#rising tides spoilers

[thedarkone121]

I am watching the Boss Fight of Leviathan in the Rising Tide DLC and I must say this…

THE MAD LADS DID IT! THEY GOT THROUGH THE MAELSTROM/BLINDING INDIGO INCORPORATED INTO ORCHESTRA MUSIC!!!

[tothepointofinsanity]

God shattering star.

[Click for better quality.]

[emblazons]

"We can plant the seeds for a new world. One where we can all be free."

Joshua Rosfield & Jill Warrick in Final Fantasy XVI ⤷The Rising Tide DLC

[felassan]

this post is under a cut in case anyone would consider it to be DA:D spoilers, as the things it mentions came from the leak a year ago (spoiler warning for link) that included screenshots and a gif of the game. (the things this post mentions are therefore not new information and this does not reference a new leak)

I'm just thinking again about Rook (which seems to be the PC's name or title) and the imagery conjured by the name. ◕‿◕ this post is just speculation and overanalyzing for fun. also this post is a now-finished draft from my draft section from a while back.

I think it would work as a surname (like "Hawke") or a codename (think Leliana's spies and contacts such as "Butler", "Farrier", "Butcher", "Charter", etc although these are all professions that end in "-er" or "or" iirc). it could also be a title (like Warden, Hero, Champion, Inquisitor, Herald) or a nickname - like maybe it's short for "Rookie", it's a Varric-assigned nickname and it references how the DA:D PC is the newest member of the team after he recruits them?

I think it sounds catchy, and cool - it's snappy and short, Hawke-like in this way. and it sounds like the kind of name a spy or secret agent might have in a fantasy, superhero or sci-fi-type setting.

a rook is a black bird, Corvus frugilegus, a member of the corvid family. rooks have been perceived as vermin and nuisances by people in the past, and persecuted due to this. they bear a resemblance to their crow and raven relatives, both birds which have a large cultural footprint and lots of symbolism in areas such as folklore and art. Hawke obviously also had a bird motif going on from their surname and associated art pieces. corvids also bring to mind the Antivan Crows (assassins, thieves, & spies), reminding of the stuff about how in this game the PC may be trying to operate under the radar, and the reporting on a previous iteration of DA:D which had the game concept as being focused on spies and heists. rook plumage is inky black, bringing to mind darkness and shadow.

from the bird angle, a "rook" sounds neat opposite a "wolf" imo. wolves are obviously another animal that have large footprints in culture, myth and folklore. in the natural world there is symbiosis sometimes between wolves and corvids when hunting/feeding. there are lots of photos of wolves and corvids together.

a colony of rooks is called a rookery. of course, the fortress of Skyhold has a rookery. it's from there that Inquisition Spymaster Leliana operates (operated) sending her black birds on missions with letters and messages to her many agents and spies throughout Thedas. what if Rook is one of Leliana's... "rooks"? a spy or agent of the remnants of the Inquisition.

A rook is also defined as "A cheat or swindler; someone who betrays" [noun], "mist, fog" [noun] and "to cheat or swindle" [verb]. it's also a type of trick-taking card game. these sorts of things bring to mind a rogueish, stealthy aspect, and the shady, shadowy dealings and card-game played in Minrathous Shadows.

a rook is also a chess piece. they're castle-like (since "rook" can also mean a castle or fortification) and usually have their top in the shape of a battlement. they can move in any direction along a rank or file on a chessboard on which they stand (horizontal/vertical, not diagonal). they can also do the "castling" move. in history, rooks have also been called towers, castles, rectors and marquesses. in chess, each player starts the game with two rooks at opposite ends of the first rank. chess itself is a game of strategy and tactics. "the chessmaster" as a trope is a character type who manipulates events, tugging on strings and moving 'pieces' into place on a metaphorical chessboard. [Solas' DA:I dialogue about his past, like the one he has with Sera about cells of spies/agents, hark to this]

in the castling move,

"Castling is a move in chess. It consists of moving the king two squares toward a rook on the same rank and then moving the rook to the square that the king passed over. Castling is permitted only if neither the king nor the rook has previously moved; the squares between the king and the rook are vacant; and the king does not leave, cross over, or finish on a square attacked by an enemy piece. Castling is the only move in chess in which two pieces are moved at once."

