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failbettergames · 1 month

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You dream of rain. You dream that the ink that is your flesh is running off the page, smeared into dark rivulets on the vellum. When you wake, you can still feel a stiffness in your back; as if your spine is being held tautly by yarn.

In the dark of the cabin, your mind enumerates sensations as your eyes adjust: The sway of the gondola. The vibration from the engine in the starboard nacelle above you, rattling slightly – still no replacement for the broken fuel intake.

The noise of water rapping against a porthole window.

Hello, delicious friends. It appears that time, very disrespectfully, has chosen to march on until it is very nearly April. The time has come to talk about our major future plans for Fallen London.

A new major storyline

Firmament is Fallen London’s next major expansion, a main story arc that adds on to the game’s ongoing progression. Acquire an airship – permanently, this time. Fly to the Roof. Explore the stalactite fields ruled by the Starved Men, the carved paths of the Moon-MIsers, the inverted jungles of the Antipelago, and more.

This expansion focuses on the Roof. Just like the unterzee gets stranger and darker as you zail away from familiar shores, so do the upper airs of the Neath contain more than what you know about. As these castles on the ceiling open to you, you will learn more.

Firmament will launch over the course of April, with a prologue becoming available on April 11th, and the full first chapter on April 18th.

While Firmament is in some ways a follow-up to the Railway storyline, we are aware of how long it takes to get to the very end of the game’s (current) highest-level story. When Firmament launches, you will be able to start it as long as you have already begun the Railway storyline and reached Ealing. While you will need to advance your railway further to access the latter parts of Firmament, there should be ample time to catch up on the Railway in between Firmament chapters.

New mechanics

The Railway arc added new advanced skills. During the Zeefarer cycle we added revamped Zee travel and the new Boon/Burden mechanic. This set of updates comes with its own mechanical expansions to the game.

New item slots

Airships make their return as full-fledged items. Much like zeefaring ships, they serve you mostly in air travel – Aerial Prowess and Aerial Armament also make their return. But we’re also adding a few other item slots, while we’re at it.

Adornment includes all manner of jewellery and accessories – rings, necklaces, earrings, neckties, brooches, and more. Previously, items in this vein would appear in slots like Gloves or Clothing, leading to the somewhat odd mental image of wearing your Pendant of Helicon Amber and nothing else. With this update, these items gain their own space, enabling more player expression and empowering players to reach slightly higher stats.

Several existing items will be shifted to the Adornment slot, slightly buffing them by allowing them to stack with other existing items. Adornment is intended to be a part of the game from relatively early on – around the later parts of Making Your Name. A new Bazaar store, selling Adornments, will be added in a future update.

Crew is a complement to both ships and airships. We’ve long wanted to give ship crews (distinct from the vessels themselves) a bit more personality. Are they experienced or green? Are they Admiralty men through and through, or a band of privateers and villains? These kinds of concepts never really fit the Companion or Affiliation slots, so we are creating a purposeful slot for them.

Crews will be made available in a future update, initially accessible to players who have a ship.

Luggage may seem like a slightly odd addition, but so much of Fallen London, and Victorian fiction in general, is about travel and the mystique of travel. A battered steamer trunk that’s been everywhere. A briefcase full of secrets. Phileas Fogg’s carpetbag. Luggage is intended as a midgame slot. In a future update, you will be able to assemble some initial Luggage items in the Bazaar Side-Streets.

New Skills

We are conscious of not adding too much complexity to the game, especially not all at once. Firmament doesn’t add a full suite of new skills, like the Railway. It adds one new skill, and two new qualities of a somewhat skill-like nature.

Chthonosophy, the study of the root of things, has already been teased – but you’ve not really been able to obtain it, thus far. It is the major new skill for Firmament, playing a role similar to the role Zeefaring had in Evolution.

Inerrant and Insubstantial join Neathproofed as its two other counterparts. Like Neathproofed, these will appear more as additive benefits; they help your checks with other skills, more so than being checked in themselves. They exist to add a little extra, to help differentiate otherwise-similar items, and to act as an occasional bonus. As part of Firmament, we are pushing to make more use of Neathproofed, and carve out that space for its new counterparts, also.

Roof Travel

I won’t go into too many details about Roof travel, other than to set expectations. Yes, there is a new map. No, Roof travel is not quite a fully-fledged activity like zailing is.

We aimed it at a sort of middle ground between Railway travel (which is convenient and fairly predictable) and Zee travel (which is a whole venture unto itself.) Traveling from point to point on the Roof mostly takes one action; very occasionally, two. But it is drastically more variable than rail travel. There’s a broad variety of different things you can encounter in the upper airs of the Neath. And as you progress this storyline, you will encounter stranger things as you travel through the air.

And other delights…

Of course, we have other things planned for the rest of 2024. Our usual festivals will run as usual. A new Estival. Monthly Exceptional Stories. Various other surprises, including a series of more grounded new stories set in London. But we’ll talk about these things in detail sometime after Whitsun, which should take place, as usual, in May.

#fallen london #firmament

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raven-at-the-writing-desk · 8 months

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savanaclaw light novel: the importance of introspection

I’ve previously discussed how TWST benefits from telling us the same story across different mediums. Different mediums provide different benefits over others, and some can “patch up” rougher bits of story or add more detail to them. The game is interactive and serves as a baseline for most new content. The manga is able to have far more freedom of movement and expression due to being visual-heavy. And last, but not least, a light novel, which is mostly text, has the boon of letting us see more of each character’s thoughts and feelings. We can elaborate on what the game already established and understand the characters on a deeper level.

I would say that the light novel’s format will most benefit the OB boys, as they are the ones who will go through the biggest character arcs in the main story. Because the game’s story is told via mostly dialogue and some sound effects, we rarely, if ever, get a clear understanding of what the OB boys are truly thinking and feeling outside of their brief post-OB flashbacks. The same goes for the manga, which has limited pages to tell its story, so it has to keep a certain pace. But a light novel? Well, you can go ham there with an omniscient narrator.

Today, I want to talk about Leona’s expanded post-OB introspection in the second volume of the light novel as an example of this. Then I will combine it with the information we have from the game and see how the light novel complements what already we know of his character thanks to hindsight. (I’ll be referencing this fan translation if you want to read and follow along!)

First thing’s first! From the game, we know that Leona enrolled in Night Raven College one year late (and then got held back a year, which makes sense considering he is 20 in the main story present). He didn't find a use in attending school since he, by royal birth, was able to afford all the best tutors in the world and didn't think NRC had anything left to teach him. In Leona's Birthday Boy vignettes, he further specifies that he decided to enroll at NRC after Cheka was born. As Leona says in his post-OB flashback in-game, Cheka's birth means "the despised second son loses what little claim he had to the throne forever", essentially putting an end to his hopes. This would imply that this specific change in circumstance was the push that made Leona want to physically distance himself from home. Furthermore, it's supported by Leona's other behaviors: he does not take calls or read letters from home if he can help it (implied by Cheka asking why Leona doesn't answer his letters and Cheka calling on Halloween night to catch up with him; Leona lies and quickly hangs up), he makes excuses to avoid going home (as Kifaji states), etc. If we want to extrapolate even more, how is it that Leona, second born prince, initially crossed paths with Ruggie, who was born and raised in the slums (which, I imagine, must be quite some distance away from the royal palace)? This makes me think that even before Leona enrolled at NRC he would leave his housing and roam around, finding alternative places to stay because home just felt too uncomfortable and suffocating for him. There's also the implication that Leona often brooded over his circumstances, as he confesses to thinking about it and going to NRC to get his mind away from the tired cycle--although he also acknowledges that he's running away from "the pain" of having lost the throne.

The distancing would prove itself to be beneficial to his mental health, as Leona cites that his heart started feeling lighter, his restlessness dulled, and his pain numbed. With the throne out of sight, so, too, was it out of mind, and his longing softened. But that same haunting despair returns when another group starts to place expectations on him. This time, it's no longer the palace servants, but his own dorm members. Instead of fear and derision, his new pack looks at him, their "king", with desperateness--and, more importantly, hope. Speaking about the future with sparkling eyes. That, in turn, made Leona hopeful too. He can't let these people who look up to him and rely on him down, so he must do anything to win. That's all he ever wanted: to win, just this once. No matter what, he wants to win.

