#what happened in the forest will only be explained in an infodump at the end of the game

[nablah]

OK!! so all throughout finals week i kept thinking about alceste because of The Pain and radiation therapy because of The Exam, so my brain combined them, voila alceste set in the radiology department (nicky as far as niche things go this is surely something)

Alceste is a type of Orfeo ed Euridice: you have the beloved who's not quite dead and the lover whose actions that bring about the story can only stem from their love. You have the somewhat present god who offers a bargain to the lover to bring back the beloved from the dead. And finally you have the clause of not telling the beloved about the bargain. ANYWAY. That's the 3 main elements.

So the Alceste set in the radiology department would primarily incorporate the Euripidean origins of the opera while retaining some ties to show the interpretation in the modern world. We keep the Euripidean """fantastical"""" world because like Orfeo, Alceste represents a fantasy: to bring someone from the dead. You've got Alceste and Admeto who are idk rad tech / medical physicist because they hold relative power in the radiology dept but they dont over matters of life and death. Admeto is dying etc etc except now the context is radiation induced (btw dyk they have this estimate for how long radiation professionals cut down their lives and its BS at this point but y'know. Stochastic effects) which presents something interesting to me because radiation induced means he brought it on himself, like the myth and the play, and also because treating it only means he'll survive and most likely die of it later, when he's older. So it's a terminal thing at least. So Alceste gets the news and its already all blurring into a picture where the foreground is still the hospital, probably Admeto is on a LINAC, but the backdrop is a combination of ancient greece and a hospital. It's dreamlike, because again, its a fantasy, either the audience's or Alceste's.

So the oracle proclaims the bargain etc etc no one will die for Admeto (both in a hospital setting and in Thessaly). She just goes on prepping the machine maybe while she makes the bargain in the forest. NOW HERES WHY I KNOW THIS WORKS AS A SETTING. As a rad tech she has to administer the dose, i.e. she gives the treatment to her husband while she herself is exposed to radiation i.e. she's trading her life for his. it's a long term commitment tho which she probably assumes but the shades tell her she's going to die right there and then she asks for time. insert acute radiation syndrome, maybe on the GI system (i'll explain later!!). Back in the hospital Admeto is feeling better (disclaimer unfortunately this doesnt happen irl the client will most likely feel nauseous after a treatment round) and yay theyre rejoicing but bam Alceste's feeling sick (in radiation sickness GI system level this is what we call the manifest illness stage. the latent stage for GI ARS can last a few hours to days) so the relief that turns into horror scene goes thru and Admeto leaves to bargain with the gods. or the doctors. Alceste is reaching the end of the manifest illness stage and this is followed by either recovery or death. She's being given transfusions supportive care etc all until the 3rd act. Admeto is outside the room because its ARS and thats a major safety breach. Theyre mourning outside with the kids and with Alceste inside and then bam she dies. cue the mourning again and Admeto goes mad, maybe tries to get into the room where her body is and then Apollo deux ex machina saves everyone Alceste recovers (you can recover from GI ARS with proper care) and the opera finishes. Theyre both permanently disabled btw, but theyre alive.

If you read until here you may have noticed this was just a major infodump on radiation safety and radiation induced effects. Dont play with radiation :)) even if its for an opera!

[randomnameless]

I don't know if this has been asked before, but I was wondering what your thoughts on Rhea are.

Oh, I don't think someone asked it, but I remember a character meme.

Rhea's in the Julia tier : you're expecting things and the game doesn't give you any.

you asked for thoughts so this is long and rather unorganised even if i tried a bit and i feel like i repeated myself a lot so meh

If Edel and Rhea have one thing in common, it's being shafted by the need to make Billy the most special being every with the monstrous "I was lonely before you player-chan uwu".

Seteth'n'Flayn ? In the same trashcan Hubert went in.

Catherine, Shamir, the randoms living in the monastery? Dgaf but still she's willing to die for them so does she really gaf or not? Rhea's willing to give her blood and crest stone shards (to this day I still don't understand what those are) to trusted randoms who would become cardinals? "uwu player-chan". I know I've written a bit about it with the seirelm anon, but with the Canon-ish info? Post Zanado Rhea told a random dude she could turn in a dragon, gave her blood to the same dude and remained in his empire/fighting by his side for at least 30 years. Still “lonely without U Billy <3″

I've written this in the meme entry, but Rhea has her own net of relationships. They're not as important as Dimitri and his childhood friends, but erasing them for the sake of "player-chan" feels wrong.

Role and goals

Rhea's in an interesting place, being a former "legendary hero" like Athos, Sephiran etc.

Still her fight isn't over, she only defeated Nemesis and couldn't end the mastermind behind (a bit like Seliph if you only kill Arvis or Roy when you forget to pick up every legendary weapon). Also, if Seiros killed Nemesis, she hasn't won. In the current Fodlan, she still has to pretend to be a human, the Nabateans as a culture/population are dead. They're still 5 (ish? I think the apostles are lizards), she's still afraid humans will dice them if they learn the truth. Has she won? Idk. Could she win and make a Fodlan were lizards and humans could live together? I don't think so.

Her role as the Archbishop? Well, the game really liked Rhea as a red herring during white clouds and the way FE16 is built, around the monastery, reinforces it. Rhea's the head of the monastery, so she's the head of your world. Everything wrong with the world is automatically linked to Rhea.

So, when Marianne complains about people wanting to kill/ostracise her because of her crest, thinking it's a curse, we of course wonder "why Rhea can't tell to the randoms that no Marianne shouldn't be killed/shunned because of her crest?". Completely forgetting that, hey, Marianne's from the Alliance and heiress of Edmund, so if some people should intervene, it should be her dad "why the fuck are you trying to kill my daughter" or the Alliance council "Duke Riegan, could you please make a public statement about my daughter and how she isn't some sort of demonic beast so stop throwing rocks at her?".

Same thing with the Empire, why should you blame the church and the crests instead of the people doing shit? Hanneman's brother in law? Like is marriage so absolute that a husband can force multiple pregnancies on his wife to the point of literally killing her? The von Essar aren't as important as the Bergliez, but Hanneman's sister dying like that should have rang some bells? Hanneman's dad didn't care? No one wanted to appeal to the Emperor or something? If Jane the random or Karen the peasant died this way, it’d be usual class nonsense. But a noble woman??

Rhea should have done more to prevent crest abuse. She wrote tenets in her Bible and apparently doesn't discriminate in her monastery. But in the other countries? Idk. Her tenets are interpreted like your shopping list by Gloucester Sr "and add a part where interacting with foreigners goes against Seiros's teachings what yes I know better than those dunces from the eastern/central church".

It's not because Riegan Sr and Ionius aren't doing shit that she should do nothing too, but ultimately it falls on the usual landmine about Rhea's influence and power over Fodlan and if we consider Fodlan isn't just the Monastery we see but a continent made up of 4 autonomous states...

The so-called status quo isn't upheld by the church alone (if it is upheld in the first place!), but also by the empire and the Alliance... Lambert was toasted before making any changes, the Alliance is that weird thing where money is anything and crests/old nobility doesn't matter anymore, and the Empire is... Well. The Empire.

Regarding this, I find it really strange that Rhea went to Goneril and rescued one of their slaves, with how much she cares about protecting her monastery and not antagonising anyone, picking Cyril up, risking the ire of house Goneril, feels really risky from her perspective.

Imo WC doesn't sell me the "church rules over the continent" take.

Ultimately it doesn't matter because Rhea thinks she should have done more, and abused her position as the archbishop to rez her mom - I understand the "abused her position" as regretting her various omissions, like helping more people around etc etc.

I also feel like Rhea’s got a big survivor complex, and tries to fulfill impossible tasks. "leading/guiding the world?" she won't take an active role in it, but still resents the state of current Fodlan and wishes Sothis could restore some order (crest abuse? Or relics popping up right and left meaning more sibs dying). She wants to :

1/ guide the world and make it a better place (why complaining about the wayward Fodlan otherwise?)

2/ protect randoms who live under her protection

3/ make sure no one learns the truth about her appearance and relics at the same time.

I don't think it's possible given her current role and especially not possible on her own.

About 3/, call back to FE9 or not, but Rhea's paranoia is... Actually, not proven to be exaggerated in the game.

Ranulf was lynched in Crimea when he was discovered to be a laguz? In a certain route, Rhea's called a cruel beast due to her appearance, accused of not having "human" feelings and is depicted as a creature masquerading as a human. Hate and attack the woman all you want for things she did or might have done, but getting rid of her because she's not human? Rhea's right about not revealing her true nature, because, relics notwithstanding, humans will try to kill her for being a nabatean. Relic wise, in the DLC, we learn Aubin was recently turned in a relic, so that's even more reason to hide.

On 1/, wanting to promote peace in the land? National bias at play with rewriting history “to promote peace” issue. Rhea also built the officer's academy (if nobles from different states can live and study together surely they won't try to kill each other when they return home because they might have become friends?) and with help from the everyone in Fodlan (even the empire iirc?) built the locket to fend off Almyrian invasions. Not saying this is the best way to protect your borders but at least she tried to help instead of staying holed in her monastery.

Imo if Rhea didn't care about Fodlan, she'd have followed her bros and fortified herself in her monastery without accepting random humans to live with her, wouldn't have written a book about how everyone had to get along "unless it goes against the goddess" and wouldn't basically run what seems to be the biggest orphanage/place for the needy/and whatever is the abyss in the continent.

Not saying she doesn't have a priority, but Rhea tries to care, on her scale, about Fodlan's randoms.

About said randoms (and 2/)...

Well there's this bout with Lonato's rebellion and another herring where Rhea's all "I will destroy anyone who takes arms against the church and its believers" and it's extreme, I can’t deny. But if Lonato took arms and mounted a militia to attack Ositia's castle and its randoms? Hector'd have Armads'd Lonato without a second thought. Elincia had qualms about taking her weapons against her own countrymen who were used by Ludveck, but in the end, she took up her weapons to defend her castle, even if it meant she had to kill militiamen. Rhea's line seemed random and cold in the context, but it's the same general idea, attack her people and she will kill you. Still, if you don't take weapons against her, she won't react violently. Duke Gerth is apparently dick waving with Aubin's relic, but Shamir wasn't sent to recover the thing or to get rid of Gerth.

Ultimately Rhea blows her cover and abandons her dream to reunite with her mother to protect the monastery and its inhabitants in 3 routes (arguably in CF too). Someone once made a post about the differences between Seiros's and Edel's crowns and the symbolism of wings - the IO's wings are meant to protect. The IO is the guardian/protector. Rhea tanks missiles and buys time for the students to escape at the cost of her life.

Relationships

Rhea and Sothis? someone made a post summarizing my thoughts about their relationship, or lack of, and if we can argue Sothis was shafted by the devs like Rhea and Edel, ultimately the only important person to Sothis is Billy.

Billy doesn't warp Sothis's preexisting net of relationships, Sothis doesn't have relationships with anyone save for Billy. Rhea wants to meet her mom more than anything else (save for protecting randoms) but Sothis will never address that plot point. She only does in SS and off screen, and it ends up with Rhea wondering if she should live... so take it as you want, but to me it mustn't have been the "hug and pat on the head" kind of reunion.

Ultimately we see Rhea is able to let go of her dream (rez mom) in several routes, she understands and acknowledges Sothis will never return and Billy has her powers now, so either she dies more or less at peace knowing she can trust Billy with Fodlan's future, or she can return to Zanado and live peacefully with Catherine.

Which leads me to the Billy relationship,

As much as I hate player pandering, it makes some sense that Rhea would support Billy and not, let's say, Caspar. I still hate it though because Billy exclusive support means we were robbed of Rhea's other supports with, idk, her fam, Cyril, Catherine, Shamir, Alois, Hanneman, Manu etc etc.

In the beginning of WC, Rhea's pretty sure Billy's Sothis but without memories. Then in the non-cf chapter 12, she tells Billy they know what they are and thus must guide Fodlan, also telling Seteth Billy's a vector for sothis's powers, but not Sothis herself. In SS's finale she calls them "mother" but in her S-support finally acknowledges Billy's their own thing.

In CF Rhea's vicious in her trash talk but immediately jumps to the conclusion that Billy cannot be or hear Sothis, because, to her, logically, Sothis wouldn't side with Edel and her Agarthian allies (stealing the crest stones, Flayn, etc etc). Billy is something that stole Sothis's crest stone and sword and wants to finish what Nemesis started. I don't think CF Rhea snaps because Billy isn't Sothis, CF Rhea snaps because, again, someone is using her mother to kill her.

Rhea's also supposed to have been fond of Citrus to the point of talking to her remains (something she does with her mom) which could explain her sympathy for Billy regardless of the Sothis project.

Jeralt's a different issue, apparently they worked together for more than 100 years but Rhea never told him the truth about her nature, only about how he was saved. Still, Jeralt betrays when his baby is "weird" and unlike regular human babies so... Would he have ran away if he learnt what rhea was? Dumped Citrus if he knew she was an artificial being? Idk.

Catherine Shamir cyril and pals (Alois)? We don't know bcs the game dgaf about anyone not named Billy. As I said above, It’d have been nice to get more interactions with randoms she is working with, or at least showed some care, but nope. “Player-chan uwu” strikes again.

Seteth'n'Flayn? Rhea's close to them, she gets out of her room to look for Flayn and Cyril and Catherine note how she seems close to Seteth (who's totally her bro), but again, the game hates us. FFS don't think she has a line with Flayn!

Secrets and explosions

Tied to 3/ and 1/ from earlier, Rhea keeps a lot of secrets which could justify her lack of relationships/supports with the others... but this argument falls flat, because she’s not the only one with a secret and if Flayn doesn’t seem to care that much about hers, Seteth does and is still able to support students and staff members. Which leads to tragedies.

The Christophe incident is not well documented, and while we learn Rhea was the target of Christophe’s attempt because Western peeps told him so, it is not very well explained why she didn’t execute him on those grounds instead of falsifying charges about involvement with the Regicide. We are told it was to stabilise the Kingdom, but I still don’t know how the Kingdom would have suffered backlash if Rhea told the truth (maybe it would have led to open conflict between the western church and the central church in the kingdom, when the kingdom needed stability at that point? idk).

Still, Lonato wants revenge for Christophe, not because he was executed on false charges, but because he died ; imo, if Lonato learnt the truth, he’d still be out for Catherine and Rhea’s head.

Aelfie’s gambit is more of a direct result of Rhea’s secrecy, because she had “no words” for him about why Citrus was still in pristine condition, he gave up and tried to rez her. Would it had been different if she told him what Citrus was (and by extent, what she was)? Idk. Maybe, maybe not.

Still, Rhea doesn’t keep secrets from everyone every time - she once trusted Willy and told him about her alternate form and it exploded 1k years later, when Willy’s descendants are out for her head because she’s a creature masquerading as a human (I know mole people also played a part, but I guess it sticked more with Edel and the gang who already knew Rhea was a dragon ; trying to convince a random that “hey, this woman is a dragon !” would be more difficult). CF-wise again, Rhea trusts Billy with the SoC and, again, it explodes. In CF Rhea feels betrayed, she trusted some people and now the very same people (or their descendant in Edel’s case) are trying to kill her.

So it’s not a case of someone never trusting anyone, it’s someone trusting some people and regretting it afterwards (in both routes + CF at least, even if I firmly believe the “evil lizards ruling over the world” spiel doesn’t come from Willy, but from later emperors influenced by mole people).

There can also be a point made for Aelfie, who might have been able to merge with Citrus to create an umbral beast because he had Rhea’s blood and a crest stone shard - Citrus being a fake Nabatean and Aelfie having a crest stone + blood might have produced CS’s final boss? Rhea trusted Aelfie with a crest stone shard and her blood, and he became an umbral beast.

Interestingly, Rhea is hell bent on keeping her secrets regarding her identity, in SS Seteth has to beg her to reveal everything to Billy when Billy is the most important person in the world “uwu” or at least, the only person Rhea supposedly opened to. Even the “uwu” factor isn’t enough, on its own, to make her reveal the truth about her identity.

She gives Claude half-truths, and has to be on death’s door to tell him everything - still occulting Seteth’n’Flayn, to the point where Claude later wonders if there are other children of the goddess around.

Vengeful Rhea?

Rhea isn't a stale piece of bread like Julia. She says mean words to Nemesis but also brutally kills him. Rhea cannot forgive the Elites. I know it's very different, but Julia "dad is the kindest man I ever knew" making a 180° “i must atone for what dad did eff him” will always make me throw up - she doesn’t have to be vengeful or try to stab Seliph with a butter knife, but no acknowledgement of “dad’s the bestest” after his death, or even, of his death is meh.

To Rhea, Nemesis and the Elites are a trigger point, and everything related to Zanado. CF!Billy using her mom’s powers is like Nemesis, CF!Billy + Edel pillaging what remains of her siblings in Nemesis’n’Dudes. Flamey doing his shit with Flayn also parallels that. There’s the usual “vengeance sucks” speech to be given, but also the Tellius verse where Laguz aren’t depicted in a bad light when they want to destroy Izuka or when Tibarn learns Lekain was responsible for Serenes’s massacre.

Still, unlike Tibarn’n’pals, Rhea, unlike Macuil, doesn't seem to hold a grudge against descendants of the Elites. Maybe she had faith in them when she told them not to abuse the power of their crests, but then their descendants forgot or didn’t care and we’re in the so-called crest system.

In SS, Seteth asks the BE students if they want to return home to the Empire and how he won’t hold it against them. Seteth’s being Rhea’s right hand bro in this situation, I doubt he’d have proposed this solution without her approval.

She is vengeful and ready to pursue for more 90 years someone to kill them, but she won’t target that someone’s descendants or potential allies. I’ve read some takes about the Western Church being razed to the ground after Catherine’s paralogue, but iirc, Rhea’s only going to execute the Bishop there ; they appoint a new bishop in hopes to ease the relationships between the central and western church. There’d be no point to appoint someone to rule over a body that doesn’t exist...

