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meggannn · 10 months

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atsv rewatch notes that i forgot to share

in gwen's flashback, mr stacy says "why wear a mask if you've got nothing to hide?" may parker says "no politics at the dinner table," and gwen pointedly says "thank you, may" to which may winks at her. does may know she's spider-woman?? that would definitely add another layer of angst if may thinks she's responsible for her nephew's death as well

gwen goes to visions academy in her universe too, evidenced by the logo on the drums she plays and the shirt her dad's wearing. so no wonder she could sneak her way around in 1610, but also, her school seems to be in chelsea (manhattan) not brooklyn? unless their band practice is just in chelsea and they stole a drum set from brooklyn lol

one of gwen's posters just says SOCIAL MEDIA lmao

the fact that in gwen's touching selfie of her and miles you can still see peter's sweatpants legs in the background from where he's passed out on the bus is so funny to me

65's police department is also called PDNY, so i guess peter's NYPD in 616 is the odd one out

captain stacy calls his partner "yuri"! i assume it's 65's yuri watanabe?? (edit, the director's commentary confirms this)

according to his arrest log, the vulture was a middle school secretary before being arrested lmao

i just realized we were going to get miguel's backstory and then gwen interrupts it because she doesn't care. so i guess my theory about miles being the only one who can interrupt others' monologues because he's an anomaly is incorrect lmao

i didnt realize before the helicopter crashes, she looked at miguel and miguel nodded, implying "i'll get them" for him to clear the way while she handles the people in the helicopter. i think her competence and flexibility are why he changed his mind on bringing her to the team, along with her dad ofc

a reactor pointed this out (Lupa from YaBoyRoshi) but when gwen is pleading to her dad not to arrest her, he and the colors behind him literally become divided with a dark blue line against white background. i interpreted this as a metaphor for his indecisiveness but it's also. literally. showing a thin blue line foreshadowing his choice. that's insane

gwen saying "i don't know how to fix this." and miguel tosses her a watch after saying "yeah, well, join the club"—didn't realize this had two meanings lol, one inviting her to the society but also admitting he doesn't know how to fix any of this

i'm very impressed by how much they put into the spot on a rewatch, like the voice acting is excellent and they made him jiggle up and down going "this is real!" when he meets miles. it's so cute. like all the extra details just make it great

lmao when miles does his intro he shows himself growing like a head taller than gwen, and about as tall as peter b and noir?? ldkfjdlfk im sorry buddy you're not quite there yet

during miles's intro he meshes the past year with his current fight with spot, and he narrates beating up bad guys with a bunch of shots of him punching villains—then it cuts to him failing to punch the spot; quickly followed by the spot and miles tied in a bunch of weird scenarios with the dimensional holes, including miles's face on ohnn's body, all played for comedy. foreshadowing baby

all of the jeopardy categories when miles hosts are spider-themed. "swingin' in the rain" "arachnidioms" "spider sense & sensibility" "the wide web world" "thwip it" and i cant read the last one

not only does miles's baby powder apology video have more dislikes than actual views (69 million to 10 million, yes, a 69 joke), a youtube comment also says "old spider-man didn't need baby powder" so the youtube comments section is wrong in every universe

in his mustache apology video, once again there are more dislikes than views (70 mill to 11 mill) and a comment says "i heard it was made from actual spider legs tho fr"

miles drew his friends over his subway mural and everyone's always in cool action poses EXCEPT PETER who also gets a shot of him sloppily eating a burger oh my god. it cracks me up he draws more of the other spiders but so little of peter lkdfjld. but this is sweet tbh i hope somehow the gang sees this in btsv :(((

at the counselor meeting: "you thought i could do something special. and now i think so, too. and the special thing i want to do is this. there are people out there who can literally teach me the things i want to learn. and they're not all in brooklyn" my heart hurts

when the spot destroys a building in the lego verse someone goes "does anyone have the instructions for this building??" lmao

when miles is hanging with gwen, you can hear him faintly say "no it's not the greek burger place" and we don't know what he's replying to but. what's the bet he told gwen how terrible peter's favorite burger place was on the bus back from alchemax and it's an inside joke between them

miles left his jordans in a random alley in brooklyn chasing after gwen!!! MILES!! (but then later when he's trapped in 42, they glitch back onto his feet???)

miles still swings using the same bounce-crouch he learned from peter im gonna die. you can see it esp when compared against pavitr and gwen when they face the spot

i thought i missed when miles picked up an empenada but i didnt, they literally just cut straight from jess mentioning them to miguel's narration then miles walking down the hallway with it. did miles ask jess+gwen+hobie to stop by the cafeteria first lkfdjlf.

miles bounces when miguel's lift starts to descend. he's so excited to meet him :(

peter says mayday took a crap and then he takes her offscreen but. he doesn't actually change her diaper. mayday was sitting in a dirty diaper that whole chase and somehow wasn't upset? or are we supposed to believe that large spiderweb mayday bounces off of (which we never actually see getting built between one shot and the next) was being used as a very quick one-second changing station? lmfao peter

sun spider says "miles, i'm a huge fan of your work" which. wow everyone not only knows about miles's situation but follows his actions in 1610???? wtf. also does miles have fans?? (aside from the og gang)

after seeing how frustrated/desperate peter gets to have miles hold may, i'm 100% convinced he knew when miles entered the society, ran back home to grab his baby, and came back to nueva york just specifically so miles could meet may, but it turned into a shitshow and now he just hopes THIS conversation can go well if he can make it happen like he imagined in his head. like aww, but also peter, he doesn't want to talk about your daughter right now, he wants to talk about his dad lol. right words, wrong time

and peter doesn't even bother trying to escape the webs miles traps him in, he just kind of hangs there angrily?? lfkjlf

the text around hobie's portals reads ENTER PORTAL with an arrow, NEXT STOP, EXIT STOP, i think MIND THE GAP, a weather report, and i think miles's name?? maybe also 616, miles's dimension?

when miles realizes he's in the wrong dimension, the same leitmotif plays from the first movie when he walks down the school hall realizing something was different after the spider bite

miles's terror and joy at seeing aaron in 42 is palpable. he will always love and miss him, he will probably always wish he could speak to and ask aaron for help again, but he will never forget being chased by the prowler, and aaron about to kill him on the rooftop. i think some part of him will forever be that kid scared of the person in the prowler mask—or at least wondering what that person is capable of, how far that person is willing to go to get what they want—which is a very fitting question considering he then faces another miles behind the prowler mask shortly after. i suspect in btsv he'll have to ask himself the lengths he is willing to go to, in this universe or the next, to save the people he loves. heartbreaking

i adore the telltale art style of earth-42, it's so gorgeous and noir-like, reminds me of the wolf among us

#spiderverse stuff #across the spiderverse

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maxillis · 2 years

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anyway actually i do actually want to explore an elysium with an innoccentic harry. every time he steps foot in that church and looks up at the mosaic of dolores dei, it makes me think. every kind of apocalyptic omen that comes out of nowhere, every superstitious layman that believes harrier du bois is some kind of harbinger, every revacholian that dreads the ground harry walks on...harry is a broken, sad, empty, lonely and desperate man. he has profound and insightful things to say about the world. he observes it with care and love. we have the sodium lights. this is somewhere to be. he observes it with cynicism and deep dissatisfaction. he knows when the numbers are wrong. he knows when the suit at the desk is going to fuck over old widows and their children. sometimes he loses his sense of reality and begins to instead count the days that remain. the city connects to him through the invertibrates. he has done atrocious, unforgivable things. he fights for the people, he's a real common hero. he is a person no one wants, or is eager, to hear from.

and no one that knows him, really knows him, is ever in a position to see an innocentic harry. they see the radiation instead. they see the bloated corpse of a drunk. he survives heart attacks out on the bombed, rotting roads of history and they wonder how he hasn't left himself out to dry in the pale by now. to them, he may as well have been the body in the tree. the imperfection of his chin, from a bout of polio when he was young, is not quite a combat injury like lely's. they both nonetheless had to learn how to speak to the rest of the world through it.

harry is often discounted as a competent person because of his drinking, and the most intense pushback against harry comes from his partner, who was scorned by harry's ego and condescension. jean, a satellite-officer, one of harry's last few believers. but none of it matters anymore, because all of harry's words have been tainted. there is nothing he can say to inspire jean's forgiveness, or happiness, or relief. when i think about THE NEXT WORLD MURAL i think about how jean wanted to keep it, and how it must have been harry, his superior, who agreed to take that back to precinct 41--agreed to debate it and demand to vote whether it should be conserved or removed. of course they couldn't get rid of it. true love is only possible in the next world. for new people. it is too late for us.

in precinct 57, a moralist in a revolutionary jacket wonders if his superiors care that they're sending him to work with the human can-opener. the 50's era, moribund drunk, somewhat of a street legend (or was it a tall tale?) and also a sordid promise that the case would be solved to the ends of the earth. kim had forgotten the man's name somehow. it was only mentioned once before, when kim was determined not to pay attention to who exactly the poor son of a bitch was, getting caught on the short end of the pissing-contest shit-stick, in the maw of martinaise. but even without a name, kim had known what to look for. that goddamn jamrock shuffle. he could have named it as he watched harry shamble down the stairs.

kim is no saint. he is no devout founder's party service boy. but there is no point where he can't bring himself to believe harry's hunches, warnings, and instincts. one of them saves kim's life. another finds a bullet that has already taken a life, in a hanged man's head. harry finds ruby because the wind speaks to him. there is a 2mm hole in the world, and harry has seen it. he knows what it will do, he understands what it is made from. something got you this far, kim thinks. however, he too knows he is not imaginative enough to think of what, in particular, that could be.

this innocentic harry, shrouded in pale and ravaged by the world he was born into, will also likely do nothing but fall on deaf ears that have been both put off by his substance abuse and quite frankly fucked over by dolorianism, and the last vestiges of belief in his word will be those who altogether reject the imposition of the past (AKA the overlap in a venn diagram between delinquents and kim kitsuragi) on any bearing of the present. that's how harry works; he is discounted because people believe he is nothing but a rambling drunk, or a paranoia case. but kim saw his service history. he also saw the startlingly low kill count.

but if the only way for harry to start anew was to rewrite himself out of an old wrecked frame, while older, out-of-date copies of harry du bois were still open on jean vicquemare's desk, then true love really would only be possible in the next world, and harry's infection-by-pale would be the last nail in his coffin. so harrier du bois is no longer permitted to live in the past and he suffers the consequences when he slips back. he can't un-speak jean away from the past where they both once stood. his boon, and bane, is that he must now surround himself with what is to come. and his curse is that nobody believes him. he will not go down in history. he will not live to see the change. nobody has faith in him, even when he succeeds. and he has succeeded so often; statistically more often than he has faltered. just like you cannot call kim a revolutionary for wearing a jacket you cannot call harry a revolutionary regardless of how he chooses to serve the people but "harrier" is a gift from his mother to keep him strong during war and he was born in a hospital where people would usually go to die if you even care

#disco elysium #like do you ever just go a little bit fucking crazy.#anyways #harry du bois aka the cringefail innocence #cd-roms

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shallyne · 2 years

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High Queen Feyre

Things that might point to Feyre becoming High Queen. Enjoy!

