#i think white light is good for moon bc its like corruption basically

[madame-mongoose]

I would like to hear more about the Gorillaz. Sun and Moon as songs? I gotta know.

OH!!! This is easy

Sun would be Pac-Man imo (or Humility if you're looking for optimistic Sun)

And I think Moon would be White Light (or ticker tape maybe)

[ansu-gurleht]

okay so i went through the datamined books from eso, taking notes as i went. @boethiah sent me a message this morning about it, asking what i thought. so i figured i might as well get real comprehensive about taking down notes to answer decently, or at least do it to organize my thoughts. 

before she sent me that i hadn’t heard about this, so i went into it bright-faced and intrigued. i didn’t think my notes would end up too long, so i just figured i’d send them to her when i was done, even “talking” to her in the notes (you’ll see what i mean by that). 

but uh. as all things lore-related, i got a bit carried away. stopped almost halfway thru to go to class, and by then i’d started to notice some really weird, kinda silly shit in it. and then i noticed everybody in tesblr talking about it, and finally realized, “oh. so it’s like that.” so i figure i’ll post it here publicly instead.

despite the uh. obvious nonsense in a lot of this, i think there’s a lot of interesting things hidden away. so what i’m going to do is just post my notes under the read-more. i’m too lazy to organize them into something more coherent lol. they’re basically just me commenting on certain lines and stuff. 

i won’t like, really go into why most of this is stupid, bc other people have already done so, and better than i probably could’ve. but you’ll know. somethings i quote things and just. have no idea how to even address them other than, at best, “??????” either bc it doesn’t make much sense, eludes useful analysis, or is just stupid.

anyways, here goes:

book 1:

azura: - "the Path"? am i wrong or has a "Path" never been referenced in khajiiti lore?

khenarthi: - alkosh comforts khenarthi after lorkhaj died? yeah right. - khenarthi's role as psychopomp for azurah mirrors kyne's role for shor. but azura doesn't factor into nord/atmoran mythology at all.

jone and jode: - azurah cares for jone and jode? interesting. (also, "Bright Moons"? full moons?)

lorkhaj: - lorkhaj as "White Lion?" - namiira (the Great Darkness) followed lorkhaj as his burden? - mention of a "path" again, made by lorkhaj with purpose. sounds yokudan. - "in conflict with himself" & "represents the duality of the Khajiiti soul" ... desert and jungle ... strife, hardship, and life, love ... both tainted deadly by nirni, according to ahnissi - "We honor his sacrifice by walking the Path with purpose and resisting the call of the Dark." ... the Path again ... the Dark? namiira? - (the khajiit seem to conflate namira and nocturnal. this isn't a new concept, as they both genuinely do overlap in many ways, but an interesting one.) - "the true spirit of Lorkhaj will sometimes appear" ... "by Azurah" - nerevar/ine, "or Khenarthi" - hjalti, "or by his oldest name" - ...ysmir?

magrus: - all of this magrus stuff is new, to my knowledge. - the importance of him fleeing from "Boethra and Lorkhaj" probably excites you :P - "fell into the Moonshadow" ... "too full of fear to rule a sphere" ... "tore out his other eye" (odin parallel? a "failed" odin, maybe? unless seeing "out of one eye" is metaphorical) - "Varliance Gate"???? "Aether Prism"???? they're the sun, but those names are brand new afaik. overall a strange alternative to the story of magnus and the sun - "Some sorcerers hold that Magrus left the eye willingly" - more odin stuff

book 2:

- azurah knows all the names of all the spirits, their protonyms? that's interesting. a lot of that "protonymic" lore is derived from the whole "true names have power" stuff, popular in magical circles from sources like kabbalah thru the lens of crowley. - "And Fadomai told stories of her children and her favorite aspects of each of them. When she reached Azurah, she smiled and told her favored daughter she could not decide. And Fadomai died." ;----; - "sat in the Great Darkness for timeless ages" ... sat with namiira? - seems to have carved moonshadow from the great darkness. (the great darkness seems to have dual meaning as both oblivion and namiira. then again, i think only clan mother ahnissi said the great darkness was namiira, so that (morrowind) lore might be outdated.) - this scene with lorkhaj and his empty dark heart is......interesting. - "UR DRA NA MII RA UR DRA NA MII RA UR DRA AZU RA" - you can pick out "namiira" and "azura" in this, but the meaning of "UR" and "DRA" elude me. - lorkhaj gets his heart torn out YET AGAIN. very rude azurah - the "Moon Beast" and its hunger remind me of the yokudan sep. - i think once upon the time "dro-m'Athra" referred to daedra in general, but i think eso has made them a specific type of daedra resembling khajiit. even more specifically, some kind of "dark khajiit" born from dead evil khajiit. - "lighting the fire with lanterns of love and mercy" - your vivec is showing, azurah. or i guess, the other way around. - this "ashes of Lorkhaj" bit gets me thinking about ysmir, again. but i'm not sure what to do with that.

