin answered, rising from the bow slowly, her face devoid of anything resembling discomfort. “I have been lucky enough to be a guest at Sect Leader Jin’s request.”

“If you’re looking for a marriage, you’ll have to come through me, first.” Jiang Cheng said, politely fierce.

Jin Ling’s jaw dropped and he closed his mouth with a even deeper blush spreading across his face. “Uncle!”

To her credit, Senior Lin kept her expression mostly placid, though her eyes were clearly amused. “He’s a bit young, don’t you think?”

“Exactly! He shouldn’t even be thinking about marriage!”

“I’m glad we’re in agreement, then, Sect Leader. I am merely here to assist on the nighthunt.”

“The nighthunt?” Jiang Cheng swung around to glare at Jin Ling. “You knew I was arriving but were planning on going on a nighthunt without me?”

“Actually, I assumed you’d just come along,” Jin Ling said faintly, wishing the evening was over already. “Do you want to come?”

Jiang Cheng stared at Jin Ling like he’d grown a second head. “Do I want to-,” he cut himself out, looking quite close to murdering someone. “Jin Ling, you have responsibilities, you can’t just go off on a nighthunt because you feel like it! Were you going with your disciples or just with this new cultivator I have never met before!”

“Uncle.” Jin Ling swallowed hard. “Lin Meili has new techniques that I’d like to see. She was available to hunt tonight and if you don’t want to come, you don’t have to. I’m sorry to make you entertain yourself, but there are other pressing issues that-”

“Other pressing issues? Other pressing issues that you are just sweeping aside to have fun for a night?” Jiang Cheng was shaking, he was so angry. Zidian was sparking and vibrating on his wrist.

“No, we’re going on the nighthunt because of the pressing issues!” Jin Ling finally snapped, though his courage left him almost immediately. “Uncle, I believe there is a new threat in the Jin sect and Lin Meili is going to help me find and deal with it. The nighthunt is an excuse, but only so I can see the techniques she uses. It’s complicated, uncle, please. Trust me, I’m not shirking my duties.”

Jiang Cheng made a visible effort to calm himself, his spiritual tool also dimming. “Nobody is going on a nighthunt until I know what on earth you are talking about, Jin Ling.”

“Right.” Jin Ling turned around. “We’ll go to my office, then.”

Tail: a fluffy or cozy snippet.

from the bonus Blood Cultivation series collection.

Jin Ling turned and said, “Jingyi,” and glared at him. It was less of a glare and more like he was silently asking for something. But Jingyi only understood Sizhui’s silent communication. He had no idea what Jin Ling wanted from him.

When no words arrived to help translate the silence, Jingyi rolled his eyes. “What?”

“Hug me.”

Jingyi blinked. “What.”

Jin Ling didn’t look away or fiddle with his robes. “Senior Wei said you give really good hugs. I’m tired, I’m stressed, and you don’t want to hear me complain anymore, so give me a hug. Please.”

There was a teasing remark on the tip of his tongue but Jingyi swallowed it when Sizhui looked at him meaningfully. That was a silent sentence he could understand. So, he just shifted closer to Jin Ling and hugged him. His friend positively melted in the embrace, which honestly worried Jingyi a little, and this whole Jin-Ling-being-aware-and-accepting-of-his-own-emotions thing was already pretty weird. Feeling him so relaxed against him made Jingyi both concerned and fond. He tightened his arms when Jin Ling pressed his face closer to his chest, making a sound that might have been contented, might have been a sob. Jingyi really didn’t want to ask which one it was.

Sizhui started to stroke Jin Ling’s hair from the other side. “Are you alright, A-Ling?”

“No.” The muffled sound was petulant, much more Jin Ling sounding. Jingyi’s relief swooped up from his heart and exploded in his eyes. He blinked rapidly to clear them. There was no need to get so emotional over Jin Ling being emotional. Sizhui then pat his hair too and it was Jingyi’s turn to melt.

“We’re here for you,” he promised into Jin Ling’s shoulder, pretty sure that this moment had become less about whether their relatives were getting along and more about the three of them being together and willing to listen to each other and apparently, give good hugs.