But when Leona's plans crumble, that crushing sense of despair rears its ugly head. He fails. And he suddenly understands that all his efforts will always amount to nothing, that they will always be meaningless, that there is no future for him. Leona's hopes have been dashed. He has been struck down by the world once again, just as he had started to climb up, fighting tooth and nail, to prove himself. Yet when defeat came, he also claims it doesn't bother him as much as he thought he would--perhaps because he's so accustomed to not winning, because maybe this is the outcome he had expected all along in the deepest recesses of his heart. That familiar disappointment begins to hurt him once more, and Leona wants to forget it all, to retreat to the shadows and to lick his wounds, to be far away from that pain.

One interesting new detail we glean from the light novel is that Leona is terrified by his dorm mates staring at him with hopeful eyes. It's not their expectations he's inherently scared of, but what those expectations can do to him. Leona is scared of himself, of being motivated by others to act, to never give up hope, when he still anticipates being beat down again and again by a world that rejects him and denies him. He even goes so far as to say he would be pathetic if he let his dorm mates' words inspire him and keep his waning hope alive. Ruggie, who had wanted to turn the world upside down together. Jack, who was inspired by his play three years back. All the mobs putting faith in their futures on him, their one and only leader. With so many people looking to him, how can he not be swayed by that positivity that had once been so elusive to him? How could that not ignite what little spark of hope is left in him? And that's exactly what Leona finds so dangerous about it. He's lived almost his entire life being put in his place, hurt every time he tried to demonstrate what he could do, how he could contribute--yet time and time again, here comes life, tempting him to try again, just to inevitably be compared to his brother and kicked down, delivering another blow to his pride and his self-image. Leona truly seems to hate himself for not being able to let go of that small fragment of hope he has left. He wants so badly to give up and not have to worry anymore about something he can never obtain. He's so tired of struggling and suffering for nothing. If he just caved, then he would never be hurt again. He can't be hurt if he doesn't care about anything. Yet no matter how much he wishes or tries, he can't run far enough away to detach himself from those expectations of grandeur, of being something more.

There's been many fan theories about Leona's mental health in circulation well before the release of this light novel, many of which mention self-loathing in spite of how proud and confident he typically presents as. You'd have to read in-between the lines of dialogue from the game to draw these clues out, whereas the light novel lays it more bare to you. It hits very differently reading hateful statements made by the character to himself. Leona calls himself all sorts of things: a fool, pathetic, insignificant, boring. That he isn't strong, that he isn't wise, that he's not loved. (In the in-game flashback, Leona also talks in a self-deprecating way, but to a far lesser extent than in the light novel; we also see that Falena does his best to discourage Leona from this kind of behavior.) That this is who he is, that it's the one thing he's afraid to admit and accept--but he also says he lacks the "strength" to give up. That's why Leona would rather run away than confront that potential truth. The option to embrace complete nihilism just isn't possible for him, because he can't just quash that pesky little thing called hope. This is much more complex than what's explained in the games and demonstrates a maturity and degree of self-reflection from Leona that we've never seen before. What's more, this gives us brand new context with which to view many of his other seemingly mundane actions mentioned in the game. At face value, Leona often acts very callously and doesn't care to help others unless he gets some kind of benefit from it (like agreeing to poof the contracts in book 3 just because he has his own deal he wants to get rid of). We see this time and time again when he instructs others reliant on him or less knowledgeable than he is in various matters where he is well-read and experienced with. For example, he takes note of his club members' strengths and weaknesses and offers tailored advice to help them improve their play. He tells others how to mine magestones of an adequate size in Vargas Camp. Maybe he's just doing these things to make the circumstances easier for himself (so he can put forth less effort to leading them in a game, or so he can nap heartily). But from what we've just learned from the light novel, now I'm suspecting a different secondary motive.

What if... Leona is, in part, encouraging and helping others to hone their own skills to subconsciously compensate for what he doesn't believe he himself is capable of? Because there's still so much hope for his dorm mates, for his underclassmen... (and, let's not forget, it was those in Savanaclaw that first motivated Leona to "try" again for the first time in forever) but he doesn't have that same amount of hope for himself. I get these vibes as late as book 6, when Leona and Jamil have a talk. In their conversation, Leona directs many pointed, blunt words at Jamil--words that could very easily also be thrown back at Leona's face and be applicable to his book 2 self. He accuses Jamil of making excuses so he won't have to actually act, just as Leona has continuously run away from uncomfortable situations to put himself at ease. At one point, I believe Leona event states that Jamil “*isn’t like [me]”, Here, again, it can be argued that we're seeing Leona's self-awareness on display, as well as a willingness to warn others to not follow down the same path he once treaded, to lose all hope in the future. Again, it's done with a double purpose: the other one being to get Jamil out of his way while they're exploring. And (of course) Leona's way of expressing his message is gruff and not very warm, not to Jamil and certainly not to himself. He's become prickly and defensive himself after all of his experiences--but that just adds to the complexity of his character when we synthesize what we know of him from TWST multimedia.

I really wish a lot of what was in the light novel post-Leona OB was also in the game. It would have helped to flesh out Leona's motivations and fears, which book 2 was sorely needing. As he is presented now, he appears shallow and selfish in his goals, and we don't fully understand the emotions spurring him on, a lot of which is genuine self-loathing and the sinking despair that comes with thinking you're not enough and you'll never be enough. That would have been so much more relatable than the in-game Leona having himself a pity party with a great amount of emphasis on the throne--a throne which, in actuality, just symbolizes a desire for recognition, love, and acceptance. It was never about explicitly being king. It was about being seen as his own person and appreciated for it instead of being admonished and compared to his exalted older brother.

Now, as an adult, Leona has become someone who pushes away those who try to give him that which he craves. He sees a lot of people--his own family and his dorm mates, the closest thing he has to friends--as dangers to his own mental wellbeing. He's scared to let them in, so he's built up these emotional, arrogant walls around himself. Think at how often he rejects advice from Falena and refuses Cheka's affection for him. Look at how this behavior extends beyond those who are keeping him from a literal throne and to his classmates. They instill hope in him, hope which scares Leona. The things he has wanted all his life are now poison that chips away at him. Considering all of that together, it makes Leona's story far more tragic than how it was initially shown to us in the game alone. But guess what? That can also become his strength, fuel for his character arc. Leona isn't running anymore. He's actually returning home for winter break in book 4. He's determined to not get held back again. He's committing to an internship in a field (an energy lab) which will immensely help his country (which is rich in natural resources). All of this, coming from a young man who once acted bitter when his older brother suggested that there were many things Leona could do with his intelligence to benefit their homeland. Leona is making slow strides and steady progress toward a future he used to think was unattainable for him. From that darkness, he's rising anew--like the sun upon the savanna.

#twst #twisted wonderland light novel #twisted wonderland #twst light novel #Leona Kingscholar #disney twisted wonderland #notes from the writing raven #Ruggie Bucchi #Jack Howl #Savanaclaw #twst character analysis #twisted wonderland character analysis #twst analysis #twisted wonderland analysis #Cheka Kingscholar #Farena Kingscholar #Falena Kingscholar #Kifaji #Jamil Viper

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dailyadventureprompts · 8 months

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Adventure: Through the Vine

Surrounded by some of the most coveted vineyards on the continent, your party sits in the shaded garden and listens to the old alchemist explaining why she needs your help getting drunk enough to see the face of god.

Every adventurer knows the name Ultani, at least those with coin and taste enough to order bottles of wine when they and their friends hit up a tavern after a delve. What an irony then for one of the Ultani family to ask for THEM at her table, and with a business proposition of all things.