book 3

sheggorath: - now THIS is a not shitty interpretation of sheggorath! he's not a "god of madness," but a god of mental fortitude, a god who tests convinction. - more stuff about "the Path" - "must be ... overcome before a Khajiit can visit Hermorah's library"? - "Sheggorath is dead and has been replaced by something Other" - the hero of kvatch? but if this is from eso, that hasn't happened yet? unless the mantling of sheogorath is a pretty common occurrence; i remember someone on tumblr suggested that this might happen every era.

orkha: - "Orkha ... followed Boethra back through the Many Paths" ... what does that mean? - "Lorkhaj, Khenarthi, and Boethra battled the demon in the ancient songs" - ... as trinimac? - "but Orkha could only be banished and would not die" ;) - "serve as tests along the Path" - so far these princes are being painted similarly to their house of troubles counterparts

dagon (also called merrunz.) - no reference to merrunz being the kitty cat. :( next - ...okay not really. "explore the Great Darkness rather than the Many Paths"? - molagh "tortured him until the creation of the World?" but "the wife of Molagh freed Merrunz"? who is "the wife of Molagh"?

molagh (balls) - "twelve Demon Kings"? should probably look into how they got that number - "Boethra and Molagh fought to a standstill before the lattice, but it was Azurah who shackled the Demon King with secrets only she knows." - i dont have anything to say about this really, just an interesting line i think. - "you will overcome him with the might of Boethra, the Will Against Rule." - interesting...afaik, aside from HAVING a khajiit name, boethiah never really factored into their faith that much, and wasn't ever mentioned in clan mother ahnissi. i wonder if azurah at some point attempted to unify her plans for the dunmer and the khajiit.

merid-nunda - interestingly, the khajiit seem to call her by her magna-ge name. - "False Spirit of Greed"? - magrus "loved only himself and his own creations"? idk if this seems all that congruent with the magrus from his own description - "cold spirit, born of light without love" - interesting - "blame her for orchestrating the death of might Lorkhaj"??!?!?!? what?????????? - "When Merid-Nunda dared assault the Lattice, Azurah struck her down before the Varliance Gate and dragged her away from it. She then cast Merid-Nunda into the Void and bound her there with mirrors. The nomads say she has since escaped." this whole thing is interesting

book 4

nirni: - nothing interesting on nirni.

y'ffer: - y'ffer "corrupted by the Great Darkness," (namira), who apparently killed nirni???!??! what??????? - worth noting that ahnissi doesn’t paint y’ffer as “corrupted” or evil or anything. in her words he’s kinda just a moron who doesn’t *get it* and does his own thing instead.  - don’t get the obsession with making namiira some like. crazy super evil being. feels like eso took a look at the list of princes and was like “who hasn’t tried to destroy/take over the world yet. that’s what daedric princes do right”

hircine - hircine doesn't get a funny ta'agra name, i guess. - graht-elk?

hermorah - hermorah helps azurah maintain the ja-kha'jay?

sangiin - according to what this says about sangiin, khajiit are actually NOT one of the most hedonistic races on tamriel. suuuuuuuuure, buddy.

book 5

- a look at the khajiit afterlife w/ azurah in moonshadow. - first you walk the sands, then you walk the glass, then you walk the thorns, then you have a good time, then azurah sends you back to nirn do something else (reincarnated)? but it might just be this one guy who goes off to do something ("Bring my children back"), he seems kinda special. no idea who he's supposed to be.

book 6

- all this shit about akha and alkosh and alkhan is bullshit. the fuck is akha even supposed to be? according to his name you'd assume an association with akatosh, but alkosh is akatosh, right?

akha: - this book says akha is the first cat. ahnissi says alkosh is the first cat. - "Pathfinder and the One Unmourned" - are we talking about akatosh or dagoth ur here. - "Many Paths"??? again?? what are they. knockoff walking ways? - "mated with the Winged Serpent of the East [akavir], the Dune Queen of the West [yokuda], and the Mother Mammoth of the North [atmora]. He then went to the South [pyandonea] and never returned." then alkosh shows up and says "yikes that akha guy was a little fucked huh?"

alkosh: - alkosh is "The Dragon King" and "Highmane." association with the Mane of the khajiit - "In time, the children of Akha overthrew [Alkosh] and scattered his body on the West Wind." ...??? is this a reference to the middle dawn? seems unlikely - apparently khenarthi put him back together. also seems unlikely

alkhan: - oh so the khajiit recognize alduin now too. cool.

boethra: - and boethiah i guess, why not????

