#rafayel myth

[seaofgoldensand]

this is the bgm i want as badly as 'the deep sea'

edit: i uploaded it on youtube for whoever wants it on repeat too.

[zaynesaurora]

ʟ&ᴅꜱ ! reaction to you sending a nude — (MDNI)

a/n: underboob mentioned once, otherwise gender neutral!

ᴢᴀʏɴᴇ ! desperately tries to steer the coversation away from your unpromted image, going through his typical questioning of your day- have you ate, drank water? did you sleep? You humour him of course and he thinks he's successfull in his mission until you directly ask him about it again. He shifts in his swivelling chair, rolling himself backward so he can adjust the tightening material covering his crotch- ' You're beautiful, darling', glasses pressing into the bridge of his nose when he drops his face into his palm.

xᴀᴠɪᴇʀ ! fumbles with his phone between both hands when he opens your message and the swell of your underboob peaks from under the contact name- phone dropping to the floor, screen up and the full image on show when his clumsy fingers enlarge the picture instead of locking his device. He's never moved so fast in his life, knee's cracking as he plummets to the ground shortly after- face reddening, brain running into over drive because now he has to find a bathroom, quick.

ʀᴀꜰᴀʏᴇʟ ! zooms in, inspects every nook and cranny before sending you a nine square colour pallet in return- met by utter confusion on your end. You send him full frontal nudity, spread wide and he sends colours back? is this what true humility feels like? - phone buzzing in your hand when he sends a follow up, ' thank you for the new swatches baby! your nipples are a pretty colour btw'. You don't hear from him for a few hours. He's too busy working. So he says.

— bonus—

ᴄᴀʟᴇʙ ! barely misses a beat before sending one back, shirt caught between his teeth and hand proudly holding himself at full mast- ' I was just thinking about you too, I guess the feelings mutual?' god he's so horny. You can't even call him out, not when you were infact thinking about him.

[dawnbreakersgaze]

You know there is something really poetic about Rafayel's evol being fire. Like I know everyone was shocked it wasn't water or something more elementally in line with the ocean given the whole mermaid theme but

He's the symbolic light of his people

He's their sun (literal and figurative), their burning passion and drive to survive

He's the hope that one day they can reclaim what was lost

And the fact that they refer to him as "Your Quintessence" in his myth, essentially calling him the most perfect or most central to them, idk it's got me feeling a sort of way this morning.

Rafayel is the flame that keeps Lemuria's heart ablaze even when every force imaginable is working to extinguish it.

[lolitsleia]

“my beloved bride.”

[love-and-deepspace-incorrect]

MC: You gave me up, you let me down, you turned around, and deserted me.

Abysswalker Rafayel: But did I make you cry?

MC: *cries on the spot*

Abysswalker Rafayel: ...Shit.

[gojorafayels]

rafayel: abysswalker without mask and hood is so... 🥵

[prince-destinyy]

✧˖° Rafayel ✧˖°

✧˖° Xavier ✧˖°

✧˖° Zayne ✧˖°

Love and Deepspace | Myths

These are tales, myths of another time, another place… From the farthest reaches of Deepspace

[hananoami]

my goddness, you guys can stay at level 70 for a while because i heard you're unbearably painful to max out to 80 ; w; it's time to show some love and affection towards your other memories too... 🥺 additional note: in case anyone was curious about what my leveling priority is or what i would suggest they focus on it's the following: ★ solar memories ( 5-star » 4-stars ) ★ lunar memories ( 5-star » 4-stars ) || starting with ATK » HP » DEF i also use this google spreadsheet made by dedicated fans to see which one i should prioritize at a glance. it's a great resource if you're looking to progress combat wise via deepspace trials (open orbit/directional orbits) and junior/senior hunter contest. afaik it’s regularly updated ^.^

[kennico]

“if you don’t return, i’ll chase you to the ends of the earth!”

[yuri-is-online]

Love and Deepspace Timeline: MC, Philos, and the Aether Core

Look I finished Xav's myths card. I don't regret waiting until I was done with it to post his timeline because the last two nodes have more to do with MC than him, but I am in a state so we are making this to cope.

This is all speculation and should not be taken as fact, I have done two other posts, one on Zayne and one on Xavier and I will not be doing one on Rafayel please see this reddit post by u/joonmin for relevant information about his myths card blah blah blah.

This post is less of a timeline and more here to answer questions you very likely have if you: A) decided to browse reddit and saw people saying Xavier feels like the "cannon ro" [this is a gacha game there isn't one] but have never read any of his memories, moments, or dates B) read chapter 8 and went "none of this makes sense I feel like I am missing something" or C) just generally are confused about L&D's world building and what's up with MC. I have answers for you. Wibbly wobbly soupy answers. This post also has a TL;DR in case you don't want to see me break out the string board and just want the relevant bits of information about MC you won't get from the msq.

