#the fact that I will have to create an entire separate kingdom for this thing

[featherlouise]

Exploring some concepts for a slightly older Ghost!! I imagine them as about 8-9ish during the game.

I’ve been neglecting them in most of my AUs lmao, I think it’s time for some Ghost centric stuff shxhxjxj (also they’re VERY fun to draw)

After killing the Radiance, the siblings take some time to rest and recuperate, and at some point decide to try and rebuild Hallownest. Hornet takes over Deepnest, taking her rightful place as Queen, while Hollow becomes king of Hallownest. While Ghost is technically the crown prince, it’s more in name than anything, as they would rather run the Path of Pain handcuffed in the dark than have that kinda responsibility (also they’re like. 13 by this point)

Some tidbits about their design and this AU for those interested:

- They resemble their mother more than PK, and as a result their horns are more like branches and grow to resemble antlers!!

- They also have a faint wood grain pattern all over their body

- Vessels typically have small glowing white dots on their bodies, and darker spots on their face and horns (I’ve been referring to them as soul spots and void freckles shbxxn), and you can generally tell whether they’re more proficient in soul magic or void magic depending on how many of either they have!!

(E.g. Hollow has a few void freckles, but they are COVERED in soul spots, meanwhile Ghost has a few soul spots but they have a TON of void freckles).

When they come into their power as Shade Lord, Ghost’s soul spots are swallowed by their void, and as they get older more void freckles appear until their horns are entirely black.

- I like the idea of Ghost’s power as SL showing in their physical form more as they get older, like their mortal body can’t contain their entire being, so it leaks out in the form of wispy void hair, void freckles, etc etc

- When they started rebuilding, there became a sudden need for formal clothing once again, so Hornet raids every closet in the White Palace to cannibalise the different dresses and robes into something presentable (luckily Ghost fits into most of Hornet’s old stuff)

(Assume the White Palace appears again at some point (finding PK’s corpse is a VERY fun time for Holly ahahaha))

- With the discovery of kingdoms beyond the Wastelands (via Silksong), the siblings start reaching out in the hopes of establishing some trade routes, and getting some help with the rebuilding effort

This opens some opportunities for visits from neighbouring royals (and pooossibly some new friends for Ghost, they need to meet people their age lmaooo)

[lunaencantada]

Last week I was able to watch Wish and I'm really sad because I was ready to defend the film. It does its job, it entertained me for a while, I had a great time with King Magnifico, I love the design of Queen Amaya (hehe Dama of Elche inspired) and of Asha, the star is cute….

But.

With each passing day, the more disappointed I am with the film. I understand the idea, but I don't like the execution. My only interest is the villain, and I don't even know if we can call him that: he's a man who suffered a traumatic experience as a young child and has built a kingdom trying to protect his people and his dreams. Yes, he's a narcissist and obviously his motivation is not entirely good (he seeks recognition from others and stuff), but he's doing his job and people are giving him their wishes because they want to, not against their will.

There is a new element in the equation (the star) that could take all this away from him, perhaps repeating the destruction of his first home. It is his greatest fear, which is why he does not grant most wishes. What if something bad happens. What if they use it against us. Trauma. In a desperate moment he turns to a book that we later learn corrupts you or whatever you want to call it, there's no turning back. Asha creates the villain of her story, who otherwise wouldn't have wanted to do any of that.

But the worst thing for me was looking for a picture of Magnifico and Amaya when they were young to show a friend something and confusing him with Ballister from Nimona. And that's when something clicked in my head.

Disney was making Nimona. Disney was making it and they cancelled the film. Did Disney STEAL the designs they were using for Nimona to use them for Wish?

Is the fact that Nimona was finally going to be released the reason why there are so many changes from concept art to final product? Amaya can't be bad because, hm, what separates her from The Director then? People have complained that Magnifico's eyes are too big, hm, I wonder who has been praised these past few months for their big puppy eyes.

And the star. It was a shapeshifter boy. A goddamn shapeshifter.

And I was browsing the art book and. IS THAT AN OTTER.

WHO I KNOW WHO IS ALSO A SHAPESHIFTER WHO IS SOMETIMES AN OTTER?

Of course I have no complaints about the people who have worked on the film, the art teams, animators, etc. I'm sure they worked hard and it looks like the people at the top made decisions and then they had to work twice as hard to try and remedy the problems.

But then you look at the other people who worked on the film and the voice actors ……………….. They take Israel's side? Oh jesus

What a mess.

[razberrypuck]

miscellaneous things about gillion that I think are interesting: a compilation

the fact that he's religious, calls lunadeus his moon mom, and is believed to be the chosen one of his goddess, but prayer isn't something he regularly participates in

his clear love of the arts vs constantly saying he isn't any good at them. not doing anything related to art or music unless jay and chip are also doing it with him. the fact that he can play guitar and knows instruments well enough to create functioning ice versions of them. I'm convinced he would've become a bard if he hadn't had paladin pushed on him

nearly his entire life, he was taught that people from the oversea were evil, and that they were liars who wanted to get rid of the ocean. he was taught to kill on sight, because they're the bad guys. but he didn't try to harm jay or chip when they found him. he happily accepted their offer to help them

in the edison kingdom, when they were making their plan to get into the castle, right? chip asked what servants of the elders wore, and gillion motioned to his own outfit. I haven't seen anyone mention this ever and it's so weird to me. I understand they (the elders) would want gillion to be in uniform, but you'd think the chosen one and champion of the undersea would have his own uniform, right? or, at the very least, something to separate him from everyone that works in the palace

charlie saying in a rolled that if gillion was forced to relax and not do anything he'd break down

his connection to lighting

the fact that magic was particularly difficult for him to learn, and how apparently he would accidentally blow things up. personal headcanon that he used to have wild magic before he got it under control

his coral. I wanna know the fucking deal with that. it's growing out of his skull. he can feel when it's broken. it glows when he uses magic. it can be used to make water breathing potions that physically mutate the user's body to be better suited for swimming. it's apparently sacred. we have never seen anyone else with the same condition. nobody asks about it and I'm upset I want to KNOW

ik this is just a d&d thing but the fact that he can lift like?? ~500 lbs?? without having to roll strength?? beefy boy. jay and chip weigh nothing to him. it's like holding a couple of grapes

just the way he talks about the undersea. it's beautiful, it's dangerous, it's dark and cold and wet, i just want to go back, it's a nightmare, i miss it, i know the rules necessary but they're so strict sometimes it feels like they're strangling me, i want you to see it someday

feel free to add on/talk about any of these points :]

[blackautmedia]

Tears of the Kingdom and the use of Hands

It's frustrating how well Tears of the Kingdom incorporates repeat imagery of hands in some form. It has a lot of this great concept with it, but never really capitalizes on it or uses it in any thematically interesting way since the storytelling is so underwhelming.

From the start of the game, Link's separation from Zelda shows him reaching out and trying to grab her hand and failing to make contact, a scene that's mirrored at the end of the game when you have a moment to dive after Zelda and make the catch you failed to do at the start. The game makes sure to have a button prompt section specifically for touching her hand.