Grey waves

Wave 1 : Another parallel with Edel is the will to sink in troubled waters to reach their goals.

However, Rhea stays on the surface.

Aelfie thinks Seiros failed to rez Sothis with the chalice because she didn't take more blood from the apostles. Blood rituals are creepy and gave an umbral beast. Seiros didn't pursue and sought another mean to rez Sothis without killing her bros. Rhea makes homunculi to host Sothis's soul? It fails but the homunculi isn't destroyed asap to make another one, hell, Rhea cares about them (which is all kinds of fucked up on its own).

AM wise, iirc, Seteth and Catherine say Rhea'd never forgive them if they run to save her instead of saving randoms first.

Still, making homunculus to create a vessel for her mom - making artificial lives - is problematic, she’s ashamed of it “i did questionable things” and Seteth berates her on her “questionable” experiments.

CF!Rhea eats babies during the final map. She burns the city to make her last stronghold and refuses to run away. CF!Rhea, at the end of this route, completely abandoned goal 1 2 and 3. She wants to survive, yes, but to recover Sothis, no matter how. She still seems to care about humanity, but takes everything too literally and is persuaded humanity and humans are after her to hurt her and her mother (i’m pretty sure uncle Arry was waiting with his Agarthan tech suitcase for Edel to deal with the beast in the background). Contrary to CF’s chapter 12, Endgame!Rhea doesn’t have lines when Catherine and Cyril fall. She’s still siding with humans, but she’s in this for herself now.

Of course, CF!Rhea is special, because CF!Rhea lives again through her trauma, CF!Rhea lost her home, her bro and niece a few chapters ago, she lost her human allies, apparently some peons from her church are deserting and Uncle is waiting with his portable electric saw to turn her in a shiny sword, because she trusted a corpse with Sothis’s heart and spine and trusted a human 1000 years ago with her secret. And now said corpse follows someone who rings at her door with an army, wishes to obliterate her unless she surrenders (?) and works with Uncle and his dubstep pals.

In the other routes, Billy doesn’t want to killer her with her mother’s spine and tries to defend her home, Seteth’n’Flayn aren’t forced into exile or dead and depending on the route she gets to see Uncle and his dubstep friends being buried under rubble.

Troubled waters to reach her goals also include slowing Fodlan’s technological advancements (but was it really slowing down Fodlan’s R&D’s department or cliking “no” when Mole People offer a free (for now) new technology that makes you advance from bronze age to the industrial era in one go?)

Wave 2 : Rhea’s anchored in the past, she wants to return to happier days with her mom and her family, but also wants to help randoms in Fodlan

She doesn’t seem to mind the present where humans do whatever they want, and yet will protect her people and tries (or tried since it’s history) to keep Fodlan safe.

I think the game wanted to tell us Rhea’s stuck in the past, but she also manages to form bonds (albeit fickle) in the present with Catherine, Shamir and, arguably, Cyril. Seteth’n’Flayn accept the past and try to move forward, Rhea cannot and yet is making baby steps forward, or at least to live in the present. “uwu factor” is supposed to mean Rhea’s stuck in the past and can only see Billy for what they are once she accepts to live in the present, but Rhea’s already fond of Catherine, calls Aelfie her child, was fond of Citrus and Jeralt, makes time for Cyril, etc etc. It’s not as clear cut as drinking tea with them but it’s still something that quashes the “lonely B4 U player-chan uwu”.

Rhea thinks her biggest grey wave is how she didn’t do enough for Fodlan and feels inadequate to walk in Sothis’s shoes as the guardian/protector of Fodlan - she could have done more, but she’s busy juggling with three goals, rez mom, protect fodlan, protect the fam.

I think one of her main issue (but the game was also made this way so) is to try to reach those goals alone, save for the “rez mom” goal, everyone in Fodlan, especially the heads of the three states should be concerned with keeping peace in the continent!

Lambert was BBQ’s, Riegan’s busy shitting on Gloucester and Ionius is... well, Ionius. Add to that Mole People starting up shit all around the continent and you have the recipe for a disaster. I’m not saying Lambert and Ionius should have participated to the “protect her family” goal, but at least not trying to eradicate them to turn them in relics would have been nice, sadly Ionius’s bro in law was an Agarthan.

Even if she is nearly immortal compared to a human, Rhea can’t do everything on her own. That’s why I ultimately think a SS ending is doomed to fail, Billy will try to be Rhea 2.0. and in 1000 years it will fall apart again.

AM ending? Billy will become like Rhea was post War of Heroes, but when Dimitri’s descendants start to do shit, his Kingdom disappears and humans start to return to their usual shitty selves, what will Billy do?

VW ending is kind of the same, Claude wants to open the borders and make everyone able to live regardless of their differences, but what if 940 years later an Almyrian president decides to build a wall between Fodlan and Almyra and make Fodlaneses pay for it? What is immortal Billy, who knew Claude and his ideals, going to do?

Wave 3 (lol i nearly forgot but remembered when i was rambling in the tags) : Rhea and technology !

The DLC book and Word of God said she slowed advance of technology in Fodlan to protect peace etc etc. But there’s a book where a cardinal said “eff to autopsies else people won’t rely on us with faith magic” which is... kind of weird. There’s a reason why Rhea might have approved that ban (Why does Freikugel look like a hip bone?) but it still deprived Fodlan’s randoms from the scientifical advance of autopsies... and made people reliant on faith magic.

Actually, the book goes

“Though it is widely believed that this is medically relevant, such actions upon a corpse are considered desecration of the dead. Since white magic can be used to a similar end, autopsies were deemed taboo. A notable cardinal asserted that if medical science were to excel over faith-based white magic, it would destabilize the foundation of the church “

I already pointed out the WTF between faith and white magic (Seteth doesn’t believe his mom is real so he has no faith boon) but interesting to note “desecrating the dead” is still something of an argument nowadays, not regarding autopsies but other practices like anatomical theaters etc etc. Maybe White Magic isn’t intrusive and yields the same results? idk.

Interesting to note, it’s a cardinal who edicted/justified that ban (Rhea as the head of the Church would have given her approval oc). As pointed out with the Freikugel example, Rhea’d have a personal interest in preventing humans to know more about anatomy (goal 3/). Would people stop looking to the church to be healed if “medical science” progresses too much? Maybe. From what we see in the curren Fodlan, it doesn’t.

Also, French version translated the “foundation of the church” as “stability” of the church - would the church become unstable or challenged if people could heal without using white magic? Again, we ultimately know that it doesn’t, magical science and medical science coexist, Manuela gives a short summary of the two - they have different effects.

As for things Rhea herself banned : Telescopes, Oil exploitation and Printed Press.

Telescopes were banned because Rhea thought it would increase violence during wartimes and would make it too easy to snipe from afar (TFW mages with bolting can do the same without telescopes, but they’re limited by their range and if they have a gloucester’s crest by Rhea’s sister’s femur’s range or whatever is Thyrsus). We know the mole people use (and most likely used before during the Sothis war) this technology. The “lessening the mystery of the goddess” thing is noted by Edel herself who wonders if the Goddess could really have come from space since it’s super far away. Edel doesn’t know the Goddess is an alien dragon-thing though.

Oil exploitation : “Misuse could result in accidental death” tfw random Faerghus countryman thought it was water and died :’(

Used tactically by those lacking magical abilities - like gambits? Was Rhea thinking that a random human cannot set fire to an entire city (lol) on his own with his limited spell pool/uses, but if he uses oil then he would only be limited by the quatity of oil? So it’d be easier to cause mass fires? Or whatever Robin did in FE13 with the ships and the Valmese army? Also, if Rhea thought oil could replace humans with magic, does it mean humans with magic were supposed to do everything oil can do? Like making a lamp or they still used something else as fuel? “Competition for it could cause strife” Rhea acknowledged that if humans discovered this ressource they’d deem it as essential and try to get their hands on it, even if they had to wage war?

Metal molding Printing Machine : “after careful consideration” Rhea banned it because it’d be useless for illiterate randoms - well yes, but why should this be an argument? You don’t ban something because it’s useless, look, no one banned airpods - risk of mass circulation of false information or rumors : rhea wanted to prevent redshit from existing This is a way to control information, but funnily enough in the game, we see the results or someone deliberately using manifestos spreading misinformation - risk of “increasing disparity between church branches” (fr version has “rivalry” instead of disparity) what does it mean? The central church would have more means to print books than the eastern church so the eastern church would be jealous? Or the Western Church could mass print its doctrine and have more zealots than the central or the easter church?

Ultimately, all those bans were lifted with time, Manuela performs Jeralt’s autopsy, Edel’s imperial science division managed to guess the distance between the Blue sea star and Fodlan, Oil is apparently used in several gambits, Edel’s able to send manifestos around the continent and Seteth can write children books and sell them without difficulties. Hilda can also lose books which would be a big no-no even if you are a noble if books weren’t, kind of, mass printed.

So why those bans? To protect Fodlan and the fam, but since they were lifted with time, I don’t think Rhea abandonned her goals, most likely, she thought humans were making small steps to discover those technologies, slowly learning about them so they won’t have them when they’re not “ready enough” to use them.

The “ready enough” thing sounds paternalistic or what can be expected from a more technologically advanced alien, but technically Rhea’s part alien and she lived through (or not?) an episode where humans received technology and did shit with it (mole people) so maybe she won’t hand them the car with the keys this time, and instead let them figure out how to build the car.

Still, this is HC because, as usual, the game doesn’t let us talk or question Rhea about those things, so we can only infer, read between the lines or between pixels.

****

TBH, I didn’t care a lot about her when I played, but when she had to eat babies in CF I grew more interested. Other bloggers already pointed it out, but Rhea’s a Tiki, but also a “traditional FE lord” in the sense she avenged her mom who was killed by the king of another kingdom, lived in exile and raised an army to fight against the King.

Still, Rhea didn’t end up as the leader of the world, or as the first Empress of United Fodlan, or something like that. She let Willy do his thing. Why? How? Why didn’t she became an integral part of the Empire, if she had been politically important, or a kind of seer/oracle, it would have been difficult for the Empire to go against her!

But nope, Rhea figged away in her mountains to rez her mom, sprout some “doctrine” (she could have done the same as an Emperor/Seer/Oracle) and watched over randoms who made up her “church”. She sometimes tries to intervene in Fodlan’s best interests, but it failed. Because Rhea doesn’t want to rule. She feels like she has to be a guide, but when humans don’t follow her? Well, what can she do? FE16 doesn’t show us Rhea sending her knights against the Empire when the Empire kicked out her Church and basically said “fig” to her face. FE16 doesn’t show us Rhea being angry and punching Gloucester in the face because he doesn’t show “real piety” and sprouts doctrine out of his rear.

Still, when she has to take a more hands-on approach and cannot be a distant figure/guide, she complains about maintaining a certain image as the Archbishop and how she cannot socialise with students or even walk around without Seteth randoms guarding her. She feels her mother would do a better job and tries to act as a proxy. Imo, Rhea’s bound by duty to her mom, to her sibs dead and living, and to Fodlan. She doesn’t reject her role, she accepts it, she doesn’t like it yes, but if going Gandalf in non-CF chapter 12 shows, she will fulfill it.

What’s most saddening though, is how her duty is a self-imposed one. Rez her mom? She personally took the challenge, because she misses Sothis the most and feels ashamed of this feeling to the point of not telling Seteth about it (interesting enough, Indech seems to be aware Billy’s Sothis incarnation and didn’t jump to the “Billy must be one of Nemesis’s kids with the crest of flames” conclusion, as if he knew Sothis could “incarnate” one day, but was he thinking Sothis would incarnate on her own or Rhea would trigger it? Flayn also suspects a thing about Billy being related to them because of Rhea). Rhea personally thinks she has to lead/guide Fodlan and make it a better place, ignoring the heads of the 3 states who should also be concerned with this goal. Rhea will create a false history to protect her living siblings when Macuil and Indech won’t give a fuck and live in their bestial forms somewhere, and when Seteth hides, but made it clear his only wish is to protect Flayn and the apostles, if they were really lizards, disappeared in random villages.

FE16 isn’t interested by Rhea’s story though.

That’s why I’m desperately waiting for a War of Heroes DLC or prequel of BSFE or whatever because I don’t really care about Fodlan in 1180 and who can have a perfect tea time with Billy or not.

I’d like to know why Birdie and Indech figged away, why Rhea thought letting Willy control the entire continent when he knows she’s a dragon was a good idea, why the Apostles didn’t take part in the Nemesis fight, why Fodlan’s humans decided to side with Willy in his brand new Empire instead of staying with King Nemesis, did Sothis have a previous faithful and what happened when she disappeared, were the Nabateans tyrannical rulers over humans which made some with Nemesis’n’pals, what were they supposed to do when they left Zanado, etc, etc.

So just like Julia and the baijilions AU ideas I came up with, Rhea’s a fuel for AUs because her base game dgaf about her.

[off-the-heezys]

DAVID HEADCANONS MWAHAHA

he is very physically affectionate, and being at camp has made him very touch starved because the only physical things that happen to him are violent

David put him 100% into things and almost always gets nothing in return, so he’s simply gotten used to it

He is NEURODIVERGENT and the forest in his special interest and he’s tried infodumping on Gwen but she doesn’t give a shit so David has to mask around her and it’s very tiring please just let him infodump and stim and be excited about trees

I feel like naming trees in his sleep is his version of counting sheet/it helps him calm down when he’s trying to sleep

But he has sleeping problems so he’s like running on 15 minutes of sleep and fake joy at all times

Smells like pine and sweat, very musky

He definitely has a tan line. Sorry but he’s out in the sun all day everyday how is he not gunna have at least a slightly visibly tan line

Is bi (with a preference for women) but is terrified to tell anybody because, well, have you met the people at camp? They’ll 100% make fun of him for being into men. The only person he’d maybe tell is Gwen, but even then it’s something he’d keep to himself

I’m sorry not sorry but for me him being bi just makes so much sense for his character in a way I cannot explain

He may be scrawny and skinny but he is STRONG like DAMN

After what happened in the forest, David physically cannot watch movies where the dog dies at the end. He just can’t he’d be shaking and crying

Also because his leg healed in the woods, if you look carefully David has a permanent limp from his leg not healing properly

Very self conscious about his scars. Every time he sees them he’s reminded of what happened and he just gets sad

I feel like he has some anger issues

On that note he most definitely lets his emotions bottle up inside him until they boil over (cough cough the forest episode cough)

He’s totally a mamas boy- loves his mama very much

He’d love to one day live in a log cabin in the woods and raise a family- he’s a big family man

If we’re talking about the canon universe where Jasper died, David would’ve named his son after him

After the whole play incident he deleted tinder off his phone

[appleflavoredkitkats]

dream smp war 2 updates

doing a second chain post! i thought it would be appropriate if i did since it seems like there’s a new era of wars coming our way. 

(this post will keep updating by reblogged additions, so feel free to save this post somewhere or follow me to check for new updates every now and then!)

and ya’know, i thought wouldn’t be able to do this, but i realize that where else am i gonna infodump but here? so yea. here i go again.

(if you wanna check the first dream smp war post-war updates, it’s here!)

without further ado, time to explain whatever the heck just happened last stream! timeline of events might be funky because a lot of things happened, but i’ll try my best to at least mention everything that went down in the streams.

wilbur, tommy, tubbo, eret, quackity, and a confused hbomb’s stream - september 22

summary: schlatt and quackity win presidency, tommy and wilbur are exiled, some friends have become traitors, some foes have become allies, and technoblade joins the game.

the first streams that came from this honestly were very calm. legit the calm before the storm. tubbo was hanging out with niki, eret, and hbomb and eret reveals to tubbo that his first pufferfish that was stolen by fundy was actually in eret’s possession all along. eret gladly returns the beloved pufferfish to tubbo, and they rename it back to it’s original name “phukkit”.

then, everyone begins going in the server as each campaign stands on the podium waiting for the event to begin. wilbur, tommy, and tubbo first stray away from the group for a bit to watch l’manberg one last time. tubbo introduces to them his secret bunker in the lake for them to seek refuge just in case pog2020 loses. inside the bunker’s chests are some freshly brewed potions for wilbur and tommy to use in the future.

tubbo then brings tommy to the benches outside tommy’s little house and they play one more music disc together. here, tubbo gifts tommy the pufferfish he just gained earlier today, and tommy promised to treasure it dearly.

now, the event begins, and wilbur begins announcing the results. luckily, everyone is here this time. in last place is coconut2020. a funny thing about this is that fundy actually committed tax fraud and got around 100,000+ votes to be counted in the google form just from coding some bot to vote for them. in third place is schlatt, in second is quackity, and pog2020 wins the number one vote.

here’s where the plot twist happens: quackity and schlatt apparently agreed to combine their votes if pog2020 doesn’t win. therefore, quackity and schlatt got 47% of the votes as pog only got 46%, making schlatt and quackity the shared president of l’manberg. tommy protests to these decisions, but wilbur accepts it with ease, and the two merely step down the podium in shame as they watch schlatt take a speech.

schlatt went on full dictator mode-- the first decree he signed as president is to revoke wilbur and tommy’s presence in l’manberg, exiling them. tommy was confused at first before wilbur demanded him to run to the bunker. schlatt immediately conducts a search party for him, electing tubbo as his right hand man to personally hunt the two down. obviously, tubbo would do it hesitantly, and he doesn’t actually get to meet the two in the bunker at all.

a lot of the nation was quite torn from the election results. quackity and george seem to be supportive of schlatt, niki, tubbo, and eret seem to despise schlatt, and fundy and jack seem to just blindly support him as well despite being l’manbergians. punz, ponk, and hbomb were there as well, but it was quite difficult to know who they were siding with since they kinda just got pushed around by everyone at the end.