1. Amaranthas titles mirror Feyres titles (Huntress, High Lady, maybe High Queen & Faerie Queen)

2. The land chose Feyre because in ACOWAR the forest in the middle parted to let her through (around chapter 58/59)

"The woods seemed to monitor each of my steps" - acomaf page 217

3. Symbolic: the first time Feyre sat on a throne after being crowned High Lady was in the court of nightmares. She sat on the throne and Rhys leaned against it

4. I don't know if that is important but it feels important: Feyre is able to befriend Prythians deadliest monsters. Example: the Suriel, Bryaxis

5. "leave this world a better place than how you found it, Cursebreaker" - the Suriel, acowar

6. Power of all 7 High Lords

7. "You were given life by all 7 of us....what if we gave you more than expected? What if you could stand against us-hold your own, a High Lady?" or High Queen? Acomaf pg. 73

8. "No one was my master-but I could be the master of everything, if I wished. If I dared." acomaf page 319

9. "What-get rid of the High Lords?" "Perhaps. But mostly eliminate the inherent privileges of High Fae over the lesser faeries." Tarquin to Feyre in acomaf page 323

10. In acotar, Feyre sees a mural where a female hand holds the cauldron. Maybe the Mother, maybe pointing to Feyre being High Queen

11. Lady of Many Faces (Book of Breathing calling Feyre) | Queen of Many Faces (Book in Crescent City)

12. ACOSF chapter 42, Amren and Rhys talking about High King." I didn't do anything to earn my power, I was born with it." Feyre did earn her power.

13. ACOSF chapter 42 "Feyre isn't interested in being High Queen." - "She would do the necessary evil to protect her unborn child."

14. Aelin ended up as Queen | HOSAB mentioned Bryce twice as future Queen | Feyre = High Queen?

15. "Once I discovered and mastered what the others had given me, I could weave them together - into something new, something of every Court and none of them." acomaf page 451

16. Acowar page 419 "Would we fight against Hybern only to find ourselves with a King and Queen of Prythian?" Tamlin about Feysand

17. "Today Rhys's mysterious clothier made me into the Queen of Night." acowar page 464

18. "Look at you, a child of all seven courts - like and unlike all. How the cauldron purrs in your presence" chapter 64 acomaf

19. "And the new, emerging world beyond." Acofas chapter 1

20. "I loved the work, actually. This territory, it's people - they were as much my heart as my mate." Acofas chapter 1

21. "There was more that I could do to help. Personally. I just hadn't figured it out yet." Acofas chapter 1

22. "...and followed her High Lord and Lady through the darkness, back into the light." Acofas chapter 6

23. Rhys's POV at the end of ACOMAF, he thinks of Feyre as "My Queen"

24. Feyre in acomaf being like "I knew I haven't finished what I was born to do" and Suri telling her in acowar "Leave the world a better place than how you found it"

25.“His High Lady looked so young he always forgot how young she truly was, considering what she'd already faced and achieved in her life.”

26. Book of Breathings called Feyre Princess 3 times. "Princess of Carrion", "Princess of Decay", "Princess with..." (got interrupted by Amren) bc that's what she is rn, she's gonna be Queen later

Plus this tiktok that I saw yesterday. (not mine but very interesting)

#acotar #a court of thorns and roses #high queen feyre #feyre archeron #feyre #feyre cursebreaker #high lady of the night court #feyre darling #high lady feyre #High Queen of Prythian #acotar theory #acotar theories #Shallyne theory #Shallyne theories #Feyre Theory #High queen

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thormanick · 2 years

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the text below is me analyzing a fandom headcanon as if it were a research topic. i apologize in advance, this is just how the idea of 'having fun' sits with me

on the topic of exploring things related to kaveh and alhaitham

A thought occurred to me today that with all the "reincarnation" headcanons i've seen people always say Alhaitham could've been the Scarlet King,

and I would like to suggest an alternative approach *nervous laughter* look this is jus an exploration of the headcanon, nothing serious. Anyways,

let me introduce the concept of kaveh, actually, being the said reincarnation. hear me out

sumeru has a lot of lore and i'm yet to grapple with all the things related to the Desert, but

If Scarlet king has the name of the Scarlet king it implies that there is. something Scarlet about him. And this is where I'm always stuck with Alhaitham: there is. nothing scarlet about him besides some eye coloration. Ok, not important. But when you explore the Mausoleum of King Deshret, you find that mural with the eye over the pyramid that looks uncanny similar to that of alhaitham. so, because the eye symbolizes the power of King Deshret, it might be easy to say 'ah yes. it does make sense, the Eye=Scarlet King=Alhaitham"

except (and this is where my inability to recall the lore comes in, so i might be completely off the topic at the end of the day) the Eye does not represent the Scarlet King. The Eye represents the Power of the Scarlet King, and when you ascend the Pyramid, you figure there is a messed-up IA driven machine [the one you normally fight in the smaller pyramid to the south]. And that machine was like. The pride and joy and all things good and proper when it came down to handling and running the place built by Scarlet King and his followers, like his right-hand man.

so in my analytical delusion i raise you a headcanon: this is what Alhaitham is. He is the re-incarnation [re-emergence? idk] of that very entity that at some point got corrupted. By that I do not mean that Alhaitham is somehow a robot, absolutely not: I just imply that in the new life he as a human possesses a number of traits and characteristics extremely similar to the one of the IA [managment, high productivity, analyzing and correcting the system, establishing the best possible order for the society, etc.] In other words, Alhaitham is the right hand of the Scarlet King and, I would argue, a figure of equal if not even more importance than the Scarlet King himself.

And Kaveh, in this case, could be the Scarlet King. First of all, I love when the color coordination checks out. is it subtle? absolutely not, but boy does it work wonders for me. Second of all,

because - and I make a huge leap here bc there is not really much information on how Kaveh operates outside of his direct connection to Alhaitham [as a scholar and an architect] - he is an inspired architect. He is someone that builds, that creates. And if we put down the Scarlet King's image to basic aspects,

what was he, if not a creator? a great architect, who built a society and glorious cities? this is- and the tragic irony about contemporary people thinking that King Deshret was a tyrant when in reality he was probably an incredibly passionate creator, wishing nothing but good to his people? It would also make sense with the forbidden knowledge thingy, because who but extremely driven (probably to the point of obsession) person would go out seeking knowledge so far and so otherworldly that they would in the end reach something that disrupts the laws of their own world? once again, the tragedy of it all??? willing to do good to the point it turns into evil where you could not foresee the consequences???

I just think there is something here. i just think this has some narrative potential

#if you engaged with this text i can't say enough thanks to you this is SO random #i would LOVE to see a fanfic where kaveh and alhaitham go onto exploring the past of the desert and reincarnation is indeed a thing #can be romantic can be platonic #and they both assume that alhaitham is the scarlet king when in reality it is the other way around #and the realization leads to them almost repeating the past cycle of their lives because both become a little too obsessed with what #they're supposed to do as 'reincarnations' and they are able to break out of it by instead forging their own paths #god i love stuff like this #genshin impact #afinna explores teyvat #genshin impact thoughts #genshin impact headcanon #genshin impact alhaitham #genshin impact kaveh

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fandoms-in-law · 1 year

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Stories Chapter 9 - final chaper

chapter 1 chapter 2 chapter 3 chapter 4 chapter 5 chapter 6 chapter 7 chapter 8

Summary: The redecorating is done, and all that's left is getting used to it. So Steve arranges a movie night for everyone

Authors comment: I had so much fun writing this and cannot thank everyone enough for all the support you've given me.

/\/\

According to Eddie all the kids were thinking about now was how Steve had decorated other bits of the house and if he'd let them see it all at some point. That, at least, was the reason Steve gave for arranging a family movie night with everyone invited, from all the members of Hellfire, to Joyce, Hopper and Murray and even Argyle if he managed to get back to Hawkins for it.

It wasn't a lie, just not the full reason because the bigger motivation was that Steve had finally got the carpet changed, and the furniture switched out with the old things put in storage. He was hoping not to store all of it for long, and was going to offer to the adults and young adults of the group that they should have a look through and decide if any of them want some of it. As long as the kids didn't steam-roll the evening he'd make the suggestion while everyone is together.

"There's no mural?" Dustin asked, staring around the living room as if one would appear on the walls. "I was sure that you'd have asked for one in here since you got one in the dining room along with that painting."

Steve huffed a laugh, "Good observation Dustin. Thanks for a quieter reaction though. Did any of you actually think of films you want to watch or was everyone focused on how I've changed the living room?"

"We can watch films whenever. You'll surprise us with redecorating only this once. Of course that's what we want to judge." Mike stated as if expecting anything else was stupid. "But at least you kept the TV. That would have been a waste to get rid of."

Max scoffed form where she'd pulled El and Lucas down onto one of the massive cushions slightly shaped to be sofa like. "And you're not even judging it right. Like the mix up of these cushions and proper sofas is so weird. Couldn't just pick one type, could you?"

"So you want us to throw these out, right?" Steve countered, not even needing to glance at Robin for them both to grab an end of the cushion the trip were on and start pulling it towards the door.

He got squeals of laughter before Lucas and El were taking Max's words back for her. "Guess I'll have to keep it then."

...

Steve smirked when he saw Hopper quietly stepping away from the noise of his living room when they were between films and Robin was corralling the kids into actually making a decision on the next one.

"You finding parenting them all a bit hard." He asked, following and a teasing tone in his voice.

"Not sure how you manage it, even with all the energy of youth to help you." Hop grumbled, grabbing one of the beers he'd brought over.

Steve shrugged, "It's a gift."

"By the way, you had any luck getting hold of Owens?" The chief asked, keeping an eye on the door in a clear desire to not be interrupted asking about it.

"I think the number is either disconnected or he's got a way to block our numbers cause I can't get through." He answered, disgruntled. "But I'm still ready to put it right using that page to claim the money off Mr Harrington if you and Joyce will let me."

"Just call him the asshole. People round town are already calling you 'that young Mr Harrington' sometimes like this is some Austin nonsense. And no, we're not letting you risk him trying to fight back if he's not realised what he signed. You just got your place safe and made it a home." Hopper insisted.

"Then at least go through the furniture I'm getting rid of and take some of it, even if it's just to sell on. I bet a fancy bed could do wonders for your back." Steve segued easily. He'd hoped he could do something like that just to make Hopper more likely to accept.