Link of course loses his arm and gets...magic emergency surgery (the disability lens of how Link is portrayed in Tears is an entirely separate conversation. Hoo wee...) and from the beginning of the game Rauru and Link are bonded together with Rauru's arm fused to Link's body. My issues with the Zonai as a race aside, this is still another part of the motif.

During multiple conversations between Zelda and Queen Sonia during the memories, they deliberately draw attention to having Sonia reach out and hold or touch Zelda's hands to emphasize the sincerity and love she's expressing. Sonia verbalizes the connection she feels not just as family but even notes how she can sense the similarities in Zelda's powers.

Honestly, for all the issues in how underwhelming Totk's storytelling is, I genuinely love these little moments with Sonia. I think they likely did it to get around possible limitations of creating nuanced facial expressions they couldn't capture easily, but I still found it very effective by helping the player relate to the sense of touch.

The completion of each temple is marked with a show of loyalty with the newly awakened sage and some variation of handshake or hand contact.

All of this makes it more of a wasted opportunity that they had a scene where Mineru is touching her late brother's hand for the first time after being in slumber for ages and they do nothing with it. You could have her tense up, maybe have her run both her hands across the top of Link's hand after getting to experience some form of touch from her brother for the first time.

There's also the fact that Mineru and Link both have the unique experience of altering their bodies and selves in service of being kept in slumber for a long period of time to carry out the responsibility of saving the world. Both of them carry the emotional weight of having to leave behind their friends, family, and the world they knew all in service of this grand plan with Zelda behind it all and yet they never capitalize on any of this. Pretty much nobody else can really relate to this situation and it'd make a great storytelling point to focus on her.

Back to the hands though, we all know the most iconic enemy in Tears of the Kingdom are the gloom spawn, which everyone calls the Gloom Hands.

The end of each shrine you're met with a Statue of Sonia and Rauru greeting you with hands held together as they stand as one.

Hands and the constant element of contact to convey significant moments would be effective in a story about community and the connection and strength that comes from cultivating it and organizing. There's also the obvious connection of unity.

TotK kind of have an aspect and theme of community care or try to lean in on that idea, but it's also messy and undermined when taken with *gestures at everything else*

I dunno. I think the repeat imagery of hands is a really thoughtful choice to convey climactic moments of these scenes. I just wish there was more actual meat to the story to give it some weight.

I've considered doing an addendum video to my Gerudo discussion talking about TotK's storytelling and maybe some of the things that come to mind with the portrayal of Ganon and the Zonai, cuz boy do they have some...implications.

[littlebittyhollowbugs]

Dreamer headcanons

• Lurien is half dragonfly (son of an outsider dragonfly and nobleman of the city) and the grandchild of a higher being. He posseses great magic ability, especially in regards to sight. (Also fun fact: Dragonflies irl have great vision, and are known to have some of the best eyesight of any bug!) I will elaborate on this HC in a separate post Which will go over my dragonfly lore.

• Lurien helped the king create the worldsense spell, that he gifted the hollow knight. (A spell that allows one vision of an entire kingdom from one location.)

• Lurien and Monomon were very close before becoming dreamers having spent much time working together as advisors of the king. They often argued though, with Lurien never questioning his monarch and Monomon always advocating for trying new ideas, looking from all perspectives ect. (The pale king appreciated both very much.)

• They are also both poets, which they bonded over. And Lurien had definitely at one point painted a fog canyon art piece, that he gifted to her.

• Monomon is the oldest of the dreamers, technically, She is actually already over a hundred years old, before becoming a dreamer.

• She was once a regular (at least more regular) type of bug, and was later turned into a jellyfish.

• She always had an amazing mind and used her scientific skill to help the kingdom progress. She impressed the king so greatly that he granted her immortality (I will elaborate on this in a sec) And entrusted her to keep all the kingdoms records.

• Then of course with this new immortality, and new position, she became more ambitious. She created the jellyfish and fog canyon, Wanting to prove that she could be like the higher beings and create her own people/followers. (Typical god complex mad scientist behavior.)

• The king had her punished by taking away her true form. and turning her into a jellyfish creature. (Which she eventually grew used to and even happily accepted.)

• Of course as long as she stayed loyal to the king, the jellyfish did. And she remained loyal to the end.

• She was one of his foremost trusted advisors, and besides the white lady, the most involved in his plan to seal the infection.

• About the immortality thing- that was granted to her through her mask. The king had heard of the mask maker of Deepnest and his power. He made a deal with the then ruler of Deepnest (this is before Herrahs time) to have a mask created for Monomon.

• Skip forward a hundred years or so, the king is amidst his plan to seal the infection. He needs dreamers and at this point Monomon and Lurien have both volunteered. In order for the plan to work they need their masks and he goes to deepnest again to make a deal for two more masks to be made. This is how Herrah becomes aware of the dreamer plan, and her deal with him is made not long after.

I hesitate to elaborate on Herrahs backstory, only because Silksong might do just that. (I hope it does!) Anyway this all may be disproven but here we go~

• Herrah married the old sire of Deepnest who was a weaver (higher minded being) And this caused much controversy in Deepnest. She was not a weaver, not a royal, not even of noble birth.

• She did have her loyal followers of course, but many of her people, did not have much faith in her.

• The sire died unexpectedly in battle against the mantis tribe and Herrah was put in a worse position. Now Deepnest depended solely on her. (And to make matters more difficult she had not yet birthed an heir.)

• The pale king soon discovered how unprepared Herrah was to be queen, and was quick to make an alliance with her, after the sires passing.

• Herrah agreed to the alliance. (And trade routes and what not were established, the stag station, trams ect.)

• Herrahs people were not so much in agreement. The relations between Deepnest and Hallownest remained shaky to say the least.

• The bargain for Hornet was made both to the advantage of Herrah and the King. Herrah would have an heir, And with the new queen of Deepnest being his daughter, the king would gain more influence over the land.

• not wanting for her daughter to grow too attached to her before the sealing, Herrah sent Hornet to the hive to train when she was very young. (Herrah trained in the hive herself when she was in her youth. And trusted them to care of her daughter.)

• ooh also Deepnest culture is very family oriented specifically revolving around the children/the youth.

I feel like I have more, but this is all I can remember for now. Might add onto this later.

[verdantmeadows]

One thing that bothers me is how people treat Hollow Knight characters somehow separated from in-game context or ideas. I'm going to be using the Pale King as an example, so this post is Pale King-centric. Like, people usually make out the Pale King to be a complete asshole (which I mean, I do not disagree), but portray him as acting asshole-ish, especially in ways that are very much not how he'd do so. Which is alright with comedy, but a lot of people have a very fundamental misunderstanding of a LOT of Hollow Knight characters. I totally think it's okay to make a character OOC and there is a lot to be argued on what counts as OOC. But going back to the Pale King, there's a few things I think people miss about his character pretty often.

He feels incredible shame over his mass infanticide from the moment he had to do it. Does this excuse it? Absolutely not. But people do not ever seem to grasp the context of which he does this, in which case there are more bugs who will die than the amount of children that would die. He created the vessels as an absolute last resort and felt he had no other choice than to do so. Again, this does not excuse the cruelty, but he was in a situation where (even if he can be argued to be at fault for causing it) bugs were going to and currently were dying, and he had to stop it.