SPOILERS FOR ALL IN GAME CONTENT UP TO CHAPTER 8, VARIOUS MOMENTS, AND ANECDOTES RELATED TO ALL 3 ROS, PROCEED WITH CARE.

Current Timeline MC (i.e. The one we are playing as)

The game starts with MC's graduation from the Academy and first day as a fully licensed hunter. We learn a few things in this first chapter, namely that MC is combat trained, has a rare heart condition known as Protocore Syndrome that has no known cure, and that her decision to become a hunter has something to do with what she experienced fourteen years ago during the Catastrophe when the Deepspace Tunnel opened and Wanderers started invading earth.

Specifically MC describes something burrowing itself into her heart. She feels helpless, like prey, and has a strong desire to never feel anything like this again. Which is unfortunate because I have a feeling a lot of someones are going to be on her trail sooner rather than later.

In Chapter 5 it is revealed that MC has an Aether core fused to her heart. This sort of human experimentation is highly illegal and it is unknown who did this to MC other than our beloved Grandmother was directly involved. Grandma appears to have taken MC away from wherever this happened after the tests started to threaten MC's life.

This is known to Dr. Zayne and Dr. Noah, though neither seem to know more than what Grandma told them. Neither of them seem to fully understand what an Aether core is or what it is doing to MC's heart. Zayne in particular seems to find this extremely concerning.

Uncovering the mystery of the Aether core seems to be what will be driving the first arc so we will not be discussing it at length here. I do want to note that Xavier absolutely knows what it is, while Zayne does not but does seem to know more of the technical aspects of how it is effecting MC, and Rafayel is at least aware of it being valuable and maybe why exactly the people in the N109 Zone want it.

At some point in the past MC met and made a promise to Rafayel. It is my personal theory that this likely took place on Hat Island during the field trip MC talks about due to some of the comments made in Chapter 7.

MC and Caleb were friends with Zayne in childhood. MC's exact age is a bit fuzzy, but the game does seem to suggest she is younger than Zayne. She does not know why Zayne disappeared from her life or what led him to become a doctor.

Comments in Chapter 4 suggests that Caleb encouraged MC to become a hunter. He seems to be very supportive of her, but Grandma seems more interested in trusting MC's protection to Zayne.

On the surface MC seems pretty normal. Her memories from before the Catastrophe seem to be gone, if she had a mother and father or other blood relatives, she doesn't remember them anymore.

Philos MC (i.e. What is Going on in the Myths)

It is revealed in Xavier's When Shooting Stars Fall anecdote that Philos is Earth in the distant future. This has confused numerous people in the notes of my Xav's timeline so I am going to be insufferable and attempt to assist with a graph:

The MC you play belongs to the game timeline, the MCs (plural each myths card features a different one) in the Myths cards come from the Philos timeline. I have tagged the Game timeline as a "potential tangent" as the events that take place in game are entirely reliant on the existence of the Deepspace Tunnel, which is created in the Philos timeline.

At some point in the Original/Philos Timeline, Earth's core ceases to function. Humanity replaces it with a new, artificial core that causes noticeable weather changes and fuses all of the tectonic plates together, and begins a new calendar counting forward from the years since Earth ceased to be and Philos was born. As a result, we don't know what exact year Earth's core giving out happened in the Original Timeline. The artificial core allows almost all humans to "live eternal." They seem to be like Tolkien's elves in the sense they can live for an eternity but they start to get tired after a while and give up on life. This is why there is a royal family that needs a line of succession. Xavier is the Crown Prince of Philos, he meets MC in school and learns she has a rare disease called Protocore Syndrome which will not allow her to live forever. He attempts to cure this by finding a specific protocore she mentions, but fails to reach her in time and is forced to watch her die. This all happens in the year 214.

At some point MC is reborn and assigned to the same teacher as Xavier. She is to train to become his knight and serve as the leader of the Lightseekers, an order tasked with killing Wanderers. At some point during or before Xavier's coming of age ceremony, he learns the truth about Philos: the planet is dying due to the artificial core never having been meant to sustain the planet this long. The Royal Family's solution for this is to occasionally feed humans to the heart of Philos in Starfall Forest. When they do this, it creates Wanderers. As if that wasn't bad enough, Xavier learns that his father and the royal family have found what they think could be a permanent solution: there is a girl who has achieved true immortality. She is the only person on Philos who can die and be reborn constantly, and while they don't seem to know why she does this, the royal family believes this girl is the life force of the planet itself.

This girl is MC and Xavier does not want this to happen. He has a plan that he does not explain to MC, but it involves traveling back in time. He says they have specific places in time picked out, but we know from Xavier's Passing By anecdote that something went wrong with his team's attempt at time travel and now there is no guarantee that the MC he left on Philos as its Queen is still there.

