#demise two

[rainyinautumn]

there's a parallel in last life that I don't see talked about as much as it deserves and so I'm going to dissect the ever-living hell out of it. remember the ghast farm incident? everyone remembers the ghast farm incident. Grian turns red, he starts knocking blocks of a bridge out from under Mumbo, "there's a way we can still be friends," etc etc etc. it's fantastic. WELL. two sessions earlier, there's a similar confrontation between Scar and Joel after Joel turns red, except the roles are reversed. Joel approaches and it's Scar who starts breaking blocks of the bridge, trying to put distance between the two of them. HOWEVER, the interesting difference here is that Scar is doing it not because he doesn't want to be Joel's friend anymore, but because he still wants to be. lets take a look at a transcript of part of that scene, shall we?

[Scar breaks several blocks of the bridge.] Joel: Scar, what are you doing? I know you're not my friend anymore, but come on, Scar. Not the bridge. Scar: I wanted to make an arrangement. Are- are we not friends? Joel: We can't be friends, Scar. We can't be friends.

Scar knows that Joel is a red life and that he might hurt him, but he still wants to be friends, so he's providing a way that they can be near each other while he isn't in any danger by putting a gap in the bridge. he even breaks it again when he comes by to chat later. during that chat, Joel reminds him of how dangerous he is, Scar says he "gets it," and then proceeds to let him continue living under magical mountain. Scar doesn't "get" that he needs to be cautious of Joel—what he "gets" is that he's taking a risk by letting him stay and that he's already accepted something might happen. and he's OKAY with that. Joel is red. he gets it.

now compare that to this excerpt from the ghast farm incident:

Grian: Y'know, Mumbo, there's a way we can still be friends. Mumbo: Yeah? Grian: Yeah. [he starts breaking blocks at of Mumbo's feet] You could join me.

with Joel and Scar, it's a red life choosing to step away from his friend in order to protect him, while said friend tries to find a way that they can still be near each other without placing himself in danger. with Grian and Mumbo, it's a red life choosing to try to take his friend down with him so that they can be near each other because he can't accept not being his friend. the fact that in BOTH scenarios the friendship is symbolized by a bridge being broken is a perfect illustration of one of Grian's lines from the ghast farm incident: "it was a bad idea for the wrong reasons." those friendships should have been a good idea, those bridges should have been a good idea, but now they provide a connection that isn't safe, and they all know that.

and I'm not done talking about this. no no no no no. this offers a FASCINATING insight into why desert duo is Like That. Scar would sooner let Grian kill him than have to stop being his friend. Grian would sooner kill Scar than have to stop being his friend. which is all kinds of perfectly fucked up and explains exactly why 3rd life ended the way that it did. it also makes the cactus scene from double life very interesting to think about. remember the cactus scene? it's a doozy.

Grian starts session by dropping a stalactite on Scar's head as a prank and (unintentionally) taking them down to two and a half hearts. Scar then retaliates by leaning against a cactus until Grian breaks it. he then leans against Yet Another Cactus until Grian breaks that one too, at which point they are at only one heart. a question I've been asking since that day is this: if Grian hadn't broken the cactus, would Scar have stepped away before it was too late?

using bridge theory, we can find an answer to this.

the answer is no.

this isn't necessarily because Scar is actively trying to get them killed—it's more because he knows with absolute certainty that Grian will break the cactus. he's not prepared to step away because he isn't worried he needs to. see, the difference between Grian and Scar is that Grian is willing to throw around the lives of other people to get what he wants, and Scar is willing to throw around his own life to get what he wants (the fact that what they really want out of all this is often the other's trust is an issue I will dissect another day). once again, last life is the perfect example of this. Grian steals a life from Scar right off the bat and gets another one out of him by force a few episodes later. meanwhile, Scar makes a business out of selling his soul and threatens Team BEST that he'll kill himself in order to go red life crazy on them. and they don't doubt him! and they SHOULDN'T doubt him, because Scar is the kind of guy that would do that! the same way that Grian is the kind of guy who will drop a stalactite on his soulmate's head but break the cactus he's leaning against.

Grian is willing to risk Scar's life, but he's not okay with Scar risking his own life, because he knows that he's completely willing to stand against a cactus until he dies if it makes a point. so Grian breaks it.

but Scar knows Grian as well as Grian knows him. Scar knows that this is hardly a risk at all. so he leans against the cactus a third second time.