“I want our family to be happy,” Jin Ling mumbled. “I think most of us are most of the time, maybe, but I can’t always tell, and sometimes it feels like one of us goes just a little too far and there’s a dark edge to everything. If we push into that we get lost and it takes a while to come out and I wish it would go away. I want uncle to smile and my other uncle to smile and I want you two to smile and Senior Lin and everybody. I wish we could just talk at dinner without it either going dark or getting cryptic. Can’t anybody have a happy conversation that doesn’t include thinly veiled insults?”

we made it! @another-white-void I'm tagging you because some of this is wuxia-y.

thanks for asking, Trouble >;(

#sleepy answers #excerpt asks #ff: blood series #ff: the sounds in silence #ff: meta portal #ff: stars find their constellation

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sydkn3e · 7 years

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The parallel to end all parallels

Okay guys, listen up, because I’m about to fuck you up with some knowledge.

So we all know under Dabb’s reign, we’ve seen a multitude of parallels. Season 12 has been chock-full of callbacks from earlier seasons: characters, scenes, props, etc. We saw it with the colt, with Mary’s return, Bobby’s return, “[insert parent name here] went on a hunting trip, and [they] haven’t been home in a few days”. We’ve had Dean and Cas paralleled with Sam and Eileen, Dean and Cas paralleled with Cain and Colette, Dean referred to as Cas’s “human weakness” by Ishim...I mean really, at this point they’re endless. I could make hundreds of posts about the parallels, particularly in regard to Dean and Cas, but I won’t because frankly, there are better meta writers than me on the tumblrverse and they’ve already been done to death.

see @tinkdw and @ibelieveinthelittletreetopper, seriously those guys’ blogs have some seriously incredible information, metas, and I thoroughly enjoy reading literally everything they have to say.

What I want to talk about is Cas’s last scene in the finale. Here we see Cas enter the alternate universe, despite Sam and Dean already being there and having a plan for locking in Lucifer, and stabbing Lucifer, right before Cas’s death scene.

So I’ve seen a lot of people complaining about this scene and how Cas’s death was completely unnecessary and avoidable. That it was used strictly for the “man pain” we hear so much about, so we can watch the boys once again mourn the death of one of their friends. I agree, to an extent. His death absolutely was avoidable, also necessary because Destiel story arc, but here I believe Dabb knew what he was doing. Remember those parallels we talked about ^^?

So why? If Cas is coming back, like we now definitively know, why take the time and effort to include this scene? Because really, it was pointless. Lucifer could’ve killed Cas straight out of the portal without Cas ever entering, and it would’ve served the same purpose, and raised no questions. Because hey, shit happens, and Cas is almost always on the negatively receiving end of it. So why, Dabb? Why shoot this particular scene that seemingly makes no sense and had everyone questioning Cas’s intentions?

Come. Take my hand. Let me show you.

Dabb literally, intentionally, oh-so-deliberately, shot this scene:

To act as a parallel for this scene:

I REPEAT:

DABB DELIBERATELY SHOT THIS SCENE FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE OF DRAWING A PARALLEL BETWEEN SAM AND JESS AND CAS AND DEAN.

IT IS THE EXACT SAME SCENE. THE SAME STRUGGLE. ALMOST IDENTICAL DIALOGUE. THE SAME FUCKING FRAMING, FFS!

and before you say, no wait, your hopefulness, Jess doesn’t come back, this makes for a sad ending, stop, no, what are you doing??

YOU ARE MISSING THE BLATANTLY GAY POINT

Dabb recreated the first scene of the show with Dean and Cas. He intentionally paralleled Sam’s canonical relationship with his girlfriend to Dean’s canonical subtextual relationship with Cas.

Further, the scene with Sam and Jess marked the beginning of the series, the beginning of Sam rejoining his brother in the family business, but also the unfortunate end of his relationship with the woman he loved. If you look at this reversed (much in the same way Cain said to Dean about how he was living his life in reverse), that would mean that this could possibly be hinting at the end of the show, but also the beginning of Dean’s relationship with the man angel he loves.

I mean, I’m not saying that Destiel is endgame...but fuck. Destiel is endgame.