mafala: - mafala has always been part of khajiit religion, tho, afaik. she is the og clan mother. - "She watches over Eight of the Many Paths, each of which a Khajiit must walk in time." ?????????? wtf are the many paths!!!!! why are there eight of them!!!!!! is this a reference to the spiral skein, or satellite realms (the spokes) of it? - forreal i think they gave up on pretense here when they started listing allies and shit. - "Her numbers are Eight and Sixteen, and these are two of her keys." this just sounds like something from the 36 lessons tbh. this doesn't sound like khajiit lore at all

book 7

lorkhaj (moon beast): - confusingly, lorkhaj as fadomai's favored son and lorkhaj as the moon beast are called by the same name, and despite this have separate entries in these books. - wonder if there's some equivalent in other myths to the moon beast. he seems pretty interesting, being "born of the dark heart of Lorkhaj" - there's UR DRA again, attached to namiira, again, who is apparently an enemy of the khajiit.

namiira: - apparently eso has rebranded namiira as like, an absolute enemy of the khajiit, with the dro-m'athra as her corrupted-khajiit minions or something? except i thought dro-m'athra originated from the moon beast? anyways, ahnissi only said that the great darkness became namiira. didn't say that was a bad thing necessarily. - also, her khajiiti ta'agra name, namiira, just so happens to be her protonym, NA MII RA.

noctra: - oh, so they do have nocturnal, as "noctra". - wait, so she's the "daughter of twilight"??? isn't twilight, idk, azura's thing???? (i feel like i've heard nocturnal be associated with twilight before, but it still makes little sense. it was probably from eso, too.) - boethra separated noctra from namiira. one could say she *stole* noctra from namiira ;) - noctra is ok by the khajiit, whereas her progenitor namiira is not. ok?

varmiina: - ok we have vaermina now too i guess. why the fuck not. - "The Lost Daughter. This spirit was not of any litter, but was born from Fadomai's fear of losing her children." - "Azurah killed this dark spirit in the Underworld" what the fuck is "the Underworld". they just be making shit up now

[?????] (no, really. that's what it says. dunno if that's a placeholder or intentional): - "[?????] A spirit of vengeance. It has no will of its own, as it was born from Azurah's grief after the death of Fadomai and Lorkhaj." ????? - "It sometimes appears in songs as a black panther, a warrior in ebony armor, or as a hidden sword." idk about "a black panther," but the "warrior in ebony armor" evokes ebonarm, who's technically still canon, and "a hidden sword" could be umbra. not sure what the connection here is.

[tainbocuailnge]

seems I’m physically incapable of thinking about fate extella without getting really mad about its wasted potential so here’s my Official Non Exhaustive List Of Ways To Fix The Damn Game

ok so story-wise first of all make each story route at LEAST two stages longer, and maybe throw a few more scenes between stages too. it might throw off the story-gameplay balance a bit but like, it’s a type-moon game and the sequel to extra who the hell would go in NOT expecting a shitton of words. in nero route put those extra stages at the start of the route to make the “conquering the moon” part longer and feel more like a legitimate hard effort before altera comes in and undoes it all in a day so that altera actually feels like a threat of incomprehensible scale. that extra time should then be used to establish team dynamics and basic worldbuilding more, and also make archimedes feel more like a legitimate ally by like, actually having him there as an ally for a significant amount of time and also maybe making him a bit less suspicious bc I was on to him like 5 minutes from his introduction. nero route doesn’t actually have to pay a lot of attention to nero yet because you get to spend a lot of time with her again in secret route so that time should be spent on showing how the rest of the team interacts instead. it’s also important that altera at this point is presented mostly as a mindless killing machine with nero making a few cracks in that facade that get explored later, I feel like they made her too soft too early.

tamamo route could use another stage of conquering the moon before altera drops in too but since you already know of altera’s existence at that point the early section can be shorter than in nero route. again the team dynamics should be more fleshed out and this is also a good time to contrast nero’s team of passionate people who mesh pretty well and genuinely like nero with tamamo’s team of far more reserved, calculating, and straight up evil people who hate each other’s guts and are almost all planning to backstab her. since you as player already know altera is A Thing at this point this should be played as “will altera even show up on time to fuck their shit up before they self destruct?” in tamamo route the part where altera is There should be longer than in nero route so that you get a better sense of who she is and that she’s Not What She Seems because that’s tamamo’s thing too, nero is there to contrast altera while tamamo parallels her. tamamo and altera are similar existences in how they’re natural enemies of humanity and tamamo’s desperate wish to keep living a happy life with hakuno despite that should be the setup for altera’s same wish in the route after it. tamamo’s team has a lot of “I don’t like you because we’re too similar” going on so that should be played up more especially in relation to altera too to really drive it in that there’s more to altera than initially seemed.