The White Palace has a nursery, likely intended to be his and the Pale Lady's child. It uses the theme of the Knight's shade, but much happier sounding. It has a chair where the White Lady likely sat, as well as a crib. Yes, this would be her room, but it isn't incredibly hidden (unlike what the Path of Pain hides), but considering it was not greatly hidden, this means he likely did not feel it needed to be more hid than the rest of the White Palace and possibly that he wished or hoped he could have had normal children.

The Path of Pain exists solely to hide a single shared memory of the Pure Vessel and the Pale King. You can interpret it in many ways, but the two of them clearly are sharing a moment and look at each other. It is very easily inferred that the Pale King is what "tarnished" the Pure Vessel by instilling an idea and causing it to view the Pale King as a father. Considering he hid this memory so deeply within the White Palace, but it is there in the first place, it likely had great significance either as an event or emotionally. The moment is not exclusive to the Pure Vessel. It is the Pale King who looks at the Pure Vessel first. It's very likely he cared for it, even if he did not want to. This makes it even more cruel, because he had to have treated it (to the best of his ability) as hollow and empty, despite the fact that it wasn't, not entirely at least.

There is a LOT to be said about him and the Radiance that I don't think I could easily get into. I do think that he did things that were cruel to her and inevitably had a butterfly effect to causing the Infection. (I am trying to be neutral here, but I am definitely a Radiance sympathizer.) And, again, this doesn't excuse it, but contextually, it is down to his very nature as a Wyrm to draw bugs into his thrall and create societies/kingdoms. This nature of a Wyrm is repeatedly emphasized as if its to them as breathing is to humans. As a Wyrm, he must bring bugs into his thrall.

There are many, many other things I could mention. But as a whole, I think he is a really good example of how many people heavily mischaracterize or misunderstand Hollow Knight characters. I don't think it's inherently wrong to do so, but many people who are doing so are not doing it on purpose. There is a great level of nuance and much context to (many) Hollow Knight characters. The Pale King, like I explained, is incredibly nuanced and, in my opinion, is a very morally grey character. Many of those in Hollow Knight's world operate on moral ideologies or functions that do not fit ours and cannot fit ours, but I think people try to apply to them anyways. Not really sure what the point of this post was other than it bothers me.

[defining-skyology]

Defining Ancestors.

This was also going to be another complex topic to dissect, but fortunately, complication and technicalities are not supposed to be the point of these posts.

Unfortunately, that's still something I have a hard time understanding.

The point of these posts are to categorize specific themes into notable groupings, and give said grouping a Name. This course of action will create a Terminology, and one that we can continue to use for the foreseeable lifetime of this blog.

Ancestors.

I give myself so so much runaround with the term.

We are trying to answer quite a lot of questions surrounding these characters, such as:

Who are they?

What are they?

How are they?

When are they?

And why are they?

And though I could spend an entire article on each of those, the goal here is to condense it down into a single sentence broadly and tactfully answering only as much of them as deemed necessary.

So first let's talk about Who they are.

There has been more and more dispute over the concept of Beings during the kingdom's history, notably/generally over firstly the Elders, and then more recently with the presence of the Embers on the horizon. The Elders and Embers both have a decent amount of evidence or rationalizations behind them being special Beings; functionally a different 'species' from the Ancestors.

But I think that we, and by we I mean me, need to stop getting distracted by the fact that all of these Beings are 'different' from each other. What matters, is that they all lived in the same kingdom at one point, one way or another. All of their eyes, all of their hands, have worked and toiled and led this kingdom to the point where it had once mightily stood. This belonging to a community is important, and needs to be contrasted with one notable thing;

They are not creatures.

At this point in the kingdom's history (as well as within the mid-phase concept art of the game) there was a clear categorical divide between Ancestors and creatures of Light, and I think that we can retain this divide to be used for the blog today. If creatures are pure Beings and Ancestors are not, then it is because Ancestors are not properly Connected to the Light.

We will go into this in further detail on another vocab post, but if we note Creatures as the 'natural' life flowing throughout the world, then we can counter that with the idea that:

Ancestors are the 'unnatural' presence in the world, due to their separation from the Light.

We've got the first part of our Definition locked in with who and what they are, and the next question I want to ask is the last question I think we'll need, which I personally believe will be the most important:

When?

The term Ancestor should be a no brainer, and when we first hear the term in relation to a character it gives a pretty clear image in our mind almost immediately. Allow me to demonstrate the most perfect example that any kid who grew up on Disney movies will immediately understand:

[[[Scenes from Mulan, showing a man praying to his Ancestors to watch over and guide his family, and the Ancestors deciding how to help their descendant.]]]

Ancestor noun : "A person, typically one more remote than a grandparent, from whom one is descended."

It is still very up in the air whether ANY Beings physically/directly reproduce. They don't; I don't believe they do.

Due to this, we will assume for now that the term Ancestry in Sky refers not to a direct heritage of blood, but generational heritage. Even if Beings just materialize, fallen from the Sky, they are still found and raised by those who came before them, as we can see in Stargazer's memory. This heritage of raising the next Beings that appear is functionally "generational", and therefore once enough generations occur, at some point older generations can be considered a newer generation's ancestor.

But where do we draw the line? Where is the exact moment when our nearest/youngest Ancestors existed? Or more specifically, when?

Fortunately, the answer we need is pretty simple, even though it's about to help us all tie it together.

We know Ancestors possibly survived "the Event" at Eden, but we can't know if any were 'born' into the world after the apocalyptic fallout at the end of the war.

We don't know how soon the 'first' Descendants started appearing down in the world. While I'd argue the very first players at the beginning of Launch were the first Descendants, some theorists argue that this is not provable, and perhaps Descendants were canonically born even before the first players started playing.

The complications and the discourse is chaotic and uncoordinated as ever; what else is new? But I have an easy way to nip this in the bud and make a clear cut decision for everyone, that I believe TGC would clearly prefer us to have implied is the most direct "truth" to our "when".

Any Ancestors, Elders, or Embers that existed BEFORE the 'Explosion' occurred during the Eden Event, are definitively Ancestors.

And from here let's make it just that much simpler with that study we did earlier up there on what is Nature and what is not.

Unnatural Beings that existed before the 'Explosion' occurred during the Eden Event, are definitively Ancestors.

And there we have it! This is the Definition I think we can confidently leave this at for now. Of course it can get deeper then this, but I need to sleep, and the loyal one or two people who read this deserve a break. Thank you so much for reading, and have a good day/night, y'all!

I really hope I get on the next one (or two or three) soon and not get stuck again.

[dextixer]

What Vtuber Ruby and Miles cameos say, matter (kinda).

So, a day or so ago we have had people discuss about Rubys Vtubing appearances and the things she has said on video. People have had mixed opinions on what was said, some people think its not a problem, others think its a problem, some others dont care. So, i wanted to chime in on this entire discussion and why in my opinion this, and the cameos that Miles makes matter and are not "irrelevant".

Disclaimer

Before i start, i will note. I dont really think that these things are HUGE problems and "OH NO, THIS RUINS THE SHOW" or any other nonsense. Some people have seen these things way too negatively. But i also think that people who say that it doesnt matter at all are taking 2 way too extreme positions.