castling rules often cause confusion, even occasionally among high-level players. historically the move has its roots in the "king's leap", of which there were two forms and which arose in part it seems due to increasing importance of king safety as other pieces were given increased powers through time as the game developed. "the king would move once like a knight, or the king would move two squares on its first move. The knight move might be used early in the game to get the king to safety or later in the game to escape a threat." basically it moves the king away to safety and the rook to a more active position. there is also kingside castling and queenside castling. I wonder, symbolically.. is Rook more the king's rook, or the queen's rook? (reminds me of the Left Hand and Right Hands of the Divine hh). who or what is the king in this hypothetical analogy? the World of Thedas itself? as a castle or fortress.. Rook is the bulwark against what's to come? [over-thinking ik ik, tis just for fun hh].

by now we're all familiar with the chess game Solas plays in banter dialogue with Iron Bull during DA:I. in the in-world chess game, rooks are called towers. Solas moves his right-hand tower once. at a later point in the game, Iron Bull's "Arishok" piece takes Solas' left-hand tower, getting a check and leaving him feeling triumphant. Bull asks Solas wth he is doing as Bull takes Solas' remaining tower. "Your last tower, by the way". Bull, a spy and liar himself, bears down on Solas' pieces "with his full army", thinking a win is in sight. Undeterred, Solas executes a few moves in a sneaky plan and entraps Bull in a checkmate, winning the game after sacrificing various pieces to enact his plan.

rook also brings to mind the Tower tarot card and its meanings. it's associated with sudden, disruptive revelation and potentially destructive change. it connotes danger, crisis, sudden change, destruction, higher learning, and liberation, as well as adversity, calamity, deception, ruin and unforeseen catastrophe. reversed, it connotes things such as negligence, carelessness, apathy and vanity (vanity.. pride). in this depiction of the Tower tarot, lightning strikes from the sky, striking a crown (hubris) off the top of a tower and setting it alight as people fall from the tower to their doom. this imagery and the upright meanings of the card bring to mind the sudden massive change Solas seeks to bring about (destroying the Veil), the revelations and liberation for some that it might bring, his identity as Fen'Harel Lord of Tricksters (deception) as well as the destruction he seems to think the Veil destroying action will cause ("as the world burns in the raw chaos"...). the 'Tower scene' has also already played out once before in Thedosian history, when Solas created the Veil and sealed the Evanuris away, leading to the fall of Arlathan and its wonders. in modern Thedas, Morrigan and Flemeth (as well as possibly some side 'prophecy' type things) both allude to a big change coming to the world.

in DA:I, the Tower tarot card is ofc none other than Solas' ending card, if he is not romanced. in the DA:I version of the card, we see Solas, cloaked in a dark robe and holding a mage staff under a half-moon or eclipse. darkness seeps from his shadow, stark against the orange sky, and blends with the giant black Dread Wolf, looming ominously and open-mouthed above him with its many eyes. (the Tower tarot card Solas scene is later referenced in DA:D promotional art and DA:D-era in-world murals). it makes sense to have assigned this to Solas given the above discussed meanings of the Tower tarot card, but it's a verrry inchresting choice imo to then give "Rook" as a name/title for the DA:D PC.

and most inchrestingly, there's the symbol from the front of Mark Darrah's mysterious Red Book. this mysterious red book shows "a flaming rook" on the cover. the book was an internal guide for developer and publisher eyes only that summarized the vision for DA:D, in its Joplin iteration. we know that the Joplin project has since been revised to an extent that it was the newly codenamed Morrison instead, but the red book is known to still contain plenty of ideas likely to appear in DA:D. most pages of the book remain highly classified. it's the symbol on the front that's of most interest to us though for the purposes of this post. there is a castle, tower, or rook, like a fortress or the chess piece. above the tower, a fire burns, reminding us of the burning tower from the Tower tarot card imagery and what that symbolizes, as well as Solas' "world burning in the raw chaos" line from Trespasser. inside the fire is a wolf, the Dread Wolf, in a now very-familiar and repeated motif in DA:D art, merch, murals, teasers etc. whatever else "rook" may connote, it feels like it's not an accident at all that the PC's name is apparently "Rook", given this depiction of a fiery rook and the Dread Wolf together.