using invisibility potions, wilbur and tommy escape the bunker to go somewhere in the forest to find their new home. they find a nice hill to make a small house in, and they later name this new nation “pogtopia”. they run into some conflicts though as wilbur and tommy forget to bring an enderchest with them, and they need some of the materials in them now if they want to build up a defense.

and then, in the middle of nowhere, techno tweeted:

wilbur claims he doesn’t want to trust techno right away because he was american, but they do consider having him as an ally later on.

firstly, let’s get back to l’manberg. upon schlatt’s request, the walls of l’manberg are being torn down. i heard somewhere that this might’ve been done thanks to fundy’s suggestion, but i’m not sure. everyone complies, and wilbur and tommy visit l’manberg one last time before it gets taken apart. as they watch fundy and tubbo tear down the wall, wilbur sings the l’manbergs national anthem. (the wall also eventually gets expanded past l’manberg, but i’m not sure how far they’ve built it)

speaking of fundy, fundy’s kind of in a weird place right now. he seems to unhesitantly side with schlatt in this election, and allows his policies easily as if he didn’t care about anyone else in l’manberg. knowing this, wilbur actually disowns fundy. it wasn’t in front of him, but he does say that he is extremely hurt by him in front of techno and tommy.

before i talk about the rescue of techno, we gotta go back to quackity and schlatt for a bit. quackity actually caught tommy visiting his place to get an enderchest, but i believe he doesn’t tell schlatt about it. quackity is quite interesting because while he does believe in some of the policies schlatt believes in, he also believes that schlatt is taking this dictatorship too far. even he thought exiling tommy and wilbur was a big deal, and he aims to be the voice of reason to be able to change schlatt’s mind about his policies. moreover, he wants to discuss matters with tommy and wilbur as well to get on their side too, but wilbur doesn’t wanna talk to quackity because, fourth wall break, he believes they’re progressing far into the story too much if they do, and honestly, valid reason lmao.

do note that quackity is trying his best to tear down schlatt’s evil dictatorship. he’s secretly been advocating for niki and is helping her escape schlatt’s grasp when she needs it, and he eventually talked to schlatt near the end of the stream to be more mindful of quackity’s opinions because without him, schlatt wouldn’t have won. there’s some toxic relationship plot device being used here between schlatt and quackity, and i’m interested to see how this will all play out.

back to tommy and wilbur, they call techno and actually consider his help. tommy says he will run back to spawn and tell him when to join so that he can bring him to their secret base. eret tries to help them and supply them with goods, but tommy and wilbur refuses his help profusely. finally, when tommy reaches spawn, techno joins, and my god, all the three streams i watched just went “TECHNOBLADE????” all at once. 

on schlatt’s end, he claims that techno’s arrival was part of schlatt’s plan all this time. on the other hand, techno claims he’s only here for wilbur and tommy. i fully believe techno would be with wilbur and tommy, but of course, i can never be sure. just don’t discount the possibility of a traitor!techno happening sometime soon.

even if ponk tried to kill techno and tommy as they tried to escape, tommy was able to kill ponk before techno got hurt. they eventually arrived to pogtopia, and there, wilbur declares that he will be a different man from what they know of him pre-election. i’m thinking there’s going to be more violence surrounding the war, and also some strategic planning. they want to get tubbo as a secret agent for them to tear schlatt and quackity apart, eventually leading to the downfall of the dictatorship. niki might also be someone crucial here because she and wilbur have been exchanging messages secretly, so there’s going to be some niki action too.

then, schlatt makes another announcement. after the walls have been torn down, he declares l’manberg gets a new name-- manberg. niki protests, and wilbur and tommy and rightfully disgusted, but schlatt wasn’t going to do anything about it.

everyone in pogtopia, before they can stack up on some resources, have to go back to the dream smp because they comedically have to get a visa for one day for when ninja joins the minecraft server. they were greeted peacefully (and techno steals some potatoes!!!), and it was definitely fun to see so many people in the server all at once. evetually, schlatt does grant them the visa, and they leave. they talk to tubbo one last time, and tubbo warns them about techno being allegedly “paid” by schlatt to betray tommy and wilbur. tommy regards it for now, but after that, they leave to return to pogtopia.

in pogtopia, they begin mining for resources. in the ravine they found below their base, tommy found a strip mine that leads EXACTLY BACK to his bunker. this will be used for a secret passage for them just in case they discreetly want to return to the dream smp.

this is kinda where the main plot stuff ends for wilbur and tommy’s streams, but in eret’s stream, apparently he and bad found pogtopia. they find techno silently, gifting him with potatoes, and leaving promptly after.

on quackity’s end, he’s really trying to convince schlatt to become more open-minded about this entire presidency. there’s some real tension going on between these two, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if they break it off for quackity to join pogtopia. it really seems like they’re hinting it to become that way.

now, it seems like everything’s done, but nope. on eret’s stream, fundy single handedly burned down the l’manberg flag that niki built. FUNDY BETRAYAL AND ERET REDEMPTION ARC. niki is LIVID at fundy, but she wasn’t able to talk to him as he left the server immediately. we don’t know what fundy’s true intentions are, but it’s assumed that he’s siding with schlatt for now. eret at least tells niki they’ll try to rebuild it with concrete so it can’t be destroyed.

JUST AS ALL THIS SHIT CONCLUDES, SAPNAP JOINS. he only joins so he can catch up with everything he missed. eret and niki explain everything to him, and sapnap says he will have to talk to dream about this. he then leaves afterwards.

conclusion: BE HYPED. BE HYPED FOR PLOT. SHOW YOUR APPRECIATION TO THE ENTIRETY OF THE DREAM SMP FOR THIS AMAZING PLOT. DON’T SEND THEM HATE; MAKE CONTENT FOR IT INSTEAD. these people probably worked hard improv-ing/making plots for these, so show your love and appreciation for them!!!!!

[heloflor]

Rogue arc : A few random thoughts regarding the characters and their actions (+ other stuff)

Part 1 (an analysis of “Abducting Murphy’s Law”; you don’t need to read it to understand this post)

So, as I said in the first half, I’m going here to talk about some more stuff regarding and around the rogue arc like the apology and Dakota having issues. This post is way less organized than the previous one and is much more of a personal opinion/rant rather than an analysis. So be aware that this post is a subjective point of view that has some negative criticism at some parts. Basically, this is just me infodumping for the sake of infodumping. Though, I tried to organize it a bit with titles because I still want to do something that people want to and can read.

Like last time, here’s the tl;dr :

- While Cavendish is at fault for the argument in “Abducting Murphy’s Law”, the whole situation showed that Dakota has dependance issues due to trauma and needs to learn to back off, for his own sanity as much as for his relationship with Cav.

- The kids didn’t question why Cav was alone in a ship and waited days before nonchalantly telling Dakota about it and it pisses me off to no end.

- Compared to Doof and Perry, the reconciliation had no build up and wasn’t satisfying in the slightest.

- Neither Dakota nor Cavendish seem to have learned a thing during the arc. Also, there was a missed opportunity to see Dakota consider Doof differently because of his future status as Professor Time. Also, imagine Doof calling out Dakota on being too clingy.

(long post ahead)

1. Dakota needs to work on himself

So to start up, regarding the whole “who has to apologize to who” debate : personally, I believe that, when it comes to the events of the episode “Abducting Murphy’s Law”, Cavendish is the one to blame. He’s the one who got obsessed with finding the ship and who refused to listen to Dakota, even when Dakota wanted them to just sit down and talk things out. He’s also the one who decided to go rogue and ghost Dakota, letting the guy probably terrified for Cavendish’s safety. So in that regard, Cavendish is the one who needs to apologize.

BUT !!! On a much larger scale, the entire arc showed us that Dakota clearly has some issues. To be honest, when I started to get more into the show and started re-watching some episodes, I literally went to google “co-dependance” to see if Dakota fitted the characteristics. And while he doesn’t, there still clearly is some dependance here. And, if we end up having a new season, I genuinely wish that they could point out Dakota’s issues, though I guess the executives might consider it to be too “mature” to happen on the show. But yeah, Dakota has issues, and that’s the first point I’d like to talk about.

Given what we know in “The Island of Lost Dakotas” and that mention about a “Mississippi purchase”, whatever that is, it’s safe to assume that Dakota had been traumatized. Purchase aside, he had to witness his partner die over and over again, probably around a thousand times. And between the fall into lava with the skeleton visible, the “milk to death” (I have no idea what it means and I don’t think I want to) and whatever led to Cannibal Dakota’s existence, some of those deaths definitely seem very gruesome.

Dakota saw some shit, and there’s no way he can simply shrug it off. We clearly see how he’s still impacted by it in season 2 with how protective he is of Cavendish now that he can’t go back. This actually reminds me of how I recently decided to re-watch the small scene with Dakota and Doof in “Cast Party”, the scene when they’re at the ice-cream place. And one thing I can’t help but over-analyze is Dakota asking “Do things happen for a reason or is it just chaos ?”. When he says that, I can’t help thinking that he’s referring to Cavendish’s deaths. It’s like he was asking “Is Cavendish meant to die or is the world just fucking with me ?”.

So yeah, when Cavendish suddenly disappear, with Dakota having no idea of where he went or why, it’s no wonder that he would be so set on trying to find him. For all he knows, Cavendish is already dead. And if he’s still alive, there’s tons of things that could go wrong, and if they do, Dakota is powerless to stop it. This is probably a terrifying situation to be in.

But at the same time, Cavendish is an adult and is now aware of his deaths, so he might try to be careful. I mean, in “Lady Krillers”, when he sees the alien, he’s very quick to let Dakota protect him.

And that’s where most of the problem comes from. Dakota doesn’t seem to fully trust Cavendish to keep himself alive, which is probably not helped by the fact that, given how Dakota is constantly saving him, Cavendish probably doesn’t know his own limits and might overestimate himself.

But I think the biggest problem with this whole situation, aside from the fact that Dakota needs to lay off and understand that Cavendish is a responsible adult who needs to learn what are his limits so he can take care of himself, is the fact that the show is constantly validating Dakota. Just look at what happens in the rogue arc. When we see Cavendish alone, he constantly gets hurt by everything. And near the end of the arc, he even gets trapped inside an ice cube, left to die if nobody finds him. Thing is, by showing Cavendish suffer so much and basically die from being alone, the show is basically telling us that Dakota is right to be so worried about Cavendish, because Cavendish can’t survive alone.

Though, honestly, the show has a tendency to “demonize” Cavendish when he and Dakota are arguing. I mean, in “A Christmas Peril”, both are at fault. Cavendish for being insensitive and putting Dakota down from not understanding why Dakota feels underappreciated, and Dakota for not explaining why he feels that way (refereeing to the island) which leads him to get more and more frustrated with Cav. But, while both apologize in the end, in a kids’ point of view, Cavendish is the asshole who pushed Dakota away by showing no respect. It also doesn’t help that, up until “Time Out” in which we start to see more of his personality, Cav was kind of a giant ass during the beginning of the show; while on the other hand, Dakota is one of the most liked characters of the show.

And in the rogue arc, it’s the same problem. Cavendish is never once shown to have any regrets about his actions, he’s never seen struggling with living alone or being in the forest. And meanwhile, Dakota spends all his time sulking and looking like a kicked puppy. It’s because of stuff like that that the fandom is so split on the “who’s at fault” question and why we tend to sympathize so much with Dakota.

So to put it short, what I’m saying here is that Dakota has dependance issues due to trauma that needs to be addressed and worked on so that he can stop being worried for Cavendish 24/7, because not only is it unhealthy for their relationship, it’s also very damaging for Dakota. Seriously, just look at how much of a desperate emotional mess he is in “Escape”.

2. The kids anger me

Now, since I already mentioned it briefly, I’d like to talk with how the characters were handled in the arc, in particular in “Cavendish Unleashed”. Thing is, I already wrote a post ranting about the stuff I dislike in season 2; and in this post, I made a part about this episode. So instead of copy-pasting it, here’s a brief summary of what I say in this post :

- Basically, the ending of “Cavendish Unleashed” angers me everytime I see it because the kids just go away without asking any questions, nevermind the fact that that Cavendish has been missing for days and that Dakota is desperate to find him. And the worst is that, not only do they not ask Cavendish about Dakota looking for him, but they also don’t tell Dakota that they saw Cavendish. They just wait for like a week or two before being like “Oh by the way, we found an UFO the other day and Cav was there” (seriously, there are SO nonchalant when they tell him Cav was in the ship with them). And it’s not like they didn’t know Cavendish was missing ! In escape, the way Dakota tells them that he has to find an UFO makes it seem like they knew for a while.

- Another thing is that, as I said earlier, we never see Cavendish feel bad about his actions, and that dialogue with the kids would have been the perfect opportunity for such a moment.

- Finally, there’s the fact that, in the last episode of season 2, Cavendish starts talking about being the hero of Octalia, making it seem like he didn’t learn a thing from the experience, despite having all the time of the world for it when he was stuck into the ice.

So yeah, that’s pretty much the stuff I ranted about. One last thing that I could add regarding the arc not being handled well is how stupid Dakota was on the whole “finding Cavendish” situation. I mean, hasn’t he tried looking into the forest ? Seriously, the ship is like a mile away from the town. If the kids going near it on bike and Cavendish leading people to it is any indication, this isn’t that much of a walk. So why didn’t Dakota try to look for him here ? Honestly the only explanation I found (and put in a fic) is the idea of Dakota thinking that Cav could never survive alone in the forest, so he’s terrified of what he would find if he were to look for him there. But other than that, unless the ship is really well hidden (it’s not), I don’t really see why Dakota didn’t find it earlier. Or is it because he was too busy stress-eating and hanging out with Doof to go there ?

And speaking of Doof, why didn’t he try using an inator to find Cavendish ? I mean, it worked for Milo in “Abducting Murphy’s Law”, and in “Escape”, we learn that Cavendish’ DNA can be found in his and Dakota’s apartment. So why not making an inator to find him ? Why waiting around for like a month before finally resolving to science ?

3. The reconciliation

Thirdly, I’d like to talk in this post about the reconciliation between Cavendish and Dakota and how fast-pasted it was, especially in comparison to Doof and Perry (this part is actually the main reason why this post exists to begin with). For this part, I’m going to talk about each part of the argument and reconciliation and compare both stories.

First off, the argument to begin with. In Doof’s case, he’s the one who got hurt by Perry and decided to “break up”. Perry messed up, understood that he messed up, and Doof needed time to accept Perry again. So both parties knew who did what and understood that Doof was angry and needed time. Also, we follow Doof, the one who was hurt but who also called the relationship off.

But in Cavendish and Dakota’s case, Cavendish is the one who messed up but also the one who called the relationship off. And unlike Doof and Perry, Dakota has no idea of what happened since Cav erased his memory to prevent Dakota from following him. From one second to the next, Dakota found himself alone, having no idea where Cavendish was, no idea why Cavendish left, no idea what he did to push Cavendish away and with his last memory of Cavendish being the argument in the armory (from what we see in “Managing Murphy’s Law”, the memory eraser only makes you forget the last 10-15 minutes or so at what I guess is the first use in one day). And honestly, thinking back at the reconciliation, it seems to be what angered Dakota the most. It’s not that Cavendish left, it’s that Cavendish ghosted him after making him forget the reason why. So from the get-go, Dakota is in a worse situation than Doof, meaning that his situation could require some more work. And do we get that work ? Nope !

Secondly, the regrets from the “guilty party”. For Perry, you have the card that he sends a few episodes later. This shows that he feels truly bad for what he did and is willing to make things right if Doof wants to. But when the card is sent, Doof still needs time to himself. As for Cavendish, like I said earlier, he doesn’t once show any regret for ghosting Dakota. Worse, when he finally reunites with him, he doesn’t bring up the issue, though it is a delicate situation with Milo being kidnapped and, like I said in my first post, it does seem like Cavendish intended to come back at some point. Still, that last part is something that Dakota didn’t know. And speaking of Dakota, he spends the entire time being miserable, which only makes Cavendish look worse with how he doesn’t question himself once. And speaking of which…

Thirdly, there’s how the “got hurt” party handles their emotion, aka how they feel throughout the whole arc. For Doof, he starts off very bitter and salty at Perry. But as the episodes progress and as he starts to hang out with Dakota, he kinds of forget about Perry. It’s like he’s busying himself by trying to help Dakota, making him get over it pretty easily by not thinking much about it. And by the end of the arc, he seems to have gotten over it. He wasn’t really bitter about it anymore and all that was left was the talk with Perry to set things right.

But with Dakota, he only gets worse as time goes by. Though, looking at “Cast Party” and “First Impressions”, he seems pretty fine. But then you look at “Look at This Ship” and “Escaped” and you’ll notice that he went from having no patience and being pretty sad in the first episode to being an absolute mess in the second. Again, Dakota depends on Cavendish and needs to be assured that the guy is doing fine, so the whole situation makes him unable to function properly. So while Doof progressively gets better by getting his mind on something else, Dakota can’t stop thinking about Cav and only gets progressively worse.

And finally, there’s the reconciliation, the culmination of all this time spent sulking and hanging out. Again, for Doof and Perry, the resolution is done well. We’ve seen Perry feel bad for what he did, we’ve seen Doof get a hold of his emotions over time. And when Doof confronts Perry, we see that both of them are genuinely regretful of what happened. And then there’s the paycheck. Doof’s argument against Perry was that Perry only cares for him because it’s his job to do so. So by showing the paycheck, Perry answer to what Doof was bothered by. He showed Doof that no, it’s not about the money, and that he genuinely cares about the guy for who he is and wants to help him doing good, another thing that Doof was bothered with regarding Perry not being there to support him for it.

This works. You have a good setting to begin with, you have time given to the dialogue and the reconciliation, and the reconciliation is given with Perry reassuring Doof on the exact points the guy was worried about. It’s good stuff ! It’s great ! It’s well-written and developed !