Lore Swiss Cheese

One of the main problems of RWBY has, for a long time, been the very vague concepts of what is canon and the in-show lore. From the very start of the show, it had commentary tracks, the creators talking about the show etc. Despite not being in the show itself, we have had many tidbits of information (such as Rubys favourite food) and the like given to us in outside of canon content. And it has not just been some minor things either. Ironwoods semblance basically does not exist in the show, and yet it seems to exist in lore, and it was shared with us from outside the show.

And later on, after V3, RWBY has received a lot of different media that expands on its lore and are considered canonical, despite sometimes never appearing on the show, or even creating very weird situations where something is conspicuous by absence in the show itself. For example, we have a very often discussed topics of V7-8 of the defense of Mantle/Atlas. One of the discussion points have always been how weirdly weak the defenses of the kingdom are. While one could chalk that up to people having an "inflated" view of Atlas military, but we have been canonically told and shown a lot of Atlas tech that is conspicuous by absence in the show.

Automated turrets, different versions of Atlesian Knights etc, which were said to be canonical in Amity:Arena. Or for example stealth tech. Yea, Atlas has stealth tech, like, genuine stealth. Its in one of the books. And yet nowhere in the show.

We have two canonical games, Grimm Eclipse and Arrowfell, with characters and concepts in them that have never been seen in the show. Has anyone ever seen team BRIR in the show? Heard of them? Maybe the tech from Arrowfell would kinda be useful, even if outdated against the Grimm invasion? What about the outlying Atlesian villages? Are they just dead at this point? Where the heck is Thornmane? He gets captured and hes nowhere in jail even as a cameo? And why does noone talk about Grimm Eclipse? Tech enchanced Grimm seem like a bit of a topic that kinda should be discussed sometime, no!?

We also have the comic books with various questionable canonical decisions including Raven turning into a bird to fuck with child Ruby. Blakes involvement with Adam which is somewhat weird because the comic books try to humanize Adam while the show demonizes him.

And let us not forget the whole "Canon Adjacent" nonsense where RT cant even come out and say that its obviously non-canon stories like Ice Queendom and even crossovers with DC are not canon. They cant even come out and say that!

Oh, and of course, i just remembered, the Grimm DnD campaign which is also apparently canon!

The reason i am listing all of these summarized versions of the multiple lore issues that the show has is that the lore of RWBY, is swiss cheese. It has lore that is given partially in so many different places, including in out of universe that its almost impposible to follow it properly, and if you do try, you are only going to get more confused because the main show feels like completely separate from it all, despite being in the same lore.

Vtubing and Cameos matter

And this brings me to of course the very simple claim, that due to the fact that the lore is already swiss cheese, these statements made in Vtubing and Cameos actually matter. Because even if they are not stated to be directly canonical, the lore is already so incredibly fucked and unclear (To the point that some people cant even decide if DC RWBY comics are even canon or not!) that adding these examples to the mix? Its just bad practice. Because at the end of the day, Vtubing Ruby, IS Ruby. She is played as in-universe Ruby, by the same Voice Actress, hosted by the SAME company.

And it matters especially because these things DO affect the FNDM. People who say that these things should be easily ignored are missing one key aspect. A lot of the FNDM are affected by these. BB being a key example. No, im not going to argue that the FNDM forced RT to make it canon. What i WILL argue is that the toxicity of BB community and its rabidness was intentionally cultivated AND enabled by RT. Does it matter that the BB song is not canon? No, it did not. Its not canon in the show and yet it made pro-BB and anti-BB crowds hysterical. Same for the song that was made for Blacksun. These songs directly contributed to the shipping wars. The various moments of people like Barbara also indulging the shippers just further fueled that entire movement.

Hell, the same can be said for Qrow x Winter shippers. While it was never a big thing one of the main "fuels" it had for a long time was because Vic and the VA for Winter interacted in a single panel. Or lets remember the whole "Vibrator function" which is OBVIOUSLY not canon, yet has become a part of often referenced and established fanon.

RWBY does not have a stable FNDM, i know, im a part of it. It does not matter if something is or is not canonical when not only are the lines of canon/noncanon blurred to barely existing, but the FNDM can often take things very far to fuel their expectations, wishes, and behaviour.

Especially when it can fuel what i will refer to as simply exploitative behaviour.

Cameos. Cameos, in my opinion are a fine way for VA's to make money. Such as many other things like, for example, music producers reviewing songs, voice coaches evaluating singing etc. Such content has cropped up maybe 4-5 years ago now and imo, is a fine thing.

But like any thing, imo, there are good and bad ways to do this kind of content. When for 40 bucks, one can ask one of the main WRITERS of the show questions about the shows world and opinions about things like ships. That is, imo, a bit far. Not only does that give an incentive for people to pay money for extra snippets of lore, but also, a way for people to validate their beliefs of ships and other such things. Because that is what his Cameo is all about. Its not VA work, its his words, in relation to his work as a writer for the show. And considering the earliest cameos and Ironwood discussions, that in my opnion is NOT a good thing.

The BB Onlyfans thing is ALSO an example of that, that i think was bad. Once again, disclaimer. I think that OF is fine, you want to do it? Go ahead, i paid for Markipliers photos, i aint ashamed, hes hot. I think it becomes at least slightly concerning however, when the VA's of a controversial ship decide to do an underwear photoshoot together with the same theme as their character in-show relationship.

Because...

Parasociality

A parasocial relationship is feeling a connection with a persona/thing that does not know of your existance or only humours you. Celebrities, sports teams etc.

RT has, for a long time cultivated a STRONG parasocial relationship with the FNDM. There is a reason why they pretend to be down to earth, why they pretend that they are not a corporation and why even to this day, some RT fans STILL believe that RT is some kind of "indie company". There is nothing inherently wrong with having it. Its kind of even unavoidable.

But what RT does is Cynically abuse that relationship. Just like any other corporation. Overworking animators for example? Part of that has been parasociality, people willing to work for their "loved" company etc.

Things like Miles Cameo, the BB photoshoot? The Vtuber Ruby? They are meant to encourage parasociality. To make it seem like the people, the watchers are "closer" to people performing or related to the show. Its all a cynical ploy to get people to pay money, to watch RWBY etc.

There is a reason why even after the RT expose not too long ago, people just went ahead and forgot about it. There is a reason why RWBYTubers that have previously condemned RT for their BS are now shouting at people to support RWBY, supressing those who criticized V9 and are encouraging people to buy merch.

Its all parasocial BS. BS that leads to extreme behaviours.

Such as, but not limited to - Biphobia, Homophobia, calling people facists for liking characters, calling people abuse apologist, groomers, Stalking. Just to name a few.

Also... On an ending note

Its just shit Vtubing

Consider this an unrelated tangent. I watch Vtubers relatively often, usually clips but sometimes i catch streams. Vtuber lore is usually irrelevant even in corporate settings. What people come to watch are the streamers themselves who usually partially play a character but mostly just act like themselves. Not really being lore accurate is not really of importance.

The thing is, those Vtubers usually dont have really established settings and they stream Multiple hours a day, so it all makes sense.