There was still a moment where he was stared at as if Hopper knew what he'd tried to do and was trying to decide if he should reject the offer just in principle. "I'm paying you something for anything I decide to take. Don't care if you don't think you need it or shouldn't ask for it, and God knows I'm not going to get close to however much the asshole paid for the stuff, but you're taking something." Hopper sighed after a moment.

"I'm offering to just give it to you though." Steve protested, but stopped at the flat look he was given.

"And I'm saying you shouldn't just give this stuff away. At least tell me you're going to properly sell the rest of it."

He was nodding before the sentence was finished. "I've gone to the auction house in Indie to get them to resell it. Plus Robin is scheming to get Hawkins High kids informed of this to see if some of the furniture gets brought back."

It was clear Hopper was going to say something more but both men picked up some call saying they couldn't explore. "Guess there's still some curiosity among the brats for all they hated not getting lifts from you."

…

Robin and Eddie were laughing on each others shoulders when they re-entered the living room, near the other door to the room.

From the look of Dustin and Lucas it was clear they were the ones to stop the laughing pair, which honestly made Steve start laughing too.

"It wouldn't be exploring when they were my main help in getting everything done,but how about I give everyone a tour, settle your curiosity before we eat and the next film is put on?" Steve decided.

"Two rules: Judgement is okay, telling Steve what he should have done when it's really just your preference is not. Go through the shelves or cupboards and be sent back here. If that's not enough to stop snooping we can take tips from 'Charlie and the Chocolate factory'. Consequences are exaggerated and plausibly deadly." Robin cut in, grinning at the noises of complaints nobody actually voiced.

"No deadly or plausibly so consequences, including no throwing my kids in the pool." Steve countered, snapping his fingers back at her before leading the way upstairs. "I will let you see my room. Will's mural deserves to be shown off, but no brats are allowed in without supervision."

"Come on Steve. It fits with how they're acting." Robin goaded, still laughing as they all followed behind him.

…

“Hang on a second. That's freaking metal!” Gareth stated, one of the last of the group to enter Steve's room and now frozen staring at the mural Will had painted covering the wall behind the door. “How do you dress all prep and pretentious, when you want something so – so metal on your walls? I thought Eddie convinced you to do it for the dining room, but here? What?”

The other elder Hellfire guys had pushed forwards while Gareth spoke to see and were nodding along with his words. The kids instead just stared at them for a moment, before Dustin scoffed. “I told you, Steve is metal. He's like awesome. Why does no-one believe me when I'm always right?”

“Ego check.” The groan came from Steve, leaning in the door frame before he shrugged at the other teens. “And this is what I'm used to wearing. That's what I keep ending up doing and we all protect each other. It's just life, with a twist Will gave it to make it look cooler.”

Eddie snickered, nodding at his friends, “And I am trying to convince him to have a makeover, try out a better style. It's slow work though.”

“One group of big changes at a time, Eds. Let's get used to the house being redecorated before redecorating me.” Steve countered, nudging him.

Gareth was still looking from Steve to the mural, before finally deciding, “You had better include trying out DnD at some point. If even half of what the shitheads say, and that mural shows, is in you then you'd be a great player.”

“Don't encourage them trying to make me join.” Steve groaned over a chorus of agreement from the kids to the words.

...

Since they'd actually changed the furniture of Steve's room, he'd spent a month sleeping in the guest bedroom. He liked it in his room during the day but adjusting to having all his things around him openly felt terrifying, even more so after he decided the shelves were a good place for his notebooks of stories.

The thought remained in his head that his parents would see and destroy everything was too ingrained in Steve to simply be shaken off. If he wasn't staring at it while trying to sleep it was easier to believe he was as safe from his parents as everyone was finally beginning to believe they were safe from the Upside down and government torture.

Robin and Eddie still haven't been allowed to look in the notebooks since the kids found them. They hadn't asked, nor really pished him to share his storytelling. The most that had been done was Eddie asking him for ideas on where he could take campaigns next and that Steve was happy to offer suggestions for. He'd never gotten in trouble for helping someone else share a story so it was safe to do.

Eddie begged for a sleepover after everyone had headed home from the movie night. He dragged Steve into his room as soon as he agreed, insisting they go to sleep cuddling on the bed, atop the covers since Steve didn't let go long enough after being pulled in for them to be pulled over after getting permission to cuddle.

It's that night that he finally starts to relax. He had spent the evening here with his family and their friends all around him, and even people he was still getting to know felt safe enough to comment and invite him into things, most people wouldn't imagine he'd enjoy.

With Eddie there now, his room must seem alive and welcoming to his friends, that meant it could be his now. He had his own space that he could decide when to share it and other people actually wanted to help him.

That meant some of his stories happy endings were real and as much as he denied it, wanting to believe in happily ever after but struggling to was the precise reason why he never shared them or tried to join in with others.

This felt a lot like a happy ever until the next change and Steve was happy with that. His friends would be with him through whatever came next regardless.

"Can you read me a story?" He asks, not trying to escape Eddie's arms until he pulled back to look for a book.

Eddie wouldn't find any, but that was fine cause Steve was already reaching for the notebook he wanted.

"Sure Stevie, anything particu-" It was clear when Eddie recognised what he was doing. "Are you sure?"

"We've got a happy ending so I want to hear about my friends getting one too." He shrugged, silently asking that there isn't a big deal made out of this.

Nothing is as the notebook is taken from his hand, Eddie flipping through the pages to a bookmark he'd watched Steve replace while moving his things onto the shelves.

#stranger things #steve harrington #eddie munson #robin buckley #jim hopper #dustin henderson #hellfire club #steddie #fluff

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lunar-fey · 4 months

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WIP meme: dragon's son. I would like to hear about it 👉👈

@lidrens okay combining these into one bc you guys managed to both ask for the One project that i don't have any writing for and don't have enough to say abt to stretch it over two asks i'm just gonna summarize xD so one/both of you feel free to send another one <3

i never actually figured out like. where i wanted to go with the story because the dream ended. but i thought the world building was really fun! tldr it took place primarily in a like ~medieval fantasy world~ where i stepped through a portal into that world and regained memories of a past life.

in that world, if someone wanted to have a child but couldn't for whatever reason, they could go to a dragon (not like. a specific one. this was just A Thing Dragons Were Known To Do) and ask for one. if the dragon felt like you would be a good parent, they would give you an egg. it would hatch into a child that Looked Like You (not like. so much as to be weird but enough that they pass as your biological child) and would be for all intents and purposes human, except they would retain their memories through the cycle of reincarnation.

as such, "dragon's children" were often sought after for like. advisory and leadership roles for their wisdom. in the dream i realized i had been a dragons child (but lost my memories presumably due to like. getting reborn in modern earth world instead?) and was a king from like hundreds of years ago. and when i came back into that world i realized it was descended from the kingdom i had ruled, as there were much of murals on a wall of myself and other people i knew, specifically i had recognized my advisor (who was also my lover...).

after that its a little shaky bc of dream logic lmao. for some reason i was put on trial, and i had to Sing For My Life. like. essentially there was magic woven into the murals, and they would glow as you sing, and based on how they glowed The Spirits Of Our Ancestors would decide you guilty or innocent. bc they can see into your soul, or something like that. also i had to sing Against the person accusing me, who was the current ruling princess iirc.

i don't know exactly what the crime i was accused of was, but when the court when on recess for a bit i went to go look at the mural of my old lover and essentially go "oh dear we're really in it now..." when some guy walked up to me. and i Could Tell it was him but he didn't have any memories of our past life (or at least he shouldn't have.) so i didn't say anything to him, but i think in the dream he figured it out and cast spells on everyone so they'd remember who i was, and they were all like "oh shit dude hey what's up! we could never accuse you of crimes!!"

i THINK it was like. the "crime" was coming to this world? but since i was from here originally it wasn't exactly a crime anymore. i also vaugely remember something about having recognized the princess from my previous life also, and she had been a queen who wanted to fight my father for my egg because she was deemed not worthy by the dragon or something? that didnt get resolved in the dream tho and i have no idea how it would have resolved in story!

#the fey answers #playtwewy #lidrens #i actually went into my dreams tag for this one #and the actual post i made about it actually has FEWER details than this post. so now i guess This is the definitive version #thanks!#its longer than i thought itd be but ultimately still no good way to break it up between asks dbjshdjs

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aprillikesthings · 8 months

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lol I spent a portion of last night/today reading someone else's live-blogs of season 5 and I'm kinda glad just bc I'd forgotten that in the LAST SCENE of the LAST EPISODE they were like "yay let's go to space and bring magic back to other planets :D FRIENDS ROAD TRIP"

(also I reread an old interview with ND Stevenson where he was like "wooo I bet they visit a bunch of planets")

Anyway it's forced me to re-imagine the first chapter and change of my fic but it's fine, better now than later

okay lets get another episode down while laundry is in the dryer

s1 ep4!

On the one hand I get why they have Angella be like this

On the other hand I'm like, do people here not know what "child soldier" means? Yes, Adora's old enough to make decisions for herself, but that's. Why she left.

I feel like this is loosely inspired by really big pretty churches, but in a fairly neutral kind of way

Or maybe it's just that everything reminds me of Her

(The cathedral in Leòn, Spain; aka one of my fave places on earth, I'm always surprised this pic turned out as well as it did because when I took it I was crying, anyway)

*squints* I forget if they ever explain which defeat they're referencing here, I'm positive they do but I'm blanking

Is that Castaspella on the mural

Catra's little "prrp!" here was almost definitely involuntary, and I love that they had her do a "surprised kitty" sound

Okay so Shadow Weaver is like NO I KNOW YOU NO MORE ABOUT ADORA AND YOU'RE NOT TELLING ME and is visibly threatening Catra, but then her crystal thing starts to hurt her, and as she backs away Catra reaches for her before Shadow Weaver slaps her hand away, have I mentioned how well they portray child abuse survivors

BAHAHAH that's gay

the village hoes just be throwing themselves at her amiright

(I don't mean the baby obviously)

Note to self for later, writing reasons: the Princesses all have literal physical objects that are the source of their powers

Man I can never get over the degree to which Perfuma reminds me of a friend I had in the late '00's, a tall thin blond sorta-hippie with long hair who REALLY tries to think positive and loves trees and flowers

Hordak: why are u still so obsessed with blondie Shadow Weaver: i'm not Hordak: you are so full of shit. give it up or no more magic for u

Poor Adora had NO idea she had to fill shoes this big or old

Bow will make such a great dad at some future point

Wait I gotta include that in my fic *runs off to write notes*

accidentally took the worst screenshot lol plz enjoy

This Ken lives in Plumeria!

