Shadowbringers is about learning how to live.
Your enemy is stasis- everything and everyone is stagnant, they wait and wait for something to happen, but don't do anything to make it so (because the ones who tried before failed, because they don't know what to do/how to do it). People don't change, they don't try, not really. The crystarium is doing well, it's independent and sustainable, but it doesn't have the reach or power to do much outside of Lakeland. The Exarch is more-or-less confined to the city (because of the tower, because he's waiting for you), so even if he had power elsewhere, he'd be limited with how much he, personally, can do.
Eulemore is filled with mindless indulgence, there's no hardships or labour or anything but luxury for the free citizens, and the bonded only have to worry about fulfilling the task(s) they were brought for. The outside world doesn't matter, hard work doesn't matter, personal fulfillment beyond indulgence doesn't matter, everything exist solely in the moment. The people out in Kholusia have pretty much given up, they stay close to the city in the hopes that this time they will be picked, this time they will be saved. They wait and wait and do nothing but wait. The ones who try to live on are dying out or eventually give up and join the rest in waiting.
Ahm Areang, Rak'tika, even Il Mheg are all just waiting for something, anything to happen. They go day to day, surviving simply because it's all they can. Nothing changes.
Until, of course, you should up. You, who causes a ripple of change simply by existing, who can move the immovable by sheer will. You showed them that things can change, that things can, and will happen, if they just try. You show them that they can make things better, that there is an option besides waiting for a slow death, if they'd just grab fate by the neck and tell it "No. We are doing this my way".
And they do. They rally up together and do what they thought impossible. Not all their efforts succeed(not immediately), but they tried. They tried, they failed, and they got up and tried again and again until it did work. They take the chances, not knowing how it'll turn out (because it's not about whether it fails or succeeds, it's about having tried).
They learn how to try, little by little, and every step they learn what it means to really live.
Endwalker is about learning how to love life.
Your enemy is nihilism- the idea that nothing matters, that there is no real joy to be found that isn't snuffed out by misery. A concept that denounces greys in favor of a black-and-white view where black is all encompassing. Everywhere you go, people are doing what they can to survive, but refuses (or maybe are afraid to, or maybe never knew they could) try to actually save themselves. The Forum plans for escape, to leave their homeworld behind and take whatever they can afford. They will live on, but they won't be saved, no one is saved(and even with escape they aren't safe, Despair is everywhere and She will not stop until all has become Nothing).
The Loporrits love Etheirys, but in the way Winter loves Spring. They know about it, they are so close to it, but they are distant. They're strangers, they've never met. It's love, and it's pure and true, but it's also just love. It's surface-level(because the surface is all they had). Their love is pure but it's instinctual. Programmed. They love because they don't know how to not love. They want to save it's people, save us, but they don't know what it really means to save, so they create refuge instead(because that's what She told them to, because this is how love works for them).
The people of Garlemald are terrified, they are victims of extreme indoctrination, the (deserved) push-back their army got proved them "right"(that we are savage beasts to fear, that they are but prey in the maws of rabid dogs). They want to be build-up again, but what's left for them now? The world hates them(and it's all their fault, the ones who see past the propaganda know this, but who will listen to them?) and they are dying. It's so cold and the fuel is running out. They won't accept help, because they've been filled with the idea that there is no such thing as pure kindness from "savages"(and they are too prideful to question it, to break apart from the illusion that they are surperior, because they're terrified to face the truth).
The sky screams, the earth wheeps and the foundation of existence is overtaken by Despair, misery is around every corner and who knows what will happen now? Where do we go? What do we do? We live and live but for what?
What's the point of it all?
That's the question, and the answer is everything. We live because there is joy to be found. Because there is beauty in the world. Because there are stars in the sky. Because flowers bloom in spring. Because cats purr. Because waves crash against the shore. Because of every single little thing we can see, hear or feel. Because we love and are loved. Because there are things to do and discover. Because why not?
And you tell them this, by letting them see that there is more to life than the little they have seen. The Forum has closed it's eyes to anything but it's own kith and kin, everything outside of Old Sharlayan is irrelevant(non-intervention, always non-intervention) and it takes the entire world coming and telling them "We are here. We are alive, and we will make tomorrow happen." for them to realize they have slowly been killing themselves and what they stand for(you pride yourself on knowledge, but where is your wisdom? What do you truly know of things outside your own bubble? You do not know that which is lived because you refuse to aknowledge anything but the written word).
The Loporrits see Etheirys itself, they experience it's corners and valleys and learn what love can really be. They want to save it, truly save it, because they love and this time it's informed, it's personal(I love you, I love you, and I want you to know I love your loves too).
In Garlemald everything is slow, unsteady and complicated, but it's changing. They're changing. With every person who accepts help the illusion of supremacy and "purity" melts away just a bit, and the wall standing between them and us breaks a little(it will never vanish completely, years upon years of oppression and subjugation and conquest don't disappear like that, but it's a start).