then altera route even more so than the previous two should really ramp the team dynamics the fuck up because everyone’s motives for siding with altera are so fucking vague and they interact maybe ONE time, which I guess is to give the idea that they’re hardly a team at all but that can be shown through them being incredibly hostile to each other too especially since they all want to help altera somehow but have very different ideas of how to go about that. it also wouldn't hurt to have nero and tamamo team up to fight altera in this route already (but not until nearly all their generals are already dead and they still can’t win) to set up for the secret route by showing it’s not impossible for them to team up they just did it way too late this time

then the SECRET route, again, fucking again, should have done SO much more with team dynamics. you can’t just throw the whole cast of a game advertised largely as a team thing together and not show us the fucking team dynamics, eggplant man. this is the route where you actually spend some quality time with nero again to make up for not really doing that in her route and there should be a few more tamamo scenes to balance it out too imo bc shit boi i love nero too but the favouritism is blatant and painful. then for the endgame make the velber core an actual fucking threat instead of whatever weak shit it was now that we are TOLD is very dangerous so that the saber venus transformation feels justified, and after that have archimedes pull some shit and fuse with it or whatever so that you can take control of titan altera and beat him to death with her bare fists because “determinism versus free will” is an ICONIC fate/series fistfight and it needs to be had. also for the ending have the freed from her ties to the umbral star altera be a fucking adult??? what the fuck was up with the child thing?????????? it seems cute at first but the longer I think about it the weirder it is and I get that the idea is that altera is “reborn” & now has the chance of a complete new life to live as a person instead of a tool of destruction but why the fuck couldn’t ADULT altera, the altera that we actually know and love and who deserves it far more than a child with her face, get that chance. we married her. we literally married altera the fucking bridal symbolism around her is insane why would you make her a child!! why!!!!!

overall the game should flesh out archimedes’ motives more because as it is now most of the details of his character are explained in extella material instead of the game proper (not even in his side story rip) so he comes across as pretty one-dimensional. above all it should be clear that he’s always hated humans for their irrationality and that his corruption by the umbral star isn’t a reason so much as an excuse for his actions

everyone’s side stories should be at least one stage longer too because 3 stages is basically fucking nothing especially in light of how little attention the side characters actually get in the main storyline. I really wouldn’t have minded that as much if they would just get proper side stories but they don’t. side stories would be THE place to go into team dynamics too but it just doesn’t fucking happen!! i know you’re good at writing lots of words nasu why didn’t you do it!!!! there should also be short myroom scenes with the side characters or at LEAST changing myroom lines with your bond level for them or something, you have a bond level that goes up to 30 and it just doesn’t fucking get used for anything except install skills and some scenes for the main girls.

the regalia was a very blatant bullshit button throughout the story, which you kind of NEED when you’re facing the literal embodiment of destruction, but its powers should’ve been explained more clearly and also used more subtly instead of having characters do crazy shit and then handwaving it with a “we used the regalia of course”

then for the GAMEPLAY hoboy. first of all there should’ve been way more maps. as it is now there’s what, five locations? not including bossfights. the game keeps telling me about how much the moon cell is expanding and how there’s whole new worlds being generated every day but it doesn’t show me that, it just shows me the same remixed 5 locations. there should’ve been more variation in stage objectives too because now every time it just comes down to “complete the regime matrix and then fight the boss” and it gets stale really fast, even with gimmicks like time limits or bloodfort andromeda it still all comes down to “conquer sectors then fight boss”. something like “defeat x number of servants” or even just “survive” in between those would’ve spiced things up. 

speaking of the expanding world the game really would’ve benefitted from some kind of central hub area where you can walk around and talk to your teammates and maybe some npcs so that you actually get the feeling of the moon cell being inhabited by more than just the cast of servants and hakuno, because the game keeps telling you that but never fucking shows it. it also would’ve made it really easy to make the story feel longer without even making it all that much longer just because you can spend some time walking around talking with people instead of being sent right into the next battle, as well as creating opportunities to give side characters some attention/characterisation/anything without causing them to distract from the main story.

the bossfights are underwhelming as hell. the white titan doesn’t feel like much of an unstoppable threat at all which could’ve very easily been solved with her just like. moving forward during your fight with her and part of the fight being that you actually have to get her attention in order to fight her because you’re just so insignificant to her. don’t even get me STARTED on the fight with velber because that shit was pathetic, the only way a weak ass final boss like that would be justified is if it wasn’t the actual final boss and was MEANT to give a feeling of “wait was that all?” but honestly even then it’d be bad because why would you waste saber venus on something like that. ideally you first have the fight as it is now, then there’s a second phase where archimedes pulls some shit and you have a REAL fight as saber venus, then archimedes goes super saiyan and titan altera comes in to punch him in the dick

god im so mad I’m honestly so fucking mad because i LOVE this game. I really love it. but it’s so bad and rushed when it COULD have been so great