Why in the fuck is the Vtuber Ruby Rose, not acting like Remnant Ruby Rose!? Im not expecting deep lore drops here. But for crying out loud, why make statements that Rabbits or magic dont exist? Ruby Rose being visiting Earth is an AMAZING roleplaying set-up!

There is no dust, no aura, no Grimm! So many differences between the worlds that Ruby Rose can notice and act out! "Oh anime? We have our own version of that! One of the most watched shows is Sailor Sun! (Because the moon is broken)".

Its just a concept that can pay-off so much! Its an isekai in Vtubing form! As far as im aware Vtuber Ruby Rose doesnt even stream daily so its even easier to stay in character! So why in the bloody hell are we getting Dora of Explorer levels of childishness?

Anyway... Here are my thoughts. Peace out.

[robotsafari]

bitsniper is so interesting to me as a pureblood heartless because the only time we see it is in ansem’s world of chaos phase, and it begs the question if whether or not this was a pureblood ansem created himself using his own darkness. or perhaps….

headcanon / theory time ????

its kinda all over the place but it is implied during the entire ansem final boss fights riku is still possessed. (or at least its just his body because final mix made it worse due to the new scene of him in the realm of darkness where he ??? has a body?? or maybe its his heart and soul?? wouldnt he technically get a nobody because of the separation?? is it implied riku is no longer possessed?? but ansem had his body a few minutes ago?? do you see the problem this creates.) in ansem’s speech he show ups initially as riku and then transforms into his own preferred form. let me add a little more onto this, even if it might not count, but there is an unused scrapped ansem phase where you wouldve fought riku-ansem AGAIN this time in a destroyed destiny islands. now even if it is scrapped it implies that ansem is still possessing him, but as i said earlier that is already proven by the fact that he shows up as riku first.

ok so with this in mind i need to establish something to prove my point even further.. SOUL EATER ISNT ANSEM’S. riku first uses soul eater after maleficent gives him dark powers. now her whole thing is thorny vines, dragons, spinning wheels that kill you on your 16th birthday, gothic castles, anthro animal goons, being an evil fairy and one of the coolest disney villains ever. but not bat wings. so this bat theming is implied to be riku’s own darkness, and his alone. (even DARK MODE is something riku gets pre-ansem possession) so why does ansem have a double edged soul eater in his final phase? its shrimple, hes taking that from riku. riku’s own darkness.

so anyone implying that “way to the dawn is a bad thing !! because!! look !! oh nooo !! the ANSEM SWORD is still on it!! thats the thing from his abuser !!” is fuckign wrong because soul eater never belonged to ansem, nor maleficent. that is a sword riku made with his own darkness, he is now just combining it with his own light. creating the keyblade that will carve his road to dawn. so get fucked, braveheart defenders.

ok . cool. but what is even the headcanon? well you might think im crazy but … i think bitsnipers are made from riku’s darkness. RIKU IS A BAT. WE KNOW THIS. look at the bitsnipers design, TEH BAT WINGS. like?? its gotta be from riku. like i said before. riku is still possessed and ansem is taking things from him like his cool sword that is part of his darkness so who says he can’t create heartless from it either. bingo checkmate whatever the fuck THE BITSNIPER IS RIKUS DARKNESS ACTUALLY. as much as i associated it with ansem . but like in the same way riku is ansems son by pure fact of just fucking trust me he was a father figure to riku in the worst way possible but it was admittedly fucking funny, the bitsnipers are also ansem’s children. riku has bitsniper siblings. oh how his family grows …

final verdict: just fucking trust me . kingdom hearts gets funnier if you think about it in deranged and unorthodox ways . like i do.

[vacantgodling]

may i perhaps know about whisper of the fire?

oh whisper. gaslight, gatekeep, experiment on your sister and have karma smack you to all hell for it girlboss (debatable)

(as an aside i’m not putting any of the historical characters as “spoilers” because as of the main canon, the history characters are several centuries removed so shit’s been happened pff)

n e way

whisper idanly was born as the younger twin between herself and her sister twilight. they were the children of the 2nd prince of the 5th ruler of argos, neiko. neiko was always jealous and bitter than his elder brother yazan was chosen by the oracle of muinens (OOMI) to succeed their father to the throne of argos and brought his daughters up with that same hatred. whisper took to it readily; a constant instigator among her cousins especially young mitică. however she and twilight never truly got along because of twilight’s more soft spoken and demure nature.

after the city of argos where they all lived was overrun during the summer of 477 by an overwhelming amount of chaos energy, both her father and mitică’s father (as well as their mothers and all of mitică’s siblings sans pinella) were killed. the OOMI chose mitică as the next ruler decreed by the goddess MUINENS, despite the fact that he was only 18 and most rulers are chosen at 30. as his first decree as king, mitică decided that they should as a people flee argos and the hastily thrown together stronghold of eros because the chaos in argos would threaten to overrun them at any moment. whisper saw this as an opportunity to seize power, and she quickly refuted this—stating that a true king would stand against this calamity and reclaim the kingdom for himself.

though not much of the population, a sizable number of denizens of the kingdom agreed with her and split into two factions, eventually called the nomads and the aegeans, who would stay in eros and strive to reclaim argos instead of traveling into the lands beyond and unknown. to signify this separation, whisper threw down oil and lit it ablaze with fire to separate the two factions, and earning herself the name whisper of the fire, first chieftain of aegos. (which is a combination of argos and eros’s names, at the time considering itself one nation. even in current history many extreme aegeans will call eros, aegos)

the goddess YLENE was born from these flames, her first role being the goddess of strife. this day also became known as the day of fissures.

from this incident she quickly got to work organizing those under her command. her cunning and ability to rally those under her name wasn’t to be understated and they quickly threw themselves into trying to reclaim their home capital of argos. at the same time, whisper began to work with scientists to create the HWM (or hunters with magic) research facility. its main goal was to transform the magic vis, which was born alongside YLENE, it into a darker, more depraved form that we would eventually come to call tenom. this led to the creation of the hunter class, as well as dark hunters, with the first dark hunter being the very unwilling participant twilight, eventually becoming known as twilightsorrow or the beast.

(whisper also had a weird chemistry with head researcher at the hwm, tenoma for whom tenom is named after. very uh. toxic girlboss shit going on there)

as things progress in eros, and it becomes a full fledged fortress amid the drastically fluctuating populous, whisper appoints 4 families to manage districts within the fort as well as specific aspects of ruling. that’s for another time but this is one of the aspects that leads to homegirl’s downfall. she becomes increasingly paranoid that the other families are plotting against her to overthrow her (she’s not entirely wrong but she can’t prove it type situation) and her erratic behavior causes her to start losing favor with the denizens.

some above her head shit happens (among the gods) and when whisper goes to seek counsel from YLENE’s oracle (or champion of honor) hyla, the oracle kills her. this was ordained by the gods.

her death however, sparks a civil war among the families under her vying for control and its a whole fucking MESS.