#destiel #parallels

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websiteseooptimierenipyr845-blog · 5 years

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geoduinn-blog · 7 years

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On why I adore Prompto, the transient heart of FFXV, and the power of bromance

So I wrote this pile of meta immediately after finishing FFXV and shortly before some similar analyses wound up on YouTube. While I agree with a lot of them, I don’t feel like they go far enough in exploring the gravity of the train scene and its impact on the story, so I decided to upload this almost a year after the discussion was relevant. Please excuse the outdated references to an ‘upcoming’ DLC for Prompto.

FFXV is a flawed game. It is plotted sparsely and structured contestably. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, and its light-and-darkness lore feels okay at best, contrived the rest of the time. I don’t even want to mention its treatment of gender, or I’ll never write about anything else (and maybe this game deserves that). But the reverence and joy I often felt while playing FFXV must not be understated. As annoyed and even angry as I am at SquareEnix in the aftermath of one of its best games in a long time, the fact remains – this IS one of its best games in a long time. This is certainly not because of the flawless execution of each of its individual parts, and definitely not because of any attempts to respect its non-male fans, but because of what generally makes a FF game a FF game – the unforgettable atmosphere, the commitment to the characters, and the miraculous success of key dramatic scenes in the face of insurmountable narrative ridiculousness.

This hybrid between a tumblr meta and an HSC essay will explore that success through the framework of some of my favourite elements of the game: a scene wherein the villain Ardyn tricks the young protagonist Noctis into harming his best friend; the relationship between Noctis and Prompto, the bestie; and the expression of the core themes of the story through the world and atmosphere that these elements create together. Themes of friendship, transience, and sacrifice will be explored, but all in all, this is just an unstructured meditation on some things I love about this game – an ode to the flawed FFXV, crafted in its image.

Ok so the scene I described above really cements Ardyn as one of the most detestable FF villains for me, while also making me love Prompto all the more. In a nutshell, Ardyn swaps bodies with Prompto, and Noctis, following the logic of the story, attacks this supposed Ardyn. While the scene relies on a really stupid narrative device, its positive effect on the relevant character arcs is proportionately strong. My suspension of disbelief has just been brutally injured by a magical technique that I didn’t know the villain possessed until two seconds ago, but the scene still somehow works. It’s such a typically FFXV thing – logically pathetic, but narratively powerful enough that I yelled at my TV.

Okay. So I assumed straight up when Ardyn appears on the train and starts referring to Noctis as his ‘bro’, his ‘dude’, his ‘man’, that he��s just being a douchebag. I was ever so slightly suspicious that the game gave me only the option to attack Ardyn at this point, but I wasn’t exactly calm enough to question it when faced with the asshole who shivved my fiancé. I just wanted to shiv him back.

When he continues the gross façade with what seems to be mock surprise at the fact that Noctis is trying to kill him, it only serves to rile greater anger. Of course, he wants to kill you, you basket case. You’re just provoking him, now. Why are you acting like you’re one of us?

And then Noctis drops a few choice lines that will haunt me/him until the end of the game – things like “why have you been following us around all this time anyway; all this bad shit has been happening ever since you started tagging along behind us…” in other words, a violently sincere checklist of all of Prompto’s greatest fears. And this Ardyn, this Ardyn-who-isn’t-really-Ardyn, doesn’t fight back. He asks, disbelievingly, “Is that true?”

The horrible genius behind Ardyn’s plan is that it kills two birds with one stone – two beautiful, innocent, emotionally brutalised birds – by having them kill each other. What could be a worse fate for Prompto than finding out that his best friend doesn’t really love him; that, in fact, Noctis has been harbouring annoyance for him all along, and that this has festered into resentment the longer they stay together, and has finally become hatred now that the truth is coming out? What could be worse for Prompto than dying at Noctis’s hand?

At this point, let’s consider Prompto’s character. Prompto is a bit of a dork. He’s the same age as Noctis but has never considered himself as being in the same league as his friend, physically, intellectually, or socially. He has the lowest base stats of any of the four main characters. His defence sucks, his attack sucks, his magic sucks, and his HP is even worse than Ignis’s. His photographic hobby serves no practical purpose, unlike Noctis’s angling, or Gladio’s wilderness survival, or Ignis’s campside culinary creativity, which all mesh together ridiculously well. He’s the shortest in the group and the most feminine in appearance, and compensates the most (and apparently in the only way he knows how) with over-the-top body language and a tongue piercing and a wardrobe straight out of Hot Topic. Noctis even (affectionately) calls him a nerd on several occasions.