Bent with age but bright of eye, Ivilia Ultani needs their help tracking down the location of an abandoned druid sanctum in the far wilderness and retrieving fruit sacred to the god of vintners and healers left over from a disastrous ritual. Her reasons? Apparently after decades perusing the alchemical mysteries Ivilia got her hands on a bottle blessed by the wine-god himself, and spent four days in a state of drunken revelation pencilling out her magnum opus. The bottle and her inspiration dry just before she finished, so rather than waiting years trying to trial and error the last piece or searching for another bottle she's decided to make some of her own.

Along the way the party will contend with family drama, the cutthroat politics of the wine trade, and the long echoing consequences of stealing from merciful gods. For their troubles they'll not only earn the thanks of a talented alchemist, but also potentially a new home should they hold true to their task.

Setup: Though she is the oldest of her of her merchant clan Ivilia is not the head of the Ultani winery. Her younger brother Valtar had the talent for cultivation and business while she veered towards eccentric scholarship, now Valtar's adult grandchildren run the business and the numerous sprawling vineyards associated with it while she lives in learned obscurity on the original family homestead.

While she occasionally helps out whit a new formulation of fertilizer or pest repellent, Ivilia is rather distant from the rest of the Ultani family who view her as a bit of a kook, who all to often uses her inherited share of the enterprise to buy obscure texts or finance futile experiments.

Challenges & Complications:

Actually finding the sanctum is going to be half the problem. Druidic orders are notoriously protective about the location of their secret clubhouses, and this order was scattered to the wind more than a century ago. Ivilia has tracked down the vague location where she thinks the sanctum might be, but unless the party wants to spend days combing the dangerous wilderness they're going to need to track down a more reliable source. Parsing through local rumours and records gives them three leads, an elf who still provides council to the local Count (goodluck getting an appointment), a vaguely helpful ditty that was recounted to a local bard (since dramatized in endless retelling), and an elder of the order who flew back to his home village in the shape of a falcon. Investigating the latter finds that the elder was apparently so scarred by what he'd seen at the sanctum that he transformed himself into a tree and has spent the intervening decades letting his mind and memory lignify.

The Sanctum itself and the landscape that surrounds it has been scarred by an act of divine wrath that still lingers in the form of dangerous fey and choking vines. Roots have undermined the walls and foundations, making chambers all to easy to collapse. In the centre of this ruin lays the undead corpse of Elmgrace , a once famed elven healer who sought the boon of the god Litirenn only to try and use that gift to reign the god towards his own purposes. Resentful at this deception Litirenn unleashed havoc on the sanctum, cursing Elmgrace never to die, never to rot, and never to rejoin the cycle of nature. Forever vinebound to the same altar he intended for the deity, Elmgrace's few last fanatical followers still tend to his broken body, attempting to brew up more potent poisons that will finally "free" their teacher from his torment.

Unfortunately, the fruit the party needs to pluck grows only from the plants impaling Elmgrace's body, which his followers are very protective of. Even after the party races through the wilderness and back to civilization with their prize they'll need to look over their shoulder for toxin obsessed cultists stalking their trail.

Further Adventures:

Milo Ultani has something to prove, the oldest of four siblings and a gaggle of cousins poised to inherit the winery he was raised to value hard work and loyalty to the family above all else. All his life it has irked him that his great aunt was allowed to dwell in their ancestral home, some of the nicest land his family owns, leaching off their enterprise like a withered limb. What finally drives him to act is Ivilia offhandedly mentioning that she intends to sign over her house and land to the party as a reward for helping her drink her way to enlightenment again. Resentment turns to rage in the young man's mind as a plan begins to form; A vine must be pruned in order to be fruitful after all.

When the party return with the godly fruit they're going to find Ivilia gone, her home broken into during the night her bed a mess of red that at first seems to be blood, but is infact wine. Surrounded by experts it doesn't take long for the vino in question to be identified as belonging to Jadash Hill, one of the Ultani's oldest rivals who are known for their unscrupulous business practices. It's at this point that Milo comes forward, reporting that some of their carters had gotten into brawls with those from Jadash Hill at a local tollhouse, sending the bastards packing and ignoring their threats of reprisal as idle boasting. This did indeed happen, but only because Milo is in charge of part of the family's delivery operation and instigated the fight himself.

The clock is ticking, the party has a bushel of miracle fruit that's going to rot and the alchemist they were supposed to deliver it to is nowhere to be seen. They can either find Ivilia quick, figure out a method of preserving the fruit, or read through her notes and attempt to concoct the divine wine themselves.

However badly he thinks of her, Milo would never kill his great aunt, having instead had his loyal carters drag her off to a small cottage on the edge of a property the family was keeping fallow for the year. In his reckoning the old woman won't live much longer, and while the emerging feud with Jadash hill keeps the family busy he can figure out a better place to keep his great aunt locked up. He wasn't delicate in his planning but he moves fast and the influence he has with the workforce as the presumptive heir cannot be overstated.

Art 1 Art 2

#dnd #dungeons and dragons #d&d #ttprg #pathfinder #adventure #dungeon #player home #Alchemy #mid level #low level #Litirenn #field #Forest #druid #patron merchant #dungeon forest #dungeon jungle

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cerastes · 2 days

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So I'm just wondering, to really fully understand Arturia's kit. She specialises in Necrosis damage, right? Is she DPS or more kind of a support?

Arturia’s hat is indeed Necrosis damage. Valarqvin walked so Arturia, proper codename Virtuosa, could do a quintuple backflip with a split. While her normal attacks don’t build Necrosis, simply being in her range does, slowly adding Necrosis and a miliseconds-brief Slow every second, as well as increasing all Necrosis damage taken.

You can check what skills do on the website of your choice (like the wiki.gg), I’ll talk about application.

The thing about Arturia is that she’s fully functional without Masteries at high level play, and Masteries let her do that even better, so she’s good at all levels of investment from lv7 to M3/6/9.

*Normal and Elite enemies have 1000 Necrosis Health, while Bosses have 2000. Necrosis deals 800 Elemental Damage for 15 seconds for a total of 12000 damage that no enemy in the game resists. It additionally halves their Attack, with this effect decaying throughout the 15 seconds.

S1 makes it so she can only attack when using S1 charges, and she tends to apply Necrosis in two hits with it, three for Bosses. It’s good for single target damage and single target Necrosis. At M3, it makes Arturia a very strong helidrop, as she’ll have 3 charges ready to go immediately. This is theoretically also true for lower levels of Mastery, so M1 is enough to make her a strong helidrop, but you do get more damage and Necro from Masteries for continued use after helidropping.

S2 allows for some funky positioning strats: If you have a Fortress like Firewhistle or Horn in range as your highest Attack unit, S2 allows them to bombard Necrosis on very distant enemies thanks to S2’s property of granting her Necrosis to an ally. It’s an effective multitarget skill with good cycling otherwise.

S3 is the Dead Zone. It allows two applications of Necrosis on the same enemies per use, the range is huge (Suzu S3) and the various buffs just nake you stronger while the Necrosis and expanded range make everything weaker.

In my opinion, Mastery order should be S1 <—> S3 > S2. I think S1 is the most important one to allow powerful helidrop and stronger single target functionality. S3 makes the skill last a comfy 40 seconds (for its 60 SP of charge up). S2 is already pretty much plug and play at Lv7 and the Masteries are extra gravy to make it better but it’s otherwise practically fully functional, with its biggest boon being the 30 -> 24 SP upgrade for better cycling.

Arturia can deal damage and add utility through Necrosis’ 800 essentially True damage per second on top of whatever she does and a potent ATK% debuff (rare debuff!), so she does both damage and support. The way she works, she’s kinda like Saileach and Shamare in that the stronger the enemy is, the stronger and more useful Arturia is. So she does in fact turn into a DPS unit on real hard and stat-heavy maps, like high risk CC.

