#really excited for the dlc

[julfr]

Just chilling…

[val-of-the-north]

More observations for the trailer I am going insane!!!

I can't claim the original observation of this candle tree detail is mine, but it's from a Japanese Twitter user, here's a screenshot of the post and a link to it as well [x]

The rest of this observation IS mine though, so let's get to it:

With all the talk of cardinal sin, Messmer having a few parallels to Lucifer as pointed out by some friends of mine [x] I have to wonder if he is the cause of a speculated first burning of the Erdtree.

If this is the first time you have heard about this concept, I'll give a short summary. You know how Leyndell is covered in ash by the time we reach it in-game, and how that goes unexplained? We know for a fact that must be the Erdtree's ashes because after we claim the Rune of Death and the Erdtree burns even more, the capital is entombed in it.

We are also told that the Age of Plenty, an age in which the Erdtree gave physical blessings from its sacred sap, swiftly came to a close and the tree had to be changed to simply an object of faith...

So the theory claims that the reason why the Age of Plenty ended so swiftly was due to the Erdtree being set on fire. In theory spaces, the go-to culprit for this speculated action has often been the Gloam-Eyed Queen, with her connections to fire (Blackflame specifically) and Destined Death, but now there's the possibility that this was all Messmer's doing after all. Promotional material and dialogue seems to really denote his affinity for scorching and setting things ablaze.

This probably also means he is the inventor of that scary flame construct that according to Miyazaki as per this interview [x] was an old war machine, no doubt used during this "unsung battle".

Another important part of Messmer's design is the two snakes, which point us back to the Age of Plenty! Godfrey likely ruled during and directly after that time, and the arenas were likely built because of him. It had to be during Godfrey's rule because by the time Radagon became Elden Lord the practices of the colosseums had died down, as told to us by the Ritual Sword and Shield Talismans:

One of the more interesting aspects of the gladiatorial battles that once took place is the snake symbolism on the gladiators' armor.

So the snake was a symbol of a generic "traitor to the Erdtree", and it predated Rykard's blasphemy by an entire age at least... so what if it wasn't generic at all and it represented Messmer himself? He might have been the perpetrator of a betrayal so foul that Marika removed all traces of his existence from her empire's history, but kept the symbol of the snake as a spiteful reminder of him and all other subsequent traitors. After all, she does seem to have power over which one of her children gets remembered or not, and if not her, then the collective of the Golden Order:

Do note that we don't know when she said this. It could have been while she was still at the height of her rule or right before the Shattering. What we do know for a fact is that the soulless demigods inside the Walking Mausoleums have no known history to speak of, which is quite unlike Godwyn, one of the more accomplished members of the family. So yeah, being forgotten by history might be something the Golden Order does to those they deem unfit, so Messmer could be a likely candidate for such treatment... except instead of doing nothing noteworthy he did TOO much lol.

Now I gotta wonder if Marika hated him more or less than her Omen babies. One could argue that locking them down in a sewer close to where she lives was done more as an obligation than any true resentment. She could have sent them to the Shadow Lands if she really wanted them gone and unaccessible, as that place seems filled with Crucible-related things...

I am not saying she was a good mother to them because she didn't kick them to the Shadow Lands, but perhaps she DID have some small affection for them that she really couldn't follow through with.

Of course, maybe she just couldn't banish them anymore after banishing Messmer for whatever reason (maybe she cut-off a connection to that realm?). However, the most likely possibility is that he WAS known like the many soulless demigods and that Mohg and Morgott predate him. It's just that while those two were born undesirable through no fault of their own and were thus only hidden away, he BECAME undesirable which was worse in Marika's eyes so he gets the extra banishment and the removal of all of his history... there are so many possibilities...

[randomminty]

Yeahlow

[ghosting-fox]

ayo Eclipse is canon what???

also bonus because it kills me that they're so hurt and damaged :"))((((

[flingza-roller]

woah ok ive been seeing an insane amount of hate for side order so yknow what fuck you. this blog is a safe space i love octo expansion and i also love side order im having a very good time with this game. set urself free, release expectations, embrace fun

[toadslug]

Slightly sloppy Nightcat— I MEAN Watcher doodle!! Super excited for the new DLC :D Didn't think we'd be getting any more major content after Downpour tbh.

This is based off one of the screenshots on the Steam page!! I thought it was another sandy biome at first (white sand is cool to me), but then I realized it was probably snow 🧍

Alt. version below (for a cleaner look):

[puhpandas]

after sleeping on it I genuinely am so hope for sotm because like. this is genuinely the first game in the whole franchise that is as cut and dry as sotm is. we know EXACTLY what we're getting from this story, not what's IN it but what to EXPECT from it.

every other release before sotm (maybe besides like SB since idk what it was like leading up to sb) were theorizing about what the game was ABOUT, not what was in it. we'd be thinking I wonder what this game is gonna give us and not what itll do for what it clearly is focused on. theres never been such a clearly focused game revealed at least just on the teaser before

and this is such a good sign because this is no nonsense. this is clean cut and dry "mimic backstory" and then after this game thatll be it. all the questions will be answered and they wont sprinkle incorporating it into the story here and there, they wont be spending anymore time on it because they did everything they needed in sotm

it's just such a good sign in general. they're starting to do actual clean releases where theres no messing around and they just do what they need to do. this is making me so hopeful for the future. after this game the mimic will be done incorporated into the story ready to just be in it, and theyll be able to focus on other things, which might get the same kind of treatment with these clean games about one thing only that dont play around with information!!

it's making me so fucking hopeful for games AFTER sotm, because no matter what after they give us cut and dry mimic backstory theyll be done and they can focus on the only other plotlines left in the story, which are all about cassie, vanny, vanessa, gregory, etc. all of the peaks!!

and if hw2 dlc comes out and is about vanny!cassie, then we know what's coming next in this new style of game!!