#normal about desert duo #normal about last life #normal about how the life series is a tragedy of epic proportions but is also just a block game that some guys play for fun #these two are so integral to each other's demise it is unbelievable #desert duo #grian #goodtimeswithscar #last life #double life #overrainylyzed

[ganondoodle]

comfortable :3

(different crop)

#ganondoodles #zelda #art #tloz #loz #demise #hylia #painting #illustration #dare i call it that #i went back to fix stuff so many times #but i see i lose patience for a painting after two days #this is day three #i needed to decide its done now bc otherwise i would have driven myself into insanity #so mistakes and roughness all around #but uh #its more about the vibe i guess #and yes those glowy things in the jars are gratitude crystals #i imagine it was a bit of a shock to hylia when demise comments on them being rly tasty #when he was in his prime those crystals were everywhere so its like #candy to him #and to hylia its a sacred thing to be handled carefully and be studied #.......also idk why i put so much detail even into the papers that are lying about #i think i kinda fked it up trying to detail it more and more #it looked better before i decided to stuff hylias room full of things for no reason #and it then forced me to try and be more accurate with light and all even tho i just wanted a nice and comfy little doodle #well maybe some of the vibe is still there #listen i know the perspective is all over the place even tho im usually good at it #its bc i essentially constructed it all backwards and not in order ... i need to plan these thing more #i need to sleep

[hybbat]

One thing I don't like is characterizing Jimmy's canary curse as a fault of his ego/stupid mistakes. He can be and has done those things, but that's not the root of why he loses.

In third life his last death was from a stray arrow that managed to slip through a half block from half a desert away, absolutely a freak accident and crazy shot into a box that was supposed to protect him. Two of his deaths happened back to back in this game, staying completely safe the rest of the time and in both he wasn't the only one.

In last life the man started with two lives and spent the whole game on those two lives! He died in the middle of a big fight where he was not the only one to perma die.

In double life Tango was at fault for the first death, and Jimmy WAS being extra cautious. Even Tango noted how long Jimmy went without dying. And can we acknowledge how incredibly crazy it is that he got knocked off from an arrow that hit him on the BACK of his head? All four were leaned out, and Scar made it out safe, because their attackers were specifically hunting the ranchers based on misunderstanding and bullying. And the enderman death. He was the third to die that way, lasted the longest with the least (on a food run, shield almost dead, no safe trees, abandoned) and that enderman came out of nowhere. That was the purest of bad luck.

And in limited life. Well, there's a lot of deaths, and some of them were silly. But several of his deaths were to Grian and HIS mistakes/malice. He fell off their base the least and his final death was one not even unique to him. The real nail in the coffin was Etho's boogie kill which was never intended to be him but Etho attacked a group after Impulse stole his kill. But the important thing to note is despite all that, Jimmy still died one of if not the fewest times in limited life!

Jimmy's problem isn't making stupid mistakes like Scar. He doesn't make them more often than any other player. He died the fewest times in two seperate series! His problem is his refusal to pvp. He never gets boogieman, he never knocked anyone else down, and when he does end up in group fights he tends to lose or run away. Limited life he got probably the fewest kills besides Tango, and three of them were willingly given to him. He never gained any lives in last life except his brief moment stealing martyn's. Jimmy's biggest problem is that he is too cautious and has zero fighting instinct, he never takes the risks to get ahead, and each time he even thinks of it he's punished for it so who can blame him.

And also Grian. Honestly, mostly Grian.

#the man needs to get away from grian #hes been directly or indirectly at fault for his demise every season #jimmy solidarity #solidaritygaming #3rd life #last life #limited life #double life #what a coincidence the people known for dying are the two closest tied to grian

[tardxsblues]

I have to die. No. You can change things. I can't. Even the tiniest change -- the ramifications could be catastrophic, could spread carnage and chaos across the universe like ripples on a pond.

#they are insane #there is nothing more that gets me riled up #than two self-sacrificial characters #who willingly accept their own fate #but who simply cannot accept the demise of the other #the order of 'you do not leave me' does make me want to walk into traffic #doctor who #dwedit #dwgifs #dw companions #timelordgifs #moffatedit #twelve #twelfth doctor #clara oswald #twelveclara #whouffaldi #dws9 #episode: before the flood #peter capaldi #jenna coleman #tvedit #gif warning

[general-cyno]

More empty words. I swear to you the day will come when you have to pick between them.