—

all of that plot and backstory aside, if you were reading this and thinking kinda azula energy? you aren’t wrong, azula was definitely an inspo for miss ma’am. whisper is a very ambitious person and mean spirited, but for a good while during her reign eros was perhaps the strongest that it ever had been; more laser focused on its goals to reclaim argos and operated more like a militia than an actual home. she even had programs in place beginning the aegean tradition of having children start learning sword play as young as 3 years old to be prepared for the inevitable sacrifice of going into argos and dying for the cause.

much of the things she implemented and her attitude towards weakness, power, and the duty of society still linger in eros like an echo chamber. while much of terranean history would look upon her as a fanatical dictator with little regard for those under her, aegeans of current day eros still worship her as a hero (and it also helps that the darker things she did such as the experimentation on twilight were purposefully destroyed; quite literally no one knows the true origins of the wind goddess, and whisper never learned that that was her sister’s fate either).

so in many centuries of separation she’s responsible for san’s inferiority complex and clear being disowned 💛

[ruthlesslistener]

If we consider the separate corpse dumping pits in a vacuum yes soul master would be worse, but PK was the one who created a kingdom with a class divide that allowed soul master to snatch up folks without being noticed. Whether he intended it or not, PK ended up enabling soul master. I'm not phrasing this right, I know PK once aware of soul master's actions disproved of them but that doesn't change that every flaw in hallownest's structure, from social to economic, is a result of his negligence.

I dunno at least that's how I felt playing the game. At every misfortune I met from bosses to the structural issues with the caverns (crumbly floors, thorns, spikes, why is there so many spikes???) I cursed the creator of this kingdom, so I personally view the sins of his people as his own sins, or at least view him as partially responsible

Anyways all of this could have been avoided if PK just used his small form to become a civil engineer instead of a god king

... actually the structural issues with the caverns might have been worse if he did that nevermind

(branching away from the main topic I Do wonder what a mortal disguised PK would be like. The only god we seen in HK attempt something like that is Grimm and even then all he does is simply not advertise himself as a god, he very much does not attempt to blend in into the mortal populace, perhaps aware of how his eerie aura would prevent him from doing so. Would any of the higher beings be able to truly blend with mortals if they wished? Or would that be impossible?)

?? Anon, PK had little to no influence on the society of Hallownest beyond the most basic shit like 'throw your entire self into your purpose until you die'. Like yeah I think he encouraged learning about the soul arts and engineering, bc thats kinda his whole thing, but what's even MORE his thing is just..not participating in the society of Hallownest at all, to the point where people speculated about what he looked like because they just straight-up never saw their king. Hallownest's society and social class systems is something that likely was inherent to the beetle tribe before he became their god, which is something that I assumed because a.) There are multiple tribes in Hallownest with their own unique cultures that aren't entirely because of their gods, b.) He's the polar opposite of the Radiance, who obsessively exerts control, c.) He actively formed treaties with tribes that his own populace considered uncivilized savages and beasts (the mantises and spiders), and d.) His own Great Knights are formed of social rejects like Ogrim and foreigners like Ze'mer. Pair that with the fact that the retainers in the White Palace are clearly noblebugs that lend nothing but empty minds and inane chatter who are only useful if exploited for soul or killed, and it paints a very clear picture that PK was not at all involved in the social structure of his own kingdom. In fact, he's probably the exact opposite. And that's not neglect, per se- though he is neglectful- that's just more proof that the people of Hallownest are much more than which faction are aligned with which other god. PK had nothing to do with it. To gods, mortals are pretty much livestock, so I assumed that he paid about as much attention to the social ills of Hallownest as a farmer would for a chicken's pecking order- sure, maybe it seems alarming and like something you should fix, but really they're just gonna keep going at it, so why bother if it doesn't affect the quality of the food you're getting out of them? The Beetle Tribe had a pretty clear hierarchy that resulted in a lot of social ills, but considering the fact that the bugs of Hallownest canonically worshipped the Void before the Radiance came around, I think its safe to say that the hierarchy there was around for centuries before the Pale King took over. He just built the city that they lived in- and if the donations fountain is anything to go by, he did try to siphon off the economic issues at least a bit. He had very, very little influence on their social life

I'm not exactly defending the dead baby pit here, but PK didn't enable the Soul Master at all- he actively opposed him, bc again, he's losing chickens. Contrasting the horror of the Soul Master's slaughter to the dead baby pit is supposed to make you wonder whether mass murder for salvation is really any better than mass murder for power, and the fact that PK was horrified and disgusted by the Soul Master's body count while piling up his own also gives us more context on how he must have felt about the vessel pit- aka, terrible. It highlights the disconnect between the two while also pointing out that both were terrible no matter what their intentions were.

He might have tried to make it seem like he had everything under control, but he very much did not, so pinning all the blame on him when he was only one facet of all the shit going wrong in a very divided world just seems kinda, idk...shitty to me. It takes blame away from the Soul Master, who was the pinnacle of a powerful rich man throwing others under the bus to get what he wanted, to pin it on PK. I certainly am not trying to defend PK here- everyone knows he fucked up- but pinning all of the ills of Hallownest onto only one guy takes away a lot of the nuance and character of the people he was trying to protect, people who were already reduced to livestock and body counts in the war between him and the Radiance, so personally for me that's really :/. He's an important part of Hallownest's downfall, but he's really not that important

[grollow]

If I may ask, why exactly do you dislike the ship between grimm and pk? Of course I'm just curious and I don't mean to be nosey.

🦐 raw shimp for u

To Pale Nightmare shippers reading this: I am given to understand that listing a ship name in the body of a post can and does make it show up in the main tag, which is… unfortunate, as I do not want this there. Understand that I didn't tag this, out of respect, and I am so sorry for the following rant potentially showing up on your dashes. I respect your right to ship whatever you want, and I do not want to sound like I am pushing my views on anyone.

I will further disclaim this response with: Shipping discourse is not something I want to be involved in. I fully, 100% do not want to get into a debate about who's ship is and isn't right. As far as I am concerned, if you tag it correctly, it's none of my business.

Sorry for all the disclaimers, I just know that it's very easy to offend people when you talk about the things they love in a negative light. I am sure you are just curious, anon, but this is Tumblr, and this hellsite loves to read bad faith in things.

So without further adieu -- why Ashe does not like Pale Nightmare.

The first thing you should know is my headcanons for the Pale King. They consist of: This man did every single thing in his power to stave off his kingdom's death. He created the stasis, the whole vessel plan disaster, everything, to prolong the life of Hallownest.

The second thing you should know is my headcanon for Grimm: He represents the death of kingdoms (this is canon) and the natural order of things transitioning from one experience to another. The end of a life, to fuel the existence of the next one.

And the third thing you should know is: I read the "dear Wyrm" as dripping in sarcasm. The first part of Grimm's dialogue referring to PK actively calls him a worm. This to me is not the kind of dialogue that suggests someone who likes the person they are speaking of. Pale Nightmare to me doesn't work for the simple belief that Grimm actively represents everything that the Pale King has spent his entire regency fighting to prevent. Here is a man who did everything to try and stop the death of his kingdom, and there is the living embodiment reminding him that he will never fully succeed, of death on scarlet wings.

At base level, it is my belief that Grimm would just be a bad reminder to the Pale King. Perhaps they'd respect one another as contemporaries, and in different scenarios, maybe even be cordial. But romantic? I cannot see it. I cannot see them even being really friends.