Perfuma: we believe karma will come for the Horde someday :) Glimmer: or you could just fight them yourself Perfuma: mmmmmno

You're gonna have to tell her this like fifty more times

where did you get those

Boy it took like nothing for Perfuma to convince her people "actually let's go murder those sumbitches, call me KARMA AHAHAH"

Adora's actual magical ability: hiding that huge-ass sword no matter what she's wearing

All the green growing things taking over reminds me of scenes in Princess Mononoke, which was almost definitely on purpose

Perfuma has tasted blood and she's not going back

The parallels with "she's not really gay, it's a phase, she's confused, I'll get her to come to church" like I'm sorry but there's no way they didn't use that phrasing on purpose

Glimmer: if you were perfect you'd be HELLA ANNOYING

(she's not wrong)

ANYWAY my laundry was done like fifteen minutes ago but I wanted to finish the episode out :D

4/52

#april rewatches spop

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secretgamergirl · 2 years

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The Entire Plot of Final Fantasy 14, with all the expansions, and some serious analysis of how good it actually is. (Part 4 - Post-Heavensward)

At this point my schedule for posting these is mainly limited by how rare the windows are where Tumblr will let me hit the “new post” button. Hopefully the congestion clears up soon.

Last time, we got through the end of Heavensward. A story about awful fantasy-catholic blueblooded aristocrats letting their own people starve to death while pursing a genocidal war against some real chill dragons that technically has you helping the terrible people for most of it, but at least you get to kill the pope. Which of course means now Ishgard is going to stop being a horrible place full of terrible bigots, right?

Post-Heavensward

Oh no of course not! The main structural thread of this interim of free patch content is you having to babysit this uneasy peace you mostly established and make sure none of these terrible people mess it up. Or, you know, the big dragon who was the primary aggressor in this thousands-of-years-long war who went ahead and possessed the guy who killed him because for real Estinien what did you think was going to happen when you held both eyes at the same time? Honestly.

There’s a whole bit with someone commissioning a giant version of this mural from Ysayle’s little underground dragon church of the original actual Shiva and Hraesvelgr falling in love to hang outside the gates of the city which I swear is all framed perfectly for all kinds of video edit jokes, possessed Estinein flying in and really starting crap. At one point while having kind of a party someone slips something into the protagonist’s drink before getting a riot started and hey, Warrior of Light, this is the second time that’s happened, maybe lay off wine in the future. Church loyalists don’t like that you killed the pope and exposed their whole everything as a lie, some people still hate dragons, someone tries to assassinate Aymeric, things get pretty damn awful and it largely comes to a head with some jerk flinging a small child off her roof who only survives because one of your chillest of dragon pals just happened to be heading over to maybe have a chat. Ends up being a real good PR moment for team dragon when she catches the kid.

As is usual with this stuff there’s a lot of plot threads running in parallel as we had episodic updates when this first all came out, but this particular topic doesn’t stretch on too much longer, culminating of course with possessed Estinein who has the eyes fused to his armor looking kinda like Nightmare from Soul Calibur and when you fight him he’s flipping between this and a full on dragon form.

Hraesvelgr shows up to help with this mess because seriously, Hraesvelgr is a solid pal. We get some dragon on dragon fighting that doesn’t go super well for the big H, but turns out that’s because his ace in the hole is letting you borrow his eye that was already out and loose and all. So you have your big satisfying one on one (well, 8 on 1, but the plot always pretends those other party members don’t exist) boss fight, then you and Alphinaud tackle him so you can just pry those freaking eyes off his armor and toss them into the massive imposing ravine you’re fighting over. They’re stuck in there pretty good though, and the only way you get them out is with the help of the ghost of Ysayle showing up. Whole band’s back together! Hauchefant’s ghost is here helping too, but I’m sorry, he just did not leave the impression on me the writers figured he would.

Estinein is fine, of course. Again, he’s all tied in with the Dragoon job quests. In fact, when you’re stuck in the boss arena with him in dragon form waiting on party recruitment, you can totally slip out, head to the next town over, advance some Dragoon quest stuff and spar with him a bit before the main event. Stuff like that amuses me. Anyway, this whole confrontation honestly is a very good scene. Someone should really take notes at how much better all this works when you have nice unambiguously good characters not only fighting some evil jerk but actively trying to save people they care about than wannabe Game of Thrones morally grey political stuff and shadowy robed figures with ambiguous goals whispering in people’s ears. And apparently someone is. My understanding is there was a big shift in the writing staff after this expansion and the grimdark folks kinda take a back seat while the woman who wrote the real standouts of the Rogue’s Guild and Dark Knight quest lines got tapped to write the better half of the next expansion and basically everyone for The Good One.

Estinein also finally takes off his busted blood-drenched edgy armor after this, and probably takes like his first bath ever, happy that his militant badass role is no longer needed and he has friends who take care of him. Which is nice but I can’t get over how wrong he looks without the helmet. I know he’s an elf but this semi-femme look is just weird for the guy always pulling the giant eyes out at meetings.

The next major story hook we have going on, which again is pretty intertwined with this one, is that all the less friendly monster folk kinda went and took advantage of your back being turned and started summoning their gods again. Canonically this is like the fourth or fifth time you’ve had to deal with this in some cases, because there is generally some plot justification for having the hard mode versions of those fights crop up (as opposed to the hard mode versions of non-summoned-god boss fights, which are rationalized by there being this bad hanging around who comes up with extra embellished versions of your exploits and then those go into the boss fight a la carte menu).

Hey, didn’t you used to have a whole party of friends whose whole deal was keeping tabs on exactly this sort of thing? Really is high time to get that band together too. Alphinaud has been with you the whole time, getting like half the dialog in the expansion. Y’shtola you dragged out of teleport limbo earlier. Urianger just never left your original base of operations because books are hard to move, you just haven’t checked in (past starting optional boss refight questlines) because who wants to spend time with Urianger? Papalymo and Yda are missing, but we get cutaways now and then showing them hanging out behind enemy lines doing resistance stuff. That still leaves Minfilia and Thancred. Thancred you know made it out because his scuzzy barfly pseudo-spy instincts kicked in and he got out from The Incident early but he’s been way off the grid. To help track him down, you get a little assistance from Matoya eventually, but also from that friend Minfilia’s been trying to invite to join the party since a half-audible phonecall near the climax of the base game, who’s been waylaid since by stuff like the empire full on destroying the island she was living on, Krile. Yes like, from FF5 Krile, has a grandfather named Galuf and everything... and wait where the hell is this line from? This has to be an edit, right?

Aside from being a walking FF5 reference, a big nerd all your nerd friends know from nerd school, and the owner of this custom-made catgirl hoodie, Krile is on that list of Lalafel I can count on one hand who aren’t Just The Worst. Another is Rauban’s adopted son who I think gets introduced around here somewhere. Anyway her and Matoya work out where Thancred’s been hiding. He also headed way up north you just never bumped into him, and he’s had eyes on this odd situation where while in particular the bug hivemind is getting their god up and running again and you show up to do your thing, this other goup of people come out of nowhere and killsteal him.

They introduce themselves as the Warriors of Darkness. Their whole deal is that they WERE the world-saving heroes of an alternate universe, but they claim they saved it a bit too hard, setting off an apocalypse where the whole balance of light and darkness tipped way too hard towards light and now this wave of holy radiance is just gradually glassing their whole world. They came here because one of those Ascian losers taught them the whole die and have your soul head off somewhere else trick, and put it into their heads that they can avert this apocalypse by coming here and scoring enough points for team darkness to screw your world over or kill your plot immunity crystal goddess or some such, but first they need to grind some god refights to power up and presumably recharge their personal metaphysical Zelda crystal chamber progression rooms, like you had to do during Heavensward and maybe spilling into Stormblood? I don’t recall when they all come back online.

The other thing with these guys is you’ve kinda seen them before, sort of, presumably, if you let the whole intro play out in the base game. There’s the whole bit where we see that end of 1.0 apocalyptic scene play out, then these five teleporting into the woods somewhere. The implication was clearly supposed to be that this is a party of 1.0 characters showing up unscathed afterwards but... no we are totally retconning it. This is a group of dimension hoppers party crashing. Actual 1.0 survivors had to start over at level 1 with no gear and nothing to show for it but those 1.0 veteran neck tattoos I’ve seen in the wild all of one time.

This gets real confusing real quick though, because the intro movies for every expansion have a pre-rendered stand-in for your character who looks more or less exactly like the guy in the middle. Also I’m pretty sure what you look like if you just mash through character creation without changing anything from its default postion. Also that central primary actually-took-the-Warrior-job Warrior of Darkness in particular kind of is canonically your sort-of-twin/counterpart from another dimension and I figure the only reason he isn’t actually just straight up given a copy of your character model is he has a ton of voiced lines and they’d sound weird coming from whatever you actually look like. Still super confusing though that when you first see this guy in the intro you incorrectly figure that’s you, and then in all the other intros when you do see you, you might think you’re seeing this guy now that you’ve met him. It’s also weird that they all summon chocobos in hindsight, but whatever we’re retconning an old cutscene now and that oddity only becomes odd in the expansion where we see where these people came from, still several years off.

So, they suck, and go around doing their thing while you’re dealing with other things. Thancred swoops in to help you out when you first meet them, and then later since he’s keeping tabs swoops in when they happen across Allisae when she’s just minding her own business/still waiting for you to find a party for that Bahamut raid already and take her down with a poisoned arrow that almost kills her. Trying to recall if that’s one of the several times when someone mistakes her for Alphinaud or vice versa. There’s definitely one of those the first time she meets Estinein which is pretty great.

There’s also a whole bit where we get cutaways to the Warriors of Darkness having planning sessions with a mysterious shadowy figure that is just so very clearly Urianger. Like that’s a really distinctive beard and also literally not one other person in the entire world talks like that. It doesn’t turn out that Urianger is secretly evil though, just... really curious about their whole backstory and all the interesting cosmology it brings in and stuff. Plus you know, they are trying to save their world from an apocalypse, that’s worth trying to help with, just not with the plan they’re going for. But also like, hey, Urianger, you’re hanging out having chats with an Ascian, that’s never a good plan.

Allisae tags along after getting pretty plainly pulled into this mess, and she’s honestly a pretty cool no nonsense hothead type which balances out all these academic nerds some. She’s around when you meet this tiny little kobold kid freaked out because the local priest is going to sacrifice his parents to summon Titan again, and you show up uh... between the part where he killed this kid’s parents and the summoning bit. The kid’s pretty traumatized by this, and in begging for his parents back, kinda ends up, you know, summoning Titan. Who does not bring his parents back. That is explicitly a thing gods can’t do (at least if you don’t want soulless zombie-like husks of people, they can swing that). But only hackney writing can truly bring back the dead. Interesting side note here, you have to fight Titan again, but it’s not a new fight? It’s just, like, “to proceed with the story please bring up medium difficulty Titan and knock that out real quick.” Weirdest thing. Anyway at the end of this we just have this SUPER traumatized to the point of catatonia kobold kid and Allisae is super invested in his eventual recovery and it’s kind of the defining moment for her character and pays off nicely later.