#trigunedit #tristampedit #trigun stampede #trigun #vash the stampede #vash #millions knives #nai #myedit #mygifs #got out of postgrad class like. hey i should do smth foul so here we are #before someone comes for my ass i know exactly how much nai himself is to blame here #this parallel just breaks my liddol heart in millions (hah) of pieces #the consequences of the two most traumatized deranged dudes in nml's thinking they can fix each other fr #kept listening to sunlight or demise by unl1ke pluto while giffing and boy did it set the mood for this set #it's good btw i recommend it

[hauntedchild]

THE SKY IS SMILING ON ME AND GOD IS SMILING ON ME ON A DAY AS DARK AS THE CHASM OF THE SEA AND SADNESS PROLIFERATES IN ME

#ishizu ishtar #isis ishtar #obelisk the tormentor #yugioh #wahoo...only took two months but its done #shoutout to girls who march to their grim demise!!

[lykegenia]

So something has been bugging me for a while now about A and N’s backstories, and while I know not everyone will be as pedantic as me, as someone who loves history and has done a lot of writing, I feel that if you’re going to write a story about vampires and give them a specific time and date of origin, then there should be a certain level of research that goes into making that background authentic. I'm not saying that Mishka didn’t do any research. It just seems that in order to keep the vibe of a happy, mellow fantasy some of the less savoury aspects of A and N’s upbringings have been left out, and it's a shame. To be honest, it feels a bit disingenuous, and it feels like an opportunity got wasted.

Let me explain (long post got long, it's 2am)

Let's take A first, since the problem is simpler here.

A is the child of a Norman lord and an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman, born in the first generation after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. A says that these were turbulent times but that their parents had a happy marriage. Which. While I’m sure a lot of unions in that time period made the best of it, I can’t help but feel this description strips away a lot of the context of what was going on at that point in history - and removes some of the complexity about A’s thoughts on love and relationships.

Basically, after he took control of the throne, William the Conqueror stripped many Anglo-Saxon lords of their lands and titles so he could give them to his Norman buddies instead - with the added bonus that it left the Anglo-Saxons without the means to raise armies against him. The sisters, daughters, and widows of the dispossessed Anglo-Saxons were then forced to marry these new Norman lords to legitimise their power, not infrequently after all of their male relatives had been slaughtered. It’s not as if Anglo-Saxon women weren’t used to being used as political chess pieces, but the years after the conquest were brutal. It’s why William had to build so many castles. The point that I’m trying to make is that even if A’s mother was content enough in her daily life, due to the power imbalance between her and her husband, it's very likely she had little choice in the matter. She may have seen a lot of her family killed for political reasons, with the knowledge that – in an age where women had very little protection outside of their paternal household – she might be next if she made too much of a fuss.

It would be fascinating to see what effect that tension has had on A 900 years later, or even to get an acknowledgement of how much times have changed, but we don’t. We don't see how their early years affected them, how they view relationships formed naturally instead of via political contracts. And I really, really wish we did. There is so much potential there.

But A is not the one keeping me up past 2 in the morning. It’s N, and the utter detachment their backstory seems to have from the period in history they lived in as a human. And it all stems from the fact that they came from the English nobility in the late 1600s.

See, the bulk of the problem is that English inheritance law at the time heavily favoured primogeniture, where a man’s wealth would go to his first-born son. Some dispensation was made for widows and other children, but the estates, assets, and most of the money had a very clear destination.

For one thing, this makes it kinda weird that N’s stepfather would have needed an heir before he could inherit, because except in extreme circumstances everything would have gone to him anyway. Don't get me wrong, this isn't the worst part of the problem, it’s just annoying when there are more plausible reasons for him marrying a woman already pregnant with another man’s child (old family friend wanting to save her from disgrace, needed the dowry to pay off gambling debts, there was a longstanding betrothal between them that would have been tricky to get out of, etc.).