what do you think? ^^

[aesadraws]

Final Fantasy XVI as Memes Saved On My Phone

Ft. bonus meme below the cut {MAJOR SPOILERS for the Rising Tide DLC below!}

[diremore]

Clive: We have a god to kill. Any suggestions? Jill: You, Joshua, and Dion go to Origin while I stay behind for health reasons that apply to me but somehow do not apply to Dion. Not to mention, I'd have been another powerful ally, and if you failed, I and everyone else would be dead anyway. Clive: That's an awful idea. I am taking suggestions from everyone but Jill now. Dion: I fly us to Origin, and when Ultima threatens your life, I shall sacrifice myself to save Joshua so that he can rescue you, even if Ultima would not have really killed you, and we'd actually be better off dodging instead of tanking their attack. Clive: A terrible plan. I am now currently taking suggestions from everyone but Jill and Dion. Joshua: Instead of forming Ifrit Risen and dealing with Ultima together while one of them is still imprisoned within me, I wait for them to break open my chest first and then I surrender the Phoenix to you and die in dramatic fashion. Clive: Ugh. I am no longer taking suggestions.

[boinday]

Hehe, I’ve been so excited for this reveal!

Anyway, here’s your reminder to catch up with Rose Tide Rising ;)

[dwarvenwarden]

The Surge // FFXVI The Rising Tide DLC

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 403: (But Just That One Part, Because I'm Not Caught Up)

Previously on BnHA: Truly no idea, but it kind of looks like Katsuki is riding some sort of spaceship, and everyone has gotten really, really sparkly. I see you all have been busy these past 22 months. Great job, keep it up.

Today on BnHA: “So it’s come to my attention that a truly shocking number of you are only reading this manga for a single character.” – Horikoshi Kouhei, October 2023.

so. where to start, lol

I guess I should open with an apology, because I am about to make a fairly selfish decision! what I am about to do, is post a reaction to Bakugou’s Return To The Manga. however, because I’m not caught up, I’m going to be reading this one scene completely out of context without knowing anything about what is going on. which means that I’m going to be missing out on god knows how many nuances and details, which means this reaction post will be short on those things as well. so basically I’m prioritizing my own personal gratification as a fan here even though it is 100% going to affect the quality of my reaction blog, and for that I genuinely am sorry. eventually I will finish catching up, and when that happens I will post a proper reaction with all the trimmings. that’s just how it is for now though

anyway so with that said, basically what I’ve done now is I have gone to the scanlation website, and clicked on chapter 403, and then scrolled down through most of the chapter while sort of half-looking away from my screen with my eyes squinted so that everything is mostly blurry, until I finally reached the big double-page spread with you-know-who doing his thing. namely, standing around on this giant glowy cereal bowl from the future, which appears to be either hovering up in the air, or slowly crashing onto the ground

and this right here, is exactly what I was rambling on about a moment ago. you guys I really am sorry to be doing this, because even I can tell this should be solemn and sincere moment of awe and excitement and relief. but because I completely lack any context whatsoever for wtf is happening, most of the dramatic impact is lost on me, and to tell the truth right now this page is a hell of a lot funnier than it has any right to be

like, so Deku. this boy is crying all the tears. I recklessly scrolled back up one page to see why, and it appears the answer is Because All Might Is About To Fucking Die (which, !??!?), so that’s actually VERY fucked up, and I’m sure I will have PAGES AND PAGES OF WORDS to say about all of that once I finally catch up properly. that is very traumatic and emotional and I will probably cry a lot about it

BUT, that being said, I just need you guys to know that without that context, Deku standing here with his giant head all >:O in the foreground, while Kacchan appears out of nowhere glowing with the power of a thousand suns and standing on top of this giant floating Smash Bros level that Nezu maybe probably built with his nine million dollars, is one of the wildest fucking things I’ve seen in my life. I feel like an accidental time traveler. you know when a character has one of those crazy prophetic dreams showing them chaotic glimpses of the future, and they’re just standing there all “???” because they have absolutely no clue what the fuck is going on? that is what it’s like right now

heh but there he is

“did you miss me, Izuku. back by popular demand after being on IR for 14 goddamn months. rebuilt better and stronger than ever thanks to the heroic spaghetti man wrapped tightly around my heart keeping me alive. just BnHA things. just a flesh wound. by the way, it’s me, Kacchan, just in case you didn���t recognize me on account of my still being really far away and completely covered by smoke, and also you thinking I was dead. here let me give you a close up to make this easier”