There’s a lot of lore dumping associated with all this and honestly none of it fits in super well with what’s previously been established about cyclical apocalypses and it all gets retconned pretty hard again the next time it’s relevant and that revison is way better world building than “wow those evil manipulative Ascians sure are trying to make this party of noble* heroes do evil stuff to plunge the whole world into darkness” business.

* I am just never going to be able to let the whole deadly poison in an arrow fired at a random civilian thing go. There’s really no justifying that and it directly conflicts with everything they try to do with these characters later.

Anyway turns out Minfilia’s dead. Kinda. It’s complicated. To work out what’s up with her you have to go bother poor Matoya again and check out the upside down tower in her closet I accidentally mentioned too early. Which arbitrarily ends by the way with a fight against Calcabrina, that really memorable creepy doll fight from FF4. Sadly you can’t skip the big boss by killing all 6 little dolls at once here. So, your personal goddess Hydaelyn has been having connectivity issues for a while (again, this is why you needed an immunization booster in the form of a soul pact with Midgardsomnr, who still pops up to chat here and there and also manifested a cooler mount form for Azys Lla touring). So... when Minfilia was kind of just adrift in the lifestream there with Y’shtola, she kinda went “hey can I like hollow out your body to use as a mouthpiece for talking to the protagonist? It’d really help me out” and not having any sort of actual personality Minfilia agreed. She’s kinda still in there but, yeah. Also like I already assumed, just because this game is so very diligent about hammering home that all religions and gods are inherently false and parasitic, that we’re eventually leading up to a big “and that absolutely includes Hydaelyn” moment, and this here really feels like tipping their hand towards that but... somehow not one single character in the whole game sees this as a red flag or has any problem with it.

Eventually you have your big ol’ showdown with these Warrior of Darkness jerks, and its kind of a neat one showing off a lot of new mechanical concepts that will be commonplace soon, and it’s a big ol’ party vs. party thing where you fight their whole team and the Scions pull their weight for a change helping out. Allisae (who’s never really been formally on the team but is definitely A Party Member from here on out) kinda surprises everyone by announcing she’s sick of being all passive in the background with her little caster book that matches Alphinaud’s and whips out a big ol’ glowing crystal sword she’s gonna try tanking with for a change. After this she decides that’s not really for her and goes for a lighter one once the Red Mage class gets introduced.

So you beat these jerks up and send’em packing back to their home dimension, but you do feel bad for them, so Minfilia/the voice of god goes along with them to see about maybe helping out there. You know, again, we wasted a perfectly good Moonbryda to avoid killing Minfilia off earlier and then we go right and turn around and pull that trigger anyway, basically. And now we’ve just got one and a half major plot developments left and I kinda want to save the one that really sets up the next expansion for last, after I get into the sidequest stuff.

The half though is that somewhere in the middle of all this a real big preposterously tough weirdo samurai washes up by Urianger’s place, having just come over from Doma by just taking a damn rowboat over. Possibly going the long way around the world, too. I just generally enjoy this broad character archetype.

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And yeah it’s weird he’s British in the English dub. It’s weird that everyone’s British. Well everyone but Gaius I guess. When we get to the third expansion people start having accents from other parts of the UK at least for a little variety, but it’s weird. Anyway Gosetsu here is a cool new friend but he’s mostly here to let Yugiri know we’re kinda getting the resistance band going again over in Doma after things were rough enough for a bunch of people to have to immigrate over here and get involved in ninja job quests. Can’t foreshadow things much harder than that.

Time for side stuff though. First off, hey, with all these flying islands we have in this expansion, we really should have some cool friendly air pirates. The sort you’d see in Skies of Arcadia, or various Ghibli films. So we do! They’re fun! And we get involved with them as they’re dealing with this big scary floating doom ship that survived a past apocalypse with some evil guys looking for ancient relics. Typical stuff from those wacky Allag- oh! Hey for like the first and only significant time it’s NOT the Allagan empire! We’re dealing with fallout from one of the OTHER world ending apocalypses and dead civilizations! This isn’t just out of the blue or anything. This stuff does come up a bit in the slew of optional dungeons that opened up after the base game, and in various class/job questlines, particularly like all the spellcaster ones.

Way back when we had three big civilizations of nerds all at once and at war with each other. We’ve got Ampador (white mages), Mhach (black mages), and Nym (scholars). And the big war they had went down in history books as the War of the Magi... because damn if the writers for this game don’t bend over backwards to work in every reference and every maybe-this-is-even-the-same-world-centuries-later deal with every old Final Fantasy game, but especially the SNES ones, and ESPECIALLY FF6. Surviving details are sketchy but basically Nym got taken out with a plague that turned everyone into tonberries, and the other two really went at it until a point where thanks to black mages spamming fire ice and lightning, and white mages spamming wind and earth, the whole world’s elemental alignment got skewed because the only people who ever cast water spells are ninja, and this caused a global flood. Really that’s what this wiki just told me.

The Mhachi got out by building a big flying arc powered by bound demons, including the queen of demons, which is just an absolutely ridiculous and irresponsibly dangerous thing to do and yes I am 100% just setting up a callback joke for when I explain what happens in later expansions. Also the demons are specifically bound in giant coffins, as is the Mhachi style, so... we have this gigantic airship made of coffins looking all Event Horizon and having this general manta rays and mind flayers aesthetic going on. I actually genuinely like that this setting has such a convoluted history with multiple fallen empires just kinda tucked away in the background so we can pull stuff like this out now and then and appreciate the shared themes and aesthetics stuff from various eras has. That’s some solid nerdy world-building I’d like to see more people tackle. I’d also kinda like to see more of it here because for real this is the only time it’s ever not the Allagans.

Helping you deal with all this and giving you ancient history backstory is this weird little familiar that’s survived since Mhachi times whose name is, can you guess the reference we’re dropping? Cait Sith. He looks... odd. Anyway, this is our big alliance raid trilogy for the expansion. Noteworthy cameo bosses include Doomgaze from FF6, who has a bunch of hard to read full party kill attacks and is a lot of fun to learn and then watch other people die to constantly, and Diabolos, who you’re actually fighting for a second time if you did an optional dungeon. Plus a bunch of reasonably original vaguely Gaelic and/or fishy demons.

Anyway speaking of weird little artificially created cute familiars, remember our dumb friend Hildibrand? You pull him out of a snow drift and have some fresh wacky shenanigans with him. This time as you pull him out, you also pull out this adorable as all hell little clockwork Black Mage called Gigi because that’s the sound your little head gears make when your memory isn’t working right, and we didn’t want to just directly go with Vivi. Hildy and his assistant Nashu argue about Gigi’s gender but totally just decide to collectively do the adoptive parents thing. At first they’re living in the gazebo of the noble family you’re still sort of crashing with (and we absolutely get some oldschool RPG nerd gazebo jokes) but eventually they decide if they’re really going to be a proper family they need a gazebo of their own, and settle for a vacant house in Idyllshire, that sort-of-a-town in the ruins of Sharlayan set up by cool goblin pals. Gigi decides their new residence needs a proper family crest too, and creates one.

Gigi is freaking adorable. Oh and Hildy’s dad also shows up during his, at one point using his renowned artisan skills to craft Gigi a new super buff muscle guy body to be a Proper Manderville Man which is pretty great while it lasts. Other little clockwork black mages/vikings/cool little guys with void faces exist incidentally, they’re called mammets and aren’t quite relics of a lost civilization, but were created early enough in the history of the current civilization that people are kinda 50/50 on still having the knowledge to fix them. Gigi is special though having this whole time reversing power that leads to various shenigans and some angsting about not being able to fix everything and a big heroic sacrifice moment leading to a powered down state, after which Gigi goes on your list of little summonable minions along with chicken-Enkidu and a bunch of other random things, to hang out and hopefully remember stuff. Oh and Hildy gets launched like half a world away again because someone points out that if Gigi is his child that makes his incongruously hot and violence-prone mom a grandmother and she cannot deal with that.

Briardien the other inspector from the last batch of Hildy stuff also pops up again, with his own longng line of really just cutscene sidequests and... I’m gonna be real with you. It is some boring Harry-Potter-ask magic school crap and my eyes glazed over as soon as it started and I just kinda blindly mashed through it all to get the little glasses-adjust emote at the end and get those exclamation points off my screen. It’s lame, he’s lame, doing a Harry Potter sort of thing is lame, I don’t care, and I’m glad he never shows up again.

But then we’ve got the "normal” raid set. Seeing chunks of this are literally what got me to take a chance on this game to begin with (well that and it’s totally free up to the end of this post you’re reading), and kept me going through the absolute slog to get to this point. Freaking Alexander as this combination city/god/confusing timefolding thing/set of a dozen or so little mini-dungeons/bossfights with really great music and where you fight a combination of goblin mad scientsts and smaller city-like robots that live inside the big one, some of whom transform.

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It is just a blast playing through this bit. You’ve got all kinds of steampunky little sections where everyone has to split up and dive down big tubes and ride ultraspeedy ultra-thin conveyor belts that careen all through this big city, there’s this wacky mad scientist fight where people have to jump into pools of mystery goo that transforms them into gorillas so they can punch aside big cartoony bombs, the transformer in that bit I just linked where halfway through the fight you have to run over and jump on as it turns into a jet and just nukes the whole arena, then do a timed button press to hop off safely, and of course the specific thing someone showed me that hooked me in is the bit where you fight a set of five robots, then they fight Voltron, with a remix of an earlier track from the area in the style of a 60s tokusatsu theme.

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The plot associated with this is neat too. Alexander is just kinda there, in this big frozen time bubble, barely shifting now and then to get a little bit of itself out and giving you a new entry point. Cid and friends are checking it out, because showing up to check out the cool new techy raid dungeon is their entire deal and a repeated thing. Turns out it just sort of appeared out of nowhere a few years ago, vaporized this one woman’s boyfriend, and vanished, with just a book about it and a cat left behind. One of the local goblins found the book, studied it, decided that Alexander is just the coolest thing, and summoned it the way FF14 people do to be the new utopian home of his people. Cid is horrified by this and says something along the lines of “what kind of a monster takes something as pure and beautiful as a giant robot and goes and makes a god out of it?” So you head through, cool goblin techno getting louder and more distinct as you approach the center, have a big confrontation, time travel mode gets turned on, you all get a good view as you jump back a few years, watch this guy get vaporized, and the head goblin’s cat decide he sucks and hop off with his notebook, realize there’s all sorts of time loop shenanigans as you make friends with his adorable cat.

And of course partway through all this there’s a bit about dead boyfriend gal talking about her people’s creation myths also mentioning what sure seems like Alexander popping up at some point and dumping out her Adam and Eve equivalents, so yeah, that’s where things end up for her and her less-dead-than-suspected boyfriend once all the timeloop business wraps up and you have the proper fight against Alexander, on top of Alexander, with Alexander looming in the background because time and space are all kinda going screwy on you. I swear when people say they like Heavensward what they really mean is they like this Alexander stuff you get access to after it.

