#there’s so much lore that needs to be extrapolated lol

[boundinparchment]

I love your personality for dottore’s character! I like how he demonstrates his intelligence in a way that is not overbearing and cocky and how his actions have deep meanings behind them and not just for his satisfaction like most interpretations. how do you go about making such a character? Is it from purely your own perspective or is it influenced by other characters,books,philosophy concepts or any other piece of media?

Hi!

Some of his character is a personal interpretation but it’s based on a foundation from several other analyses and canon material that we have from the game.

Namely, some of the following Reddit threads:

Sadist or Scientist?

Dottore as a Villain and Sumeru’s Dysfunction

The Heresies of Il Dottore

There’s also a very long thread in this sub that’s living rent free

Along with the manga where we get a few crumbs for Celestia lore/Dottore’s perspective on allogenes, the Archon quest voicelines and Scara’s character quest, and Zandik’s notes found in the overworld.

@/ellalalala and localplaguenurse and haeresysabound also have their own analyses that prove really helpful and look at different facets of his character.

Most of it is a logical progression of how someone like him would think. He’s rational, observed before he acts, and doesn’t so much predict as follow the logic behind someone’s previous patterns of behavior. He’s arrogant to a fault but it’s posturing; a lot of people display that kind of behavior in the real world.

Most of the time, I start with a situation and, based on all of the above, I play, “what would Dottore do?”

He’s ultimately insatiably curious, chasing knowledge for the sake of it, just to see what happens.

Machines help him to understand the world and his interpretation of it. It goes to show how detached he is to consider a human body is nothing but a machine of its own, capable of surpassing the divine.

He’s more human than anyone because he seeks to understand and push the limitations; humans are naturally curious creatures who long to make the world better and leave a legacy behind.

But it’s not chaotic. It’s not The Joker style of curiosity where it’s bombastic and wild, a twisted version of a joke.

I’d argue that Webtorre is The Joker while Omega and in-game Dottore is Scarecrow.

And this is where myself (and others) differ because I do not think Dottore is a sadist. That he wants to harm people. It’s very obvious in several notes that, while not signed, are written in a manner that you know it’s Dottore. There’s one that lists several subjects and he considers the actions taken by a subordinate (I think it’s torturing one of them? Something drastic, will check) to be a waste of resources.

Is he apathetic? More than likely.

Does he enjoy seeing others suffer? Probably not. Why else would he be looking for a cure for Elezar, even as a byproduct to understanding the Withering?

He would probably actually be a failure at relationships precisely because he doesn’t know how to connect with people. If he would want to pursue a meaningful connection, there’s a lot stacked against him between trust issues built up over centuries, a detached worldview, and more than likely, a skewed sense of self (he’s arrogant but to a fault where he’s clearly still sensitive about how no one but himself sees him as a scholar). So many of the meaningful reasonings to his actions stem from this in particular.

My personal suggestions for additional insight would be:

Most renditions of the Scarecrow from Batman. How he sees fear is how I imagine Dottore understands knowledge. The more you have of it, the less you can fear, the better to understand the world around you.

I’ll put more here as they come to mind, because I’m definitely forgetting others at the moment.

#thank you for this! #dottore #il dottore #one day I will write an essay that additionally condenses all of this #there’s so much lore that needs to be extrapolated lol #but I am under a time crunch rn and this was what my brain spit at me

[illegiblewords]

Serious talk about meta under the cut.

I don't know who might need to hear it, but fwiw mental flexibility is a huge part of analysis (and interacting with other humans lol). You need to be able to account for multiple possibilities when examining a work, or understanding a social exchange. You need to be able to separate what is objective fact from your own subjective interpretation and judgment. The most negative interpretation is not automatically the most worthwhile or true. Someone throwing accusations around in-line with their own worst interpretations does not guarantee those accusations are warranted. You are not a bad or stupid person for disagreeing. Shit needs to withstand scrutiny. I don't always strike the right balance myself. I do the best I can but I'm definitely not perfect. Tbh I'm not beyond pettiness either--although I try to keep that out of actual analysis lol. There have been times I've griped to friends privately or blogged about how I felt (sans tags, with spoiler blocks so people can opt out). I've griped recently. I'm bound to gripe again in the future. Some level of griping is inevitable imo and I figure no one is 100% immune.