Prompto is painfully aware of his role in the group dynamic. He’s the annoying friend. The plebe in a party of royals. The self-conscious try-hard with no redeeming qualities, as far as Prompto himself is concerned. He is less aware of the strengths of his role, because they are not traditional male strengths, and because he is the only person in the group to successfully wield them.

Prompto is crucial to the main group because he is the best at maintaining relationships. He is the only one who is able to consistently offer the emotional support Noctis doesn’t let on that he needs; the only one with the courage to try to defuse the arguments between Gladio and the Prince, even at risk of harm; the one who puts aside his own anger to hold up Ignis when Ignis is stumbling blind through a swamp, fighting to stay himself while Noctis and Gladio just fight each other. When King Regis dies, not even Ignis maintains the level of composure and sensitivity that Prompto has. While the others crumble under an awkward and heartbreaking silence, Prompto softly attempts to comfort Noctis, while also instantly recognising that they need to flee, lest they face the same fate as Noctis’s father. While Ignis and Gladio sit in the dining car of the Tenebraean train in silence, Prompto attempts some semblance of normal conversation out of a desire to show Noctis that he is emotionally available.

His loud public persona and awkward tendencies mean that he comes across as slightly autistic or socially maladjusted. But he is far from stupid, and his reluctance towards anger and direct confrontation should not be mistaken for dullness. His instinct to support others just outweighs his instinct to respond to his own feelings.

But if he views these abilities as expendable, then why shouldn’t Noctis? By Prompto’s logic, the idea that Noctis might actually hate him and his loud, oblivious, materialistic personality is perfectly reasonable. That dramatic irony is the tragedy of Prompto’s character. It’s a tragedy that many players can recognise in some way, be it through themselves or who they once were, or through a friend or family member who underestimates their own importance.

Of course, Noctis does not hate Prompto. Far from it.

After chasing ‘Ardyn’ through the train car, suspended in a dreamlike state and mysteriously separated from his best friend, Noctis awakens to Prompto, lifting him to his feet. They scour the train together, stop the magitek troopers together, bring down a fleet together. So when Noctis sees Ardyn and Prompto standing atop the train, with Ardyn apparently having disarmed Prompto and now wielding Prompto’s gun against him, his reaction is instant. He bolts to save Prompto by throwing Ardyn from the train. It is at this exact, context-free, confusing, and somehow still earth-shattering moment that we realise Noctis has just flung his best friend off a moving train and is now stuck on top of it with Ardyn. Who proceeds to knock him out.

Now, let’s consider the relationship between the player and Noctis. Right from the start of the game, we occupy a space in the back of Noctis’s mind. We are the third-person in his RPG world, and while we have enough distance both visually and narratively to view him as his own distinct character, we are beckoned forward to identify closely with him, all the time. One of FFXV’s great strengths is its immersive power. Whether we are young and on our own clumsy journey into the responsibilities of adulthood, like Noctis, or whether the game serves as a portal into our past, it attempts to appeal to a universal sense of familiarity. It achieves this certainly not through the genders of the main dudes or the roles the game therefore assumes they should mould themselves to, but because the undercurrent of love is instantly recognisable to anyone lucky enough to have faced a challenge beside their friends. FFXV is about growing up by supporting the people you love and accepting their support in return, and as Noctis’s shadow, we get a first-row view of his appreciation of this. We feel his appreciation through the links we make to our own memories.

So, with this clarity of vision, in this spiral of dramatic irony with Prompto at the ugly centre, we know intrinsically that Noctis cares about him. This is not even something to be questioned. We see it in his affectionate exasperation and in the way his voice softens whenever he laughs at Prompto’s awful jokes. It’s in the sincerity of the scene at the motel, when Prompto admits his fears of inadequacy to Noctis, and Noctis tells him how much he values their friendship. We know how honest Noctis is in this friendship because his whole experience is one of helplessness in the face of destruction and thankfulness for what he has left – a lurching return to innocence, heralded by tragedy and softened by beauty.