No, the bigger problem with N’s backstory vs primogeniture is firstly that at the time the English aristocracy was racist af (still is tbh) and given his pretty obvious mixed-race heritage, no court would have agreed that Nate was a legitimate son (this is for a very special reason that we will be coming back to). I say Nate specifically here because primogeniture requires the eldest legitimate son. Nat wouldn’t have inherited at all, as women in that period passed from the guardianship of their father (or other male blood relative) into that of their husband after marriage, and only gained any kind of independence with widowhood. If N had been an only child, maybe they would have been treated as a special case, but unfortunately Milton exists: the eldest legitimate son who by law will inherit everything.

Now here’s the thing. Your average aristocrat in the 17th century is very obsessed with lineage and keeping the family line unbroken. He would not, therefore, send his legitimate heir to sea to be shot at or drowned before he can carry on the family name – that joy instead goes to any other sons who need their own profession, because again, they will get very little. Nat would have had a dowry, but would never have been expected to make her own living, so I'm going to focuson Nate for this next bit.

In Book 3, if you unlock his tragic backstory Nate tells you he joined the Royal Navy after Milton went missing so that he could go look for him. And, well. This is where his backstory as Mishka tells it completely falls apart. For two reasons:

1. Even in the modern day, you can’t ‘just’ join the Navy, and you certainly can’t just jump straight to being a lieutenant – it takes years of training and after a certain age they won’t take you because they won’t be able to mould you easily enough into a useful tool. For most of the Navy's history, the process was even more involved. It wasn’t an office job you could just rock up to and then quit if you felt like it, it was a lifetime commitment. Boys destined to be officers would be sent to sea as early as 12 to learn shipboard life, starting at the bottom and moving up the ranks. These were gained by passing exams and by purchasing a commission – which is why you generally had to come from wealth to be an officer at all. Once you get to lieutenant you're responsible for a lot of people, and might be tasked with commanding any captured ships alongside the daily running of yours - it was not an easy job.

2. Even as a lieutenant (one rank below Captain, with varying levels of seniority) it’s not like you can just go where you want. In the 1720s British colonies already existed in India, the Caribbean, and up the entire eastern seaboard of North America and into Canada, and the Navy was tasked with protecting merchant shipping along these seaways (and one trade in particular that we’ll be getting to, don’t worry). Nate could have ended up practically anywhere in the burgeoning empire. He would not have been able to choose whom he served under, and would not have been able to demand his superior officer go against orders from the admirality to chase down one lone vessel because he thinks another one of the admirals might be a bit dodgy. It could not have happened.

Besides these impracticalities, there’s a far easier way for the child of a wealthy man to get to a specific point on the far side of the globe to look for their lost sibling, which is the route I assume Nat took sine she couldn’t have joined the Navy (yes she could have snuck in but she’s specifically in a dress in the B2 mirror scene so). All they'd have to do would be to charter a ship and tell the captain where to go, which is the plot of Treasure Island. It's quicker, less fuss, with less chance of things going wrong. It's even possible in the age of mercantilism that the Sewells had some merchant vessels among their holdings that could be diverted for the task. Why go through the hassle of joining the Navy and potentially ending up on the wrong side of the world when you can just hire a ship directly?

If Nate does have to be in the Navy (and let’s face it, it’s worth it just for the uniform) then it's far more plausible is that, as the illegitimate son who would not inherit because of racism etc, he got sent to the Navy as a boy and rose through the ranks to become a lieutenant. When he got news of Milton’s disappearance not far from where he was stationed, he begged his captain to go investigate in case whatever happened turned out to be the symptom of a bigger problem. Like pirates.

I like this version better not just because it makes more sense, or because it keeps Nate’s situation re: inheritance closer to Nat’s and therefore makes their stories more equal, but also because it adds a delicious amount of guilt to Nate’s need to find his brother. We know his entire crew died looking for answers, because he was selfish – that’s roughly 100-400 lives lost because of him, and we know that sort of thing eats at him.

So that's one side of the story, but if Milton wasn’t in the Navy, what was he doing on the other side of the Atlantic in the first place? Well, this is where we come to the biggest elephant in the room regarding N’s backstory as a member of the 17th century English aristocracy and potentially as a naval officer: the Atlantic Slave Trade. If you are wealthy in 17th century Britain it's more than likely that your wealth comes either from the trade itself, or from the products made with the labour of enslaved people. If you are wealthy, you want to protect your assets from attack by pirates or foreign powers so you don't become less wealthy, and that is what the Navy is for.

