when you look up the definition of simpdom in their little island kingdom i hope prince eric shows up. i hope dimples mcgee who had his ass saved and decided actually, that's my future wife. TIME MAY CHANGE THE SHORELINE, BUT TIME WILL NOT CHANGE ME. even aside from his kindness to ariel when she couldn't speak, when he found out she was a mermaid, he just held her tighter. dude had his mind made up. married her so fast, man. love me a dimples mcprince ericgee.
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you know what i love most about damen and laurent? they're both difficult characters. they're both stubborn and proud and angry and hurt and resourceful and intelligent and soft and tough and scheming and capable and on paper they might not be the best match for each other at first, but they got to know each other more intimately than anyone has ever known them, they both managed to see beyond the prejudice that tainted their perception of each other in the beginning, and they've both learned to trust and communicate. and, most importantly, they've never once asked one another to change even an aspect of their personality, complex and difficult and headstrong as they may be.
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So we know that dark magic and star magic are primarily represented by purple. Purple is the colour of Viren's outfit's gemstone, the tips of Claudia's hair, and the initial colour their eyes glow before they become black when performing dark magic. Purpley dark magic is what turns Avizandum and Viren to stone.
Additionally, we see a similar but decidedly different shade of purple for most things we can (assume) are star magic.
So dark magic (and star magic) are both typically purple, like our favourite Startouch elf. So what the fuck is up with the Red?
Now, it's possible that this is just for colour contrast and red having a long history of representing danger and it doesn't mean anything deeper. Fair enough. However, the only possibility is because... It has to do with Blood.
Now, plenty of the dark magic spells we've seen include blood (the little bug pal transfer, Claudia's breathing underwater spell, the revenge spell in the first place). Kim'Dael uses moon and dark magic in drinking blood to prolong her lifespa and her powers. Old concept symbols for dark magic used to, quite literally, just be a droplet of blood.
But...
And that Viren's visions of Claudia only come out to play when she's using a spell that involves her own blood, to boot.
(Side note: the wave perspective here looks very similar to Janai's first person vision of being disintegrated / burned alive by Aaravos. Moving on.)
Anyway, where am I going with all this? I don't really know, to be honest. I think there's a decent amount of evidence that Viren used star (and dark) magic to save Soren's life when he was a child. The associative overlap between Star and dark magic is just about undeniable at this point, even if using the latter didn't let a Startouch elf literally control and channel his magic through you like a puppet.
But I do think there's evidence that Viren possibly used blood related magic - his own blood? - in order to save Soren in the past as well. (Puts a new emphasis on a pure heart being needed for read the scroll that leads to a Star-connected unicorn, eh?) Similar blood practices (ancient again) that Kpp'Ar might've participated in too.
And that Callum may be called to in the future if the coins or quasar diamonds are more complicated than they seem.
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Thinking about the Jailer a while back and finally sat down to do the research that would let me articulate what exactly is going on with her design:
My brain initially glazed over the pattern at the edge of her cowl (and also on the lower edges of her coat, as we see in the other art) as standard gear or crenelation pattern that had parts frayed or worn down. In my defense, I think I was primarily thrown by the inclusion of the visible stitches on the cowl, which add a "worn out" appearance.
Interestingly, while I had thought there were more instances of crenelation motifs present in Harrow, Callum, and Ezran's designs, it actually only appears in the trim on Sarai's skirt:
Anyway, after looking more closely at the Jailer over time, I realized that... that's not accurate. The TDP artists aren't that lazy—those designs are geometric and uneven for a reason. Here's the reason:
It's a motif of (and here's where I had to do research) the bit of a warded key.
I found a really great post about faux-medieval locks and lockpicking vs. actual medieval locks and lockpicking (i.e. what's in ever Elder Scrolls game ever), but a quick summary: a ward or warded lock is a lock that is designed to allow only a specifically-patterned key to turn in the lock to open it. This is similar but subtly different from lever locks, which are still used in modern applications: lever locks use the pattern cut into the bit of the key to shift a series of levers into place that otherwise prevent the bolt from moving, similar to how pin tumbler locks raise a series of pins into alignment. Warded locks, on the other hand, don't actually have anything that prevents the bolt itself from being moved, but instead have a pattern of physical barriers inside the lock that prevent the key itself from being turned unless the pattern on the bit matches up with them. So you sometimes got stuff like this:
Anyway, most of the antique keys you see are probably for lever locks, since those were invented in 1778, are significantly more secure, and generally look a lot simpler in their bit shape.
The problem with the warded lock as a concept is that if you can get to the part that moves the bolt, there's nothing at all to stop you from moving it. Enter the skeleton key—which, contrary to popular belief, is not just any old-looking key. A skeleton key is capable of opening more than one lock, usually a warded lock, by essentially bypassing the wards. For example, the skeleton key on the right here would be able to open the warded locks for both keys on the left:
Something like this seems to be a pretty common skeleton key set for some kinds of modern padlocks:
hmmmmMMMMMmmmm
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