All that said, even if someone’s take isn't canon AND even if it's something I really dislike--I'd personally rather people follow their passions anyway. Hands down. I could be in the middle of a rant and my answer would still be that the subject of my frustration gets to exist. I'm not the boss and odds are we're going with different versions in our own heads. Discouraging another fan from creating due to my preferences or narrative approach would horrify me. I've seen fandoms where gatekeeping like that killed the creative community and it was fucking awful.

Not everyone is confident in their own judgment. Not everyone faced with a pissed off person trying to use lore and accusations like clubs will feel okay continuing with their own vision. Elitism and manipulation (especially through rhetoric) can be present within analysis. People are not being taught how to recognize those things properly. Analysts aren't always aware or invested enough to even be careful. It’s legit easy to get caught up in ideas or feelings to the point of forgetting about other people’s, and adjusting to account for alternate approaches takes some work. For me at least, I think having a 'no insults' policy and being super careful when it comes to absolute claims (assertions not qualified by 'I think' or 'it could be argued') helps.

Anyway. Just because a person calls something ‘meaningless’ doesn't make it meaningless. Someone pooh-poohing an observation you made doesn't make your observation less true or important. Employing a literary term doesn't mean that individual actually understands the term, how it works, or how to apply it. Which is to say nothing of romantic chemistry or whatever. I encourage readers to extrapolate on this. ‘Shallow’ could apply as much as ‘meaningless’. Denying parallels exist by itself doesn’t actually negate those parallels. Your version of a character may not be the same as the fan next to you’s and that difference doesn't have to detract. There's more I could say on the subject (I've edited out a lot) but basically--just because another fan isn't into what you're doing doesn't automatically make what you're doing wrong, immoral, shoddy, or otherwise less.

Seriously, vet shit. Question the entire premise an analyst tries to establish then decide for yourself if it holds water. Turn over word choices and assertions in your head before deciding if they're appropriate. Do it to me too. I don't care if someone is the holy goddamn emperor of analysts. Just because a person says something is good or bad, true or false, whatever the hell doesn't make it so. Just because a person uses a technical term doesn't mean they're discussing it effectively. Quality of argument matters beyond the packaging it’s wrapped in. It's important to protect yourself from people whose priority is enforcing their own preferences, including dismissing things they aren't partial to.

I just don't want anyone shamed silent man. Not even people whose takes drive me up the fucking wall. Neither I nor any other analyst is an authority here. And there are people who are absolutely ready to take advantage of other people’s insecurities to assert themselves. Might not even be malicious, just indifferent.

For me, analysis feels kind of like uncovering a dinosaur skeleton. I want to share the cool and exciting things I find with other people. Sometimes I might be sorting out what my own thoughts and feelings are. It's also possible to examine why you're uncomfortable with something, or why you love something another person hates, while making very clear what is YOUR READING and not THE READING. Offering a variety of possibilities is very different from presenting yourself as the only correct one. One note at the end when everything else was insulting and intolerant is like a band-aid over a wound.

EDIT: As a last point, that I'm throwing in just-in-case. If anyone reading this thinks they may have overreached and done stuff I've mentioned + feels shitty about it… that's still not the end of the world. It’s okay. This is hard stuff to learn and I really don't think anyone's perfect at it. Worth the effort though. Just gotta take a deep breath, acknowledge you're a fallible human same as everyone else, and do the best you can going forward. Life goes on.

#saw one that horrified me a bit recently #involved a combination of overreaching + insults + purity culture #I can totally imagine buying in and being seriously fucked up by it when I was younger #I don’t want that happening to anyone else #it's okay to talk about NOTPs man but there are more and less responsible ways to do that

[inbarfink]

My homie I have amazing news. In one of Finn's past lives he was a butterfly. Fionna is probably dreaming of one of her past lives. Like yeah I know dream analysis and stuff and the shwo is very deep. But maybe it's just a cute easter egg.