Shadobringers is about learning how to live, but Endwalker is about learning how to love life.
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this is ridiculously late but belated happy birthday, mackie! (@stevethehairington) everything you do is golden and being able to call you a friend is an honor. here’s some cheesy fluff for my friend. ily. 💛
“Where’s this one from?” Featherlight warmth spreads through Steve’s core. Eddie’s finger touches his taut skin, a memory weaved in between blood and skin.
Steve presses against the touch, “That one is from when Billy Hargrove broke a plate in my head.”
Eddie’s mouth gapes open, blinking at him in disbelief, “What now?”
Steve laughs, pressing his head at the blade of Eddie’s shoulders. He basks at the heat, like a kid in a summer field, remnants of passion and magic still in the air.
“Have I never told you that story?” Steve says, muffled as he presses kisses into Eddie’s shoulders, skin and scars making up his person.
“No?!” Eddie yelps, pushing him away gently, his face slacked with confusion and concern, “Does this look like the reaction of someone who knew that Billy fucking Hargrove broke a plate on your head?”
Steve smiles, pressing his thumb against Eddie’s forehead and smoothing the furrow away, “Well, I told you that story, right? Our second time with the Upside Down. It was around that time, when Billy attacked Lucas and we got into a fight.”
“Oh.” Eddie sighs, “I really don’t want to speak ill of the dead. But— Billy.” Eddie makes a face of disgust and cringe, that makes Steve laugh.
“Let me do one.” Steve urges on, making Eddie smile and nod.
There is something so magical with the way Eddie maps out Steve. Some nights, they stay up way past making love to learn every bit of skin. Steve never understood why, no one really stayed long enough to learn the stories burrowed in his skin.
Eddie says— like a person from an actual fucking fairy tale— that Steve is a map, a map of constellations and stories, all formed from years of journey and life. If anything, Eddie says, he’s very happy that he’s the first one to do it, to discover it, to write stories about it. Steve isn’t the best explorer, but he does his best to do the same for Eddie.
Steve lets his finger dance on skin, weaving through stories he hasn’t learned yet. He wishes— hopes— that his touch is just as gentle and as warm as Eddie’s and that it brings him the same comfort his touch does for Steve.
Steve pauses on a scar too small under his jaw, barely visible now that it’s been swallowed whole by bursts of scars from where the bats gnawed at him.
“How about this one?”
Eddie smiles, brown eyes lighting up with recognition, “Oh. You found that one, huh?” Steve hums.
“Well, that one I got from dancing on stairs. I was holding a fire truck, and I slipped and fell down the stairs. My mom said I was very smart and I was trying to brace for my fall, but the fire truck got me instead.”
Steve caresses the scar, like it’s still healing and bleeding in his hands, like the same way he did some months ago, when he found Eddie bleeding to his— almost— death.
“Did you need stitches?” Steve whispers, scared that it might’ve hurt for a younger version of his Eddie.
Eddie chuckles, smoothing over his hair and leaving a kiss on his crown, kissing away the worries, “Nope. Just bled a lot, but it did stop. Left a scar though. Had so much worse since then.”
Steve nods, pursing his lips into a smile, as his hands explore against bursts of red painted on Eddie’s skin. It’s the biggest most prominent scar, the ones they’ve barely talked about since they started exploring.
“Well, that one, I am not ready to talk about yet,” Eddie says, his hands shaking as it makes contact with Steve’s scar, directly mirroring his scar, “But one thing is for sure, it’s pretty fucking metal that we have matching scars.”
Steve chokes out a laugh, batting his hands away, “One day, when you’re ready to talk about it, it’ll be a story of survival and bravery.”
Eddie doesn’t speak, but he does pull him closer, forehead against Steve’s. That’s okay, if Eddie doesn’t believe it right now. He will, someday. Because that’s what healing is, bleeding and healing and living to tell the story.
It’s okay, because Steve will be there, until stories wrinkle and fold. To explore every scar and bump and listen to his stories as Eddie writes stories about bright stars engraved on his skin.
For now, he finds another one.
Steve smiles and says, “How about this one?”
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Owl House/Boiling Isles biology headcanons from a fic idea I never wrote:
Witches have a wider range of color vision than humans. A lot of magic puts off infrared light (meaning Luz is missing out on like, half of what spells actually look like).
Humans, however, have a better sense of smell. Witches are better at digesting potentially hazardous materials, but humans have to worry about poisons. Humans are also highly specialized to smell petrichor (via Wikipedia, "able to detect it at concentrations as low as 0.4 parts per billion"), and witches can't smell it at all. (Luz is like, "I miss the rain smells in the human realm so much. On the Boiling Isles the rain just smells like burning :/" and all her friends are like, "what. are you talking about."
Witches don't have an appendix, but they do, coincidentally, also have a random organ that doesn't have much of a purpose and sometimes ruptures and kills you. It's located slightly above the right lung.