#arknights #arturia #virtuosa

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stone-stars · 29 days

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a while ago i saw a post by @sideblogdotjpeg about how the cycles in c3 seem a lot more personal/familial. and i kind of went insane in the tags at the time and i’ve been thinking about it a lot since because like…

you have the heroic cycles that the band of boobs parallel/break on this large scale. the idea of these broken trios of adventurers is there throughout the campaign, but they really start to engage with it towards the end— with the divine hearts, and thiala, and the wheel of suffering/wheel of joy idea. the thing hardwon says as he takes the divine heart, that no matter what anybody chooses from then on it’s with love in their hearts, i feel is very relevant to how they break the cycle. they love each other, and they choose over and over to hold each other tighter rather than be driven apart.

and on the other hand, you have duck team’s refusal of fate vs their family’s resignation to it. look at swag working with mothership, oliana’s contrition, and the stuff that is currently ongoing with gowan. you know— sol is a version of swag who fully rejected mothership and found his friends instead. callie refused to be a part of her family’s business, and her love for the wild and the serpents is giving the world a chance. calder, when he makes the deal with ultrus, telling callie and sol that he trusts them to save him. and now calder is refusing to sit back and let gowan handle things in the ice knife.

it's not that duck team aren't trying to save the world. they are. and it's not that the boobs didn't have a personal connection to the cycles they were breaking. they did. but it's like... well... how do i put this into words. right--

the song melora's boon plays when the boobs arrive at the heart of the world and speak to melora. when she talks to beverly about duty, shows him the places he faltered and how at the last second, he gets back up. (later, when they face thiala, bev doesn't go unconscious once. at one point, he's the only one standing.) for sol, this is the song that plays when he expresses his fear of going down again. when he admits to callie that he's scared of the day that she and calder are down and he's the one that needs to stand up alone. when callie says she's not afraid of that day, and sol finds himself empowered by the mushroom in his chest. the moment that sets up sol's long death monk ability, where he's able to refuse to go down and keep on fighting.

melora’s boon is also the song that plays for moonshine’s boon at the heart of the world. there are actually two songs in this scene, hardwon’s is different, and the transition back happens when melora says there’s a part of herself that moonshine hasn’t embraced. when she speaks to moonshine leading her people to a better future like an alpha wolf leading her pack. for callie, it plays when she tells hardwon and sol that she’s a liability and she needs to change— to embrace winter— in order to get calder back, even as they reassure her that she doesn’t. it also plays when callie asks the others to help her protect honeysuckle while he’s weakened. when they promise to lead honeysuckle home and free him from his connections to gromdal.

the writing on the wall plays when the boobs reach the court of gods. there's the wall of prayers there, and they hear the prayers of the people of bahumia, reaching out to them. prayers of protection-- for and by them. prayers that put the future of bahumia in their hands. for callie, this is the song that plays when she sees aryox's carving of her reaching the cave. when she realizes her mother acted the way she did because she could see what was coming in the future. when she realizes her mother was leaving the world in her hands.

the songs that the boobs first encounter at the end— when they’re basically demigods stepping up to face thiala— return for duck team in these personal moments. when sol finds the strength to refuse death. when callie talks about embracing winter, her mother’s season, something she eventually finds strength in, to save her friend. when callie asks the others to help honeysuckle, one of the serpents that she’s promised to protect partially due to the harm her family caused to the wild. and when callie realizes her mother saw the future and acted as she did because of it, pushing callie to walk the path she’s walking now.

anyway. this was a post about naddpod music.

#naddpod #ba2mia #naddmusic tag #sorry to leave calder out his story is too ongoing to fit yet #(and we haven’t had any songs that fit in his arc either)#if we get a late stage bahumia song during this arc #for calder and gowan im gonna fucking. die.#truly just going insane over here anyway #like obviously on a meta level the reason the songs were never used for the bob #before the endgame is bc they weren’t written yet #but like. when you start to think about it #it kind of fits that it happens like this #there’s also more examples like i just want to know you’re taken care of #which is used in c1e91 for moonshine and paw paw’s convo #being used for callie and foster in ep10 #of c3 #specifically in the context of callie’s love and her fear of loving big #(contrasted against moonshine resigning herself to hell and her fear of that future)#anyway if i keep talking abt this i’ll explode so #enjoy? i guess?#hanbles

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finncapashen · 9 months

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Dark Ritual Based on the original Alpha artwork by Sandra Everingham

Idk how to feel about this card. I feel like I'd enjoy a storm-like deck, but I hate taking super long turns where my opponents just sit there. I also feel like, when I put this in my deck, it only shows up on T4 or something when it's no longer relevant. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#mtg #magic the gathering #pixel art #mtg proxy #mtg alters #mtg alter #mtg commander #mtg edh #edh #black #boon cycle #nonbinary pride

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talonabraxas · 5 months

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Presence is far deeper than our person.

he Various Forms of "Tandava"

Tandava is the divine dance performed by Lord Shiva. It is considered to be the source of the cosmic cycle of creation, preservation and dissolution. The word Tandava comes from Tandu, the attendant of Lord Shiva, who at Lord Shiva’s orders, instructed Bharat muni, the author of Natya Shastra, the usage of Angaharas and Karanas, which together constitute this cosmic dance.

“Pumnrityam tandavam, prahu: stree nrityam lasyamuchyate”

Tandava the masculine form of dance is attributed to Lord Shiva which is forceful and full of vigour often manifesting anger and fear while lasya anga attributed to Godess Parvathi is the feminine form where the movements are gentle and graceful often depicting love and affection.

The deep significance underlying this dance form is the personification of Lord Shiva as Nataraja or Nritya Murti. His dance is supposed to represent the five manifestations of eternal energy- Srishti (creation), Sthiti (preservation), Samhara (destruction), Tirobhava (illusion) and Anugraha (emancipation).

The various Tandavas are described in Bhavaprakash and in the Abhinaya Darpanam of Nandikeswara.

In the Bhavaprakash five forms of Tandava are described:

Ucchanda: This includes the forceful and quick Angaharas, Akaashacharis and Bhramaris. Raudra, Bhibhatsa and Bhayanaka are the rasa associated with this.

Chanda: This is represented by Bhumichari karanas and angaharas and evokes Veera and Raudra rasa.

Prachanda: This tandava involves jumping forceful karanas and bhramari. Rasas associated with this are Raudra and Bibhatsa.

Prerana and Prapana: These two are considered to be of tepid and are less forceful and masculine.

Nandikeswara in his Abhinaya Darpanam describes seven types of Tandava which are believed to have been performed by Lord Shiva.

Sandhya Tandava: A form of tandava performed by Lord Shiva at the time when the world was poised between lingering day and the oncoming darkness of the night. It was the dance of creation and scriptures. It is believed that Sandhya Tandava protects one and all.

Ananda Tandava: This form of Tandava was performed by Lord Shiva for protecting his disciples. In Chidambaram temple, the deity is represented in this pose. The image is depicted with four hands holding the drum, fire, the right hand in the Abhaya Hasta, the left hand with the Danda Hasta bestowing boons. The left leg is in Kunchita pada and the right tramples upon the sole. This posture is also known as the Sada Tandava.

Kali or Shakti Tandava: This Tandava is the type performed by Shiva and Kali. It is believed that Kali or Shakti is the energy that cannot be separated from Shiva. Shiva has the power to create only when he is united with Shakti.

Tripura Tandava: This is the Tandava performed by Shiva after killing the three rakshasas, Tarakakasha, Kamalaksha and Vidyun mali. He fought the rakshasas driving the earth as his chariot, Meru as the bow, Sun and Moon as the wheels, Adishesha as the rope, Lord Vishnu as the arrows, four vedas as horses and Lord Brahma as the charioteer. By destroying these rakshasas he freed the three worlds from evil.

Sati and Shiva Tandava: This Tandava is believed to have been performed by Shiva and Sati. This represents the eternal dance of the Man and Woman, depicting the unity of Purush and Prakriti. This item also depicts both forms of dancing, Tandava as well as Lasya.

Ardhanaari Tandava: This type of Tandava was performed to show the unity between Nature and God. Shiva took Parvati as a part of himself and assumed the form of Ardhanareeswara – one half man the other half woman.