And then there’s Cavendish and Dakota. Not only do they have very little time to make up, they also don’t really talk about what happened. Dakota is angry about being ghosted, Cavendish tries to justify himself by saying that he was trying to protect Dakota (he wasn’t but it’s easier for his conscience to tell himself he did) and then Dakota looks sad and Cavendish apologizes. Seriously, that’s all there is to it. Dakota makes a sad face and it makes Cavendish feel bad so he apologizes. And Dakota just accepts the small apology, as if he didn’t spend the last few hours having a breakdown over Cavendish being gone. Though, I tend to see him accept the apology fast because of the relief of the moment.

But still, when Cavendish says “Can we talk about this later ?”, I sure hope they do ! Because that half-assed moment is nowhere near enough to break down all the things these two need to talk about. And besides, such a short apology could have worked, but only if the apology was brought up in a good way like it did with Doof and Perry. But again, it didn’t. It was brought up with Cavendish never thinking about Dakota and Dakota only getting more and more sad as time went by. So it doesn’t work.

And even the hug at the end doesn’t work. Yeah it’s cute but these two have hugged several times in the past and these other hugs are much cuter and more significant. I mean, toddler Dakota hugging Cavendish, showing that part of him still remember the guy ? Adorable. Two Dakotas on the island hugging Cavendish for the first time in possibly years while all the other Dakotas are trying to talk at the same time in the hopes of getting to be heard by Cavendish, with also one singing and one having a tattoo of Cav’s hat ? The cutest and most heartbreaking thing in the show. Dakota stuffing the memory eraser thing and Cavendish hugging him in joy to congratulate him ? An extremely underrated moment. So yeah, in my opinion, these hugs give more emotions than the one in “Milo in Space”, because the heart is much more there.

So to conclude on this, Dakota and Cavendish’s reconciliation is pretty bad because it sets up for a big resolution but only takes a few seconds to happen. And, related to the wish to have the show talk about Dakota’s issues, if we get a season 3, I wish they’d at least mention that these two need to talk about the whole thing.

4. Things I wished they had added in this arc

Finally, I’d like to mention a few things that, in my opinion, could have been great to see in the arc. This part is entirely personal opinions (though most of this post is tbh).

First off, obviously, you have the stuff I mentioned before, aka addressing Dakota being dependent, a longer reconciliation or, as Cavendish says, the promise of a talk later, and the kids not being idiots who didn’t ask a single question at the end of “Cavendish Unleashed” and never told Dakota. And regarding the kids, I actually don’t mind them not telling Dakota, but at least give an explanation as to why they didn’t instead of being like “oh yeah we forgot to tell you this” ! Like, maybe Cav asked them to remain silent or something.

Secondly, I wish Cavendish had learned a few things from the experience. As I said, in the last episode, the way he talks make it seem like he didn’t learn shit. And it’s annoying. Why didn’t he learn that running for fame like that was a terrible idea ? Or that it was better to work with others than alone ? Or that, instead of running after a fortune that he may never have, he could remember that there are people already in his life who like him for who he is instead of what his heroic actions are, who care for him and would give anything to be with him ? Also, we definitely needed moments in which he struggled to live outside and alone, and moments in which he was doubting and missing what he left.

And, about characters learning stuff, it would also be interesting to have Dakota realize and accept that Cavendish managed to survive alone in the forest for like a month. In other words, Dakota could use what happened as a “base” to try convincing himself to back off, like if he gets too worried, he could try remembering that Cavendish survived this to calm himself down.

Thirdly, I wished the interactions with Dakota and Doof were more than just eating and talking about Cavendish there and there. I mean, Doof is Professor Time, someone Dakota idolizes, even if not as much as Cavendish does. So why didn’t they talk about this at some point ? And tbh, I also would’ve liked maybe a dialogue or two between Doof and Cavendish regarding Professor Time (though this doesn’t have to do with the rogue arc). Also, I said it earlier, but why didn’t Doof helped with an inator before the clone one ? Couldn’t they give an explanation for that ? And even something such as “when I make any inators OWCA sends Perry and I don’t want to see him” could have been enough of an explanation.

One last thing that I would have wished to see with Doof is him trying to call Dakota out for being such a mess because one guy he cares for wants some space. I actually wanted to write a oneshot about Doof seeing Dakota feeling moody while at his “apartment” and Doof using his own experience as a husband to tell Dakota to get his shit together and give the man his space or else his relationship would fall very quickly.

And yes I know Cavendish and Dakota aren’t married in the show and Doof doesn’t have much friends. But Doof is a guy that values good communication, as we see with how he rambles all the time, how he listens to Vanessa’s advices and is there when she needs an ear (in “Minor Monogram” she very quickly opens up to him at the beginning of the episode; and in general, she isn’t afraid to speak her mind to him and he listens) and, as far as we know, he and Charlene never had their divorce because of communication issues. Also he’s learning to speak platypus, most likely so that Perry can communicate with him better.

So yeah, if anybody could give Dakota a pep talk about why Cavendish might need space and how the two need to talk things out, it’s Doof. Hell, Doof is the one who’s mad at Perry and needs time and space away from him, so he understands what needing space is.

And about this oneshot, for those interested : I changed the idea and it’s going to be a talk between Dakota and Cavendish instead.

  So here’s the end of these two parts about the rogue arc ! These posts were way much longer than I anticipated but hey, a rambling is a rambling. And yeah, these posts are just me needing to infodump on random stuff nobody cares about. But given how nobody I know irl cares about children cartoons or have a good enough level in English to understand my stuff, I need to infodump somehow. So you’re the ones who have to bear with me ! 😉

Thanks for reading !

[ace-apple]

cbuUgw

(chumlochcaight so since i recently made a new ref for her CHORAN MASTERPOST (aka infodumping on my fave oc)

ALL HER INFO UNDER THE CUT (its really fucking long!!)

Part 1: Lochainin

aight so first off ill need to explain lochainin

(the lochainin campaign is set in the year 1987 in michigan (well when they’re not in lochainin) btw!)

choran is actually a dnd character of mine in a campain called lochainin im doing with a couple friends

and this is a group pic of all the player characters i made a while back! ill summarize them from left to right (pls remember that only choran is mine!!)

quinn- 11 yrs old, he/him, jewish, has an affinity for moss and pretty much lives in the woods. druid

hans- 10 years old, he/him, german, loves frogs and is all around baby. druid

emerson- 10 years old, she/her, german, hans’ twin sister. more levelheaded. barbarian (both hans and emerson are technically npcs now, since the person who played the two of them left the campaign) 

choran: 15 years old, she/her, caucasian, chaotic bastard. rogue

delilah- 15 years old, she/her, jersy-italian, her parents have ties to the mafia, choran’s girlfriend, jersey accent. monk

aight so here’s the story/lore

lochainin is an alternate dimension that humans sometimes fall into through puddles. the gang (shown above) jumps in a puddle and falls down into Lochainin. lochainin is a very swamp-like place, but also has other terrain such as forests and caverns. lochainin is inhabited by humanoid frogs and toads (called losgann and buaf/buof respectively), they have human intelligence, posture, and speech capabilities, but some things like modern medicine are foreign to them. 

now there’s this Empire we barely know jack shit about but it exists and most of the humans that fall down end up with the Empire. currently in this campaign all we know is that a lot of people dont like the empire. we just know the empire exists

aight here are the npcs (that i can remember lol) 

- Crecil (losgann, he/him, tavern worker, party found him in a sewer not long after falling into lochainin)

-Ugma (buof, she/her, captain of the local guard in one of the villages)

-Zax (buof, they/them, good at navigating, at the time of writing this we’re going with him to the north to look for dryads cause they might know the way back home)

-Iris (buof, witch in t’og swamp who gives quinn and hans a weird potion that essentially takes them on an acid trip where they both get their druid levels)

locations: T’og swamp- village the party comes across after finding Crecil, has a tavern, local guard (Ugma is the captain) that is pretty much all volunteer work (choran joins up with them for a day at one point), and a market.

Crystal path- cavern with lots of crystals. they have fiberglass like shards when you lick them (we know this because choran licked one of the rocks). has large crystal beetles who’s blood can be cooked for good nutrition.

Part 2: Story

this is just a summary of the stuff that has happened in the campaign so far (as of writing this) (might not be accurate since none of us took any fucking notes lol)

they fall into a puddle and end up in lochainin. choran finds a human skull in a sewer and decides to keep it. they fight a strange acid spitting monster that almost killed choran by getting acid on her arm (that’s where her arm scar is from!) they find crecil in a cage but had found a key earlier. choran takes an axe out of a block of wood they found in a dead end.

they show up at t’og swamp and stay at the tavern. at one point choran gets drunk off of a substance known as death cap ale (death cap being a type of mushroom). we still have no idea if that was poisonous or not. 

uhhh a lot of stuff i dont remember cause it was a while ago and i spaced out a bunch

eventually they come across some tower place i also dont remember why we were there. a couple of losgann were fighting each other, eventually they notice us after one of the party members failed a sneak roll, we fought them but choran killed one of them after getting stabbed in the ankle (she sliced their neck with an axe). since their death was completely unnecessary nobody is very happy with choran for doing this. delilah is especially unhappy with her girlfriend for commiting homicide.

 fasldkjfasolfjasdo;lf and now theyre in the crystal path with zax going to look for the dryads since they might know a way for the party to get out of the place.

Part 3: Choran

oh hey now we finally get to my girl!!! might as well start with the basics of a dnd character: stats and shit

Strength: 13 Dexterity: 17  Constitution: 13  Intelligence: 13  Wisdom: 13  Charisma: 17

(yeah my stat rolls were really crazy)

Alighment: Chaotic Neutral

Race: Human (all of the party is!)

Class: Rogue

unfortunately, i don’t have my character sheet and i dont have it listed elsewhere so i dont remember any of my proficiencies or most of my items, but i do know she has a human skull on her that she found in the sewer they found crecil in

she’s a bit of a wild child, rebellious teen phase is turned up to 11 with her. she got a tattoo that may or may not have been legally obtained (the warning symbol on her right shoulder). her and delilah have been banned from their local cvs pharmacy. 

now for backstory, and hoo boy.

alright so choran was born to two rich parents who were very strict about her life. textbook helicopter parenthood and then some, really. they didn’t let her make friends, enrolled her in a private school (the kind with uniforms and shit, not the kind too poor for a janitor like my private school). they often told her exactly how to behave, with their own words contradicting themselves! (aka one time theyll tell her to speak up and another time theyll tell her to be quiet). she felt like her parents could never make up their minds about what they wanted her to be.  Eventually in 5th grade they let her go to a public school, but still forced her to wear skirts and proper clothes and not really express herself. By the end of 6th grade her parents sent her to live with her aunt on the other side of town, despite having always called her a “bad influence”. turns out that bad influence was actually being a decent human being to choran, letting her actually have friends over, go to parks, choose her own clothes, etc. in middle school she met delilah and quinn, and eventually through delilah she met the german twins.  her original name wasnt actually choran by the way! her full legal name is Lalia Ouroban, but since she moved and got her own life away from her parents she decided to go by Choran. the only member of the party to know her real name is Delilah. and then in 8th grade choran and delilah started dating and then the lochainin events happened!

[moonlightreal]

Fate ep 3, second half

Welcome back!  So I’m enjoying the heck outta Fate… but not as a Winx thing.  I mean,

Things Fate has in common with Winx:

Some of the names.

Things Fate does not have in common with Winx:

The rest of the names, the characters’ personalities, how magic works, how the world works, who’s dating who, the color of Riven’s hair, how many drugs everyone’s doing, the style of clothing, who the teachers are, what the school looks like, what Bloom’s parents are like, etc. etc.

If they’d just renamed it Elemental Academy it’d still have been a fun show and we could’ve skipped all… this…

Gods I wish we could’ve skipped all this.  

But weirdly separate from all this, I’m reviewing a show with some teachers who I like.

The students of Elemental Academy are headed to the quietest rave ever! Lots of purple lightbars and everybody’s drinking!  Ok, if the teachers know how many substances their students are using shouldn’t they at least try to not let them?  Ok, I can see Silva having a grand time making everybody do grueling workouts while hung over but substances and healthy fighting form don’t go together longterm.

Terra explains.  This is the east wing of Alfea, “It used to be used for war preparations but since there hasn’t been a conflict in a while no one really comes down here.  Except for tonight!”  

I want to know what the last war was about, who fought in it, who they were fighting against, how often wars happen in the Otherworld… but Bloom wants a beer.

Ohmigod Terra brought pot brownies!  Ahahahahaha!  That was literally a joke on discord weeks before Fate aired, that Terra would be the fairy of pot brownies.  Also Musa has gorgeous eye makeup.  Race stuff aside, Elisha Applebaum is really pretty.  Sam comes over, and there’s Dane.  Sam gives Terra grief about the special brownies.  And Dane ditches her to go offer Riven and Sky some special brownies.  Poor Terra.

Bloom finds Sky and asks about Silva and Sky opens up to being upset, that Silva raised him and having Silva’s life in danger is messing him up.  Then Sky asks Bloom about her parents and she says it’s complicated and she maybe needs more booze to go into it.  Sky wouldn’t mind a distraction himself, so off to drink it is!

Debauchery! Beer pong!  Bloom and Aisha versus Sky and Riven!  Everyone drinking lots of cups!  Bloom uses her power to make beer hot, which is neat since warmth seems much more useful than fire.  Aisha tries to use her magic to bounce the ball out and ends up blasting all the cups and drenching Riven.  Who probably deserves it just on genera…. Yup, here he is, telling Bloom about Sky’s last girl!  Ricki, Stella’s last roommate and bestie until she flirted with Sky and Stella blinded her.  On purpose.  Bloom can’t believe it.  Sky just says, ‘Yeah. that’s the story.’  But the mood is well and truly killed, and Bloom goes off to find Aisha.

Stella is in a dress solid with sequins, standing with a student in a full beard, I think.

Looking for Aisha Bloom wanders into a storage room for war stuff, and finds a class picture!  There she is, the dream woman standing with a class of specialists!  I think she must’ve been the Specialist trainer before Silva.

Sam and Musa flirt.  Smooching!  

Then Musa senses Terra coming as a wave of social anxiety and Sam vanishes through a pillar to escape.  Terra wants Musa to read Dane’s mind to see if they have a chance.  Musa says there is a chance.

Dane, riven and Beatrix have found the war supplies too.  Plate armor! This world still uses plate armor!  They do a three-way smoking of one joint, which is so gross.  I know covid wasn’t a thing when this was made but eeeeeeeew the poor actors!  Riven is his horrible self and teases Dane about how much Terra wants his dick.  And Riven whose shirt was splashed with beer, wants to steal Dane’s.  Run, Dane, find better friends!

We jump to Stella and the bearded student who is ladling out punch.  Sky comes right over and goes, ‘We need to talk about Ricki!” right there in the middle of the party.  Stella is horrified.  They back and forth… the jist seems to be that the rumor isn’t true. Stella didn’t blind Ricki on purpose but she wants everyone to think she did.  Probably she did it by accident and would rather be thought of as evil than weak, which is kinda understandable.  But Sky points out that being with Stella now makes him look like a total nut.

Text arrives!  The Burned One is dead!  Whew!

What? How!  The trained adults never succeed in this kind of story!  At least they lived.

And here Bloom is photographing the specialist alumni photos.  Beatrix comes in and says, ‘Are you photocollaging at a party?  Why are we not friends?”  Bloom asks who the woman is but Beatrix says she doesn’t know.  

Bloom goes and shows the pictures to Aisha.  Dowling is in the photo so she must know.  Aisha wants to ask Dowling tomorrow when they’re sober but Bloom’s keen to go now.  Aisha basically says if Bloom is dumb enough to go demand answers at midnight while drunk, Aisha’s out.  

In the headmistress’ office Beatrix and Callan are ready for another go at the secret passage trap!  Since Bloom asked about Rosalind, the plot is thickening and they have to get through now!  But they haven’t disarmed the trap.  So Beatrix lightnings up and tosses Callan through the door.  That was direct!  The guy goes blue in the lips and falls down probably dying.  Beatrix goes through the secret door and down the stairs beyond.

Sky finds Silva but oh no, he’s not better!  It was the wrong Burned One!  There are more!  Sky says he’s done waiting, he wants to fight.  He storms off.

In the cafeteria Dowling and Harvey mourn.  It’s their job to fix this Burned One problem and they’re not having much luck.

And here comes ragey drunk Bloom!  She holds up the picture and demands an infodump.  Rosalind was the headmistress before Dowling during a “difficult period in Alfea’s history” And Rosalind’s dead.

...no she isn’t.  Obviously.

Bloom can read the Plot as well as I can, and heads down to the stone circle to make contact!  While drunk at night.  But this is awesome, she flames up her hands and lights a ring of braziers and the magic silver vessel.  Her jacket’s on fire too.  Then the flames all go out and she droops over crying.  Sky runs over in battle kit and Bloom tells him about the changeling thing and how she just wants answers.  Then she asks why Sky’s dressed for battle.  Sky’s going Burned One hunting!  And Bloom thinks she can track the thing, she can sense them.  Now Bloom’s the sensible one who suggests telling Dowling but Sky runs past her into the forest and Bloom takes off after him.

Now there’s that plot I knew should be there!

We cut back to the party where Terra is playing beer pong and gets to hug Dane who is topless ‘cause Riven stole his shirt.  I think Riven is playing some kinda wingman here.

Stella rushes over to ask about Sky, and Riven stirs the pot basically saying he spilled the “blinding” thing to Bloom then jumps into, ‘no no, they’re just friends, no need to blind her too!’

Stella: “I wouldn’t waste my magic on a changeling!”

Show, if you do not tell me what the stigma of changelings is about--!

Riven didn’t know, so Stella just stilled some beans back as getting revenge on a completely different person?

Bloom sends a text.  Emergency Burned One hunt at the stone circle!

It interrupts Musa mid-snog with Sam.

Beatrix walks down a dark hallway and finds… the barrier-ed door from the trailer!