“fuck yeah. it really is me, btw. just in case you still couldn’t tell on account of me also being like 100x prettier than you remembered. guess it’s just that blindingly handsome character development”

also, “the end of an era” um hello, yes, what?? just what exactly have I missed here with all this All Might stuff?? because apparently All Might just prior to this was in some sort of mortal danger, is what I’ve been hearing, because everyone keeps posting excitedly about Kacchan showing up in the nick of time to save him? which incidentally makes my heart so incredibly fucking warm omg. it’s what both of them need AND deserve

why is everything so goddamn sparkly right now. this is like a Sailor Moon battle over here

love that look of instant recognition and shock and overpowering relief in Deku’s eyes though. also has he really been fighting in this cracked out OFA-overflowing mode this entire time?? he looks just like he did on the cover of volume 37. I still haven’t seen his actual canon reaction to the “death”, and I haven’t been keeping tabs on his fight with AFO??/Tomura?? at all, but I’m glad it looks to have been as emotional as I could have hoped

aw fuck yeah

his precious card. I’m now almost as invested in the saga of the All Might card as I am in all the rest of this. it’s all beat to hell, but somehow still made it through in the end. just like him

oh. my. g

protect them.

protect them all.

so is the reason this fight is so sparkly just because of OFA symbolism, then?? or is there something else happening here?? goddammit, okay, I‘m gonna very carefully scroll back to the beginning of the chapter, because I’m 100% positive there is some sort of deeply meaningful symbolic thing going on here and I’ll be damned if I miss out on it, spoilers or no

-- oh my goD??!

1. BABY ALL MIGHT WHAAAAAAT

IS THAT HIS MOM???? OH MY GOD DID WE GET ALL MIGHT BACKSTORY. oh my god. oh god. no actually don’t tell me, ahhhh I cannot fucking wait to read this properly, holy shit

so did something wind up happening to Mighty Mom later on then?? feels like it must have, since he wound up getting so attached to Nana? man I don’t want to think about any of that stuff after seeing this panel though :( just, damn it, why is this man’s whole entire life so goddamn fucking tragic

“the one thing I’ve done most is looking back to the path I took” my god I cannot wait to read this. only two short pages and I’m already buried miles deep into my All Might feels. came here for the triumphant Kacchan return and now I’m sitting here tearing up about All Might, god damn you Horikoshi YOU’VE STILL GOT IT. and I am STILL A SUCKER FOR ALL OF IT

anyway, so now back we go to the last couple of pages with this additional context, aaaaand...

...and apparently I’m now full-on crying about All Might! (: well how about that. turns out when you read the manual and follow the instructions properly this series still works exactly as advertised. don’t mind me I’m just sitting here sobbing because everything is exactly what I wanted and I apparently don’t know how to deal with that!!

THEIR FEELINGS BECOME WHAT?!?!?!

EVERYTHING IS EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED AND I’M GONNA BE A MESS ABOUT IT FROM NOW UNTIL THE END OF TIME BECAUSE LIFE IS GRAND!!

ARE ALL OF THESE WATERY SPARKLES LIKE. DEKU’S FUCKING TEARS LMAO OR WHAT. HOW IS KACCHAN IN THE SPLASH ZONE. HOW ARE HIS TEARS HOLDING UP THE SPACESHIP. I DON’T UNDERSTAND A GODDAMN THING BUT THIS IS NOW OFFICIALLY A SHOUJOU MANGA, I DON’T MAKE THE RULES

the urge to ruffle baby Deku and baby Kacchan’s hair is so goddamn powerful you don’t understand. this is PRIMAL. they are SO happy and SO good and perfect. I’m gonna fucking die

there’s not even any dialogue. what the fuck are they even gonna say. their expressions say it all and more. also they are being kind to me because they know I’m not caught up so they don’t want to spoil me any further, thank you my sons

lastly, I guess, because I don’t really have anything else to add now that my brain has fully turned to sappy mush: so uh. I truly have not the slightest clue how or why, but. does Kacchan have OFA though. and why is the answer, “yes he definitely does.” ???