Regardless of N’s own views on slavery at the time – and any subsequent changes in opinion – it’s likely their family owned or had shares in slave plantations in the Americas. As distasteful as it is, it makes far more sense that Milton was on a trip to check the family’s holdings when his ship - specifically a merchant vessel - went missing. From a pirate perspective, a merchant ship would make a much better target than a Navy vessel, being slower, more likely to have valuable cargo, and less likely to have marines or a well-trained broadside.

It's not surprising that Mishka left out the subject of the slave trade given her tendency to skirt around darker subjects and general blindspot for racial politics, but it is nuance that, if it was there, would create a more grounded and coherent backstory for N that doesn’t have quite so many holes. Like with A being the child of an invader and his war bride, we could get some deeper thoughts from N about their place in the world - How do they feel to have grown up so privileged when others who looked like them were regarded as literal property? How did they feel being part of the system that made it happen? Did it inform their compassionate nature? Is it still a source of guilt or someithng they've tried to make up for?

I'm not sure where I was going with all of this. It's late, my sleep pattern is fucked. The tl;dr is that giving the vampires' backstories historical context would make them feel more multifaceted and would give opportunities for character growth that are instead missed because of a desire for a more sanitized version of the past.

#thank you for coming to my ted talk #the wayhaven chronicles #twc #a du mortain #adam du mortain #ava du mortain #n sewell #nate sewell #nat sewell #it's annoying because it’s such a small tweak in the grand scheme of things #If she didn’t want unfortunate implications she could have made N from a century later when the navy was actively trying to stop slavery #A could have been from a 50 years earlier to tie his whole family’s demise into the subjugation of the english after the battle of hastings #or a century later when the two courts had mostly integrated #mishka made choices #they deserve to be given more substance than mere aesthetics #you can tell it’s late I’m using long words

[hydrachea]

I love that ship where both characters are introduced as friendly, only for one to turn out to have been lying the whole time and try to kill the other, all of which eventually culminates in their defeat and dramatic (and literal) fall, only then for them to return as a reluctant ally of their once enemy who knows them way too well and whose new relationship with them is largely interpreted as bantery. What do you mean which one.

#so maybe i have types yeah #thought about this the other day and hm those sure are similar! funny! #wonder if that's why i love both so much who can say really #absolutely a sucker for those blue themed antagonists turned allies who aren't very happy about it and are also very tsun about it #genshin #fgo #obeguda #scaraether #scaralumi #too bad those last two don't have an encompassing tag for both travelers à la obeguda #oberon 🤝 scara #suffering a crushing defeat and falling to their demise in a way that absolutely marked their fandoms #scara's friendly introduction is a stretch compared to oberon but hey he did start out as friendly in unreconciled stars #i wasn't there for it but i did my research

[hxhrewatchbut1999]

hello its been a while! but anyways i was reading the manga and:

IS THAT SHALNARK OR KURAPIKA???? I NEED TO KNOW FOR GAY REASONS-

#i forgot i had this sideblog ive been rebloging hxh shit on my main😂 #its heimamas if anybody wants to know lol #im obviously rooting for it being shalnark btw cause i ship the shit out of those two bahahah #but at the same time kurapika was his demise so itd make sense if it was pikapika #hunter x hunter #hxh #uvogin #kurapika #shalnark

[whatthefuckistevvs]

Do you love me or do you love the way my blood looks in your hands. Do you love to watch me bleed.

#Ace Attorney #Apollo Justice Ace Attorney #Phoenix Wright #Kristoph gavin #Ace Attorney 4 #AA4 #My draws #A friend asked me to post this here to reblog lmao #hi i finshed AA4 and I have feelings about how fucking gone girl these two go #fellas is it gay to obsess over a mans demise over 7 years?