Samhara tandava: This is the dance of annihilation and release. Shiva is believed to have performed this when Sati burned herself in ashes. Shiva in anger danced so vigorously that lords feared destruction of the three worlds. Only when Lord Bramha, Lord Vishnu and Devas appealed to him did he return to normalcy.

The concepts of Tandava and Lasya represented Shiva and Parvati have been the source of inspiration for most dancers across classical dance forms and across generations as it encompasses the entire cycle of cosmic evolution and stands for the dual personification of the Absolute.

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stealingyourbones · 11 months

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Submitted Prompts #107

City spirits are different from ghosts as they don't necessarily need ectoplasm to survive. Instead every couple of centuries when their powers wane they can choose to enter the reincarnation cycle to be rejuvenated once again. So when Bruce Wayne took on the mantle of Batman and became Gotham's Dark Knight the weakened spirit of Gotham, who has put off reincarnation for the sake of her city cast a sigh of relief as she bestowed him with a boon of protection and allowed herself to fade into the cycle.

At the age of 16 Sam Manson started getting visions of a city not her own yet hers all the same. At first she thought nothing of it, passing it off as weird dreams, but the dreams were persistent almost like they were beckoning her to someplace. It wasn't until she went to one of the Wayne's Galas that she understood, that this was her city and these were her people

#bones submissions #dpxdc #3am thoughts #Sam Manson is Lady Gotham

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druidshollow · 8 months

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art of the eulogist on their quest to deliver glass incident's dying message (plus some doodles)

shrouded mausoleum no eulogist (plus info on the area) under the keep reading!

shrouded mausoleum is a massive cluster of catacomb-like buildings where memorials of important ancients' lives were stored. after the mass ascension the mausoleum became a tropical wonder, the warmth from No Long Nights and the nutrient-rich water from glaciermelt causing boons of growth. but after eleven rivers and glass incident's collapses, the area all around them became much colder and succumbed to the polar chill and lack of sun. shrouded mausoleum is now home to a very large scavenger colony, surrounded by dead and decaying flora that couldnt withstand the impending ice age.

fog persists and becomes thicker throughout the cycle, the warm rain from No Long Nights combining with the freezing chill below the clouds to create mass fog formation on ground level surrounding Nights.

#rain world #rain world oc #rain world downpour #rain world art #slugcat oc #slugcat #druid draw #fuzzling #eulogist #glass #oc posting #art #druids hall of fame

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kp777 · 6 months

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by Tim Karr

Common Dreams

Nov. 16, 2023

Democracy suffers when a commercial media system showcases fascist demagogues for profit.

There is no bottom for MAGA’s top man. At a speech delivered on Veterans Day, Donald Trump used rhetoric nearly identical to that used by Adolf Hitler 80 years earlier.

Rather than honoring veterans as one might expect of a political speech on this day, Trump used the occasion to label his adversaries “vermin” — promising that, if elected, he would use his power to “root out” all his political enemies.

The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake found the parallels: Hitler frequently used vermin references to justify the murder of Jews and others across Europe, while “Trump has used it more broadly to suggest that his opponents are subhuman” and deserve punishment.

Without calling themselves to account for the damage they've done, media executives will never quit their Trump habit

Parroting Hitler should not be considered normal behavior in any election cycle. But the media have grown used to covering Trump’s extremism as if it’s standard political fare. This time, though, some journalists rightly saw his Veterans Day speech as very dangerous.

“It’s important to emphasize that Trump’s rhetorical excesses are not new. To know anything about the Republican is to know that he, on a nearly daily basis, finds new and needlessly provocative ways to shock, offend, insult, and degrade,” wrote Steve Benen for MSNBC.

What is new, however, is the growing number of reporters and commentators being more explicit in their use of the term “fascist” to describe Trump’s beliefs — and “dictatorship” to describe what his return to power would represent for the future of U.S. democracy.

The media aren’t sounding these sorts of alarms enough, according to Margaret Sullivan, who wrote about the mounting evidence that Trump is indeed a fascist. “The press generally is not doing an adequate job of communicating those realities,” she said. “Instead, journalists have emphasized Joe Biden’s age and Trump’s ‘freewheeling’ style. They blame the public’s attitudes on ‘polarization,’ as if they themselves have no role.”

Sullivan urges more members of the press to report on the dark prospect of a second Trump presidency. They should “ask voters directly whether they are comfortable with [Trump’s] plans, and report on that. Display these stories prominently, and then do it again soon,” she wrote.

The ‘F’ word

Sullivan is right, of course. The media need to report more on the rise of fascism in America, and they also need to reflect on their role in enabling this. For decades the former president has capitalized on the media’s obsessive attention to paint an alternative vision of himself — one in which he features not as a twice-impeached, criminally indicted sexual abuser who sought to overthrow a democratic election that he lost, but as a decisive and winning strongman, the only person with the power and charisma to make America great again.

Media execs have played along with Trump’s charade, aware that his tele-presence is a boon for ratings and revenues. In 2016, then-CBS CEO Les Moonves said that devoting so much airtime to then-candidate Trump “may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.” At the time, Moonves was praising Trump for the bumper crop of political-ad dollars brought in during the contentious 2016 election, but he was not alone.

Former media executive Jeff Zucker has arguably done more than any single person to burnish the 21st-century caricature of Donald Trump. While an executive at NBC, he greenlit The Apprentice, which remade Trump from a bankruptcy-spawning loser into a boardroom genius with impeccable business savvy.

When Trump entered the political fray in 2015, he did so with an Apprentice tailwind. Zucker, who by then had transitioned to the top job at CNN, trained the network’s cameras on his celebrity candidate while denying equal time to Trump’s Republican opponents. Ratings were also Zucker’s rationale for keeping Trump center stage in 2016.

The media chose Trump in 2016 well before most Republican voters had a chance to vote for any of the other GOP candidates in the race.

And it didn’t end there. In 2020, Mathias Döpfner, head of German media giant Axel Springer, sent a message asking the company’s executives if they wanted to “get together for an hour on the morning on Nov. 3 and pray that Donald Trump will again become President of the United States of America?” Döpfner justified this question by praising the Trump administration for supporting issues, like corporate tax breaks and reining in big tech, that benefitted Axel Springer.

The profit incentive

If you’re noticing a pattern, it's this: Democracy suffers when a commercial media system showcases fascist demagogues for profit.

That seems obvious enough, but it’s worth repeating: News media companies rely on ratings and related advertising revenues to survive. In other words, the news business is about putting on a show that will draw the largest numbers of viewers. And Trump — like Hitler and Mussolini before him — is a camera-ready showman.

More important matters like correcting Trump’s many falsehoods or reporting on the troubling consequences of a second Trump presidency are secondary for those who just want to draw more attention to their primetime offerings.

Former executives, like Moonves and Zucker (who for a variety of unsavory reasons have since left their companies), and existing ones, like Döpfner, were saying that as long as Trump’s autocratic extremism makes them richer, there’s no need to worry about the consequences. Never mind that, if elected, he’d likely use his power to undermine media freedom and silence dissenting voices.

The commercial U.S. media system needs to undergo deep reckoning for accommodating the rise of Trumpism. This atonement should be reflected in a shift in the ways large outlets report on Trump, but also by recognizing the commercial incentives that drive media to lead with the Trump Show, damn the far-right repercussions.

Without calling themselves to account for the damage they've done, media executives will never quit their Trump habit — not in 2024, nor at any point after.

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

#corporate media #news media #fascism #journalism #2024 presidential election #adolf hitler #donald trump #corporate greed

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yiga-hellhole · 3 months

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TFTK CHAPTER 18: RECONAISSANCE WITH THE TWILIGHT KING

hello again everyone! sorry for the delay of the chapter illustration, Yuga took the forefront for a moment there. you understand. anyhow! shorter chapter this time. many thanks to @bulgariansumo and @orfeoarte for giving this chapter the once-over, and of course, to everyone for reading!