And some of that ties in to the fact that Grimm is very much a representative of death and the natural order. The Pale King literally is trying to prevent what Grimm needs to survive (the death of kingdoms and the flames that come with it). Even if you ignore my separate headcanons, this is fact per canon. So if you add in that I also headcanon Grimm as being firmly of the opinion that death is natural and running from it is to flee the inevitable, you have a recipe for: the Pale King represents a lot of things Grimm himself looks down on.

Some other headcanon elements that tie into this problem I have is:

Grimm as I write him is the Radiance's brother. Even if he doesn't like his sister, the fact that the Pale King took over her territory probably doesn't exactly Spark Joy for him.

I CANNOT see Grimm approving of the vessel plan. Especially since he himself uses vessels for his rebirth. I cannot see him EVER approving of sacrificing one's own children in a gambit. He may understand the reasoning, but it is not a choice that he himself would ever make, and I do not think it is a choice that he could get past.

Conversely, I cannot see the Pale King looking at Grimm and ever trusting him - because he IS Radi's brother, as I see him, and the situation with Radi is Complicated

I also headcanon wyrms as being territorial and this is a Rival God in Your Territory (Do Not Like)

It is my firm belief that the Pale King's greatest fear is being reminded of/being shown his failure, and Grimm is a double whammy of that.

So no. No part of me sees it as working without completely gutting one or both characters to make it fit. Believe me, I've tried. There's an author on Ao3 whose writing I absolutely adore, who I think is a brilliant storyteller, and who I wish I could get on board with their ship for -- because they themself seem wonderful -- but I just can't get past the "They Would Not Fucking Do That" aspect and it stings. :<

[reginrokkr]

𝐂𝐋. Concerning the previous post, I wanted to make a separate thing focusing on the Khraun-arya spiritual evolution, since, given its resemblance to Khaenri'ah in name, I find relevant for Dain. There are a few interesting points here that I think that have a plausible parallel with actual matters or events that are related to Khaenri'ah:

✧ The root of this evolution stage is split into two possibilities: one being that it's a direct continuation of the previous stage (N)atlantean and the other being that the souls of the Aryan —name given to those that are in the Khraun-arya evolution stage— are significantly older and that they incarnated the bodies of the Atlanteans which, in turn, rose from a subrace of the Lemurian.

While this isn't entirely 1:1 with what we know thus far in Genshin (unless more comes to pass that can be connected better with this), we know of the existences of beings such as Durin and Elynas whose lives didn't begin with the conception of physical bodies by Rhinedottir, but at an undetermined time prior back when they existed as immaterial souls in the bleak Abyss.

✦ This race is said to have been created by one of the most important Masters of the Ancient Wisdom, which are liberated beings that live in the etheric plane of the world.

This lacks a more in-depth parallel than the previous one, yet the knowledge part is highly suiting the society of Khaenri'ah, that counted with a vast knowledge that included what happened in the nations presided by Archons (and classified as forbidden knowledge, not to mistake as Forbidden Knowledge), dragons and matters of the Abyss however accurate or biased the latter were, as the Universitas Magistrorum is said to instrumentalize knowledge and twist it to Khaenri'ah's needs.

✧ They are described as being moon-colored.

This one is a favorite of mine that has me excited, as I tend to describe Dain as having moon-like beauty which, at the same time, is also associated with Nabu Malikata —goddess and seelie survivor—, hence with angelic themes that are connected to the seelies. Furthermore, there is also a race described in the Pale Princess and the Six Pygmies that lives in the Moonlight Forest kingdom and are said to have fair skin color, light-colored hair and bright blue eyes due to the lack of sunlight and for the nourishment of the moonlight. Ironically, this kingdom is described to be close to the Land of Night presided by the Night Mother, which could potentially be the Abyss. This might be a parallel to Khaenri'ah itself being close to the Abyss given some of its people's obsession with it and the fact that they could harness its energy as a source of energy to power the automatons and possibly the rest of the kingdom after abandoning the energy of the Ley Lines that was used before using the Abyss.

✦ Part of the race founded the City of the Sun.

Not much to say about this other than the resemblance with the Darksun / Eclipse dynasty that were one of the royals known in Khaenri'ah (I say one and not the as it is a dynasty and there could've existed more throughout the millennia since Khaenri'ah's existence).

✧ The ongoing evolution of this race is connected with divine's influence (the Lord of the World to be specific, which could be Phanes).

While ironic if we think about Khaenri'ah being an anti-gods nation, they worship the Abyss as one would a god and potentially a Black Serpent too, from which the royal guards would take their name after (while it's undetermined who this serpent is, a good candidate could be Ouroboros given its ties to alchemy and perhaps Irminsul too, as well as being a cosmic serpent and the Abyss being implied to be the cosmos at times, visual similarities aside). Moreover, it is safe to say that as they were part of the unified civilization, early Khaenri'ahns could be considered to be "primordial humans" in the sense that they are closer to what the first humans Phanes created were like, thus their bond with the divine regardless of how proud or not they are for that (whether this is what punctuates a higher purity of "Khaenri'ahn" blood or not, there is some sort of pride in that as there was an existent distinction between pure-blood Khaenri'ahns and those who are not).

✦ They are described as possessing an inexplicable intellectual level in comparison to other races / subraces, possessing a sacred spark.

Sans the sacred spark, this is self-explanatory as the Khaenri'ahns achieved feats that even gods replicated later on and even 500 years later, their technology is still unmatched for a great part (albeit potentially contested by Fontaine's, as it seems to have some resemblance to Khaenri'ah's down to the use of the pneumousia phenomenon, part of which could be linked to the Abyss).

✧ They were created before cataclysms to have and, are subjected to the destruction of the "failures of nature" and rise of a higher race in the future.

Tragic as this is, we have encountered instances in which the creatures of the Abyss such as Abyss Mages, Heralds, Lectors and the Iniquitous Baptist are considered transcendent ones, thus there seems to be a connotation of "betterment" in comparison to normal humans, specially if we're to take Jakob as an example of Neo Human whose alternative form is that of an Iniquitous Baptist, and René and Carter as Narzissenkreuz (each of them under different circumstances).

Lastly, but not least, it is said that the final stage of human spiritual evolution in Genshin is the freedom from the gods. This is what seems to be the course the story will take with themes of defying gods, the world and the fate, which the gods control.

[basaltbutch]

top 5 out of context enurian facts GO!

SKGJGJSKJKGKJK YOU BEAT ME TO THE LONG-ASS INFODUMP POST I WAS DRAFTING IN MY HEAD

1.) sometimes a family is just you and the abandoned alien city who loves you so so so so so much (so much please don't ever leave please let her live in your veins and speak through your mouth)

2.) fur (and of course, hair as a subset) never evolved here so all the "furred" animals have modified feathers. pseudofeathers. that evolved from shells.

3.) sometimes the day/night cycle freezes and you're not supposed to start worrying about it until it's been at least two days since it stopped.

4.) the ferraen (dominant sophant species on the island) have separated all living things on the island into three categories (mirroring our six kingdoms); ambulatila (organisms that are able to move using their own will), statariae (organisms that are unable to move using their own will), and commenticia (artificially constructed organisms left behind by the original occupants of the island). they are not at all scientifically accurate according to the evolution of those organisms but. shrugs.