[piescornerstore]

*points at pink addison and spamton* now FIGHT‼

#*wipes a tear from my eye* i love it when they hate each other #there should be a term for that. making characters hate each other #sometimes a relationship/dynamic is so much more interesting (and funny) #when all they do is plan the others demise #like antishipping or something like that #it entertains me. i just wanna make these two form one of those dust cloud fights #anyway spamton lives rent free in pink's head and there's nothing he can do about it #deltarune addisons #pink addison #spamton #spamton g spamton #big shot spamton #addisons

[ganondoodle]

did another rough concept for faron for my comic

design is based on both skyward swords and botws look since they are the same character in my AU, idk if this is the final one; she will show up in chapter 4

basic design, with robe, and one of her being noisy

(comic concept art)

#ganondoodles #zelda #art #tloz #loz #character design #doodles #skyward sword #the legend of zelda #i kinda want the dragons to look like both skysw but also hint at that they are also the dragons in botw just wayyyy evolved/older #while still have it unique looking #and the fact that shes named faron even though thats kinda ... wrong for her element i based that on hylias poor eyesight #so she literally .. accidentally switched two of the names around #also naydra being the one getting corrupted is bc faron was the one thats been against hylias growing affection for demise #and she really does hate him #so shes more susceptible to malice corruption #even if in botw she is a mere ethereal spirit and theres really nothing of her character left from the time this comic takes place #even if it doesn matter in the story that that happens in botw- it is where i got the idea from #plus shes kinda rude in skysw anyway lol

[ezlo-x]

I think morally grey Hylia was the sexiest thing the fanbase has ever come up with

#even more sexier than rehydrated ganondorf #smth abt a god with questionable morals putting two mortal children in an endless loop #can I also bring morally grey demise into the table? #txt

[pristine-starlight]

Mumbo giving himself the challenge of how many random blocks he can add to Iskall's base all while talking to him

I didn't watch Mumbo in s9, was he always like this or did Secret Life permanently alter his brain chemistry? Bc this sounds like an extremely Secret Life Task thing to do

#hermitcraft #block game #chatter tag #either way im loving his energy #entire slime farm that cost him demise so that he could make two leads #bc ppl said his base would not withstand physics #he is such a specimen #hermitcraft spoilers #mumbo jumbo

[medievalatrocities]

I have just come to the realization that Gavin is older than Hendry and I dont know how to react to this information

#yes this is from my twitter #but still #explanations in reblogs #this genuinely boggled me for two hours #what do you mean #this fucked with the very specific way i had them in my head #what #all of us villains #hendry lowe #gavin grieve #aouv #aood #one of my moots pn twitter said “well i guess alistair likes them older” #and i cant stop thinking about that #cottage trio #edited #all of our demise #all of us villains spoilers

[catoscloves]

thinking about how coriolanus's entire regime/power usurpation was about taking advantage of district 2 people.

he considered sejanus as a district animal who wasn't worthy of the wealth/capitol comforts he'd been "rewarded" with, and disliked him on a personal level as a human being, but still allowed sejanus and others to believe that they were friends and seeked to take advantage of his parents by leveraging his connection to sejanus for their money. snow was responsible (albeit inadvertently since he miscalculated the severity of the consequences of sejanus rebelling and genuinely did not intend for him to die) for sejanus's hanging, and he deceived the plinths and exploited their grief because it served him and his needs.

and then he coddles district 2 so that they would lean pro-capitol during his presidency. this was a strategic move on snow's part - it had to have been, because while he had no personal experiences with anyone from districts 1/4 (which is why even though they seemingly got the same benefits as d2 they still ended up defying the capitol openly in Mockingjay), he knew from what happened to sejanus that district 2 people were raised on the concept of honor and that they were very firm in their convictions. whatever relationship he developed with district 2, he did it so well that instead of people like sejanus, d2 raised bloodthirsty fascist supporting children like enobaria and cato and clove. he convinced the new generations of d2 that fighting in the games was this grand honor and in their best interests, which would ensure their loyalty to him and his cause.

even though he literally (probably) never met cato and clove, coriolanus practically did the same thing to them as he did to sejanus. he pretended that he - and by extension, the capitol that he represents - had their best interests at heart while secretly exploiting them and taking advantage of their easily trusting and driven nature.

#ik people are probably tired of me beating this dead horse about snow x district two #but i could go on forever about it because it was so clever on Suzanne's part #having someone that contributed most directly to the demise of snow's worldview being from the career district that katniss basically said #was the capitol's lapdog and extremely loyal to the capitol #like!!! It's so purposeful and I just. i love it #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #district 2 #coriolanus snow #art & literature #anna speaks #tbosas #thg #the hunger games