Ganondorf receives a visitor.

ao3 mirror

The land of Hyrule had always been an isolated country. Steeped in self-righteous legends, of Creation myths and earth-shaking tyranny. It was the World’s holy ground as much as it was avoided as though plague-ridden and abandoned. For in being blessed by the Goddesses, so too was it cursed. By holding the world’s greatest source of power, conflict drew to it like moths to a flame. The Triforce did corrupt. Under the weight of the responsibility thrust upon it, the Royal Family of Hyrule was no exception to this. Time and time again, they would buckle, either under the weight of their hubris, or torn down when too weak to defend against those seeking its boons. Each time its end threatened to draw near, its Arbiter would be born, together with a Hero to fight them, and the Maiden as their mediator. This was a feud that would never end. One of greed, of cruelty inflicted under Holy name, and a Cycle of retaliation that had spiraled on since the very dawn of time.

In short, Hyrule was the tabletop of the Gods, where virtue and vice were ripped from mortal bodies by the tendon.

Surrounding countries simply watched, hoping that the next Cycle would be as merciful as the last. Each of them prayed that the fickle Empire would once again uphold the status quo and keep their lands from ruin.

This vapid comfort was no longer. As if all the world had drawn a bated breath, it all bursted out in fraught cries. All ruling creeds, be it kingdoms or counties, scrambled to commune with either side of the war. For the first time in centuries, the Triforce had fallen into the hands of the Demon King. Something as simple as a wish exploded the world into a flurry of letters, laughably spewed forth from every corner, to beg for mercy. Sending a piece of parchment was far easier than crossing into actively hostile territory, certainly. Much less to fall to one’s knees and grovel before the deadliest man currently alive! The cowardice of it all annoyed Ganondorf, but he was glad for it all the same. Such pitiful displays of royal visitation would stop being amusing after mopping up the drool, tears, and blood of, give or take, the fifth diplomat.

The Hyrule Royal Family, and their commanders with them, predictably withdrew into hiding. Given the circumstances, though, surrendering immediately would have been a far more logical approach. With the current state of their army, any struggle was only procrastination of the inevitable execution. After suffering a crushing defeat, their pieces of the world’s most prized artifact were now seized by their fated nemesis.

Said nemesis, too, sat in his office chair, laying surprisingly low. Hyrule Castle was not yet seized and would not be for some time. Ganondorf looked up from his stacks of correspondence, his gaze straying to his left hand. Ever since completed, the mark of the Triforce had been resting visibly on his palm, glowing persistently. Reclaiming the piece of Power had felt natural, or at least, like something that belonged. Every incarnation before him had possessed it, falling only into the collective hand of Cialana in this era. As for why this injustice had occurred, he couldn’t know. It didn’t matter either way. The magic of his birthright had returned to him all the same.

He’d had no trouble growing accustomed to this. The arcane had no secrets left to keep from him; it’d simply been a matter of adjusting to his greater strengths, honing the claws he’d grown. His success in Hyrule Field was a testament to the importance of this thorough preparation. Now bearing two more shards, each unfamiliar to him, he knew he could not afford to cut corners. With his new powers came new insights, some of which informed, inversely, about their risks. The truth of the matter was that there was much to be done once he established his kingdom amidst the carrion of Hyrule. Should he use the full potential of the Triforce now, he would not be able to predict its effect on him. The ancient, dark forces that dwelled deep within him were well within his control now, but should they be fed any more…

He did not fear it. Caution simply had to be taken. The ghostly whisper, elusive and chiming like a bell, that slipped in between every conscious thought, could not be left unattended. The Triforce yearned to be used, to fulfill his wish, and coaxed and purred for it insistently. It wasn’t meant to dwell in the mind for long – but Ganondorf was no mortal man. He would make it wait.

His other Kingly duties, however, were of a more timely sort. Even domestically, he had his hands full with governesses who demanded the most up-to-date state of affairs that he could divulge. Not to mention the political promises he’d made for his lieutenants, which still needed attending. As loyal as they were to him now, soon, they would come to demand their own fattened seats among the oceans of spoils. Such was the nature of war. But unlike other royals, he had more than mere advisors to depend on. Those scheming lot often had their own selfish goals hidden behind their backs. No, he had a far more dependable source to fall back on. He carried the accumulated knowledge of dozens of Demon Kings before him, deep within his soul.

A knock at the door interrupted his train of thought. It snapped him back to a present reality, where his quill spilled a fat drop of ink on a document he still debated on signing. He bid whoever waited outside to enter, rubbing his brow with budding exasperation.

Slipping his way in through the door, clutching a stack of documents to his chest, was Zant. He waited not a moment to dawdle and went straight to his desk, prattling away. “If I might have just a moment of your time, King Dragmire. Our mail couriers are swamped with work, as you know, and there are quite a few letters I wish to discuss with you.”

Ganondorf raised a brow at his bold, blabbering approach, but allowed him his whims. Placing his quill in its holder, he straightened in his seat to meet the Shadow Lord at near-eye level. “Speak. It must be urgent, for you to disturb me in such haste.”

“Well, Master. To start, the War has been getting quite the attention from overseas,” Zant announced, dropping meticulously re-folded envelopes on the desk with the rest of them. He chose the top-most to review, handing it to him for perusal. “We have received correspondence with the Duke of Tarn. I found it quite a promising offer – enough grain to fill our stocks for months to come, in exchange for peace. Of course, I would make no such drastic diplomatic decisions without your input, Sire.”

Ganondorf took the proffered letter and began skimming it with a nudge of his spectacles. Tarn… From his own few centuries of lingering in this world, such a place left little impression on him. Further down, however, something reflexively growled at the name. The unraveled threads of a past self for a moment braided together, clinging fiber to fiber to once again take to the lectern. What spewed forth was incoherent, but gnashed its teeth, growled with naught but grudge and disdain. Affronted not by a betrayal, but abandonment much more cold and mundane.

Ganondorf could hazard a guess. Wrapping these threads back around their spool, he banished that building inherited rage, and considered his judgment, “A promising offer indeed,” he proclaimed, his eyes trailing over the curling letters out of meditation. Not to read, per se. Perusing the words was no longer necessary; he’d made up his mind. That state was one of many to have wronged him and those following him in the exact same way. Zant needed not to be lectured, they were similarly motivated men, after all.

But he could do with a reminder. “I have but one question. Where was this Tarn when the women of my tribe were being slaughtered, mere centuries past? Punished for the mere crime of survival. Did they not stand idle when we required their aid? Yet, now that we pose a military threat, they come to me on their knees, begging to be spared?”

Zant’s expression darkened. Watching it be carelessly flicked back across the desk, he took the envelope, folding it back to its former state. Just like Ganondorf expected, he understood. “... As you say, Master.”

Furrowing his brows, the Gerudo reclined, perusing the map to trail back his fragmented memories. It was difficult not to burn bridges, but Zant ought to walk out the door with at least some positive correspondence. He raised his face again, which Zant met with his own gaze reflexively. “By any chance, have we received correspondence from the Zuna?”

Zant perked up, immediately picking up his stack to sift through the envelopes. Impressively so, he seemed to have memorized the wax seals. He plucked out a single envelope and held it out. “Indeed we have. They offer us an initial deposit of one-hundred tons in milled ore, paired with shared access to their mines, asking for our protection and mercy in return.”

Ganondorf raised his brows again, reviewing the contents of the message himself. The offers were relayed to the letter, along with some other favors that were perhaps less monumental, but still to appeal to him as King.

He nodded briskly and handed the letter back to him. “The Zuna were most charitable to the Gerudo prior to my banishing in the age of Twilight, as you may recall. Accept their terms.”

A smile returned to Zant’s face, who looked greatly pleased. As if he had any choice but to be. “I will have it signed, Sire… Though, do you not think it would make these new compatriots, shall I say, nervous, to see their neighbors slaughtered?”