Kinda obvious but, ears. Witch ears have a greater curve than human ears and taper into a point. They have some limited mobility, allowing the witch to pinpoint sounds, and they play a part in emotional expression. For a witch, it's not really that strange that human ears are round, it's more that they don't move at all. They're completely stiff, and it makes humans difficult to read. (Luz is lucky she's otherwise very expressive, or else she would come off as nearly emotionless. As it is, sometimes people think she's not being genuine, because her ears don't match the rest of her expression, like when someone smiles without their eyes.)
Humans have slightly denser bones than witches. As a result, humans weigh a bit more on average and put on muscle easier.
Witches can't digest lactose
A high tolerance for most human poisons means that alcohol isn't a popular drug for witches. It technically affects them in a similar way, but their tolerance is such that it's not an effective way to get high. Most of the drugs used recreationally on the Boiling Isles would kill a human instantly.
Witches have a different pulse beat from humans, since their hearts are designed differently to accommodate the bile sac (and grimwalkers' pulses are even more unique, since they have a galdorstone. Rather than the thump of blood valves, Grimwalkers have a sort of magic hum that pulses their circulatory system.)
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Forgive me if I'm a bit nervous about Gorgug this season. It's just that the last Zac Oyama pc was Colin Provolone, who was arguably one of his greatest D20 performances, if not the greatest.
Zac always does great with every pc he plays, but Colin was something else. He came out swinging with actions and words that were teeming with unspoken emotional baggage. The way Colin's presence affected the other pcs; there was this level of depth that I don't think I've seen in any of his other characters. It was understated and quiet in that signature "just a guy" way that he tends to be, while still captivating everyone instantly with just how raw it was.
Not to say we haven't seen emotional depth in Gorgug. It's just that, compared to the other Bad Kids, Gorgug's journey and progression as a character has been very... impersonal? Like, yes, he found his birth parents, and he found friends who appreciate him, and he faced his insecurities about his intelligence, and he navigated relationship troubles, and his trial through the claustrophobic bug-tunnels was a horrifically-uncanny parallel to how he's spent his entire life trying to make himself as small as possible.
But how much of that has actually changed him from the Gorgug we started with? I would agree that he's definitely happier with his life, given all the loving and supportive people that have been added to it when it used to be just him and his parents. And he's certainly grown into himself and become more self-assured in his abilities, even if he's still, and always will be, our anxious little guy. And there's nothing wrong with that. I've always liked how Gorgug was a representation of all the little things. The subtle acts and kindnesses that don't seem like much to most, but to some are everything.
We don't need another Bad Kid living in fear that their mouth could be shit-in at any moment. We've already got one-too-many.
All that being said, I just feel like Gorgug's personal story beats are much easier to sweep under the rug than everyone else's. He has the same soft and understated quality that Colin held, but they lack that extra oomph that pushed Colin over the edge from being just another guy in a series of dudes, to a character that the vast majority of us could not get out of our heads. He took someone who was anxious and softspoken, who ultimately never wanted to be violent— someone who is remarkably similar to Gorgug in many ways— and maintained that demeanor and core in Colin's character while still hitting us in the feels with character development at max velocity at every turn.
I think Zac gets better and better at this with every season that goes by. With each new character, there is always something that leaves me stunned in awe. And it's been, what, three? Four years since we last saw Gorgug?
I'm just,,, I'm cautiously optimistic but also going into a bit of a worry about what violence this man may inflict upon us
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I really like the intimacy of other people's rooms and other people's houses in fics, but especially in jmart fics.
(I've just finished season 2 so bear with me if I get some stuff wrong)
To the listeners, they live pretty much their whole lives in the institute. What we see of Jon and Martin are the parts of them they present at work (but I guess as things get worse, this is sort of thrown out the window, cause why try to be professional when you realise your workplace is literally evil and trapping you here). My point is that there's a certain part of both Jon and Martin that they don't see of each other, even if they spend a lot of time together in the institute and when they do fall in love, they obviously want to see those parts. But we don't see them. We don't know what Jon's or Martin's homes are like. Their rooms? Their beds? Whether they cook? Do they have messy desks? It's irrelevant to the plot line but that's what makes it special to us, the fact that we don't know what goes on there means 1. there was a little bit of their lives untouched by the horrors of the institute and 2. we can explore it in our headcanons and fics. They have that little bit for themselves and i'd read a thousand iterations of Martin getting nervous about seeing Jon's bedroom or vice versa because the level of intimacy is immediately deepened by the fact that this is more than their home, it's their little bit of safety. It's their place to fall apart or stare at the ceiling for hours, it's their place to process or numb or be free from the fears and shit. I like to think opening the door to their flat or whatever is like someone slowly and painfully removing a bandage from a wound. You can see all the viscera underneath and the context of their lives and it's powerful but also has the potential to be deeply sad.
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