Eventually though once you’re done playing with time traveling robots, air pirate demons, building a city for moogles and dragons, helping bugs reject their abusive parents, and leading dance squads for owl people, it is time to get back to that main story progression. Ishgard eventually gets it together enough to come join your alliance, and you’ve finally got the whole continent united to deal with that evil empire. The one that’s been occupying your immediate neighbor for two decades. With all the refugees. Isn’t it, uh, about time you get around to striking back and doing some liberating there? A lot of people sure think it is. This is what Papalymo and Yda have been busy with. That whole coup leading into this expansion was tied into false promises of pushing back there. For some reason though, the collected heads of state aren’t quite willing to push the button there yet though. I guess they want to intercept a fresh attack wave before they counter? That’s the go to plan in strategy games. Maybe deal with the recent summoning wave some?

In any case it really gets under the skin of the local terrorist scene as headed up by Ilberd, that guy who cut Rauban’s arm off, and they decide it’s time to force everyone’s hand by stealing a bunch of military uniforms from everyone else and assaulting the nearest imperial stronghold themselves. I am fully in support of this plan, honestly, people are really dragging their feet too much. Unfortuantely the Empire has, you know, lots of guns and death robots and while they’re too blindsided to get the real heavy ordinance out, Ilberd stole uniforms from EVERYONE, and has this whole Watchmen plan going which involves his own assault squad getting pretty well slaughtered even as you and your actual armies rush in to help, because all of them getting desperate and panicky and him busting out a big ol’ bit of aether storage in the form of one of Nidhogg’s eyes he climbed down to get from the big hole you tossed it down let’s him do a big ol’ large scale summoning. You suck Ilberd. Could have just forced a war all regular.

It seems like the new summon is coming in all extra huge and Bahamut looking, and Papalymo, having recently borrowed what’s left of Louisoix’s staff (oh yeah, there was a whole thing with Ascians wanting that because it has some ancient super good aether channeling rock built in, this came up with the Moonbryda stuff I think), decides to recreate that whole save world from giant god dragon thing from the ol’ intro, despite the fact that he knows it kills the caster, and the fact that like, you’re right there. You kill gods, it’s your whole thing, you could take it. Yda’s pretty upset with this plan because those two are pretty close and goes all “if you’re dying here so am I.” Thancred just goes “no you’re freaking not” and drags her off. Hey, finally everyone’s getting some real characterization here. Anyway Papalymo’s dead. I guess that’s kinda tragic. He’s certainly been around the whole time. If I’m honest he was never really well established though? He’s a healer, he fusses over people like C-3PO. I guess he’s on that short list of Lalafel I don’t hate. But the most interesting thing about him is a bit we only just find out here now that he’s dead.

Yda is also dead. Has been for some time. Apparently since some time in 1.0, even. The original Yda was a monk with serious self-esteem issues with her face and/or a desire to hide her traditional Ala Migan face tattoos, and therefore always wore a mask, so when she died in some big attack, her younger sister Lyse just had to steal her mask and pretend to be her for uh... basically as long as anyone present has known her aside from Papalymo. The big reveal is that like most of the Scions, she has these fancy neck tattoos everyone in 1.0′s Scions equivalent had, but the real Yda died after getting those, and these were an illusion Papalymo was creating. I feel like this would land a lot better if the real Yda died more recently, like, oh, when things went bad in Ul’dah? But even then she hadn’t really been established as much of a character. Just a little bit of a bimbo, kicks people, hangs with the short healer. But it’s pretty significant to her, so she’s ditching the mask, going back to using her real name, and really keen on being basically the main character for the next expansion like Alphinaud was for this one since the whole fallen fortress/giant god summon thing did totally force everyone’s hand.

Oh but first that there god is still there, just kinda temporarily bound, and we don’t have a moon handy to lock it up in. Which of course means it’s time for you to kill it right? Well... normally it would be, but Cid and Nero are kinda “on again” just now and Nero found this cool robot buried underground and mostly worked out the manual and he just really really pretty please wants to see a big cool CGI fest cutscene where a big Godzilla-ish spacey dragon fights a weird vaguely Gamera like robot. This is objectively a horrible idea, for the record. You totally can and do just go punch that dragon to death like every other god, and Nero’s robot kinda goes on to cause a real problem in the next post-expansion, and then again like, time of writing, the Ultimate difficulty fight with it has only been beaten once by people who were exposed as flagrantly cheating. That’s all on you Nero, so I hope you enjoy your pointlessly indulgent cutscene.

youtube

Are you happy now Nero? Are you? You know I STILL haven’t finished FF5 thanks to Omega. Gotta go and add that to this game too huh, well I hope you’re happy. I guess big dragons and robots fighting in cutscenes is a series tradition though, and it’ kind of neat to get a preview of what some bosses’ deals are going to be WELL in advance of when you get to fight them. For now they’re both down for the count, we get a shot of the Domans heading home, the main villain for the next expansion seeing and appreciating that splashy fight because that’s the sort of thing he’s into, and for the 4th time, we have a very long credits roll, marking the end of what you can play without putting up any cash. Which is admittedly a solid chunk of game, only most of which is super boring and tedious!

So yeah, again, I honestly straight up do not like Heavensward. Too much time hanging out with just the absolute worst people, even if you do get to personally kill kind of a lot of them, and none of the dungeons or boss fights are particularly interesting either (Bismark would be if it had teeth). Post-Heavensward though? Pretty solid overall. We really start fleshing out the main cast, and have some really just bonkers side quests with a lot of creative energy and memorable moments. As of here though I would still say no FF14 is a terrible game with a bad plot but has some really neat optional content once you’re an expansion deep. And I would have to stop here since again, this is where the free version ends, and while I got here just around the end of when the free-trial availability’s hammering of the servers forced them to shut down new character registration and I could invite some friends in, they all bounced off before even the first dungeon. People I know who’d been in it a while though went and gifted me the other expansions and several months of time cards though, so next post I’ll be talking about the second expansion. Is that where things finally get good? Eh kinda. They get pretty OK at least. It does weird me out that things get much more enjoyable right at the point you need to put money in though.

Speaking of money I am still like one bad day away from being homeless, and I have a Patreon. You don’t have to give ME money to learn what’s in these next 3 expansions, but I’d sure appreciate it if you did.

Next time, Stormblood... which I swear will be a shorter write-up. But then I always think that.

#final fantasy 14 #ff14 #final fantasy xiv #ffxiv #estinein like immedately grabs those eyes again because he's an idiot by the way

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thevalleyisjolly · 1 year

Note

Send me a character ask/ Jester

Ooh, thanks anon!

First impression

What a character, love that bubbly personality!

Impression now

Such an incredibly nuanced character with so many layers of depth, Laura really does not get enough credit or recognition for the emotional complexity and the unique worldview that Jester has. Just the way that Jester embodies chaos - not in the archetypical "I do what I want" way but a deeper, more fundamental engagement with what it means to act in relation to, against, and beyond established structures and rules. Just so well done, and she has such a good character journey.

Favorite moment

This is from early on, but I just really like the first fight she had with Caleb, over money. I thought it showcased where she came from really well, it led to a great conversation between the two characters and it was a really productive conflict that helped reveal more about her character.

Idea for a story

Eight times Jester paints for her friends (and one time they paint for her), a post-epilogue type of story where Jester does paintings for the Mighty Nein (and we get to catch up with where they all are in their lives) and then in the last chapter, they all work together to surprise her with a large painting/mural that reflects her own journey.

Unpopular opinion

Y'know, there are so many bad Jester takes out there that I am going to steer far clear of contradicting or rebutting any of them, and instead I'm just going to say that I don't think Jester would be a great romance novelist. She absolutely knows a lot about love and is very familiar with both the romance and the smut genres, but in terms of writing one of those books herself, I don't think she'd be good at it. That said, she'd have fun with it, and that's important too.

Favorite relationship

Jester and Veth are an incredible duo and their relationship is both really sweet and criminally terrifying.

Favorite headcanon

Jester does not actually like the aesthetics of what we would call post-modern art, but she appreciates the intent behind it and she especially appreciates how it fucks with people who think serious art can only be portraits and landscapes and pictures of fruit. For that reason, Dicks and Other Things hosts an annual post-modern art show in Nicodranas, and she always makes sure to invite the stuffiest art critics and collectors in the region. The fact that Veth uses the event to break into their offices/homes to collect intel for Nott The Best Detective Agency is just the cherry on top.

#thanks anon!#asked and answered

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humanmorph · 1 year

Text

palisade 22. kind of a mess of notes about that haunted moon

NOTES

"Mosaic Gyratory"

gravity changes ("like the wind changes direction", uneasy/sickening feeling. I only just realized this makes sense re: Austin talking about the tides rising when the Chimera's Lantern did [????] last time to help people fight off the Divine Principality. that is how those work)

murals of divines (immediately thought of the divine fleet. i just don't know how it fits if at all???. i guess the question would be divine fleet from when? from when (partial) palisade & co left?)

animal components in the structure (next to ceramic etc. there's also normal stuff): bone, vast insect shells (the insect shells made me think of signet&belgard immediately but its not like they have the. whats the word. theyre not the only ones that can be buglike or have buglike stuff.)

teeth beasts. teeth instead of muscle or flesh. teeth… (hm. hm. hm. yeah i dont know. hm. btw when i read 'description of teeth' in the content warnings i was a bit puzzled by it but then i went aahhhh i see when these things showed up.)

blue-ish glow / white-orange glow (2 different glows in different directions = different sources? Also i only remember austin describing the orange glow when talking about Chimera's Lantern weirdness, but not the blue one. Possible the blue is new/related to Nideo being there now?)

THOUGHTS re: mural of divines

i was trying to find something twilight mirage and specifically signet related but i keep just reading bits of transcripts and going man tm was so fucking good huh

anyways i found it and i thought of…. the crypt of the order from signets playbook. now. in retrospect im actually fairly sure it just came to mind because sylvi earlier in the ep mentioned the roman saints as a reference for coris new mech + the divine fleet connection i made (it's the murals. in my head that's just. it has Got to be related.) = crypt of dead excerpts & their things (the scene I'm talking about in TM18 is honestly one that makes me really sad about signet. man. signet). I don't know...

WHAT'S UP WITH THIS THEN

it cant just be A Divine. that's not it. But the way... it's talked about Sounds so. Divine Influence. does it not?

"It’s often about letting people determine the best versions of themselves. People are— the warriors of the moon are kind of described as having their natural capabilities enhanced. There’s a lot of verbiage that combines expression, like the idea of self expression and becoming a version of yourself that you want to be, with a sort of epic heroism."