“Either that, or it will prove to be a lesson,” Ganondorf growled, but in his ponderings, his eyes strayed back to that letter from Tarn. He slid it back before him and unfolded it, before snatching his quill back out of its holder, and dunking it in the inkwell. Paper nearly bled under the scratch of his nib. “As an alternative, I say we increase the grain offer and demand a sum of their soldiers to fight alongside us as we take over Hyrule. Perhaps we will not attack them outright, but they will not escape this war without loss. Such is the price I demand for their negligence when we required their aid.”

Zant nodded, retreating his hands into his sleeves in his usual fidget of excitement. “An excellent arrangement, indeed.”

The corner of Ganondorf’s lips crooked into a grin at his praise. None of his lieutenants were short on compliments. Frankly, most of it slipped past his notice these days. Yet, sitting across him, filing through these letters, something struck him as peculiar. Ganondorf set his quill back in its rest and leaned back, forcing their gazes to lock so he could pry about. “... I must express my surprise, Zant. I did not expect the man who so swiftly conquered all of Hyrule in cold blood to be so concerned with peaceful negotiations.”

Zant narrowed his eyes, bearing a somewhat wistful, bittersweet expression. He sighed, his once happily twiddling hands now falling limply by his sides. “Such negotiations were commonplace in the Palace of Twilight, Master, and I’ve grown to be proficient in them. Resources were scarce, and to divide them fairly among our people was a sensitive affair. When you are so few, you simply cannot risk war, lest every House tear itself to the ground.” Zant paused for a moment, wrenching himself free from their mutual gaze to glare down at the map. The ferocity with which he eyed down the depiction of Hyrule Castle could have burned holes in the parchment. “I did not deem Hyrule deserving of those mercies, as it was the reason the scarcities existed in the first place.”

Ganondorf grunted in return. So, an odd sense of mercy yet lingered in that broken mind. For all his eccentricities, he made for a fine tactician, indeed. His curiosity now satisfied, he allowed the both of them a slight smile and reached out, palm upturned, for his next letter. Zant took not a moment’s rest and orated every last offer that he held in his hands, for them to scrutinize and entrap in their final verdict.

After falling into a short silence, the cracking of a wax seal shattered Ganondorf’s line of thought with a single pop. His eyes widened, staring down at his desk in perturbed silence. In the almost automated rhythm of their negotiations, as natural as they were like the ebb and flow of the sea, Ganondorf had failed to notice they breezed through the stacks of correspondence Zant brought along. And now, the Twilight King took the liberty of taking their next task from the pile Ganondorf had lain there for himself.

How long had he been doing that? How many had he already taken, browsed, and picked apart right under his nose? Ganondorf looked up after composing himself, staring up at the one across his desk. The moon that pulled at his waves, but now left them in a sudden harsh standstill, looked back at him curiously, cocking his head.

Wordlessly, he took the envelope from Zant’s hand, who let it slip through his fingers as if it’d turned to dust before him. Ganondorf eyed him suspiciously, before turning his attention to the piles of correspondence and the freshly opened envelope now in his hands. Losing control over a situation, as harmless as it may have seemed, was unheard of to the Demon King. Let alone in his own office. He cared not for if Zant intended to do so – it was an affront. He knew the man to be careful and explicit in his words, as much as it contrasted with the way he carried himself in battle. As such, he could only come to one troubling conclusion.

Zant had sensed a moment of weakness and slipped by on purpose.

Setting down the envelope, Ganondorf leaned back in his chair and beckoned him. “Come hither.”

Zant’s expression did not change. Perfectly on command, he stepped on over to stand by his side, interrupting his stare only to blink.

When Ganondorf’s hand reached for him, he flinched some, his glazy pupils darting between the approaching palm and his Master’s face. Yet he did not recoil, only squinted his eyes shut with a peep when broad fingers slipped under the edge of his coif. With the leathery fabric gradually tugged down to bundle at the base of his neck, his ears flopped free, sticking out between meticulously cut locks.

As he remembered, one of those ears was significantly shorter. Ganondorf’s eyes strayed to the pale blue scar tissue that besmirched the Twili’s right ear.

Feeling his stare trying to capture him Ganondorf addressed him, nodding toward his injury. “Does this ail you, still?”

“No, Sire. It has healed splendidly.”

Ganondorf hummed in return, withdrawing his hand from the bunched-up fabric at his neck. “You took my warning seriously. Your efforts at Hyrule Field did not go unnoticed, Zant.”

A brief smile flashed across his face, but Zant’s expression soon turned blank. His ear twitched a moment in his consideration. “I would have been a fool not to, Sire. I believe I am many things, but a fool, I am not.”

Zant spoke with the cadence of telling a joke, but his face showed no tellings of a smile. A sense of unease bristled the hairs on the back of his neck, leading Ganondorf to consider the events of that day again. There was no mistaking it – facing off against Princess Zelda, Zant was at a disadvantage at every front, but still he prevailed.

No matter how reserved he was, Zant never disobeyed a command. Ganondorf simply had to look into his words carefully. Resting his chin on his knuckles, he inquired. “I have been toying with an idle curiosity since that day, Shadow Lord Zant. How did you defeat her? When we saw her magic rain from the sky, we were certain you had perished.”

“I took some inspiration from an old friend, is all,” Zant grinned, lacing his fingers together in a talkative gesture. “Perhaps you would find the method dishonorable, but faced against such a foe, I could not exactly play fair.”

He was being vague... Ganondorf growled. “Cease your colorful language.”

“A blight, Master,” He blurted out after a beat of silence. “A withering curse. After I infected the Princess with it, I only had to beat her in a battle of endurance. The arrows were her last resort, and I simply dodged out of their way. I struck her down mere seconds after.”

Ganondorf hummed, the skin of his cheek denting under the pressure of his knuckles. With how the Princess looked last he saw her, Zant appeared to be telling the truth.

“I no longer concern myself with matters of ‘honor’, not since Hyrule has abandoned all of theirs,” the Demon King grumbled, waving his hand dismissively. “You fought well. Nothing more than that is expected from you. Ah… You may fix yourself,” he muttered, gesturing for the coif still bunched around Zant’s neck.

Zant perked up at this command and set off to tend to himself, tucking his hair and ears back into place. His headdress now properly framing his head, the Twili peered at him with what would be expectation, but…

Not a single emotion could be read in those eyes. It was the same empty, invasive stare that bored into him when he gave him the very scar he just hid away. His sword carved through skin and cartilage like paper, and Zant hadn’t so much as flinched. The same man who cried and yelped as freely as he breathed stood dead-silent before him, blood running down his cheek. His golden eyes quietly filled with tears but his gaze was piercing and unrelenting. They only parted from him for a moment to glance at the dismembered piece of flesh as his Master tossed it on the ground beside him.

When Ganondorf dismissed him, he spoke not a word. The Lord of Shadows bowed at the waist, turned, and slipped right out of the tent. Only when he left did the torches in the room stop shuddering, and burned brightly as normal.

There was something deeply wrong with the lieutenant. Not in the way that typically defined a madman, for he wore those telltale signs on his sleeve, plainly for all to see. No, it was in these quiet moments that Zant’s behavior began to unsettle him. His co-lieutenants had a particular spark in their eyes; one of admiration and unwavering loyalty. Zant lacked it thoroughly. Once, that very first day, it glittered with promise in those amber globes, and he did not recall when exactly it disappeared. But his eyes were not empty. On the contrary. When their eyes locked, it felt like there were two sets staring back.

Ganondorf didn’t fear him, no. Since acquiring his new power, not even the passing worry he once had dared to rear its head anymore. Zant simply was not to be trusted. Certainly, he was a fine addition to his army. Among all of them, the Twili was the most cunning. A deeply learned man on all fronts, he bore knowledge rarely rivaled by others not yet in their third decade. Each time they shared a space, he so freely shared his pearls of wisdom with his Master without the slightest complaint. Yet, all the time they spent, sharing tales of justice and diplomacy, made Ganondorf all the more aware of his many flaws. He was fickle, easily distracted, and, hidden behind a gentle smile, deftly manipulative.