5.) i thought that creating viable ecosystems for just a tiny island would be easier than creating viable ecosystems for an entire planet. :(

[legendary-cookies]

About your DE/Matcha related questions, I think the stark difference, the only one I could find when examining the lore, is that DE created Matcha entirely herself. Where Sugar Swan DIDN'T birth Wind Archer. I know it's common fanon misconception that because she made him into how he looks NOW that she must be a mother/creator to him, but he existed well before that. His lore consistently states he was the wind itself that loved to roam dessert paradise. And that when the home he loved was in peril, she gave him a physical body to protect it. It's implied that Sugar Swan and MT were familiar with him long before his cookie body was a thing, so in actuality, he's more like a trusted friend to them, willing to be reborn anew to protect both of them. So not family, and it seems none of them view each other that way in any official text.

I mean, I agree that it is never explicitly stated that Sugar Swan is Wind Archer's mother specifically, but it's very heavily implied she created him

Personally, I wouldn't really call it a misconception that people interpret it as Sugar Swan being Wind's creator/mother because in general it's pretty vague so I think it could be interpreted anyway

No interpretation is necessarily wrong or right until they delve more into it in canon and I can admit that as someone who does headcanon Sugar Swan as his mother, I could definitely have a bias

But while I do get your point in that Matcha was created entirely by Dark Enchantress (literally little to no evidence against it because Matcha said it herself she was created by DE), I would argue Sugar Swan did still technically create Wind because it's stated that she helped with/created the Cookie world which, I would imagine, includes the wind

And while he as a living being may or may not have been created by Sugar Swan, his life as a Cookie is purely because of Sugar Swan

So in my opinion, it's very debatable on if Sugar Swan is canonically Wind's parent because honestly in canon he treats Millennial Tree and Sugar Swan as superiors as opposed to parents, I think it's safe to say Sugar Swan did in fact create him

In general though, I think the Devs need to elaborate more on the lore especially about the Legends because there's not a lot to go off of and it seems like the relationship charts may not be 100% accurate because like the previous examples, DE and Matcha have a family relationship in Ovenbreak and have a creator-creation thing going on, Sugar Swan and Wind basically do too but do not have family on their charts, and then Princess and Tiger Lily are canonically sisters but also do not have family on their charts in Ovenbreak

There's also the question of if Kingdom and Ovenbreak are two separate universes, but that's also hard to figure out, especially since there's that thing about Pure Vanilla and White Lily being in the background of Roguefort's trial

I do get your point though that Matcha and DE isn't the same as Wind and Sugar Swan

[velvet-cupcake-games]

Medieval History and Made Marion

This is just a little devlog about Medieval history and how I've incorporated it into Made Marion. I'm a big fan of Medieval history, especially studies that look beyond the wars and at the ordinary lives of Medieval people.

As most of you know, Made Marion is inspired by the Robin Hood legends from Medieval England but is set in an entirely fantastical world with three very different civilizations (Sunjata is associated with day, Nibiru with night, and Avalon is the Middle Kingdom that is a balance between light and shadow).

Can there be anachronisms in a fantasy world? I guess if you want it to strictly adhere to our world's history, but my world purposefully does not. Magic has led to many technological differences and the world's unique religions and philosophies have led to cultural differences.

In general, if I'm looking at a piece of culture, I ask if it's an interesting detail that serves my narrative well or if it's something I should change in the name of fun and romance. Let's look at some examples!

Inspired by History

One thing I definitely wanted to do was show a world inspired by the actual, global Middle Ages. Avalon, our European-inspired civilization, isn't particularly the center of the world. The other civs think it a bit of a scientific, technological, and cultural backwater, actually. Sunjata has more advanced technology and Nibiru more advanced scientific knowledge.

And although they're somewhat separated by political and geographic challenges, our cast demonstrates that ancient peoples got around far more than we often imagine they did. There were absolutely people with a wide variety of melanin levels in Medieval Europe. In my world, not a ton of people have chosen to settle permanently in a foreign land at this juncture (their religions are deeply tied to their geography), but there are definitely exceptions, and Avalon sees a ton of Sunjati mercenaries and traders looking to make their name and fortune in Avalon before returning home to seek citizenship in a Sunjati city-state.

The ancient Malian Empire, a prosperous gold-trading nation, was the first inspiration for Sunjata. It's named after one version of the name of that empire's founder.

I also created a world in which the idea of an inborn sexual orientation doesn't really exist. This is true to human history (check out the now-classic The Invention of Heterosexuality by Jonathan Katz) and makes sense in my fantasy world as well. Characters certainly have sexual preferences, but nobody sees themselves as "straight" or "gay," per se.

I try to put in fun Medieval stories and factoids from around the world, as well. Avalon's official documents are written on lambskin, which also happened historically because it was durable and alterations to the text were easy to spot.

The "Swordinance," as John calls it, is Nottingham's law that forbids anyone below the nobility from carrying a sword. It was actually inspired by historical events in Japan, including the fact that banning sword ownership for the lower classes led to the development of many suspiciously long "knives." :D

Departing from History

But some historical things had to go. Medieval Europe was deeply, irrevocably molded by the Christianity of the day. As I do not use any real world religions in my world, there are many things that I threw out.

Since my goal was to make a sex-positive romance VN, the first thing I threw out was the idea of sin or shame being attached to sex. None of my fantasy societies have those concepts. Avalon is actually the most conservative in nature, as folk are encouraged to keep sexuality in the private sphere, but they don't think there's anything wrong with makin' whoopee. They're generally quite practical about it, and nobody blinks at same-sex relations.

Only the Avalon nobility discourages same-sex marriage because of their obsession with heirs, but there's no legal discrimination against same-sex couples at all.

This causes a number of possible anachronisms that I employ in the name of romance. I'm well aware that couples dances weren't really a thing in Medieval Europe, but they're romantic, and in a society that doesn't attach shame to sex, I feel like they'd come about naturally. So we have them.

Not the Middle Ages. Oh, well!

Avalon's light and shadow philosophy is instead inspired by more ancient Celtic beliefs, but it's not a perfect worldview by any means. It's a binary kind of philosophy (Avalon's, not necessarily ancient Celtic belief) that has led to a strong gender binary in Avalon and to a traditional men = public sphere and women = private sphere worldview that isn't present in Sunjata or Nibiru. I know some of y'all are sad that Marion has to battle sexism (particularly at the beginning of the game before she meets our love interests), but it was important to her story and future protagonists won't have to deal with that.

I've borrowed technologies from different eras and locations as well, because magic and cultural needs have caused technology to develop different ways in different places. Avalon has advanced herbal medicines and a wide variety of clothing dyes because of druidic magic. Sunjata has the best arms and armour because it has the most access to metals. Nibiru has acquired strong scientific knowledge of the natural world because it is a hostile environment for humanity.

Oh, and there aren't any guns anywhere because I don't like them. :-p

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I would love to have added more cultural influences from Medieval East Asia and the Americas, but considering it started as a Robin Hood fan game, this dang project is already huge and is planned to span three titles and maybe some game jam spinoffs. Someday I will make a fantasy world inspired by the Mayan civilization!