So now we have two timelines: Original/Philos Timeline and Game/Tangent Timeline. But all of that is just taking Xavier's anecdotes and Myths card into account... so what happens if we try to plug in the other two ROs?

Rafayel

In u/Joonmin's reddit post they mention two very important bits of information: 1) It has been 30,000 years since the sea dried up and 2) MC is a member of the royal family of Philos, not by birth but because "she has a heart that’s been blessed by the gods" and has "awoken from the depths." If all three myths cards take place in the same Philos timeline as the one Xavier leaves, we can reasonably place Raf's myths card after Xavier's backtrack mission.

So the Philos timeline would look like this. I have a note for Zayne's card there as well, but if I had to get picky with it I'm slightly tempted to place his Myths card between MC's first death and her being reborn to meet Xavier again. The other explanation would be that there are three separate Philos timelines created because the MC was successfully scarified to the Heart of Philos. In Xavier's Myths 6 MC briefly takes a dip in the space time anomaly at the center of Starfall Forest which could also explain MC scattering across different timelines, but the in game spacepedia makes a point to say that there is a chance that life still exists on Philos:

So it could simply be that MC over there has been stuck in the exact cycle of death and rebirth that Xavier was trying to prevent. It could also mean that when they add that mystery fourth love interest there is an explanation for a fourth possible myths card. Anyway all this information leaves us with a set of timelines that currently look like this:

This still leaves a lot of unanswered questions. For example, if the Philos timeline is where this all starts, what version of it is? What caused Earth's core to give out in that original timeline? Is Rafayel and Lumeria's existence the consequences of clashing timelines or are mermaids cannon to this universe? What effect on the space time continuum did Xavier's actions have? And how much of this is actually going to be answered in game?

TL;DR

Philos is Earth in the future with an artificial core that started running out of power, and never should have been made in the first place.

The royal family fed some of their long lived humans to the anomaly in Starfall forest to keep the planet running, but then they found out about a girl who could constantly be reborn each time she died and had an idea.

An idea Xavier wasn't very keen on but who cares. They thought that "when the time was right" they would sacrifice her to the rift and leave her there to die and be reborn forever. They also did not think to ask her.

Oh yeah when they fed people to the rift they turned into Wanderers. So wanderers = people as mentioned in Zayne's Still in the Dark anecdote.

Whatever makes MC reincarnate might have something to do with Lumeria, or at the very least the Lumerians in Rafayel's myths card seem to think it does.

In game MC, current timeline MC knows none of this, and has no memories from her lives, past or future. This is consistent across all her incarnations.

Final Thoughts

The only reason why I think this way about timelines is because I watched Donnie Darko in a college theater class. People like to argue about that movie and how it is supposed to be interpreted, but generally speaking they all seem to think that Tangent Timelines and the Tangent Universes they spawn get deleted very quickly, so maybe that's why the game starts by talking about "being able to leave this loop" and why Xavier seems to think something bad will be happening to Linkon City soon.

Chapter 8 ends with Xavier attempting to send a message back through the Deepspace Tunnel to make contact with someone. Interestingly enough he calls this "Traceback II." This sounded familiar to me and sure enough the game starts by mentioning that exact same thing, it is going past a black hole and is what says that line "we are stuck in this loop."

I thought in previous posts that the Aether Core is what could cure MC... but now I think the Aether Core is likely what Philos's artificial core is called... so who created it in the first place? ｢(ﾟﾍﾟ)

The Deepspace Tunnel is a spacetime anomaly likely caused by Philos's existence since it was "never meant to exist." So why was it created? And by who?

[strwberri-milk]

Just thinking about Abysswalker Rafayel,,,

Thinking about how he's got you pressed up against the wall, blunt and gloved fingertips digging into the sides of your body. You can hear the stutter in his breath and the way it settles against his mask, desperate to escape. You'd tease him if it weren't for how insistently he's pressing his lips to yours, the phantom sensation of them against you. His tongue traces the shape of your lips over the leather as your mouth hangs open, bringing your arms under his and holding onto his shoulders tightly.

He's right here in your arms, so close yet so far. You wish that his overly complicated clothes would just disappear but it's almost like they aren't even there with the heat radiating off of his body. He's kissing you so desperately and your lips haven't even met yet. You make the mistake of looking into his eyes, drowning in the desire and yearning he can't act on.

[beneathashadytree]

Other ask lol This is a bit spoiler-y in regards to Rafayel's lore.

Rafayel's Your Fragrance card is visually stunning and quite sexy, but when the scent of the perfume is described, it sounded exactly like the potion he had witch MC make him.

And his reaction as he's sniffing MCs wrist actually breaks my heart. Who do you think he meant when he said "is this how they're trying to trap me?" (Not verbatim, I can't remember the exact words)

Spoiler alert!!!