Bloom and Sky pass through the barrier and end up in a place that looks like where Bloom was trying her magic a few episodes ago.  Bloom says it’s close.  Sky wants to know why Bloom can track it, Bloom wants to know that too.  They go back to back but the Burned One looms

Magic battle!  Sky gets in a few sword swings before he’s knocked down! A voice calls, ‘Close your eyes!” before Stella unleashes blinding light!  Terra uses her cousin’s favorite trick and vines it to the ground and Bloom throws fire calling on Aisha to help put it out.  And Sky skewers the Burned One with his sword.  Down it goes!

But Musa can tell it’s not dead yet.  It leaps up—then catches fire from the inside, shining orange light, then falls again.  This was a top quality battle!

Dowling appears behind the girls and confirms it’s dead now.

Beatrix emerges from the tunnels to find Callan still frozen and blue-lipped. Was Dowling’s trap actually killing him or was it just keeping him paralyzed?  We’ll never know because Beatrix uses lightning to blast him to dust!

I mean, Callan wasn’t much but that’s put Beatrix solidly in irredeemable territory.

But good news, we saved the more interesting adult!  Silva is on the mend.  Well enough to immediately give Sky grief about going after a Burned One like an idiot.  Sky only cares if his mentor is better, and he hugs Silva.  Sweet moment all round.

The girls are getting the same from Dowling.  But Musa sensed a tiny bit of pride in the headmistress.

Sky arrives, and Bloom says they should all get home, leaving Stella to talk to Sky.  The other four have clearly bonded, and Stella’s clearly the odd one out.  Stella says, ‘I was awful today.  Seeing you scared I couldn’t deal with it.” and, ‘You’re the only one that knows the real me.”  she goes in for a kiss but Sky pulls back saying, “That’s your choice, Stella.”

Stella disagrees.  “I’m the heir to the Solarian throne, if you knew the kind of pressure...” and says Sky is her safety net and she needs to know he’s there if she needs him.  But what if he needs somebody?

Which brings up a side issue.  I don’t think Sky and Stella are doing the deed these days, but if they are or were that’s epic dumb for the heir to a kingdom.  Royalty tends to care about premarital romps more than commoners, and if they came down with a case of surprise baby that baby would be a future heir!  And then they’d pretty much have to get married, and if Eraklyon was on the other side of those wars nobody’ll tell us about that could add up to a real mess.

I wonder if there was sex in the past, Stella desperate for a distraction to get her out of her own head while knowing that every time the clothes came off they were taking a big risk thus creating more stress by the very means they tried to escape it.

This show tries to be all dark and gritty by having teenagers do loads of drugs but did they think of all this?  It’s just practicality but it’d be plenty dark.  

Over in the dorm Terra’s getting ready for bed.  Musa comes to say, ‘your brother’s pretty great.’ but Terra laughs it off, not paying attention.  She texts Dane to say she had fun at the party and Dane replies with a video of himself shirtless roughhousing with Riven.  The phrase, “fat girl with the brownies” is the only thing that can be understood.  I think Beatrix is filming, and she films the three of them doing a trio-smooch with pot smoke!  

Terra cries.  This show is cruel to her.  Not as bad as I was expecting it to be, but bad enough.  Hope she strangles the lot of ‘em.

Over with Bloom and Aisha, Bloom says, ‘You’d be proud of me, I went to the stone circle but chose not to summon all my magic and burn the Otherworld down.”

That was a choice?  That did not look like a choice, Bloom.

Bloom starts in on sensing the Burned One and Dowling being sus and Rosalind, but Aisha is done being the sidekick.  She suggests there might be no conspiracy and offers the really logical idea that maybe a teenage student got pregnant and didn’t know what to do so Rosalind changelinged the baby.  Good on Aisha for trying to climb out of the rabbit hole, but Bloom’s too deep and says there are too many unanswered questions.  I mean, she’s a destiny-ridden protagonist so she is right, but after last month we’ve seen in the real world how far people can go when they feel that they’re destiny-ridden protagonists…  feels different now.  The show in its cultural context.

Then Aisha says “some people” would kill to be a natural with magic like Bloom is even if she’s just an “ordinary” fairy and says Bloom should be “realistic.”  

Oh Aisha, when will you learn to not say stuff?  For Bloom “realistic” means birth parents who didn’t want her and gave her up.  Bloom starts crying saying she has to believe there’s more to it than that.  And yeah, that is understandable.

Ending scene with the adults in Dowling’s unlit office!  “Bloom had a memory of the fairy that left her in the human world.  It was Rosalind.”  One of the guys says, “Ah shit.”  As the camera moves down toward the mystery barrier in the tunnel Dowling continues, “Bloom has the potential to be one of the most powerful fairies the Otherworld has ever seen.  If Rosalind is calling to her there’s a reason.  We can never let them meet.’

And there’s Rosalind inside the barrier!  Not dead.

Good ending music this time, but no lyrics.

I think Dowling hasn’t yet realized her secretary got lightninged to death.

I’ve also been wondering who “he” the evil overlord could be.  Can’t be Rosalind because she’s a she!  None of the named male characters seem at all sus.  Callan’s dead, Sky’s dad is named but dead (unless he isn’t), Silva and Harvey are way too sweet, and Beatrix has no respect for any of the teenagers.  Unless one of them is getting possessed maybe?  Riven vaped in an evil spirit and occasionally his eyes glow and he spouts evil orders?  Maybe it’s a guy we haven’t met yet, or a master Burned One on a dark throne in a cave somewhere.  That’d make sense.

My main curiosity now is for Stella’s full story!  Stella is an interesting character!  Despicable, but interesting now that I’ve stopped thinking she’s going to be anything like the other Stella. Maybe we’ll find out… next time on Elemental Academy!

[the-fae-folk]

*Quoth* every bit of writing advice ive read talks about having a really good hook. but nothing actually explains what that means or how to do it.

(transcribed and translated from Quoth the Raven) Of course they don’t tell you how. Most people who tell you to do that have no idea how to write a good hook. They’re just parroting advice that they’ve heard. Lets start with what a hook is. A Narrative Hook is just a literary technique that “Hooks” the reader’s attention and keeps them interested enough in your writing to actually want to keep going. So many bits of advice emphasize that your hook has to be the very first sentence. In many cases they are correct. But not always. A hook can also be several paragraphs, or even the first few pages of a novel. Only academic writing needs to place so heavy an emphasis on your first sentence and paragraph because you have to make your point immediately and move on. There’s no time for dallying or dillying in Academia. But even though you have a bit more leeway in other types of writing you’ve still got to be careful. This isn’t just something you can scribble out and move on. A good narrative hook takes some planning. You have to think about WHO your audience is and WHY this particular bit of writing will hook them. What about it will intrigue or interest them enough that they’ll resist other plays for their attention in order to follow those thoughts. And of course not only does your hook need to be for your audience (or audiences if you insist on writing for more than one at a time), but it also needs to be relevant to your story or characters somehow. It should give us a reason to keep reading so that we can see more where that came from, to see how it connects and keeps giving. Even something that touches upon the themes of your book would be good if the writing is clever enough. Dialogue will give insight on the characters, setting, or even signs of the conflict. Let me give you an example. “The skies are always dark when I stop at the McDonald's on my way to work in the morning. Just a breakfast sandwich and a sprite is enough to keep me going. I always see the strangest people when I come out this early. But the strangest of all was when I saw Death herself feeding the starlings with french fries.” In this paragraph I’ve done several things. I purposefully did not put the hook at the beginning of the paragraph. Instead I’ve given you both a general setting for your story (Set in a contemporary world where such things as a McDonald’s exists and people actually want to eat there) and some insight into your character and their life (someone who is unfortunate enough to have to get up for an early morning shift and doesn’t have time for breakfast at home). It tells you about the sorts of things they’ll eat and what the general expectation for this part of their life is like (they see lots of weird people around this time of day because that’s just what happens at McDonald’s around 6am).

Then I drop the bombshell. Disguised as a casual statement that is merely continuing the previous thought I happen to mention that I saw Death doing something as ordinary as feeding starlings her french fries. This sentence, though seemingly tame is quite extraordinary for a number of reasons. It introduces the metaphysical concept of Death as a character who can move about and do person things like eat (or not eat) french fries. It tells us that Death is not just a person...but a HER! How many depictions of Death are female in our contemporary media? A few...but not that many. Even something as mundane seeming as Starlings might have significance. Besides being initially odd (Because usually one might say crows or pigeons when someone is feeding birds), you might have starlings have some greater significance later on, perhaps some kind of symbolism you hint at. Or you might just really like starlings and think that they themselves are odd enough to mention that it might help, either one works just as well. Even though Death is just feeding a bunch of birds some fries we already have so many questions that NEED answering. Why is Death there? What’s her story? Why starlings? And why McDonald’s french fries of all things? We’ve hooked the reader into wanting more. But did you know that you don’t have to begin things with a scene? A question could be a startling and interesting way to start out a piece of writing. Drop straight to the heart of the matter and question the reader themselves. “What is your third favorite reptile?” Is a fun one I’ve heard, especially since you can immediately elaborate on that with your own favorite reptile and why any of this is relevant to whatever your writing is supposed to be about. Really there are lots of ways you can start a story. A declaration that something is so! A significant quote that pulls your reader straight into the middle of a heated conversation. Perhaps an interesting fact or statistic might help you (it can even be entirely made up if your story is set in a fictional world. I once read a book that interspersed the entire story with encyclopedia style clips about places, people, things, and creatures that didn’t exist outside of the story’s world). Even just describing something in great detail is acceptable, whether an enchanted forest, a cold and empty moon, or an apartment filled with half filled cups that your protagonist keeps forgetting to finish and put in the dishwasher. You can even begin with a particularly unique or really well chosen metaphor (or simile) that will set a certain tone or idea for everything that comes after it. (I read a short story where they used a popular spiritual cliche as their first sentence and then spent the entire piece undermining the sentiment.) So many ways to make a hook, and even better, make a good hook. However... You don’t HAVE to use a hook. It’s a literary technique that has become rather popular, but it’s not set down in the rules that you must absolutely use one or your entire piece of writing will burst into flames and die. There are a lot of good stories, essays, and other pieces of writing that don’t use hooks. It does get a lot more difficult if you don’t  use one though. The point of a hook is that initial attention grab. If you decide not to use one you will run the risk of many people not reading past your first few pages. It’s not the end of the world, but its a dangerous game to play. The rest of your work will have to be truly worth the read for you to get away with that sort of thing in this day and age. Well, I hope that answers your question and gives you a good place to start writing hooks for your stories! (or essays). In thanks I request that you go feed some birds (not starlings because they’re so annoying. Always like “look at me! I’m so mateable and majestic even though I’m flying in a swarm of a thousand others who look exactly like me and none of us will shut up for five minutes about who can get it on the best or who can find the best fruit and insects.” Ugh. Stupid little things. They think they’re so pretty. I agree, they’re pretty irritating.) (Notes from the Author of the Blog: One unmentioned form of Narrative Hook is called “In Media Res”. It literally means “in the middle of things” which is fairly on point because the technique is about beginning your story in the middle of the action instead of slogging through all the boring exposition. It’s a little hard to pull off well because it demands that the writer find fluid and subtle ways to introduce all that worldbuilding and essential info to the reader without giving a pages long infodump later on when the reader needs to understand something for plot reasons. Also, a Hook can be found in other types of media besides writing. In music it is a musical phrase or idea that is used to catch the listener’s attention and make the music seem appealing. In film they have something similar that is used to try and grab the viewer’s attention in the first 5-10 minutes. It is a very good tool to know how to use and use well, though it may take a bit of practice to get right. Finally, the Author of the Blog does not share Quoth’s views on Starlings; though maybe still don’t feed them (or any bird) french fries.)

[sally-mun]

(Sorry anon, Tumblr screwed up my draft of your ask, so you’re a screenshot now.)

I hope you realize what you’ve done, because this is going to be a VERY long story. Get a drink and strap in.

Before I can get into this too deeply, we first need to talk about Ocarina of Time. There are a lot of issues I had with OoT that I was VERY excited to see were later addressed by Twilight Princess, whether it was an intentional link or not. There are a handful of things involved here, but for me the biggest one by far is the Temple of Time.

Waaaaay back in the late 90′s/early 2000′s, the internet was still relatively young and, in a way, more simple and innocent. The standard for using it largely boiled down to, “I like [x], so I’ll search for [x]” and just seeing what mess of crap you ended up with. I did this mostly with Sonic and anime stuff, but every now and then I’d do it for things like LoZ as well. One of the sites this brought me to was called The Odyssey of Hyrule, which at the time utterly blew my mind with its content. It was a hotbed of Zelda oddities, glitches (some of which I now see often in speed runs), hoax debunks, and most importantly for this discussion, screenshots from early builds of the game.

We can probably trace the origin of my fixation back to this screenshot:

Those of you that know Ocarina of Time well can probably tell right of the bat that this is not an area that appears in the final game. The website posited that this was perhaps an area behind the Temple of Time, since the setting elements all look the same and the camera appears to be in a fixed location. After all, when you look at the building from the front, there’s a clearly visible path running along the side, and it does appear that the fence has a “gate,” although we can never open it.

See it there, behind the second gossip stone from the left? There’s a gap on either side of that bit of fence, right where the path happens to be. The rest of the fence on the right side doesn’t have gaps like that, suggesting that this bit of fence wasn’t originally there and the path was once traversable; my personal hunch is that the “gate” is actually a copied instance of the smaller bit of fencing on the left to save themselves the headache of redoing the fence entirely. The gossip stones, if they were originally there at all, were probably supposed to start from the far right wall instead of the left, which would also open up access to the path.

The longer this stewed around in my brain, the more it drove me absolutely crazy, because I realized that this could possibly explain a lot of seemingly disparate elements. For example, there’s a peculiarity in the Temple of Time that’s easy to miss if you’re not taking your time and paying close attention. After you remove the Door of Time to gain access to the sword chamber, the initial view of said chamber is actually much smaller. It’s especially easy to see when you switch to first-person, because you can more easily see how close the walls are on the left and right.

(My apologies for the shitty quality of these pictures, I took them back before we had decent digital cameras. I’ll get better ones when I post this as an actual article on my other blog.)

As you run into the chamber, the tight walls abruptly disappear and give way to the massive chamber we’re all familiar with. In fact, if you take your time and walk forward through this hallway, you can easily see the moment when the room changes from small to large before your eyes.

When comparing this oddity with the beta screenshot and the website’s suggestion that the path may have allowed you to go behind the temple, I became convinced that something else was supposed to happen back there, but was cut from the game for one reason or another. My guess is that the sword chamber really was originally very small as it first appears, and the larger chamber was a separate area behind it, which was used for... well, what? It obviously wasn’t something small and simple, like a chest with a heart piece; not for a room that grand. It was clearly for something big, something important, because it had to have a large enough scale of work that the designers looked at it and realized they couldn’t finish in time. After a LOT of mulling it over, I became convinced that it was most likely the entrance to the Light Temple.

You see, something else that always struck me as odd was the fact that you’re just given the Light Medallion as soon as you become an adult. You do absolutely nothing to earn it; it’s all part of the same cut scene that plays after you remove the sword for the first time. You meet Rauru, the Light Sage, pretty abruptly as he infodumps about what’s going on, and then he just forks over the Light Medallion without hesitation.

From a narrative perspective, it sticks out to me because Rauru is the only person you do not interact with at any point in the game. You don’t meet him at all as a child, and as an adult you only see him within the Sacred Realm. All of the other sages are people you have both a child and adult connection with in some way, and it’s up to you to awaken them to their powers by ridding their respective temples of evil. Why would they just skip that process with Rauru?

Perhaps they never meant to; maybe you were supposed to go through that same process, but the Light Temple got cut. When you’re designing a video game, there’s a practice that’s recommended before you start actually building it where you make a list of all the elements you want included, then you organize it by importance, and then you cut it in half. The top half is the one you focus on first, because it’s stuff you absolutely positively have to have in the game in order for it to work. The bottom half is stuff you get to include if you have enough time, and it’s added in the order you listed it because top items are more critical. It could very well be that the Light Temple was either on that second half of the list, or it was never on the second half at all but development time simply ran out and it got bumped.

Either way, at some point in the process I think they realized they weren’t going to be able to complete the Light Temple, so they blocked off the side path and expanded the sword chamber to eat up the extra space. After all, you can see how long the building is from the outside, so it wouldn’t make much sense for it to be a reverse Tardis and be smaller on the inside. Once the back path was removed, I imagine they reworked Rauru to reduce his role; my head canon has always been that he was some kind of high priest who oversaw the Temple of Time, since it IS essentially a church. I mean, just look at that garb. He certainly appears to be some kind of holy man.

Having him as a priest at the Temple of Time that you could actually meet and talk to as a kid would’ve finally made his presence make sense. It would explain who and what he is at all, since he just kind of appears out of nowhere as the game currently stands, and it would’ve aligned with the other sages insofar as meeting them when they don’t realize their powers, then saving them as an adult and awakening them as a sage. In fact, Rauru disappearing from the Temple of Time would’ve been the game’s first big red flag that something has gone terribly wrong in the last seven years, versus having to go outside to see all the decay and the dark energy around Death Mountain. Furthermore, each sage is someone that the game explicitly positions as a person that makes sense TO be each temple’s respective sage, and to me, a priest from the Temple of Time is the obvious choice for the Light Sage when you consider that the Light Temple is probably part of the same building.

Speaking of the Temple of Time, it has a lot of clues of its own that it may have once doubled as the Light Temple. For one thing, consider the songs that warp you around the game: The Minuet of Forest takes you to the Forest Temple, the Bolero of Fire takes you to the Fire Temple, the Serenade of Water takes you to the Water Temple... but what song takes you to the Temple of Time? It’s not a song with time in the name anywhere, it’s the Prelude of Light. This would make perfect sense if the Light Temple was supposed to share space with the Temple of Time, right?