"It gave them— the way that it’s written about here, the way that Crystal Palace saw it was that these are people who were raised with the light of justice and were raised as defenders against an empire vast in the future. They were trying to— they’re people who were trying to prune something that would take over, that would grow over the galaxy." (PAL15: Upon Our Grace Pt.2) (Honestly interesting to bring that up there as a metaphor, since we have… you know, it's not a field it's a garden (TM), and now in PALISADE: "I think one of the new Gur Sevraq’s most famous sermons is about how the galaxy in general, and Palisade specifically, isn't meant to be a jungle, or an overgrown field, it's meant to be a garden, you know? It's well-groomed, it's supposed to be maintained. You're supposed to attend to the world." (PAL01: Into The World Pt. 1) that just as an aside though. i noticed it and wanted to note it.)

oh my god the divine cycle timeline is so fucked i cannot make sense of it once i try to think about details i just cant.hell on earth 6 wiki pages and 9 transcripts open. i keep getting shit confused "Everything that has happened before will happen again." i fucking know right sorry i was trying to find Divine Fleet info from PRE-twilight mirage. and ended up just looking up the partial palisade stuff, which, they left when under attack from the NEH. ok. I just don't know... at what point did Palisade "die"... When did the Divines turn into Afflictions (they HAVE NEH names, so... after or during a time when the NEH was attacking Palisade? does this make sense?)? I'm lost. I got lost. Why am I asking myself this again. OH RIGHT

post by swallowtailed i just saw bc i looked up chimeras lantern on here talked about the moon being part of the planet (there's quite a big part missing up with that cauldron). I guess in my mind... a big part of the planet being blown(?) off or otherwise removed somehow COULD very well be related to a divine turned living planet dying. right? post also mentioned it being a tomb for his excerpt which funnily enough lines up with my crypt thought from earlier. and it IS a question on what happened to those god i just wanna know whats up with the afflictions!!!! not what this post is about though so im stopping.

it's all just so. i think it's in an episode without transcript yet and i don't feel like hunting for it but when austin implied that whatever is happening with the moon is as or more important for the world as. the WORLD BLOWING UP? its haunting me

#palisadeposting #this isnt getting more coherent rn also i want to take my walk.#ok i tried to like. put it in sections... at the very least...#i get sidetracked soooo easily #anyways.my walk (c/w ep 6 now)#palisade spoilers

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anxiouslyfred · 1 year

Text

Hidden Soft Spaces

Summary: Roman asks Remus where Virgil is after he disappears from hanging out with their friends. Remus decides to find his soulmate by checking his comfort places instead of following the glow that connects them.

Part of my Dukexiety Soul Glows AU

/\/\

“Where's Virgil, Remus?” Roman demanded more than asked, appearing in the doorway to Remus's room.

“Not a clue. We don't have a date planned.” He chirped back, glancing around as if his soulmate would appear. “Why? Did you lose him?”

His brother sighed as if just talking to him was a hassle he couldn't bear. “We were hanging out in town and he just vanished. We assumed you spirited him away.”

“You mean you convinced a guy with social anxiety, who's avoided even your sleepovers before, to do something highly social and are shocked he left?” Remus chided, already crossing to his window. “Leave it to me, I'll find him.” He called while dropping trough it.

/\/\

The glow of his soulmate's paths would always last for a couple hours after he'd walked a path, but Remus didn't head to town or have any intentions of following it.

While he'd been getting to know Virgil he'd made a point of putting Virgil's comfort and safe spaces first so there were 3 places Remus would look before even thinking to follow the glow. Of course he'd use knowledge of his soulmate before the idiotic evolutionary quirk that meant people thought they could stalk others.

“I've got a paint gun and I'm not afraid to use it.” He sang through the woods, occasionally actually firing a paintball at one of the trees, already multicoloured from his previous visits to the woods, with purple layered underneath it. Virgil had claimed he'd actually painted the stripes originally, but any evidence of that had long since been covered over. Now he used the path as stress release, able to feel like he's fighting back against his stress without being likely of harming anyone beyond a bruise if anyone else happened to be in the area.

It had become one of Remus's favourite places too after Virgil first revealed it to him, because the glow that they could both see blended into the colours. It definitely supported the theory that the emphasis on bright, highlighter colours for kids was aiming to deprive children of the chance to find their soulmates while young.

Besides, the walk wasn't actually the destination, although it could hold clues of Virgil's presence, the absence of other drying patches of paint didn't mean he hadn't been along it. Only that he hadn't stopped to get a paint gun or just some paint while coming to it.

Remus grinned as he reached the section where trees grew slightly closer together and the colours reduced in frequency. He loved the hidden area he was about to squeeze into even more.

Two trees that grew closely together were a few metres before the end of the paint splatters, and seemed to be surrounded by bushes behind them, undergrowth growing thicker in enough sections of the woodland that it wasn't questioned. This was where Remus paused, squinting slightly as he recognised the glow hovering there.

It wasn't bright any more, but that supported the presence of Virgil far more than its absence or a brighter glow would. After all, it takes a while to reach the wood from town, and neither of them only stayed a few minutes if they visited. No, they'd remain here until calm again, and as Remus squeezed past the trees there was his soulmate, curled into a tight little ball among the ground sheets and blankets he stored in a chest that Remus had insisted on assembling.

“You okay? Do I need to redecorate Roman's room?” Remus asked after watching for a moment until Virgil looked over at him.

��He'd use that as an excuse to paint the castle mural he constantly wishes for.” The quiet reply didn't hold the energy Virgil usually gave, but it did sound like he attempted to scoff at least.

Remus shrugged, throwing himself on the groundsheet that was spread out. “I'd start with blood red splatters over the ceiling and tops of his walls. Maybe spray paint some streams of yellow lower down, dot everything with greeny grey that gets darker and more condensed in some areas.”

Virgil's arm came over to shove at him. “Stop planning to make Roman's room look like a disaster of hygiene and murder. It wasn't his idea even.”

“So are you saying I should redecorate Patton or Logan's homes instead? I can definitely do that. Have lock-picks in my pocket and everything.” He offered instead, grinning when he got snickers for the comment.

“Only if you want Logan to criticise how realistic they are, and analyse what type of mold or mildew you're trying to recreate.”

Remus shrugged, stretching out, and glancing over to see Virgil less tightly curled up now. “Fine. Their homes can remain untouched. You need me to keep talking or something else? Always wondered what open air fucking would be like.”

Virgil gave him an unimpressed look. “One, you've already done that before. I've heard about your exploits. Two, yes, I'd like a hug, get over here you pest.”

It didn't take a second before Remus had another blanket around his shoulders and Virgil in his lap, blankets already around him and all. “I love that you let me into this dark little place of yours. Leaving the colour outside so you can breathe in here.”

“Had to give you somewhere to let that energy out.” Virgil mumbled, twisting to curl into him.

“You didn't. If you'd asked me not to follow the glow in this area I'd have agreed, even without the paint hiding it from me.” Remus reminded, having said as much the first time Virgil had handed him a paintball gun and asked if he really wanted to know where he found safe places outside of his home.

Virgil looked up with a half-smile then. “Maybe I like having someone who doesn't feel like people come find me after days like today.”

“Guess I better keep doing it then.” Remus agreed.

#dukexiety #creativitwins #remus sanders #virgil sanders #roman sanders #soulmate au #soulmate glows

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lampmanliveblogs · 2 years

Text

Edge of the World

Follow-up post

Better late than never, as they say.

There were quite a few things I glanced over or didn’t talk about that I want to bring up

As per usual, I rewatched the episode and here are few things I missed or didn’t talk about the first time through.

•In King’s dream sequence at the start of the episode, he asks the King of Dads if they can play catch; he later asks Tarak the same thing. •The mural in King’s tower that depicted what I (and King) thought was his father fighting some monster was actually showing a Titan Trapper fighting a Titan. •Titan Trapper Island is the remains of a Titan’s hand. A hand with five fingers. Ymir has four (I think) and King only has three. •One small clue that the Titan Trappers weren’t related to King is that we never saw any of them walk on all fours, like King sometimes does. In fact, their clothing was unsuitable for quadrupedal walking. •According to Tarak, Bill has met the Grand Huntsman, a.k.a The Collector. Is this true? If so, how? When? I was under the impression The Collector has been buried beneath so many thousand tons of bones for so many thousands of years. Then again, during the sacrifice ritual, they had a black tablet that looked similar to the mirror Philip used to contact The Collector. So Bill probably communicated with The Collector through that. •Another clue towards the Titan Trappers’ true identities: During the little bonding montage, they have King smash a piñata… a piñata with a familiar skull. •On the other hand, not one of them thought it was a bit weird when King used his voice powers on that big horn to blow a griffin from the sky? ”By the Huntsman, that kid has some powerful lungs!” •Here’s an obvious thing I totally missed: Bill says he saw the last living Titan. But it can’t have been King he’s talking about. So… what of that one? What happened to it after it disappeared? Was it King’s father? How long ago was this? •As someone pointed out to me, the Titan skulls in Bill’s shrine are fairly small, about King’s size, maybe a few are a bit bigger. Implying that those skulls came from babies or children. •The stars in the Grand Huntsman snowglobe and that can be seen when King lights the dark tablet on fire look like the magic stars the wizard in an old Bamse cartoon shoots from his magic wand. •This extremely cursed image of Hooty

(Note: We here at Lamp Entertainment will not be held accountable for any actual curses caused by prolonged viewing of this image. Why were you so easy to curse?)

In addition to these short points, there are a few things I didn’t discuss that I feel deserve a bit more talking about. So I’m going to do that now.

Last Son of the Boiling Isles The King of Tomorrow

Like I said, as I was getting towards the end of my liveblog, it was late and I was rushing to get it done. So I didn’t do every scene justice. Especially when it came to the tragedy King went through.

King spent a good portion of the episode thinking that he had FINALLY found out where he came from. Not only that, but his people immediately accepted him as one of their own. They even said they would help defeat Belos. He didn’t have all the answers yet; no one knew who his father was and they didn’t recognize the symbol from the tower, but surely, those questions would be answered eventually. After all, he had his newfound family to help him.

Tarak especially became like an adoptive uncle or father figure to King in the short time he got to know him. As I pointed out above, in the dream sequence at the very start of the episode, King asks King of Dads to play catch. He later asks Tarak the same, very clearly showing how King came to view him like a fatherly figure. And ever since the events of Echoes of the Past unlocked the memory of his father calling out for him, King has been on this search for his father, longing for that father figure.

Even as the strange ceremony became weirder and weirder and you could see King becoming unsure and confused, he still continued going along with it. Because he wanted so much to believe that he had finally gotten the answers he was looking for.

Then it was all torn away from him. In the span of a minute, he is told that he is a Titan, that his newfound family is trying to kill him, and then it’s confirmed that his newfound family don’t just want to kill him, but they are responsible* for wiping out is actual family.

(*well, the older generations of Titan Trappers anyway)

This is all to say that our skull dog Titan boy is going to be big sad for a bit now.