I’m honestly pretty insane about Rafayel’s myths and past, even though there’s a vague “missing” period of his life with little info to go off of, so I’ve thought about this often, actually. I have all of Rafayel’s cards so far, and what I’ve put together so far is this: MC was—at some point—forced to collude with someone against Rafayel. Not of their own will, but still, it happened. Rafayel, having already been smitten by them, is PRECISELY the kind of person to let himself get caught despite his own instincts telling him to run away. However, getting caught = getting hurt, and it was inevitable despite his love for them. The potion is reminiscent of both his first love and his first betrayal, and he can’t exactly tell those two apart—because damn it, does he love them, but he’s doomed to death if he stays.

Also, another thing is that in his first myths, Rafayel is promised to MC as an almost-slave. He’s essentially her toy, and as a princess she has every right to destroy him should she wish to. It’s a horrifyingly cruel concept, but it’s very much true. Being “tied up” or “trapped” is a very recurrent theme in Rafayel’s lore, and it’s exactly BECAUSE he knows just how willingly he would go along with it and how he’d absolutely risk it all just to see/be with MC. Through it all, he still has the instincts of a fighter and a God. It’s a battle between nature vs. desire. It’s tragic, and it means that his reservations can never fully go away, and that he’s always naturally weak for the MC, but it’s also the only way he’s ever known how to love, and he’ll throw himself into it.

[zaynesaurora]

ʟ&ᴅꜱ ! reaction to receiving hickies — (MDNI)

zayne ! sees himself early the morning after, bleary eyed as he washes the remenants of sleep from his eyes in preperation for his shift at the hospital- the little rest he got anyway. His thumb circles the dark mark on the colum of his throat, expression a mix between impressed and exhausted as he imagines the teasing his co-workers will bestow on him if it ever sees the light of day. He layers up that day. Turtle neck pulled to the sharp of his jaw, secured in place with a scarf, which remains in place all day unless he's performing a surgery- "aren't you warm doctor zayne?", silly question. He can and will do this all day until he returns home to pay the favour forward.

xavier ! completely oblivious to the existance of said mark decorating his collarbone. Shows up to collect you from work that day, his own been spent sleeping between naps (wake up babe?) on a rare day to himself- dressed in his usual wide neck sweater, hand raising to greet Tara as he passes. Unfortunatley for him she's the first to notice his new addition, squeaking in delight as she announces it to the entire office. You round the corner not long after to a bright red xavier with the neck of his shirt tight in his fist as your collegue is all but trying to undress him publicly. - "I bumped it fighting a wandere", yeah okay is that what we call it now xav? maybe you need some more combat practice?

rafayel ! oh he's oh so proud of the purple and pink mark on his chest, colour scheme perfectly matching to the tones in his eyes and hair. Wears his button up to a lower depth that day, even in meetings to discuss professional ventures- poor Thomas has to discretely play charades with him across the table to try and make him aware that his entire left pec is on show. He knows. He just doesn't care. It's summer! let the man breathe, bruises and all. Spends the rest of the day conviently leaning back so his shirt falls open, even once he's back home to you- "it looks kinda lonely babe, think I need another one", back horny devil ! back !

— bonus —

caleb ! you're both covered and quite frankly it looks like it needs medical treatment- would be cocky but he's kinda scared that people will think your bedroom activities resemble cannibalism. Begs that you both wear full coverage clothing until the worst of them have cleared just to protect your dignity, even if he does find it attractive. You strip as soon as you get home though, not to continue but to trace your fingers across his skin like your playing dot to dot- body flushing and camoflaging his markings slightly.

[magical-regical]

Y'ALL HOLY FUCK

THE OUTFIT???

THE LORE???

THE GODDAMN COMBAT AND ULT ANIMATION???

FUCKING LOOK AT THESE

I am ill. I'm actually ill. I want it. I've never seen something so fucking beautiful. The aesthetics are on. fucking. point.

I wanna say y'all Rafayel girlies eating good stanning this literal god of a man but it's another myth pair so it's gonna be a fucking pain in the ass to get.

But I mean—

Look at this Krishna looking mf.

Even the three star card looks absolutely beautiful and the fact that they're giving us the 4-stars for free? Based. Actually based. Hopefully we'll get to see Raffy bust out the thee's and thou's.

[dawnbreakersgaze]

"One mustn't look at the abyss, because there is at the bottom an inexpressible charm which attracts us." -Gustave Flaubert

The Abysswalker set goes so freaking hard- I had to play around with it too. Imagining meeting Rafayel in the dark alleyways of the capital is too much 😩

So enjoy more 4 am dark edits because no one has taken away my photoshop privileges yet 🤷🏽

[ridox]

This is Rafayel