[vaguely-concerned]

ah. ok. so from what I'm seeing from some shadow of the erdtree spoilers, fromsoft has doubled down on some incredibly troubling tropes that were already present in the main game and that they really should know better than to employ this way. there's some really ugly history attached to the themes and ideas they're presenting here, and playing it this straight is both irresponsible and annoying. disappointing at best, objectively not funny.

the fact that they decided to publish this dlc during pride month, though? fucking hysterical

[romenomi]

I went around Paldea to look for hints for the DLC that was announced yesterday, and found a poster in front of the Treasure Eatery in Medali depicting the same pattern as the new outfits in the Teal Mask! And the matsuri themed poster above.

[kaidanalenkosprmanager]

THE BEST OF GRISSOM ACADEMY

Featuring: Cmdr. Sophie Shepard, EDI, and Jack With: Flight Lt. Jeff "Joker" Moreau, Lt. James Vega, Ens. Jason Prangley, Ens. Rodriguez, David Archer, and Kahlee Sanders I never had a family- and these guys... Anyone screws with my students and I will tear them apart. Mass Effect 3: Legendary Edition (2021)

[sydney-carton-of-sour-milk]

📣ANNOUNCEMENT📣 THE BIG 2024 PROJECT

At long last, I'm announcing what I've been working on🥁

Starting February 6th and continuing every other Tuesday through at least mid-December, this blog will be highlighting the work of various illustrators of A Tale of Two Cities over the many decades since its initial publishing!💫

As it stands right now, the archive will span from the very beginning in 1859 all the way through about 1992 (with a heavy density at the turn of the century) and will contain just under 500 individual illustrations by 20 individual illustrators — in styles ranging all the way from pen to painting and abstraction to realism✍️

All of these numbers will continue to grow, however, because this is an ongoing project! In fact I expect the queue to continue through a good portion of 2025 as I keep finding and archiving more and more — there's just so much out there! For this reason I am not posting these in a sorted order — I looked at what I have right now and ordered them to feel random and balanced, with some themed for certain months😎

Also! A large percentage of these (about half of the artists and well over half of the total illustrations) are coming from sources difficult or impossible to find on the Internet and are instead coming from my own scanning work: When I would discover in my research editions that I knew to have work by new illustrators whose pages weren't available for online viewing, I would seek out and buy those editions for super cheap online and scan them on my own printer's scanner — so for a lot of the old illustration work that this blog will be posting, it will possibly be the first time some of these have ever been uploaded for public view on the Internet!🤩

As far as keeping the archive organized on this blog, the organizational tag for these posts will be " #illustrators ", and I will also tag each post with the highlighted artist's name and with the decade in which each set of illustrations was initially published (as far as my research tells me)🏷️

On the off-weeks, this blog will be posting its usual miscellany, with a sprinkling of behind-the-scenes and extras for this specific project. But starting next week and continuing every other Tuesday* through about the entire year, expect a new post highlighting the work of a given A Tale of Two Cities illustrator — and be prepared because sometimes the number of illustrations on a single post will be in the tens/dozens since Tumblr increased the max image count for a single post to 30! *with the exception of April, which is going to have a special schedule for reasons you'll see when the queue gets there👀

I'm just so excited to at long last get to share this incredible archive here! I sincerely hope you enjoy this fascinating and often breathtaking look at these tiny, beautiful pieces of art history!🌟

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

i think it's really interesting that morgott names all of his "willful traitor" family in his boss fight cutscene and yet leaves messmer out, despite him seeming to be so overwhelmingly coded as The Quintessential Traitor. like, is it that

morgott considers messmer (again, heavily associated with snakes and fire, the specific symbolic enemies of the erdtree, and managed to get his whole throne removed) such a traitor that he refuses to even speak his name

morgott actually does not consider messmer a traitor (they do appear to share similar motives, and we have no real evidence of messmer participating in the shattering war, which is morgott's chief complaint about everyone else)

he's naming shardbearers who participated in the shattering war, specifically (godrick gets included) and messmer doesn't have a great rune/wasn't a part of the shattering, so whatever else aside he was irrelevant to the point morgott was making

none of the above; morgott doesn't even know messmer exists (very possible that messmer was born+grew up+got [???] while the omens were in the sewer and they just completely missed each other) so he's just like ah yes. malenia. miquella. that one inexplicable empty space. radahn.

[musically-magic]

I'm so excited for Dragon Age: The Veilguard. This'll be the first DA game I get to play at launch and genuinely, the trailer has me super hyped for the companions and the story we'll get to uncover.

[kibibarel]

i somehow had NO IDEA The Teal Mask came out today and was like "why are people talking about the DLC that doesn't come out for another 6 months"

[ghostyolive]

So I started Deus Ex Mankind Divided and for all of the complaints I have about the controls and environment so far, I must say that nobody informed me that you get a hot punk Czech twink who also works as a book seller as your aug mechanic!!! I would have picked up this game significantly quicker if I had known this tbh

[tsuchinokoroyale]

More like rad-b-gone lol