Those vices were contagious to the rest of his men. Ghirahim in particular seemed susceptible to him. The trouble he’d given him at his recruitment turned to blind loyalty nauseatingly quickly. Once, Ganondorf doubted him, thinking that his flattery and devotion were a trick to worm under his skin. But as he’d proven to him, Ghirahim clung to him like a dog would its Master. Dedication so obsessive that it bordered on the selfish, he had long abandoned the thought that the sword spirit was in any way the ringleader of this bout of frivolity. All signs pointed to the one standing by his side, peering outside like it was his first time seeing the sun. So long as those hands were occupied by their present worship, Zant was meek as a kitten, eager for his praise and happy to serve. Ganondorf had no interest in discovering whether his fragile mood would one day shatter and make an enemy of him, instead.

Running his fingers through his beard, Ganondorf turned back to the matters on his desk. A low grumble escaped him as his eyes wandered to the map. Many preparations were still in order: frontlines to secure; resources to manage; alliances to forge. He wondered what shreds of them he could still thrust into the hands of the man beside him.

Zant watched his machinations in silence for a while, until he realized Ganondorf paid him no mind any longer. Hands clasped behind his back, he retreated, opting instead to linger by the window and gaze out toward the training fields.

There was no denying it. Among the lieutenants, they stuck out like sore thumbs. Zant and Ghirahim were loyal, and even if they hadn’t been, they were no threat to him. But slithering as a viper under the grass, beyond their assigned duties, the party enjoyed one too many ambitions that strayed them from their path. Perhaps they were under the impression they were acting in secrecy, but it was not so. Ganondorf was perfectly aware of their little escapades. Wandering off like squabbling children was one thing, but to do so behind his back, where he knew not where they lingered… Whether it was an attempt at sabotage was irrelevant. Their disobedience was enough to draw his ire, to whittle away his trust.

Ganondorf’s fingers curled around the armrests of his seat, its wood creaking ever so slightly under his grip. Yes, he was certain of it now. He had no need for these boys any longer. His power was greater than ever, and what he himself could not do, his remaining lieutenants would serve him well.

One last mission. They were to chip away at the Hyrule’s bastions, before enemy troops would ultimately overwhelm the pair of exiles and release him of their burden. Ganondorf deployed them in such a way before, he recalled. They failed him then, and they would fail him now.

And should they succeed in their defense, he would do away with them himself.

When he looked up from his ponderings to turn back to Zant, he met with golden pupils that had long been staring at him.

If he had the nerve to suspect his King, enough to be emboldened into such an accusing gaze, he had another thing coming. Zant’s life was in his hands, his to command – he had known this since he first ripped his soul from the Quiet beyond, and had no right to protest it now.

Ganondorf would punish him as he saw fit. And so, he beckoned him over. “There is one final matter I will discuss with you, Zant.”

Zant’s expression grew ever so slightly colder, but he approached without hesitation nonetheless, joining closely by his side. “Of course.”

Carefully setting his previous commitments aside, Ganondorf cleared the surface of the map on his desk. Zant closely followed his every move as his finger slid across the grid. Now was the right time to ease some of his lingering worries, and take care of some other problems, in one fell swoop.

“As of now, the war is at a standstill. But soon, Hyrule will come looking for me. Their first target will be our base of operations at Gerudo Palace, and we cannot let them raze it to the ground.” Pausing for a moment, he glanced over his shoulder to see his lieutenant still attentively clinging to his every word. “I intend to send you and Ghirahim to stop their advance. The Desert is our home. Since I enlisted you both to reclaim it, I will trust none other to defend it during our final stand. With Hyrule’s troops then occupied, I will seize their Castle, and all of the lands will be ours.”

Zant paused. His intrigued expression turned blank until he withdrew into silent contemplation. “Understood. We will not disappoint you, Master.”

If there was anything more telling of Zant’s character than his nearly constant shouting, it was his silence. Ganondorf took note of the tone in the Twili’s force. Coldly compliant, hiding something bitter underneath. Something hesitant. For a mission so crucial, he could not use hesitation. At this stage, the urge to struggle bordered on the stubborn. On refusal. This he would not accept. If anything bothered the lieutenant, he would let him stew in it, if only to make it more difficult for him to deny his reluctance.

Ganondorf sat back in his chair, reclining with his eye on the map, before interrupting the silence with a demand of his attention. “You seem displeased.”

There – Zant swallowed a moment, averted his eyes. It was subtle, but his conflict was there. Zant responded. “There is simply the matter of Ghirahim, Sire. Hearing that he will once again be parted from you in such a climactic moment… It will surely break his heart.”

Now that he did not expect! Ganondorf burst into laughter; a cold and mocking sound, heard only by the last lingering punters at the gallows. “Spare me. Break his heart? He does not have one.”

Zant stood and watched him laugh, grinning softly himself. But it was an empty one. “... Of course not. Nothing more than a figure of speech, Master.”

“You indulge him too much, Zant. I’ll not tolerate any more weakening of his spirit. Or must I discipline him again?”

He responded a little too quickly. “That will not be necessary. Our Blade is sharp and strikes true. He will not fail what he is made for.”

Ganondorf leaned back in his chair, narrowing his eyes as he judged his expression. Again an alarming itch in the back of his mind urged him to put him back in his place. Zant stared back unmovingly but flinched at his next words. “And this is your promise to make?”

Face downcast, the lieutenant pondered for a moment, before answering with a determined clench of his lips. “Perhaps not. But I am confident that he will listen to me.”

“Then you shall be my conduit to him,” Ganondorf said, rising from his chair, it whining in protest under his massive frame. His fingers found the sharp slope of Zant’s chin and tipped his head back, forcing them back into a stare piercing enough to make their ears ring. “I expect nothing but carnage from him. Feed his bloodlust, perhaps then will he abandon his wretched drive to be my lapdog.”

Zant blinked up at him, for a moment frozen in place. Light poured in through the windows just darkened by his towering shadow, catching blushing-pink strands in his rosewood locks. Wide-set eyes soon narrowed, and squinted under the grin that stretched across his face. For the first time that day, Zant smiled at him genuinely, giggling with what could only be bubbling excitement over the death he would soon spread. Still laughing, the pallid creature nigh cuddled up in his robes and raised a hand to lay it over the one cradling his chin. Affectionately, he cupped it, and pressed a kiss to the jewels on his Master’s rings.

“I promise you just that, Your Majesty,” he tittered. His eyes, having closed in his act of worship, fluttered back open. The Triforce on his palm glittered golden in his pupils.

“Then you are dismissed.”

Relinquishing his grip on his left hand, Zant gave him one more broad grin, the slits at the corners of his mouth tugging and fluttering. He bowed at the waist and retrieved what little he had left to sign from the desk, then briskly made his way back over to the door.

Only to then be startled by a sudden knock. Both men perked up, one more caught off guard by the other. Already on his way out, Zant peered through the opening.

“Zant? You’re here,” inquired a feathery voice beyond the door.

The makeshift doorman seemed equally pleasantly surprised. “Yuga,” he exclaimed. “You have returned to work already? Well, I should not pry.”

Doubtlessly already shooed out of the way by a burning glare, Zant somewhat nervously looked back into the room. Suddenly, the imposing man from earlier vanished entirely, instead making place for the skittish young apprentice that stood waiting for his approval now.

Ganondorf couldn’t help a chuckle at the sight. He nodded, gesturing for his new guest. One lieutenant made room for the other, and in entered Yuga, his approach announced by one more tap than usual. He bound his way to him on crutches, each painted flashily – no doubt in his spare time.

“Oh, that boy,” he huffed. “He’s been buzzing about the Temple all day. A smart one, he is, but I swear he’ll be the death of me!”

Ganondorf chuckled warmly, not quite yet meeting eyes with the man across his desk. He knew if he would, he wouldn’t be able to escape his gaze for quite some time. Dipping his quill in its ink, he took one last document in front of him, and signed.

“Not to worry. He will not.”

#ganondorf #zant #yuga #tftk #hyrule warriors #the legend of zelda #beararts #bearwrites

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