yesterday I was explaining the intricacies of lok to my friend who has only seen atla, and he (like the rest of us) just couldn’t get over the fact that they made toph a cop. he was trying to figure out what about toph’s personality (you know, considering that it’s entirely antithetical to becoming someone who acts as an agent of the state to enforce systemic violence) would lead the writers to this conclusion. and it occurred to me that I do think many people, even those who vehemently denounce toph’s copness, do sort of assume that toph loves violence for the sake of violence. she is introduced as saying “I love fighting, and im really really good at it,” and she is shown committing various acts of violence against others (including her friends) with a grin on her face. but I still wouldn’t characterize toph as someone who employs violence for violence’s sake.
toph is, externally, defined by her limits. she is small, she is blind, she is young, she is a girl; she was raised to be soft and delicate and helpless. toph’s first true expression of freedom is when she learns to use her disability as a boon and uses her earthbending not as a weapon, but as an extension of herself. to toph, earthbending is a form of self-expression. it is an artform. I think people tend to forget that when toph says that she loves fighting, she’s not just saying that she loves the thrill of beating arrogant, gigantic, muscled men thrice her size (although of course there is also that), but she’s also saying that she loves practicing a martial art for artistry’s sake.
unlike the boulder, who only listens to his big muscles, toph waits, listens, innovates, creates, hones her craft. and while her earthbending is indeed a martial art, it is also a site of innovation, a visual art, and most importantly, a disability aid. the earth is an extension of herself; it is her artistic medium. yes, of course toph does love being able to exert power over others as a ragefilled tiny twelve year old blind girl who has been denied agency her entire life, but power is not her primary motivation when honing her earthbending. she cares about craft, about innovation, about being one with the earth. unlike all the other earth rumblers and dai li agents and earth kingdom soldiers, toph is a deliberate, thoughtful, considerate earthbender. fighting is an art, and toph is an artist.
Grian is a danger to have on your team not because he'll kill with no problems (well, he will probably do that) but because he has a way of subtly convincing people to do the stupidest thing imaginable. Things that normally you'd think "What?? That's stupid! I'm gonna die!" but Grian is like "let's play a game!" And everyone is always like "alright," And he'll say "Let's all get eachother with a fishing rod and I'll push you of this high pillar" in Double Life or, in the first Limited Life episode "Let's dig straight down!" or "Let's set fire to the building and who lasts longer wins ;)" and the people, who should know he's the person with most kill counts on the whole series, still go “that sounds like a perfectly reasonable and fun game. I'm in!"
one of my favorite things about zedaph is that on a server full of people that find strange and oft-overlooked minecraft mechanics or rare events and then see just how far they can push them in the name of spectacle or efficiency or world-breaking, zed is over here finding these mechanics in order to do the weirdest things he can think of in as entertaining a manner as possible
like i 100% have faith in zedaph's theoretical ability to be just as efficient or spectacular or world-breaking. if he wanted to do that stuff, i trust that he absolutely could. but thats so far from being his priority. instead, hes going to spend around a week of irl time focused entirely on eventually having the good luck to spawn in something insanely rare so that he can convert it into something even rarer, the result of which being something that 99% of the server reacts with complete and utter shock that it even exists in the first place, just because its zany and funny and he wanted to. and i love that
The "Sansa reminds Sandor of his sister" motive that some people try to hitch to his character really just flies in the face of his actual attachments to her, doesn't it? Sansa reminds Sandor of himself. He sees the little boy who used to love knights in this girl who's been swept up by the same romanticism. He sees his abuser in her abusers, the much larger knight(s) beating on the helpless child. He sees how she is betrayed by every level of authority that should have saved her and remembers his father's neglect and Tywin and Robert's apathy for Gregor's crimes. He's protective of Sansa because he was Sansa.
And GRRM's design, that one of the strongest warriors in the series, a fearsome and cynical 6'8" guy who's "muscled like a bull" and has the face of death itself, sees himself in this soft and effeminate teen girl, and empathizes with her because he was an abuse victim too, is INFINITELY more compelling than "Oh yeah I bet she just reminds him of his sister," who he's never mentioned and who we know literally nothing about. Way to unnecessarily water down a character, you couldn't have ignored the black and white text more efficiently if you tried.
It’s part of how I accidentally screwed up act 1 to an insane degree, but I’ve never had Gale in my party to where I’ve had to use him in combat. This unintentionally made him the funniest bitch in the game. He’s some bum that just hangs out in my camp lamenting about his ex, talking about how much he loves his cat, and asking for very expensive items with no material benefit to the team. World’s most unemployed man.
obviously, it's established that acheron is a variant of raiden mei. her real name is not actually acheron (confirmed through the livestream, but...come on, we all already knew that). specifically, there's loads of similarities in her design to the herrscher of thunder above all else
similar hair structure, hair part, n hairpiece (n obviously the color, too),
sword structure, patterns, n nearly identical handles,
one "red" arm,
the bust/halter,
and of course, the color scheme as shown in acheron's "emanator" form, n the horns shown in the livestream
with all that in mind, i imagine acheron is a variant of mei who failed to save the person closest to her (her kiana, to simplify it), n/or watched them die, or even killed them herself. it's shown during her dance with black swan that there was obviously someone important to her in her past, conflict arose in a setting much like the one featured in the livestream, n there's even imagery of her walking alone with only the moon in the sky to keep her company
kiana has been associated with the moon n moon imagery since the flyme2themoon days; her origin was quite literally a game about blasting off to the moon
this teaser resembles thunders over nagazora to me, as well as mei watching kiana's end in honkai gakuen
there's also the fact that the type of emanator acheron is, an emanator of nihility, is classified as a self-annihilator; those who have felt the pull of nihility n been unable to escape drowning in it. self-annihilator's take the meaning of nihility to heart, so much so that it erodes their bodies n memories
acheron has been confirmed as the self-annihilator type in her character introduction posted recently. what really strikes me about this line is the phrasing of "existence is nothing"
sounds familiar, doesn't it?
mei is characterized by the tragedies in her life, n how they impact her. growing up isolated, a kidnapping at a young age, bullying at school, suicidal tendencies, n the constant reminder that the girl she loves more than anything in the world will always put the overall well being of humanity over herself
to me, acheron is a mei shaped by loss. the mei we remember from hi3 had the chance to grow n change; to learn from her mistakes, n to fight for a better world, bc she had the support of her friends n her most important person. acheron doesn't seem to have that level of support from anyone, at least not anyone still in her life currently
which brings me to my next point. she HAD a "kiana," but ultimately lost her. n this is the result
acheron is incredibly powerful, but her power seems incredibly volatile. she carries this innate sadness with her wherever she goes, n the very path she walks n the very aeon she became an avatar of strips life of all meaning, all the beauty from the world
it's a far cry from the mei we know, bc clearly, there was a very pivotal change in her development that i can only attribute to the loss of her world's "kiana"
Y'know I always smirk when I see your transformers art. Bc well- an 'Etho account' getting into transformers when it's Etho's favourite game franchise. On brand.
Hahaha very true 🤣 It was fate I suppose!
One of my favorite Etho clips is him freaking out over a call he got, letting him know the Transformers Fall of Cybertron game released a demo ( which this meme is referencing 😂) Here's the clip ⬇️ LOUD ETHO WARNING
This is from OOGE Vinyl Fantasy ep 19 Here at 6:23 roughly :3