Another clue is the warp points themselves. Each time you warp to one of the temples, you land on a large pedestal bearing the Triforce. However, there’s another image overlayed on them too: That temple’s medallion. If you play the Prelude of Light to warp to the Temple of Time, the pedestal you land on features the the Light Medallion, as though this is where you were supposed to have earned it.

I later discovered that this is even more prominent in another old beta screenshot, which is much more heavy-handed with the symbol on the pedestal.

Something else to consider is the fact that the Temple of Time is actually where you acquire the Light Arrows, the final item that you need before you take on Ganon at the end. Like the medallion before it, the Light Arrows are again just given to you without requiring any work. The other temples all have a critically important item inside that you must obtain to not only finish the temple itself, but that is then needed in other areas in the game. Doesn’t it seem like you’d have to complete the Light Temple to get the Light Arrows, and they’d follow the same pattern of being used to finish the temple and then go on for further use elsewhere (namely, Ganon’s Castle)?

Getting the Light Arrows last also lends credence toward the idea that the Light Temple was in fact lower on the development list, because it would’ve necessarily been the last temple you visited in terms of game progression. They’re not going to give you the ultimate holy weapon early on in the game; they have to save that for the end so you don’t blow through the rest of the temples without a sweat! Additionally, the Light Temple being last would only increase the tension of wondering where Rauru went, since each time you warped between the past and the future you’d have to pass through the Temple of Time and note once again that Rauru is missing.

If it were me making the priority list, the temples would be listed in the same order that you play them in-game, because obviously you need to go through [dungeon 1] before you can go through [dungeon 2] or [dungeon 3].* In this particular instance, chronological order and order of importance happen to be the same thing, and if the development team used the same reasoning, then yes, the Light Temple would be much lower on the list than the others. It’s entirely within reason to think that they had planned for it, but realized they weren’t going to have time to fully implement it, and instead blocked it off and handed over the items you would’ve obtained there so they could focus on getting other, more critical things done.

It’s also worth noting just how much infodumping happens at the Temple  of Time. As the game currently stands, there’s very little to actually do at the ToT, but there are many long conversations that take place there. You talk to Zelda, both as herself and as Sheik, you talk to Rauru (as that technically happens while you’re at the ToT), and even Ganon monologues a bit there at the end. You end up spending a LOT of time spent standing around while other characters pelt you with information in this particular location. I’m not saying that there shouldn’t have been any big conversations here, but rather that I feel like there are more than there probably should’ve been. Some (possibly most) of that information could’ve been obtained more gradually and actively if the Light Temple had managed to be a thing.

And look, I’m not saying that what we ultimately got in the game doesn’t work; there’s nothing specifically wrong with the way Ocarina of Time handles the Temple of Time. I agree that getting the Light Medallion and Light Arrows in the ToT isn’t completely out of nowhere since the ToT is connected to the Sacred Realm. I’m only saying it doesn’t come across as the original  design to me; as far as I’m concerned, it clearly, obviously screams that what we got was a back-up plan. It works just enough to make sense, but it would work so much better if they did it this other way. Everything just clicks together a little more snugly when you consider that there may have been a sixth temple. It’s not that what we got doesn’t make sense, it’s just that I believe these ideas make more sense.

This topic is something I used to go on and on about back in the day, to pretty much anyone who would listen to me. I was met with about as many different kinds of feedback as you can imagine; some people agreed that I was on to something and had maybe solved a mystery, whereas others thought I was reading way too much into details that just don’t have that deep of a meaning. Unfortunately, it’s obviously not something I could take that far in an argument because there was no way to prove my hypothesis. It’s all just a guess, and even though I think there’s some pretty strong evidence to back it up, in the end I have no way to actually verify it. Sure I could contact Nintendo, but I highly doubt they’d tell me anything one way or the other.

SO NEEDLESS TO SAY when Twilight Princess eventually came along and had a Temple of Time that was a for-realsies playable dungeon with monsters and puzzles and items to collect, I went through the fucking roof.

At the EXACT moment that I realized that this is what the game was giving me, I literally screamed and shouted and cheered because I felt so... vindicated, in a way? It felt very strongly like a soft confirmation of what I’d been saying for all these years -- ESPECIALLY since the Twilight!ToT ALSO makes heavy use of the Light Medallion symbol. I feel like that’s about as clear of a connection as you can get.

Like, I know the Temple of Time being playable in Twilight Princess doesn’t absolutely confirm that it was supposed to be that way in Ocarina of Time, but it gives me that vibe because it feels like Twilight makes a point to ‘right’ a lot of ‘wrongs’ present in Ocarina. It gives me the sense that they were making up for some of the things they didn’t (or couldn’t) do the first time around. The fact that they were willing to delay the release of Twilight Princess just to make sure everything was just right also gives me that vibe. They could’ve just cut things again, but this time, they wanted to make sure everything was there, and that it was good.

One other thing I’d like to mention before completely moving on from this topic is something that I admittedly can’t confirm, but it’s another point that’s been on my mind: Back when I was playing Twilight Princess for the first time and I was screaming about the Temple of Time, a guy I knew back then mentioned to me that the ToT that we see in Twilight is, canonically, the same ToT that we see in Ocarina. He said that he’d heard somewhere that the Ocarina world map actually fit perfectly when overlayed against the Twilight world map, and the major world features/locations from Ocarina of Time lined up exactly with landmarks and ruins in the Twilight Princess world. I did attempt to look this up for myself before writing this post, but most of what I found was a big mess; I may attempt to line the maps up myself sometime if just to be able to better wrap my brain around what might (or might not) work here. What I can definitely say, though, is that the idea is at least supported by the theme of the series in general, given that it’s based around the notion of history repeating itself. Zelda games reference other Zelda games all the time, so it’s far from unheard of.

Anyway, as I mentioned earlier the Light Temple isn’t the only thing that makes me feel like Twilight Princess is trying to make amends for things that were missed in Ocarina of Time; it just happens to be the one I was most prominently fixated on. Another big thing that Twilight Princess appears to be rectifying is the City in the Sky. Going back again to my old stomping ground The Odyssey of Hyrule, there was another beta screenshot that got a LOT of attention back in the day, because it 1) was an animated gif, 2) involves the Triforce, and 3) appears to be some kind of ‘Sky Temple,’ as it was known.

(Once upon a time that gif was reasonably sized, but since computers have roided the fuck out since the days of Windows 95, I realize it’s not the biggest or clearest thing in the world and I apologize.)

As I recall there were a couple of other screenshots that appeared to also be from this alleged Sky Temple, but sadly I don’t seem to have any of them myself, and although The Odyssey of Hyrule technically still exists, it looks like its images are all broken. In any case, the question of whether or not Ocarina of Time was supposed to have a sky temple was a HUUUUGE hot topic among Zelda sites for years. So many people spent enormous amounts of time and energy trying to find the so-called Sky Temple, largely because there was a sizable sect of the fanbase convinced that the Triforce HAD to be hidden somewhere in the game. Amazingly enough someone did eventually find the Triforce obscenely hidden in the game files (I wish I still had the pics of that, the amount of glitching needed to get to it was insane), but nothing was ever ultimately discovered about the Sky Temple. It just became one of those bits of gaming folklore that got passed around from person to person over time.

Which, of course, is why the inclusion of the City in the Sky in Twilight Princess, much like the expansion of the Temple of Time, feels a lot like Nintendo is making up for something they may have intended to do but were unable to complete.

Not gonna lie, when I played this area for the first time I couldn’t help thinking that the small glimpse in the gif above feels like it could feasibly fit in here, and it was just the coolest feeling of, “I knew it!”

Another thing that really bugged me about Ocarina of Time (and in fact still does to this day) is the fact that, even after you beat the Water Temple, Zora’s Domain remains frozen. I never understood how this could be, since every other area reverts back to its original, beautiful form after you defeat the evil in the associated temple. Not Zora’s Domain, though! It’s thoroughly unsatisfying to have gone through what is arguably the most hated temple in the game and not have a full reward for your efforts.

This, again, is something it seems Twilight apologizes for; not only does it actually replicate the original problem of the Zoras getting frozen, but IN THIS ONE YOU ACTUALLY THAW THEM OUT!! And not only that, you thaw them BEFORE you even do the temple! That alone feels like Nintendo practically coming out and saying, “Yeah, we messed up, our bad. Here, have the restored Zoras right away as our apology.” It was such a huge mental release to see that ice melt and the Zoras come back to life! My brain was finally able to let go of a frustration I’d had for years!

My last one isn’t so much something that I felt was supposed to be in Ocarina of Time, but rather something I just plain wanted to be there. I was always sad that, even though you do technically get to enter Hyrule Castle, you don’t really get to go in there. You get an extremely limited and very linear track to follow, and at best you just get glimpses of some of the other areas that probably would’ve been really cool to explore had the game been designed that way.

I always felt like the fact that you didn’t get any real exploration of Hyrule Castle upset some of the balance in the game, considering that you do have to fully traverse Ganon’s Castle as a solvable dungeon. Being able to get a thorough sense of what Hyrule Castle was originally like before evil fell would help reinforce just how much things had changed in the seven years that Link was in the Sacred Realm, especially since that contrast is such a strong theme everywhere else in the game.

So, much like my reaction when I realized I was actually entering the Temple of Time as a level, I had a very similar reaction when I realized I was getting Hyrule Castle in the same way.

I may not have freaked out quite as much, but DAMN if that wasn’t another enormous payoff for me! Getting to really look around inside of Hyrule Castle, and furthermore in a version that’s really able to convey the scale and grandness OF a castle, was an absolutely magical moment of overdue gratification.

What’s even better is that Twilight Princess almost gives you a sort of a fake-out in this regard, since at the very beginning you kind of go through Hyrule Castle but, like Ocarina of Time, it’s extremely limited and linear, so it seems at first like they’re going to do the same thing.

I remember playing this for the first time and thinking, “Well, at least I’ve gotten a little closer to seeing inside of Hyrule Castle, but I really wish they’d just friggin’ let us ACTUALLY go in.” IMAGINE MY CHAGRIN when later on that’s exactly what I ended up doing~ I’m sitting there fan-screaming and the game is going “AH HA I GOTCHA!!”

Soooooo yeah... This ended up being an extremely long post and probably way more than you were ever interested in knowing, but, yeah, I think that’s why Twilight Princess felt like such a bookend for me. Even though I did technically have the original LoZ as a child, my life as a Zelda fan really began with Ocarina of Time, and that game left me longing for several very specific things that Twilight Princess later fulfilled. I’ve never had so many large unresolved issues with any other game, and the fact that Ocarina of Time was the Zelda game that I ‘imprinted’ on, those issues left a very deep impression on me. Having Twilight Princess essentially go back and ‘fix’ those things was incredibly psychologically calming for me, and I think it’s a major reason why I haven’t particularly sought out other Zelda games in the last 12 years. Twilight Princess gave me the things I’d been looking for since 1998 -- a decade of hemming and hawing finally resolved.

I honestly feel like playing Zelda games may be different for me in some way now as I move forward, because I won’t have a part of my brain mentally searching for a way to fill those little voids in the back of my head. I have both Skyward Sword and Breath of the Wild, which as I said in that other post I’ve actually never tried out, so I guess we’ll find out how I relate to them whenever I finally decide to take that leap!

If you actually made it to the end of this post, THANK YOU SO MUCH and I hope you enjoyed it~

*Fun fact, this isn’t necessarily true when it comes to the Fire and Water Temples. The game wants you to do Fire first, but it’s completely possible to do the Water Temple if you want to!

[scatterpatter]

Is it infodump hours Scatter??? I'll indulge in infodump hours.

SO HERE'S THE SAD THING I'VE LEARNED THAT'LL MAKE YOU FEEL EVEN WORSE FOR TIME

SO HERE'S HOW THE ADULT/CHILD TIMELINE SPLIT OCCURS: LINK DEFEATS GANONDORF AND HE GETS SEALED AWAY WHEN LINK IS AN ADULT, RIGHT? THIS IS WHERE THE ADULT TIMELINE HAPPENS. ZELDA THEN SENDS LINK BACK IN TIME TO RECLAIM HIS LOST CHILDHOOD. LINK THEN GOES TO ZELDA AS A CHILD AND TELLS HER EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED, THUS CREATING A NEW TIMELINE: THE CHILD TIMELINE

SO I WAS LOOKING THROUGH HYRULE HISTORIA FOR SOME CONTINUITY THINGS AND FOUND THIS

SO THIS HURTS BECAUSE THE FACT THAT WE START MAJORA'S MASK IN THE LOST WOODS AND LOOKING FOR NAVI IMPLIES 1 OF 2 THINGS:

LINK TRIED TO GO TO KOKIRI FOREST BECAUSE HE KNOWS THAT NON-KOKIRI CAN'T ENTER THE FOREST WITHOUT GETTING LOST AND BECOMING A STALFOS. LINK LIKELY TRIES TO FIND NAVI SO THAT HE HAS HIS KEY BACK INTO KOKIRI FOREST(AND ALSO MIGHT BE HIM CLINGING TO HIS LAST HOPE AT GETTING HIS CHILDHOOD BACK, ALBEIT TO NO AVAIL) BUT MM HAPPENS INSTEAD

LINK WILLINGLY SACRIFICES HIMSELF, KNOWING THAT HE'LL TURN INTO A STALFOS, BECAUSE GANONDORF CANT FOLLOW HIM WITHOUT ALSO BECOMING A STALFOS AND ITS THE MOST SECURE WAY TO ENSURE THE SACRED REALM IS NEVER ACCESSED

AND ANOTHER THING

NOT ONLY IS LINK ROBBED OF HIS CHILDHOOD AND BASICALLY HIS LIFE, HE'S FORGOTTEN ABOUT IN THE CHILD TIMELINE

AND A THEORY BECAUSE ALL I KNOW IS SUFFERING

okay I'm done with the all-caps sbdvndfnsvd

So we know that in Adult Timeline, there's a point where shit hits the fan but there's no Hero for... Reasons?

Now I didn't understand this part. We know that OoT!Link is in another timeline, which could explain things, but this happens years after OoT. It's also not an ending of the cycle because Link ends up reborn by WW

THEN I CAME UP WITH A THEORY

So Link's not only in another timeline, he's in Termina. Termina always had a big "time" shtick even before Link starts his time loops. So is it far-fetched to believe that time flows differently in Termina than Hyrule? Especially if Link's using time loops that reverses time in Termina but not in Hyrule. WHAT IF by the time Ganondorf arises before the Great Flood, Link is still in Termina(oR HELL MAYBE HE'S AN UNSLAIN STALFOS IN LOST WOODS) so he's not there to stop Ganon. His OoT self ALSO can't be reborn in the Adult Timeline yet because Link is STILL ALIVE in the Child Timeline and!!! Just!!! AAAAA

Anyways Time's story gets more and more tragic the more you read into it and like PLEASE protecc him

[johannesviii]

Top 10 Personal Favorite Hit Songs from 2017

Not a very good year for hit songs. Still better than the next one, though.

And a very satisfying #1 that launched an entire infodump about a specific band. I’m not even sorry.

Disclaimers:

Keep in mind I’m using both the year-end top 100 lists from the US and from France while making these top 10 things. There’s songs in English that charted in my country way higher than they did in their home countries, or even earlier or later, so that might get surprising at times.

Of course there will be stuff in French. We suck. I know. It’s my list. Deal with it.

My musical tastes have always been terrible and I’m not a critic, just a listener and an idiot.

I have sound to color synesthesia which justifies nothing but might explain why I have trouble describing some songs in other terms than visual ones.

2017 might not sound super distant, but it’s already distant enough to analyse what started to happen to me that year with some clarity. This is when I started to lose some of my energy and motivation. A lot, in fact. Everything suddenly felt exhausting and this whole “what’s even the point of anything” mentality started to fall on my shoulders. And you know what, at first, while making these recaps, I had no idea what started it all. Was it that super rare infection I caught in early 2018 and almost made me lose a part of a finger? Was it both my grandfathers dying in mid 2018? Was it the general state of the world? But no, I did some digging and noticed this general exhaustion actually started right during summer 2017 and I was like what the f█ck happened in summer 2017? That summer was fine?

And then it clicked. I know exactly what kickstarted my spiral into about 18 months of depression, and it’s got nothing to do with health or family. It’s something that shouldn’t have affected my life in any way, and that I kinda tried to ignore at the time, and some of you might even find me overdramatic or cringy for letting it affect my life. But yeah, as I’ve realised while making these lists, Linkin Park was actually a super important part of my life, so it makes perfect sense: what started it all was Chester Bennington killing himself. Clearly, someone who had contributed so much to convince me that life was worth living and who suddenly decided it wasn’t worth it, that had a huge impact on me, whether I wanted it or not.

Aaaand now I’m crying again. Great.

Anyway. Uh. Important albums that year! Yeah so uh. Depeche Mode made Spirit and it wasn’t good, and so I kinda lost faith they would ever make a great album again, but I did realise one of my teenage dreams and saw them in concert in the Stade de France in July 2017 (it was huge. Going home after that felt like waking up from some sort of hypnotic trance. They even played Walking In My Shoes, one of my absolute favorite songs from them, along with a video featuring a trans person going to work and I started to bawl my eyes out in the middle of the f█cking crowd). Nine Inch Nails also made Add Violence and continued to be super good, and Indochine made 13, and while it wasn’t nearly as good as Black City Parade, it was also better than La République des Météors, so I was pretty happy about that. EDIT: Forgot about Under Your Spell by The Birthday Massacre, which blew my goddamn mind, but still not as much as the next album I'm gonna talk about.

But the defining album of the year, to me, was Mike Oldfield making a sequel to my favorite album from him, with Return to Ommadawn. Of course it’s not as good as Ommadawn. But still. If Ommadawn felt like discovering a new strange country full of weird folklore and forests and mysterious buildings, Return to Ommadawn feels like going back there half a century later and seeing things in ruins and wounded people, but still trying to seek beauty and joy in a partly destroyed landscape. It makes perfect sense considering the circumstances that surround the making of this thing, and it was the only way to make a good sequel to such a legendary album.