like, I don’t understand it, but I confess that by now I have spoiled myself on the last few pages of chapter 362 for reasons (those reasons being “I finally gave in and looked at them on purpose, because I’d already seen most of them out of context here and there, and my willpower is only so strong”), and so I know that this boy was talking to vestige!Might, and as far as I’m aware that is 100% not possible unless he has some sort of connection to OFA in some way so yeah

and now here he on this last page being all Profoundly Connected with Deku while they gaze into each other’s eyes, and I can’t help but notice that said eyes are all explodey and they look a LOT like Deku’s actually. and on top of that we have all of this All Might symbolism that I’m still crying about, so like? ???

anyway so I’m not going crazy here right? like this is definitely a thing? for whatever reason?? unless you guys know something here that I don’t. in which case I actually am asking to be spoiled fully just this once, because at this point I just need to know one way or the other and I don’t care lol

anyway so that concludes my thoughts I guess! so now my absurdly ambitious goal is to speed read the manga this next week and hopefully at least catch up to Kacchan’s “death”, so that I can better understand what’s happening when I inevitably wind up spoiling myself for chapter 404 as well. the plan right now is to still type up my liveblog notes as I go, but to not worry about posting or editing anything in between chapters. so I’ll have a big backlog of chapter recaps which I’ll eventually get to uploading whenever I can, but in the meantime I can participate more in the fandom side of things. since I really want to share all of my endgame theories and so forth, but in order to do that I really need to find out just what the fuck is actually going on lol, so yeah

[acalyphaaa]

[toastingpencils37]

"No Core for you!"

"No monk for you!"

If I had a nickel for everytime an inhabitant of the Wyldness stated something along these lines, I'd have two, which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

[tothepointofinsanity]

Guardian.

[emblazons]

"I was old enough to understand what was happening. One can only imagine what this poor child felt."

Joshua Rosfield in Final Fantasy XVI ⤷ finding Waljas • The Rising Tide DLC

[sevi007]

Twitter | Instagram

They should totally show us more of Clive holding babies or handling children in general, he has those safe-protective-big-bro vibes going on. I bet he gives THE best hugs.

First time trying to draw something - uh. Semi-realistic at least on my in digital! I can see a lot of potential there still (I'm saying this nicely XD) but I think there are points which turned out well. I'm semi-happy with the semi-realism!

[ffxiii-et-al]

So Rising Tide is coming and (sadly) Joshua looks like he's the kicked party member to let Shula in.

Square, if you're going to do that to the man you must do 1 of these 3 things:

1. The man needs a vacation.

Let his tiddies out like all the rest of the male cast. Bonus points of he gets a plus one invite for a hideaway companion. Let him lay on a beach for 2 days in the sun and bake Ultima in his chest prison until the waterspout from Leviathan makes him move to the tiki bar.

2. Give this man an ancient library.

Sorry guys, but please fuck off while I read all of these beautiful books and steep myself in this new culture and research Ultima. Yeah I'll just take a glass of water, I don't need food or sleep, I need answers!

3. Stick this man with the B cast, annoy him as much as possible, but give him some pretty ancient ruins to study so that he's happy.

Famiel is definitely from this place, he's gotta be, so, force Joshua to lead him and his dimwits around.

Joshua: Clive! I want to go see the temple PLEASE!?

Clive: I want to fight a tonberry first!

Shula: These idiots can show you the temple!

Famiel and his friends: We can show you the temple!

Joshua: (sigh) Of course you can. Founder help me.

[Joshua must now constantly protect three idiots in a hostile ruin, meanwhile Famiel thinks he's getting them all out on brainpower alone, queue snarky Joshua]

[nyaskitten]

Man so the FSM just like went on sprees hiding ancient mystical artifacts??? Like he gave the Keepers and Merlopians amulets, he went around the realms and tossed one Core into a casket, one into the hands of snails, and another to fucking Lava-Tides, and then he decided his best one yet would be the location of his damn corpse ??? GIRL ???