But it isn’t only in these confessions that Noctis’s feelings are confirmed – it’s in the feeling that every moment the four friends spend together is precious and fleeting. The game is saturated with gentle scores and spontaneous bursts of music that ache to reflect the joy in the characters’ journey together. The lingering sadness in some of these pieces only reinforces the inkling that none of this can last – that they cannot be friends forever, because life has a way of ending things that should go on, and love hints always at sacrifice. Even game mechanics like the day-night cycle reinforce this feeling, as each sunset bathes the world in silence just a little too soon, and we think, ‘just one more fish, just one more hunt, just one more line of ridiculous, endearing dialogue’, but to push these boundaries would be to endanger our friends, and we are forced to retire for another night. The game sears moments of perfection into our mind, and in doing so, reminds us that each of these moments can only happen once. Every dungeon is new until you know what’s inside; every fish is a question mark until you catch it. (THIS IS A SERIOUS ESSAY I SWEAR.)

Prompto’s photos are perhaps the strongest mechanic of all when it comes to creating this sense of joyous ephemerality. What appears to be a game mechanic of little worth – indeed, what many hardcore reviewers criticise as a gimmicky addition to a weird bachelor party road trip of a game – holds arresting thematic relevance. Photography has been used in many games to express the irretrievability of a single moment, or to capture a second of the impossible (think of everything from Fatal Frame to Firewatch to Life is Strange – where photography exists in a game, it always provokes meaning, even if only sometimes offering a useful mechanic). Prompto is an indispensable member of the group – yes, because he’s funny, he’s kind, he’s supportive, and he puts himself in as much danger as anyone else to stop the Empire’s mad plans – but also because he is the group’s record keeper, the one producing proof that all of this happened. Prompto is the guy with the camera, and that means more than he can know. Noctis’s final request, after all, is to carry one of Prompto’s photos with him into death.

Let’s return to Noctis as a character, and try to understand the growth he experiences, leaving him at a point where he finally feels he can face that horrendous death in the absence of his friends. By the end of the game, he reaches a place where he appreciates that he can fulfill his duty with only his friends’, fiancé’s, and father’s love to support him, despite that he will never see any of them again. He has accepted that the halcyon days of his closest relationships are gone forever. This is in large part due to the fact that he has proof of their time together. It is vivid in his memory even when the present feels like a dream – the sidequests and aimless travel easily last three-quarters of the full game, after all, and the endgame is more of a haunted epilogue than a true catharsis. It is in his ability to even sit on the throne, as alone, he would never have survived the return to a daemon-ravaged Insomnia. And it is in the final photo that he takes with him. Noctis is heartbreakingly aware that his power is all thanks to his friends, and his sacrifice is an attempt to reciprocate this love by returning them to a time when they were free.

The scene on the train and its brutal aftermath (yes, this essay thingy is still about the scene on the train) is a crucial turning point in Noctis’s journey. After Prompto is thrown form the train by none other than his best friend, who believed he was in fact Ardyn, Prompto is captured. Sure, there’s some as-yet-unpublished DLC that happens in the middle, probably involving more horrible experiences for Prompto, but we basically know where he ends up. Captured, detained, and tortured, and Ardyn seems to enjoy every second of it. When Noctis rescues Prompto, Iggy and Gladio in tow, he releases Prompto from the Shinra-esque rack he’s suspended on and supports his exhausted collapse. Prompto says, almost infuriatingly, “Tell me Noct… were you worried?” The millisecond it takes the decent player to hit “of course I was” and yell “I fucking love you, you prick” at the TV, Noctis is gathering himself for a reply. One almost expects anger, but instead, he replies with warmth and appreciation – not even pity. This seems to be the best possible response, because Prompto confesses he knew this was true – that Noctis would come to rescue him, and that the trick had been Ardyn’s design, and not a product of Noctis’s hatred. Their reunion is essentially a happy one, despite the circumstances.