Unelligible songs that piss me off... uh, actually there’s only Cut to the Feeling by Carly Rae Jepsen. Why wasn’t it a huge hit. Come to think of it, why hasn’t any Carly Rae song been a huge hit since Good Times. This feels unfair.

Time for some honorable mentions, then.

Feels and also Slide (Calvin Harris and a lot of other people) - Got nothing to say about either of these songs, but they’re both pretty good.

Katchi (Ofenbach) - Nice little earworm.

No Roots (Alice Merton) - Super surprised this was a hit. Good.

OK (Robin Schulz ft James Blunt) - That’s a James Blunt song in the year of our lord 2017 and it sounds actually good??

What About Us (Pink) - Really caught my attention and made me wonder if I should listen to Pink again after a long streak of mediocre Pink songs.

Congratulations (Post Malone) - I find the song mostly boring but the guest verse ending with “uh, Malone... I gotta play on my phone...” is the stuff of legends and that got a chuckle out of me every time I heard it.

Glorious (Macklemore) - I’m glad this was a hit here but at the same time it’s not my favorite song from him. The music video is adorable, though.

Fly (Odyssey) - Nothing to say about that one.

XO Tour Life (Lil Uzi Vert) - The fact that I was regularly humming this is either a sign of quality or yet another sign I was depressed as shit.

Devil in Me (Purple Disco Machine) - What a great artist name.

Symphony (Clean Bandit) - Nothing to say here either, just good sound all around.

Attention (Charlie Puth) - 2017: The Year Charlie Puth Made A Great Song.

All Stars (Martin Solveig & Alma) - The last cut. It was on the list at some point. I really like it a lot, though.

And now, the list. The stuff I genuinely love starts at #6 and things that are still on my mp3 player to this day start at #4.

10 - Chained to the Rhythm (Katy Perry)

US: #73 / FR: #10

I just love the concept of a Katy Perry song about how Katy Perry songs are happy nonsense distracting you from actual issues. What can I say, I’m a sucker for meta stuff.

9 - Water Under The Bridge (Adele)

US: #88 / FR: Not on the list

An Adele song projecting actual positive energy!? That automatically goes on the list.

8 - Praying (Kesha)

US: #67 / FR: Not on the list

You know I mostly dislike slow emotional songs regardless of how good they actually are. I will, however, make an exception for this one even though I very rarely listen to it considering how emotionally taxing it is. That’s definitely a fantastic song, though.

7 - Viens On S’aime (Slimane)

US: Not on the list / FR: #53

“Listen, we love each other, f█ck it, f█ck their words and their decorum, listen, we love each other, f█ck it, f█ck their ideas and what they’re saying”. Well said, dude, well said.

6 - There’s Nothing Holding Me Back (Shawn Mendes)

US: #23 / FR: #91

That’s a very good song for running and that is becoming increasingly rarer, so I’ll take what I can get.

5 - Paris (The Chainsmokers)

US: #42 / FR: Not on the list (that’s irony for you)

Unlike Closer this is an unrelatable song about rich young people that can afford to live in Paris just “to get away from [their] parents” but honestly that’s the only negative thing I have to say against it. It sounds fantastic.

4 - Castle On The Hill (Ed Sheeran)

US: #40 / FR: #50

We’ve now entered the realm of songs that are still on my mp3 player to this day. This is the only Ed Sheeran song I’ve ever liked, and I love it. It sounds like a lost U2 song. Maybe from a strange dimension where U2 became more fragile and emotional instead of more pretentious.

I have no idea why this guy keeps making such boring stuff when he’s got that kind of song in him. I have no clue.

3 - Something Just Like This (Coldplay & The Chainsmokers)

US: #5 / FR: #19

Hey so Coldplay is still on my lists, apparently. It’s a bit too slow, some lyrics about superheros don’t make much sense, and the drop isn’t super good, but my god, that guitar near the end makes everything worth it. Just amazing colors and textures all around.

It’s not even my favorite song on that EP! I think Miracles (Someone Special) is even better, but eh, this one is a close second.

2 - 24k Magic (Bruno Mars)

US: #16 / FR: Not on the list (#13 in 2016 but I put it on the 2017 list instead)

Am I the only one to like this more than Uptown Funk? It’s so much fun to sing along to it. And unlike Uptown Funk, it’s making me feel nostalgic for an era I actually (vaguely) knew, the super colorful and ridiculous early 90s. My s.o loves it too and when it comes up on the radio or on our playlists you can bet we’re both going PUT YOUR. PINKY. RINGS UP. TO THE. MOOOOOOOON like two idiots.

This is the song I could have put on the previous list but elected to put on this list instead since it was elligible for both years, by the way! Since 2017 was less good than 2016, I thought it would be more interesting to save such a great song for later.

It would have topped the list too, if it wasn’t for something I didn’t expect to be elligible before reading the French year-end list.

Strap yourselves in, because I had no real opportunity to talk about this band at length in the posts made for the years when it was the most relevant in my life, so this is going to be quite long.

1 - La Vie Est Belle (Indochine)

US: Not on the list / FR: #44

As you already know if you remember some of my previous lists, Indochine is a band I started to love right in the middle of the absolute worst years of my life. These guys had been around since the 80s as a super successful new wave band, then became very unpopular and went underground for about twelve years in the entire 90s, then one of them died, then every member except the singer basically rotated, and then they suddenly re-emerged in 2002-2003 with Paradize, a monster of an album, full of energy, sinister themes and weird provocative songs, and an entire generation of angsty teenagers (me included as you can guess) embraced it wholeheartedly.

And all of a sudden Indochine was the favorite French mainstream band of local young punk/goths! So many kids with the Indochine logo in highschool. Nowadays the band is mocked and well-loved in equal doses by just about everyone, but I suspect it’s just because we’ve all grown up.

Placebo, Linkin Park and Indochine were the bands that ruled my entire world in 2003/2004. My mother hated all three of them, because of course she did, but especially Indochine, because according to her it was partly their fault if I was gender non-conforming. See, she used to say, they had put all kinds of bad ideas in my head and now I was all messed up.

...Holy shit, that’s a lot of blame to put on a ridiculous new wave band who’s first hit song from 1983 is just a long nonsensical list of shitty old Bob Morane pulp novels.

But here’s the problem. Even if Indochine kept having hit song after hit song, those were never the best songs on their albums. Here I am, 31, making these top ten lists since last December, and becoming more and more frustrated to see none of my favorite modern Indochine songs are elligible. My favorite Paradize singles were Mao Boy, Popstitute and especially Marilyn (god, this song rocked my entire year alongside Placebo’s The Bitter End. 2003 was such a fantastic year for dark energetic hit songs)? Too bad, the biggest hits were J’ai demandé à la lune and Le Grand Secret. Alice & June had four fantastic singles? Too bad, none of them is elligible! Same thing for the entirety of Black City Parade. Oh, but that song I hate from La Republique des Météors is elligible, I guess!

So we’re in summer 2017, and my life is completely different now, and Indochine releases La Vie Est Belle (I’m linking the album version and not the music video because it has some violent themes in it). I’m in my car doing some errands and the local radio goes “hey new song from Indochine” and I’m like “oh shit, gotta hear this” and then two minutes later “oh wow, that is super good. Won’t be a hit though”.

And yet, it was a hit! It became huge, even! And at that point I was already loving that song even though I thought it was just a super good but tragic love song about a significant other dying too young.

And then, about a month later, the wordplay of the first line finally hit me with the force of a semitruck. It’s not a love song. It’s a song about the singer’s dead twin. Who died in 1999.

It’s such a devastating, beautiful song, and yet it’s full of energy. I. adore. it. It’s exactly the kind of song you need to continue to fight and to live and to help other people in this day and age. “Life is beautiful and cruel, it looks like us sometimes” indeed. And it’s one of the best on the album, too!

So yes, 15 years after I first fell in love with this band and after they helped me during super dark times, finally, I can put one of their songs at the top of one of these lists, hands down, no debate whatsoever.

That probably sounds ridiculous but it’s genuinely making me feel extremely emotional.

Next up: I thought music sucked that year because I was depressed but I relistened to it and no it wasn’t just me

[incorrecteragonquotes]

Eragon Movie Recap Part 7: Raiding Party

Prepare yourself for something shaped vaguely like a daring tale of adventure, rescue, and camaraderie.

We pick up where Part 6 left off. Eragon knows a nonzero number of things about magic. The Ra’zac are dead. Brom was a Dragon Rider back in the day. It seems that our team is finally making some good progress.

We begin back at Durza’s fort. He’s sitting at his desk, casually reading a nice, big book. We aren’t told what it is, but we do get to see a couple of pages, and there’s definitely at least one pentagram in there.

A party of Urgals enters the room, lead by that one guy whose foot Durza stabbed before putting him in charge of the operation. Presumably, they’re here to report on the failed ambush at Daret, but Durza speaks first - he already knows what happened. He is just that spooky. And he is not pleased.

Durza expresses his displeasure by poking the lead Urgal with a fingernail and waiting for him to drop dead. I would like to take a moment to observe that Durza’s fingernails bear a very strong resemblance to Galbatorix’s. Maybe they share a manicurist, or they taught each other their favourite nail care techniques over a long weekend? It seems that Durza likes to use his fingernails as an offensive magical weapon, though whether he does this to use magical fingernail properties or simply for the aesthetic is unclear.

After a few moments, the lead Urgal does indeed drop dead from the fingernail poke. Not one to waste time, Durza promotes another Urgal to team lead. The Urgal accepts this change, but is clearly nervous about being addressed directly by the spooky man. Ultimately, the Urgal just stands there looking tired.

Durza is also tired. He is tired of waiting for Eragon to die. He is tired of other people’s failure to force this event. So Durza takes matters into his own hands. Or rather, his own fingernails. He visits Arya on her table and gives her a Magic Poke Of Doom.

Meanwhile, far away, Eragon is sleeping. Suddenly, he experiences a vision of Arya unlike any he’s seen before. She’s meandering oddly around a misty, green-tinged, dream-like forest. Then, cementing this vision as different from all that came before it, Arya addresses Eragon directly. She asks him for his name and he answers, entranced. She takes a moment to inform Eragon of her plight and adds some additional infodump details for good measure. But wait! Unbeknownst to Eragon, Arya’s entire appearance was staged by Durza. With his intel planted and trap set, Durza ends the transmission.

Eragon wakes up from his info session and immediately begins preparing to leave on his new quest to rescue Arya. Brom, holding his trusty sleep knife, wakes up at the commotion. Eragon knows more now than what Brom has told him, and Brom recognizes this straight away. He questions Eragon, and tries to hold Eragon accountable for his dodging of the question, but is met with predictably poor results.

Brom tries to explain the gravity of the situation and the magnitude of the decision Eragon is making. They’ve nearly reached the Varden, but Arya is being held in Durza’s fort in Gil’ead, which is in the opposite direction. Eragon is worried that Arya will be killed if he doesn’t rescue her, but Brom reminds him that as a military operative she is prepared to die for her cause. He makes a compelling argument - all of the Varden’s sacrifices up to this point have been for Eragon’s sake, so Eragon’s plan to walk into Durza’s fort jeopardizes everything the Varden has worked for.

Eragon, naturally, fails to listen to Brom’s concerns in any meaningful capacity. Saphira tries to vouch for Brom, but is met with no more success. Eragon throws a few scathing remarks at Brom, including a claim that Brom has forgotten what it means to be Dragon Rider, before departing with Saphira, leaving Brom behind as they fly towards Gil’ead.

After soaring speedily over the countryside, our dynamic duo touch down on a rocky hill with a good view of Gil’ead. It’s unclear how long the flight took, but from the editing I’m willing to guess it was one long day of flying, which isn’t actually all too bad. What is bad is the fact that Eragon and Saphira are still disagreeing. Eragon has done some scheming, and he figures that he has to do the infiltration at night, alone. Saphira protests - after all, they can’t be much of a team if they aren’t both there - but Eragon spouts some nonsense about strength and ends the discussion.

Under the cover of night, Eragon disguises himself in a very loosely-fitting cloak and tries to blend in. Perhaps one does indeed simply walk into the enemy base. Things are going pretty smoothly, but Eragon is semi-subtly being stalked by another dude in a loosely-fitting cloak. But wait! We’ve seen him before. This is the mysterious stranger from Daret! What’s he doing? His presence here can’t be a coincidence, but does it really matter what Cloak Man is doing if Eragon consistently fails to notice him?

Before we move on, I would just like to take a moment to appreciate that Eragon’s walk into the fortress is one of the best atmospheric moments in this movie. The fort is this looming, menacing entity filled with mystery and danger. As our hero passes the point of no return, he comes to understand the meaning of this place - the lines of chained prisoners drudging their way through the corridors, the cloaked figures staring and whispering behind their masks, the torchlit hallways filled with the echoing commands of the prison wardens. It’s a very intriguing setup, and it would be amazing if only it had a little payoff.

Walking through the fortress, Eragon finds a big, circular hallway-room. He’s alone in here, so he decides that disguises are for chumps and takes off his hood. He wanders around for a bit before activating dragon-o-vision to locate Arya. What a pleasant surprise! They actually did use it more than once! Eragon draws his sword, uses magic to open to open the cell door, and is immediately greeted by Arya telling him that he really messed up.

Durza walks in and confirms Arya’s warning. He insults Eragon for a bit, talking about how underwhelming the new Dragon Rider is, and then he and Eragon begin to fight. It is immediately clear that Eragon is thoroughly outmatched.

Eragon fights with both sword and magic, but Durza fights with smoky Shade teleportation, magically flying weapons, and magically flying weapon racks. Understandably, Eragon can’t keep up. When Eragon begins to show signs of magic fatigue, Durza mocks him before dramatically launching a spear at the now-defenseless adversary.

Before the spear makes contact, however, Brom dives out of a hallway and into the spear’s path, saving Eragon by taking the blow himself. This raises a few questions. If Gil’ead was so problematically far out of the way, how did Brom get here on horseback nearly as quickly as Eragon and Saphira? They had a ludicrous speed advantage because of their flight. And surely a resourceful, experienced fighter like Brom would have a better method than this for deflecting a single spear. Why was this his first choice? This action made sense in the book because the lack of alternate options was justifiable, but this isn’t the case here. As such, Brom’s injury here strikes me as very contrived.

Eragon tries to salvage the situation by throwing Brom’s sword, Zar’roc, at Durza. Durza deflects the projectile easily and quips about Eragon’s incompetence, but wouldn’t you know it! Eragon did something smart! Eragon uses the quip time as a distraction, readying his bow and shooting Durza in the face. Defeated for now, Durza dissipates, smiling. This impressive maneuver wasn’t performed by Eragon in the book, but I guess the guy has to look useful somehow.

With Durza no longer a threat, Arya is free to move from her rock. She and Eragon support Brom as they struggle towards an exit. Soldiers are coming from every direction now, and there’s no use in attacking them. But just when things are starting to look dire, Saphira saves the day by weaponizing the ceiling. Most of the soldiers are taken out by the falling rubble, and Saphira deals with the remaining few herself.

As Arya and Brom get ready for flight, Eragon looks up to see Cloak Man on a balcony, aiming an arrow in his direction. But don’t worry! He was only aiming for a stray soldier immediately behind Eragon, not Eragon himself.

At Cloak Man’s suggestion, Saphira leaves with Eragon, Brom, and Arya. Cloak Man stays behind, but he seems to have the situation under control. Guards fire arrows at Saphira & friends as they leave. Eragon makes a big deal out of how they need to climb higher, Saphira makes a big deal out of how she can’t carry this much weight, and none of the arrows hit anyway. And so, our heroes fly out into the night, hearts heavy with their bittersweet victory.

That’s it for Part 7! This part covered about 9 minutes of screentime. So much happened this time! We got to see our first Shade Showdown, Arya got to do something new, and more exciting changes are on the horizon. As always, thank you for reading, and in particular I would like to thank you for your patience - it’s been a while, but I’m thrilled to finally be able to share this latest part with you all. And in case the sparse update schedule has you worried, I want to make it clear that the Recap will eventually be completed - I have no intention of abandoning the project early, life just gets in the way of things sometimes.

Remember to tune in next week when we visit such questions as “are evil fingernails part of the standard villain kit?”, “does Cloak Man know the secret to teleportation?”, and “who’s responsible for replacing the weapon racks in Gil’ead?”. See you then!

[incorrecteragonquotes]

Eragon Movie Recap Part 6: Crash Course

There are lessons to be learned.

Welcome back to the Eragon Movie Recap! It’s been a while since our last update, and while we’ve all grown as people in the meantime, there’s one thing we can say for certain: movie Eragon sure hasn’t. If this is your first time reading, I recommend that you start with Part 1 and work your way through the tag. If this isn’t your first time reading, welcome back! Regardless, it’s good to have you on board.

We pick up where Part 5 left off. There was a fight. Eragon did one (1) magic, causing him to lose consciousness. Saphira dropped in to help. Brom’s attempts to manage the team are getting mixed results. The team’s a disaster, sure, but it might just be enough.

We begin with a quick montage of Arya’s struggles since her first encounter with Durza. It does not look like she’s had a fun time. By this point, the repetition of this information is starting to add up into its own flavour of unpleasant. And wouldn’t you know it! This was another one of Eragon’s dreams the whole time.

Eragon wakes up, more than a little sore from the big flashy move he pulled at the end of the fight in Daret. Seeing as he and Brom are sitting on top of a hill in the middle of the day, Eragon guesses that he’s missed a few key developments. He asks Brom for the details.

Brom says that Eragon performed some magic. And by instinct, no less! Apparently this is a rare thing, even among Dragon Riders. During this whole exchange, Brom exudes some peculiar emotions - I think he’s proud, and maybe even impressed! “Flawless work 10/10” was not book Brom’s reaction to the awful strategy of “make problem go boom”, which tends to leave loose ends.