Okay, I was actually totally planning to add a lil thing in the tags of that post that I was like "hmmm or maybe it can also be related to Finn's past life as a butterfly" but then I, like, had a brainfart and forgot about it lol??? I literally don't know what happened there, honestly.

But also, there is a reason I only meant to leave this idea as a little-side-addendum in the tags - because I don't consider it very likely at all right now. First and foremost because, yeah, one of Finn's past life was a butterfly - but that doesn't necessarily mean anything about Fionna.

I mean, we know that the F&C verse sometimes flips around characters' species. For Glob's sake, literally the second-most important character in this universe is a cat whose Mainverse counterpart is a dog! As far as we know, Fionna's past life could've been a maggot or a Kiwi bird!

Also, an important thing to remember here is that Fionna isn't having this dream alone. Cake is ALSO dreaming with her

While it's been kinda implied that Finn and Jake keep reincarnating as best bros throughout their lives and maybe you can extrapolate that would be true of Fionna and Cake as well. But there's nothing in this little visual that could be a 'companion' to the butterfly so I think it's worth asking.... why is Cake dreaming of Fionna's past life as well?

Also, I would buy the idea this was just "Fionna dreaming of her past lives" more if, like, the first episode's title sequence showed her dreaming of a shooting star or a pink slime or a genderswapped version of Shoko or anything else also related to Finn's past lives. But instead what we had was this:

What seems to be a simplified version of the Hotel from her dream sequence at the start of the episode (note the little beach chair on top). I mean, if Finn has a comet I guess Fionna's past life could be a building but... yeah I'm pretty sure that's just the hotel from the dream. It seems like the emerging pattern is Fionna dreaming about a location from the episode at each Ending Title Sequence.

Because the most important thing is that Fionna in the EP2 ending isn't just dreaming of a random butterfly....

That Butterfly is sitting on the MASK WORN BY THE 'EVIL BEAR' FROM THAT SAME EPISODE.

So Fionna is dreaming explicitly of a butterfly flying around in the Heart of Ooo. So if THIS is her past life that actually has far more Lore Implications than if the dream is just symbolic of the series' themes.

And you know, I was just kinda spitballing with that "Zhuang Zhou Dreams of Being a Butterfly" thingy. I still think there's something there especially with Fionna dreaming of Ice King and Ice King dreaming of Fionna but... there's a lot of interesting thematic meanings you can take from the butterfly if you don't insist on refusing to engage with it for silly reasons.

The aforementioned 'Butterfly Effect' concept is one. But you can also look at more general symbolism associated with butterflies. Such as Freedom (which is, when you get down to it, what Fionna is dreaming about more than anything) or Change and Transformation. You know, kinda like how the ending of this episode signified an important Change in the status que of both of our main leads?

And Transformation is a HUGE theme in this particular episode. You know, Simon's struggle of having being transformed into Ice King and now back to Simon again and how much it messed up his sense of identity? Or how his trauma Changed him? Or how he has a hard time coping with the Changes in his life and the world in general?

We'll probably need more than two episodes to really see what the pattern is with the ending titles and thus more reliably speculate on What Could It Mean. But with the information we have, I don't think it was just Fionna dreams of her past life. And even if it is, I think it's silly to totally discard all the thematic possibility of the butterfly. There's a reason why didn't just dream of being a Pink Slime, after all.

(edited to remove a factual error because I made a point about Fionna's surname not being related to Finn but forgot that was Minvera's name lol)

#adventure time #atimers #fionna and cake #adventure time spoilers #adventure time fionna and cake #fionna and cake spoilers #fionna and cake series #fionna and cake show #fionna campbell #simon petrikov #cake the cat #fionna the human #adventure time fionna #adventure time simon #simon adventure time

[bioluminosity]

What did Witnessian culture look like? And do you have a name for the species?