Because this is FFXV, the scene feels slightly emotionally constipated as no actual reflection is afforded the exchange. The boys accept and go about their usual business (with the exception that Prompto, bruised and bleeding like everywhere, leans unmoving against the wall with a look on his face that suggests he’s probably going to be traumatised for the rest of his life). Noctis’s apparent calmness could come off as a little uncaring from a shallow analysis (AHAHAHA BUT WHAT DO WE HAVE HERE). However this is the first time in the entire game he has had any chill about anything. In short, he is returning Prompto a favour.

In long, he has come to terms with grief and better appreciates his role as someone who can bring stability to a traumatic time, and Prompto is a person who, for all his wildness, values that affection and stability, evidenced by the fact that he is usually the one providing it. Consider Noctis before this development. While a wonderful character, he was pretty typically a FF protagonist in his fear of letting people down, not being able to save someone, etcetera etcetera. Lightning couldn’t save Serah, Cloud couldn’t save Aerith, Tidus couldn’t save Yuna probably, Ashe let her fiancé and father die before she could raise a rebellion. Like her, Noctis couldn’t save Luna or Regis. For the whole first half of the game, his objective was to find Luna, to reunite with her, to bring her into the fold and finally marry her. Twelve years of betrothal come to a clamorous end when Ardyn murders Luna, and it echoes straight back to the death of Regis at the hands of Ardyn’s imperial army, at the start of the game. Losing not only his father and his lover but also his best friend would ruin Noctis. Talcott’s grandpa’s murder, and then Gladio’s injuries, followed by Ignis going blind, are the start of Noctis’s realisation of the length his friends will go to, to protect him. His reaction, understandably, is guilt. He hasn’t accepted his own political weight or the personal sacrifices he must make at this point, which is frankly a perfectly healthy and decent reaction to finding out that people are willing to die for you because your powers can save the world or whatever. We see how distraught Noctis is when Prompto falls, and he has to recount the ordeal to Ignis over the phone. No question from our end – Noctis cares immensely about Prompto.

At this point, he is still not the force of stability that we see him as at the end. It is through the next few days of quiet travel, the realisation that night is coming and will never end, and the slow, sad appreciation for these final moments with Ignis and Gladio that Noctis realises what everyone has been fighting for. They’ve been fighting for each other and for him, sure, because they’re friends, but they’ve also been fighting for that joy that they once knew and want to restore to the world. Prompto, too, has sacrificed more than a simple plebe should ever have been expected to sacrifice in this savage political diatribe, because he wanted to support Noctis. Noctis seems to realise, in this twilit interval between the open world of the past and the claustrophobic corridors of the future, that the time for him to become a stable force for his friend is now.

When Noctis frees Prompto from one of the most disturbing locations in the game, more akin to something from Amnesia than FF, his character arc completes. His developmental climax has already happened, and the endgame follows in swift, ghostly steps. Were you worried about me? Of course I was. The moment Prompto is thrown off the train marks a climax in Noctis’s grief about what they have left behind and what has been ruined. His reunion with Prompto forms an assurance that, despite the finality of this sadness, their adventure has fostered some future cure. The small, fleeting beacons of joy, now gone, signed a pathway toward eventual hope. Prompto will never recover, and Noctis will never be able to go back and stop what happened to him. But he is alive, and Noctis can make sure there is a future in which he can rest, and continue recording the passage of those moments vital to life.

We are important to each other. Our short time together was precious and transformative. The things we did together we may never do again, but to believe you mean any less to me because you’ll be in my past soon (OR because you’re a magitek trooper – surprise) is so, so wrong. That wreck of a bachelor party is the reason we made it so far.

And so this mess of an analysis winds to a close.

I’ve covered a few important points in this ridiculous monologue. The success of FFXV as an examination of transience and the power of friendship, probably. Some stuff about Ardyn was in there as well I think.

I don’t know. This game didn’t have a great deal of closure and neither does this essay. But I feel like there was some good stuff in there. I wouldn’t have spent so much time on it, otherwise. I wouldn’t have loved so deeply if that moment of perfection had never happened.

But all good things come to pass. The game, Noctis, this essay. That’s it.

#final fantasy #final fantasy xv #ffxv #meta #essays #games

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