So Brom’s reaction might be a little weird. So what? it’s not nearly as weird as Eragon’s. Eragon’s face is filled with some bizarre kind of smug fascination, as though he just discovered a real-life cheat code and can’t wait to start wreaking havoc.

When Eragon asks after Saphira, Brom continues his disconcerting infodump by complimenting the strength of Eragon’s bond with his dragon. Eragon gets all excited as he asks if his magic killed the Urgals that ambushed them the previous night. Brom confirms this in the same tone before immediately shifting gears, changing course to the metropolis of mixed messages.

Having finally disembarked from Eragon’s hype train, Brom launches into a quick overview of magic. He gives Eragon a warning. Explains the dangers. Begins a proper lesson. He explains magic’s connection to the ancient elven language, and gives a brief vocabulary lesson, resulting in a peculiar selection of words - primarily describing things that Eragon found in arm’s reach and felt compelled to ask about. Brom also vaguely references the concepts of true names and energy costs, which was a pleasant surprise, before immediately glossing over them in favour of introducing dragon-o-vision, which is treated as important for some reason.

Since the events in Daret wrecked their old plan, Brom has gone ahead and made some changes. Saphira arrives to help him explain: Eragon should cover much of the distance by flying. Eragon expresses some hesitation at this - after all, the one time he tried was a pretty solid failure - but Saphira’s admission that it was also her fault is all it takes to get him rearing to go.

With Eragon seated securely in the shiny new saddle (they do mention that Brom acquired it, which it’s good to know they thought about), Saphira approaches the edge of a nearby cliff. Eragon manages to get in a cocky one-liner before seeing the distance between the clifftop and the ground far, far below. He screams as Saphira jumps off. But after a few seconds of not dying, Eragon gets a handle on things and starts to enjoy the flight. He has to lean to help Saphira steer, and while airborne shenanigans do ensue, they are much less extreme than the ones that happened during the flight over Carvahall. All the while, Brom follows the pair on horseback, laughing. He shouts advice at them as they fly by.

Saphira tries showing off, and Eragon repeatedly comes close to falling. While discussing various Dragon Features, Saphira tells Eragon that, apparently, Real Dragon Riders™ can “fight from everywhere, even from the tail”. How is this helpful? We don’t get to know. Eragon tries to give tail riding a go, but concludes that he isn’t ready. Rare wisdom from him. Interestingly, the tail riding may have been foreshadowed by some of the shenaniganry during the flight above Carvahall, though this might be giving the writers too much credit.

Eragon instead settles for activating dragon-o-vision, as described by Brom. The movie communicates its activation partly by showing the world through a dragon-o-vision lens, and partly by showing Eragon with weird - and arguably unsettling - visual effects on his eyes. Eragon thinks it’s cool, and Saphira one-ups the experience by activating the zoom-and-enhance feature.

Looking around, Eragon and Saphira spot Brom through the trees, conveniently highlighted in red. Also highlighted in red are the Ra’zac, which are quickly closing in on him. For me, this raises a few questions. Why are the Ra’zac highlighted in Saphira’s vision? If they were tracked automatically, why has she not noticed them before? If tracking is automatic in general, why are these three figures the only things highlighted at all? If tracking is manual, how did she start highlighting them if she didn’t know they were there? If she retained tracking from a previous encounter, then she should have already seen them. Maybe they were indirectly highlighted by Brom, who was already being tracked. Or maybe the much-lauded dragon-o-vision isn’t so reliable. The exact workings of this bizarre spy display are not terrifically important, but it bothers me that any in-universe explanation for this weird convenience is left unclear. Then again, maybe the in-universe explanation is “because dragons”.

On the ground, the Ra’zac abandon the element of surprise in favour of doing a spooky parkour demo. Maybe they’re trying to intimidate Brom? Intimidated or otherwise, Brom sees them and immediately recognizes the situation for what it is: an ambush. He commands Eragon to keep out of the conflict, but Eragon and Saphira are already on their way, and they won’t be persuaded to stop.

As Eragon and Saphira descend into the forest, the Ra’zac jump out to attack, catching them off-guard. I don’t know how the Ra’zac managed this, seeing as they should still have been tracked by Saphira’s dragon-o-vision. As for Saphira herself, she meets her most threatening adversary yet: trees. Not even the really solid old ones, just… average trees.

Eragon, meanwhile, is facing his own adversary. One of the Ra’zac has him pinned to the ground, but it proves to be no match for our new master of magic. Eragon summons a tree branch to do his bidding (using a word he learned less than five minutes ago) and the Ra’zac gets absolutely wrecked. By a tree. Eragon’s attacker is dead now, because of a tree. I think we may have discovered the most dangerous entities in this entire story!

With only one Ra’zac left, Eragon moves to check on Saphira. She’s in a bit of a tough spot on the forest floor, but she’s regained some perception and gives Eragon enough warning to evade a sudden attack from the final Ra’zac. But just as their fight is about to begin, a newcomer enters the scene. It’s Brom! Using that weirdly-coloured sword he brought from his house in Carvahall, he shows off some impressive sword skills. After a brief scuffle, Brom stands triumphant over the defeated Ra’zac, watching his opponent disintegrate into a torrent of bugs at his feet.

With the conflict over, Eragon stares at Brom, seeing him in a new light. Some gears are turning in his head, but he doesn’t say anything as Brom’s sword gleams in the sunlight.

Before we move on, let’s take a moment to notice that the Ra’zac are dead now. This is not what happened in the book.Their presence later on in the books is key to the story. But they’re both dead now, so they can’t be there. I suppose they could be replaced - Durza summoned them out of thin air, after all, or maybe it was dead leaves, or maybe it was a massive swarm of insects. It doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that they’re replaceable. The Ra’zac were especially significant in the book because they, personally, caused so much grief through their own actions. Not Galby, not long-distance Durza. It was the Ra’zac. But now, they might as well have no will of their own. Even if Roran does return to Carvahall, even if he does get chased back out by a pair of Ra’zac, they will not be the creatures that killed his father. They will not be the ones that destroyed his farm. They will not be the ones who threatened his cousin for so long. Even if that specific pair is brought back, that ship has sailed. If re-summoning does bring back the same creatures, then their defeat has no meaning. They are no longer vanquishable foes. But regardless of what the future holds, this scene reduces the Ra’zac to generic, faceless monsters. Any chance they had at being actual characters - at least in the story this movie is telling - is long gone.

Some time passes, and Brom and Eragon tend to Saphira’s wounds. Those trees got her good! Brom is thoroughly displeased with Eragon and Saphira’s disregard for personal safety. Saphira’s attempt to play it cool only sets him off further, but Eragon takes the opportunity to throw Brom’s own philosophy back at him: “better to ask forgiveness than permission”. Would you look at that! It did come back!

When the first aid ends, Eragon corners Brom to pursue a suspicion that I assume is what he was thinking about after Brom’s sword fight. Quoting their previously-established no-lie policy, Eragon slices one of Brom’s hand-wrap fingerless-glove things. This reveals his palm, and wouldn’t you know it! Brom was a Dragon Rider the whole time!

Strangely, the mark on Brom’s palm is the same shape as Eragon’s, even though Eragon’s is shaped like the stylized “e” from the movie’s title. The movie is named after him, so this almost makes sense for his mark, but not so much for Brom’s. Sensible or otherwise, I digress. Realizing that the jig is up, Brom sets into a weird sort of sentimental mood, and clarifies that his riderhood is a thing of the past. When asked, Brom informs the party, without ceremony, that his dragon is long dead. He launches into a story about the man who killed her - a Rider named Morzan.

Brom describes the details - the weirdly-coloured sword he wielded earlier is the very blade that killed his dragon years before. Its name is Zar’roc, and it belonged to Morzan. After his dragon’s death, Brom tracked Morzan down, killed him with his own blade, and watched as Morzan’s dragon perished with him. No more Rider, no more Dragon. That’s a rule now, remember? Once his work was done, Brom moved to Carvahall and kept his head down. Interestingly, I think that’s the first time this movie has referred to Carvahall by name. It’s possible that I missed an earlier use of the name, but in case I didn’t, I would like to point out that we are more than halfway through this movie’s runtime.

This story is told entirely through Brom’s words. Sure, he makes some gestures for illustration, and sure, there’s a bit of background music, but I don’t think that’s the best this film could have done with this tale’s delivery. This would have been a prime opportunity for a flashback montage similar to the one in the prologue. But even if we keep the visuals as they are, adding a soundscape to illustrate the events Brom describes would add so much to the scene. I think it would have been really neat, and would draw the viewer in, keeping them on their toes. But even without that, I have to respect Jeremy Irons’s delivery of the text. As always, his storytelling carries the scene. At this point, maybe scene is the wrong word - we could just call it an infodump. Either way, good job, dude!

Through this whole movie, the discussion of the relationship and power dynamic between Dragons and their Riders has been a little strange. The way people talk about Dragons, it’s easy to think that they are prioritized over their Riders. But during Brom’s story, he mentions how his Dragon sacrificed her life to save his, and everyone seems to agree with Saphira’s remark of “better we than our Riders”. And I suppose that’s true in this movie, since the Rider’s death causes the Dragon to die anyway. But I can’t help but wonder if they would still see things that way if the Dragon/Rider mutual death pact didn’t exist.

Brom tells Eragon and Saphira that he always felt deep shame for killing Morzan’s dragon - the last one, not counting Galby’s - and ending an era. This suggests that he believes that an era that only has evil Dragon/Rider teams is preferable over an era with no Dragon/Rider teams at all, which doesn’t seem quite right. But now we learn why Brom has chosen to be so tolerant of Eragon’s poor decisions: since Eragon and Saphira are here, there’s a new Dragon/Rider team on the scene! The dark times are over - Brom can finally let go of his guilt.

That’s it for Part 6! This part covered about 10 minutes of screentime. We got some peculiar developments in the story this time. Several almost-deaths. Even so, it felt a little light on eventfulness. But Part 7 does not have that problem at all. I’m looking forward to it, and I hope you are too! Thank you all for reading, and I would like to apologize for the unplanned hiatus. Real life - you know how it is.

Remember to tune in next week when we visit such questions as “what are the exact specifications of dragon-o-vision?”, “where did all the Ra’zac’s bugs go?”, and “will the trees be the real winners of this war?”. See you then!

[incorrecteragonquotes]

Eragon Movie Recap Part 4: Great Responsibility

So. Much. Arguing.

We pick up where Part 3 left off. Saphira’s big. Eragon is taking inspiration from a story Brom told about dragons. Brom himself is being disruptive. The Ra’zac are on the loose, hunting for the new Rider.

Under the cover of darkness, Eragon sneaks into Brom’s house. Does some snooping. Opens a book. There are fancy metallic dragon figurines on the cover. Eragon finds a page with a griffin picture, and stares at it as though it were informative. I would like to take this moment to remind you that Book Eragon is confirmed to have been extremely illiterate at this point in the story.

Brom isn’t too happy about being snooped on by some snot-nosed kid. Grumpy, he decides to perform a jumpscare. Eragon doesn’t care. He’s busy asking unsubtle questions about Brom’s dragon story. Brom isn’t feeling very welcoming, so he tells Eragon to put his head in the dirt.

Confusingly, Brom also makes a point of stating his philosophy of “better to ask forgiveness than permission”. That’s a bit of a mixed message in this context, and Eragon immediately tries to exploit it. I wonder if it’ll come up again. Regardless, Eragon doesn’t like Brom’s attitude, so he tries throwing insults at the problem. After a bit more arguing, he finally leaves.

Alone at last, Brom takes a few moments to ponder. Resolving to take some sort of action, he digs out a bundle of unusual belongings and retrieves a suspiciously coloured sword.

As he walks through the town at night, Eragon hears some weird noises. This is strange; the town is fairly deserted, and what people he does see appear to be in something of a hurry. He tracks the sounds to their source. Through gaps in a wall of the offending building, Eragon sees Sloan being threatened and hurt by the Ra’zac. They want information, and what luck! They found the one and only person who would know!

Sloan tells the Ra’zac how to find Eragon. Unable to pull a cardboard box out of thin air to help him complete his stealth mission, Eragon settles for hiding under a table just in time to avoid being noticed.

As soon as the threat passes, Eragon runs home so he can stop the Ra’zac from finding his uncle. Along the way, Saphira picks him up and flies off into the sky so that she can stop the Ra’zac from finding him, instead. Eragon is displeased by this change in plans. They argue for a tense few moments, and high-altitude shenanigans ensue.

Saphira calls Eragon out on his stupidity but eventually concedes, dropping him in a haystack beside his house. But it’s too late! Garrow has been Uncle Ben’d. Eragon blames this development on Saphira and sends her away. She obliges in a huff as a thunderstorm brews up in the distance.

After a few seconds, Brom walks in. Upset, Eragon tries to attack the newcomer, but he is very promptly subdued. Brom sees Eragon’s weird hand scab and deduces everything immediately. He seems surprised, displeased, and more than a little offended that this guy is the One Rider To Save The Land.

Brom sets his feelings aside and works to resolve the current crisis. Eragon is having none of it, and won’t listen to Brom any more than he listened to Saphira. Not one to be so easily defeated, Brom isn’t having any of Eragon’s own excuses, either. He wants to bury his uncle? Well, since the uncle is inside the house, how about we burn the house down? Problem solved! Not equipped with sufficient retorts to combat arson, Eragon lets Brom drag him away.

As the storm breaks, Eragon wants to know why he should even trust Brom with his safety, much less his dragon. Brom doesn’t want to tell him. Eragon does not win this argument.

By the time they stop, they’re in the middle of the forest, and it has long since stopped raining. Eragon is very tired from riding his horse. When questioned, Brom shows that he subscribes to the “because I said so” school of reasoning. Eragon, still miffed at being forcibly prevented from helping his uncle, decides to stir up another verbal fight.

Brom tries to impress upon Eragon the magnitude of the threat they just escaped. Eragon insists without so much as a second thought that he could have killed the Ra’zac himself and then had time for tea. Brom, a professional nonsense dealer, handles all of this masterfully, but his use of silly things like knowledge and logic is no match for our hero. The discussion eventually escalates into a proper argument: in a fight between Eragon and the Ra’zac, who would win? Everybody place your bets!

Through everything, Brom maintains control of the discussion until he makes one small error: he cites Eragon’s age as a source of weakness. This itself isn’t a mistake; younger people are generally less strong, less experienced, less trained, and so forth. All disadvantages in a fight against magic assassins. The actual problem is with the number Brom guesses. Exuding a strong sense of “this is the most disgusting and offensive thing anyone has ever said to me in my entire life”, Eragon forcefully informs Brom that the correct number is, in fact, seventeen, rather than the suggested fifteen or sixteen. This is another book inaccuracy - Book Eragon had his sixteenth birthday during events of the first volume.

Carefully abandoning the topic of age, Brom tries a different angle. Apparently, the Ra’zac aren’t even the real problem. That particular honour belongs to some guy named Durza. Determined to avoid learning anything from people who are clearly more experienced than he is, Eragon resolves aloud to go beat up Durza instead. Explaining that Durza is a Shade, Brom finally crosses the argumentative finish line. One does not simply go beat up a Shade.

Ready to take a risk, Brom decides to introduce the topic of the Varden, those feisty rebels, insisting that he and Eragon pay them a visit. Unfortunately, this was a poor risk to take, and Eragon insists that Brom tell him how he knows all of the Varden’s juicy deets. Cornered, Brom admits to having been a feisty rebel himself, once upon a time.

Brom asks Eragon to call Saphira. Since agreement must by this point be punishable by death, they have a quick spat about instating a no-lie policy, before Eragon deigns to comply. Saphira promptly reveals that she never actually left. If you forgot that this separation happened, I don’t blame you; it was barely mentioned, and according to runtime it only lasted 6 minutes. Together once again, Eragon and Saphira reconcile. Saphira seizes her opportunity to growl at Brom a few times. Finally introduced to the dragon, Brom makes a rather knowledgeable appraisal of Saphira’s physical state, which fails to impress her until he ends it with an unambiguous compliment.

In case we might be getting anxious waiting for our next infodump, it is once again exposition o’clock! Eragon has resolved to never ride his dragon again because of that action’s connection to his uncle’s death. Brom starts up a discussion by playing the destiny card. In a brief moment of sense, Eragon remembers that he didn’t ask for any of this drama. No dragons, no murder, no Shades. But there’s no escape - the king is hunting him now. Apparently, Galbatorix wants Saphira dead. Saphira confirms that the death of her Rider will inevitably and immediately lead to her own demise. Therefore, since Eragon is very easy to kill, he’ll be the one in more immediate danger. Even Galby likes to kill two birds with one stone, and the more literally this happens, the happier he’ll be.

Additionally, the Dragon/Rider mutual death pact issue is one-sided, so Eragon doesn’t suffer from the same handicap. It’s a movie-exclusive rule, so he really dodged a bullet there. And, lest we forget, this whole wanting-Saphira-dead thing that Galby’s doing right now is very much in contradiction with later books.

With their problems clearly laid out before them, and the daily argument quota met at least three times over, Brom, Eragon, and Saphira end their discussion on a tense note.

That’s it for Part 4! So many of the events in this segment could be summarized as “they argue a bunch, someone gets offended, also there’s exposition?” and it was hard to strike a balance between information, commentary, and brevity. I hope the end result is still fun to read. This part covered about 12 minutes of screentime. That’s the longest one yet, by quite a margin! I sure hope we’re past the halfway point on the expository infodump front. But only time will tell, and it will probably do so in a dense and uninteresting fashion.

Remember to tune in next week when we visit such questions as “what are Carvahall’s legal consequences for agreeing on things?”, “how long will it take Eragon to teach Brom that logic is meaningless?”, and “is Saphira secretly a radioactive spider?”. See you then!