If we try and look on the bright side though: We are slightly closer to learning the truth. Not quite there yet though; there are still a lot of unanswered questions. For example…

Who are King’s parents? And what happened to them? Bill says he met the last living Titan and that obviously wasn’t King, so it must’ve his father then, right? Perhaps King’s father fled from the Titan Trappers and hid King’s egg in the tower off the coast of the Boiling Isles. But then what happened to him? Is he still out there somewhere or is he dead?

Then again… Bill’s poster referred to King as ”The Last Son of the Boiling Isles,” implying that King is maybe the progeny of Ymir itself?

What’s the deal with the symbol in the egg room? What’s the deal with the guardians protecting the tower?

The Lord of the Fireflies a.k.a. The Collector a.k.a. The Grand Huntsman, god of the Titan Trappers

Back when the world was new

This planet of ours was down on its luck

And everywhere gigantic brutes called Titans ran amok

Oh, it was a nasty place

There was a mess wherever you stepped

Where chaos reigned and earthquakes and volcanoes never slept

And then along came The Collector!

Before I go into all the questions and speculation I should bring up something I was told in a comment. I was told that The Collector goes by he/him, they/them (which was stated by Dana Terrace herself, as I found when I looked it up). So if you were confused in the liveblog as to why I seemed to switch pronouns for The Collector, that’s why. I just kinda goes with whatever pronouns sounds better in my head for any given sentence. And my head works in mysterious ways, as should have been demonstrated to you ample times by now.

With that established, let’s talk a bit about what was learned about the enigmatic Collector in this episode.

The Collector, if that is his real name, goes by another alias. The Grand Huntsman, the god of the Titan Trappers. My first reaction upon learning this was to think that The Collector was simply posing as a god in order to get the Titan Trappers to free him from his prison beneath Ymir’s corpse. But then I thought a bit about and… that might not be the case.

It’s not entirely clear just yet what it is exactly that The Collector collects. But my theory is that he’s collecting all the green, red, and blue rocks for his master, Mothman who… wait, no, I’m thinking of Kapten Svea again. Uhh…

It’s not entirely clear just yet what it is exactly that The Collector collects. But my best guess is that it’s strange and exotic beasts or monsters. And with a hobby like that, the epithet ”The Grand Huntsman” makes a lot of sense. So yeah, The Collector may very well be a straight-up god of the Titan Trappers, just going under another name. And gods having multiple names or titles is not unheard of either.

My current theory is that at some point in the murky mists of the distant past, The Collector was a very powerful magical entity that came into conflict with the Titans. God or no god, The Collector wasn’t powerful enough to take on literal giants. At least not all of them. So he founded a warrior clan called The Titan Trappers and became their deity

At some point, The Collector was trapped beneath the body of the Titan I’ve been calling Ymir (more on that in a bit). I wanna say this was at least a thousand years ago, but I can’t know for sure just yet. It has been mentioned before that the Boiling Isles has been around for at least a few thousand years, so if Ymir was the one who trapped The Collector in some sacrifice, then The Collector has been trapped for as long as the Isles has existed. That being since the death of Ymir.

Their contact and influence over the outside world severely limited, The Collector has nonetheless managed to contact at least two people in the last few hundred years who may be able to free them from their imprisonment. Those being Philip Wittebane and Bill of the Titan Trappers.

I have another little theory which there isn’t a whole lot of evidence for, but that I think is pretty cool. Recall I was surprised when it turned out that the Titan Trappers could use magic. That’s because I figured that since they didn’t live or grow up on the Boiling Isles, they wouldn’t be able to use magic since magic comes from the Titan.

Now, there are a few different explanations for this. They do (well, did) have that nifty portal to take them to the Boiling Isles and we did see Tarak visiting the Isles. He even had a penstagram scroll. So maybe they visit the Isles often and long enough to soak up some of that magic juice and that’s how.

Now, my idea that I had in my brainplace is this: What if The Collector gave the Titan Trappers the ability to use magic? What if, long, long ago, during the great war waged between the Grand Huntsman and the terrifying Titans, when the first group of Titan Trappers was founded, The Collector gave them the ability to draw upon the magic of the world and use it to fight the giants? I think that would be pretty cool, it kinda places The Collector as a sorta parallel to Ymir, in that they would both be a source of power for groups of people that worship them.

(and lets face, ain’t no way the Titan Trappers of the old felled some of the bigger, island-sized Titans with just some spears. They didn’t even have any maneuver gears for crying out loud! How do you expect anyone to take on a titan without vertical maneuver equipment?)

A lot of my theories on The Collector are based on speculation and conjecture drawn from small nuggets of information; there is a literal ginnungagap* of information. This enigmatic character is in most ways a mystery and I’m looking forward to finding out more about then, as I’m sure I will in coming episodes. Much like Loki** from stories of old, I’m sure this mischievous god will make his grand return during the Day of Unity, right as the world is about to come to and end.

(*continue reading and you will learn what that means and why that is a hilarious pun)

(**Loki was, of course, a trickster god from norse mythology. In one story, he tricked another god into killing the universally beloved Balder. As punishment for his crimes, the other gods tied him up deep within the underground to be trapped and tortured. There he remained until Ragnarök, the end of the world, when he broke free and joined the battle. You can see the similarities. And speaking of norse mythology…)

Of Fire and Ice

Once upon a time…

I wanted to take a moment to talk about something. That being my chosen nickname for The Titan which makes up The Boiling Isles: Ymir.

I believe that the very first time I mentioned that name was back in Adventures in the Elements in season one. I also brought it up when I showcased my Conspiracy Corner (which has been due for an update, hint, hint). Now, in the past, I’ve mostly just brought it up because I wanted to talk a little about norse mythology.

In the last liveblog however, I started referring to The Titan almost exclusively as Ymir. This is because in the past, The Titan was the only Titan I knew about. But now I know there were multiple other Titans once upon a time. So it might get confusing when talking about the Titans and The Titan. So a nickname for that individual Titan was needed. I could’ve gone with something like the ”Boiling Isles Titan.” But that is longer to type, doesn’t roll of the tongue the same way and is just kinda lame.

Ymir on the other hand is a short name, easy to type and read. But more importantly, it is a name that has history and meaning behind it. There may have been many Titans in the past of different species and sizes, but The Titan on which the Boiling Isles is based is still a very important individual amongst them. So it deserves a fitting nickname, and I believe that Ymir is just that.

If you’ll indulge me, I would like to tell you a story…

In the beginning, before the world existed, before there were humans or gods—there was just Fire, ice and the nothing. To the south there was the fiery Muspelheim, the land of heat, light, and chaos. To the north, covered in thick mists was Nifelheim, the land of darkness and the eternal cold Between them opened up the bottomless abyss Ginnungagap.

From a well at Nifelheim’s heart ran eleven poisonous rivers down into the abyss. Over time, the mists from the rivers formed frost and a layer of snow grew over the part of Ginnunagagap leading to Muspelheim Meanwhile, fire and sparks flew from Muspelheim. In the middle of the eternal abyss, where fire and ice met, the first living being was born from the meltwater. This was the horrible primordial giant Ymir.

While the giant slowly came to life, another creature appeared from the mists: the cow Audhumbla. From her teats flowed four rivers of milk, which the giant ravenously drank from. Once the giant was satisfied, he fell asleep and started sweating. Within his dark and damp armpits were born a man and a woman. At the same time, his legs beget a strange son, a monstrous figure with six heads. From this being descended the giants. These malevolent monsters soon started spreading throughout the young cosmos.

Audhumbla sustained herself by licking salt rocks in the ice. As she licked them, a male figure started appearing. This man was Bure and he had a son named Bor, Bor married the giantess Bestla and she gave birth to three sons—Odin, Vile, and Ve. They were the first gods.

The descendants of the primordial being, the giants and the gods, hated each other. And when Odin, Vile, and Ve came of age, they set out to end the giants’ reign and create order in the cosmos. And so they killed Ymir and made from his body the world.

From Ymir’s bones they made the mountains, from his flesh the earth, and his teeth they ground into gravel and stone. His hair became the forests and his beard grass. His blood became the lakes and seas and from his cranium the vault of the heavens.

(based in large part on Johan Egerkrans’ retelling of the story from his book on nordic gods that I bought in a moment of weakness the other day, alongside his book on dragons)

That’s the basic gist of that creation myth. There’s a lot of details I skipped over but you get the point. The world was made from the body of a primordial giant. You can see how I made the connection between Ymir and The Boiling Isles Titan.

All in all, I think Ymir is a fitting name for the Boiling Isles Titan. It was very necessary for me to retell the story for you to understand this. I’m totally not just in a mood to talk about norse mythology after I bought a new book about it, no, not at all. That’s just a coincidence.

In Conclusion

This is where I normally talk a little about my overall thoughts on the episode.

I liked it. There were, of course, a lot of lore and the revelation of King’s true heritage. The tragedy of King thinking he had found his lost family only to have it ripped away from him was good. Well, good story stuff, not so good for our skull dog son who is actually the last living member of a race of god-like giants. He’s probably a bit upset by it all. Add it to the pile of trauma our heroes are going through. Said pile is growing at an alarming rate.

I really liked the build-up to the reveal. The episode did a very good job of establishing that hope-spot, especially coming after Hollow Mind where everything went wrong. King found his family, and said family was a capable warrior clan that promised to lend their help in defeating Belos; it was almost too good to be true. Which it was.

Now, I was kinda expecting everything to go wrong, because I was explicitly told that every episode after episode 15 was sad. But still, even I was fooled for a little while into thinking that maybe we could have some nice things. For a little while.

Then we have the reveal itself. I think my reaction in the liveblog itself speaks for itself how I felt in the moment. And then they hit me with a double whammy with the reveal that the Titan Trappers’ god was actually The Collector. That was a cool reveal in and of itself and helped establish The Collector further as a serious player on the grand scale who is totally going to Do Stuff. I don’t know what he’s going to do, but it’s going to be something.

I think I talked a bit in my Mid-Season Intermission about how I thought that the origin of Bat-Queen might be tied into King’s origin in some way. My main reasoning for this was that tying several plot threads together like this makes for very neat storytelling. It means our attention isn’t drawn in several different directions at once. And having multiple story lines converge in one spot means that if, say, your company were to cut the story short, you can hopefully tie it up somewhat neatly even given very little time.

Ahem.

The point I’m trying to make here is that tying The Collector into King’s backstory was a good move.

So yeah, those are some of my thoughts on this episode. This post took about a week longer to make than it should have. Next up, I’ve got a bunch of asks that need answering and a completely overhauled Conspiracy Corner that I need to show off before I get into the next episode. So it’ll be a little while longer before I can get into the next episode. Until then though, take care of the planet Earth and remember that anything can happen in space!

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#the owl house #liveblog #the owl house liveblog #toh s2e17 #edge of the world

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