I don't have a name for them beyond whatever I make up on the fly ("origin species"). If I had to make something up though I'd probably look at the choice vocabulary in the lore like Unveiling, Inspiral, etc., and etymologies related to them, but that's like a whole essay's worth of consideration, so I'll get back to you on that. As for aesthetics. Concept art from Bungie has notes on the disciples' appearances taking after its culture X, and we have the pyramids (in which apparently the mural styles of Rhulk's may be more Witness-aligned than his own work, but it's also more than likely the graphics were used in the origin cutscene for consistency, anyway that is less important), but something that interests me the most right now is Tessellation. There are visual references to that "artifact" vibe (and I am curious for the quests surrounding its catalyst), it shares material from TFS trailers (+rainbow roads in the Mars relic/some pyramid maps), and the flavor text/lore are formatted much like other "Witness" stuff we've seen.

Namely the handle's spinal shape (think Mykel's Reverence from Root), the tassels, barrel, and the top is literally shaped like a pyramid. It looks crafted with the reverence of a species' dogma. That part might be biased.

Beyond that, though, there is a lot to garner from the pyramids and other Witness-aligned environments. Rhulk's has the horse statues and a lot of general cityscapes (plus a "Dark City" in Savathun's throne world), there are some greyhound-looking reliefs in the Witness' pyramid (but it does not strike me as a dog person lol?), strange floating lights everywhere, etc. Generally speaking, we see a lot of "tomb" architecture (+actual tombs which makes sense given themes of death + disciple lore), but also themes of conquest, so I use all of these in my visual library for picturing their home world and the fleet (where most of the AU takes place, thus the story is a bit grim). That is all to say nothing of the structures we got on Europa which feel a bit unique in presentation (garnering feelings of discovery, unlike stuff from LF's season of defiance which is more clearly meant to invoke "invasion", but of course the other stuff was still being worked on for TWQ+TFS).

If I were to try and extrapolate anything besides what we've been given in-game, though, I'd go back to the (alleged) utopia landscape of their "Garden" world along with a desert/nomad background, [which is what I started my AU with: literal travelers], as the idea of conquest -- if it did not already exist within their culture -- definitely arose from their...integration and newfound purpose with the Final Shape. (Cue separate essay about war, falsehoods in utopias, and paracausal resources.) It feels redundant to say religion and philosophy were important -- Unveiling is right there, and Inspiral has some parables from ambiguous sources -- but I like to think these disciplines were more highly regarded than war or economics in a society that would have had its material needs being met, or maybe just exerted itself with overwhelming force. (Edit: The AU expanded on the powers we now know were granted to them by the Traveler + the Veil, letting them be sorts of planetary/universal curators, though that's a surprisingly less developed portion of that story. It would allow these ideas of authority to pervade their culture over time.)

Needless to say a LOT of the imagery hinted at in TFS trailers looks like really cool expansions on this "empty" empire, with a more personal effect with the hands and half-figures everywhere. like dont even get me started bc we will be here all day about design themes and motifs. But a lot of it also references the whole of Destiny rather than the species.

Sorry that was really long and a bit broader than like, what they would wear in different time periods/decorate with/paint etc. Those sorts of things are very interesting to me and would be born from the foundations laid out above!

#u gotta take my word for a lot of it bc i am not going thru like 900 screenshots #asks #prj: conserva me #destiny 2 #the witness #going more into canon stuff here ig #I really want to do polished design stuff with a lot of this but the Horrors. the Adulting. we will see. #the wicked implement mission is also a FEAST for this stuff #i REALLY wanted to draw smthn for this ask and i prob still will since its been on my mind as i get back to portfolio things. #am just 1 little guy with many work to do. #mortality au #witness me

[goldensunset]

Seeing your Volo posts kinda made me think;

Volo is like Walmart-variety Waka but without what actually makes Waka such a good character (also Waka’s a hundred times hotter for a number of reasons)

ok first of all heyyyyyyy i like volo!!! i clearly like him a lot this is a big volo fan blog i think he's a great character i wouldn't talk about him so much if i thought he wasn't. no need to pit two epic blonde dudes against each other here. i don't really have a response to 'waka is a hundred times hotter' bc in my view both of them look weird and strange for different reasons but it works and makes sense in context of their canons. but you're entitled to your opinion

second of all fun fact did you know that a post comparing volo and waka is actually how i got spoiled on the volo twist lol? i just remember coming across a huge block of text in the okami tag and seeing the name of some character called volo and at the bottom of the post i saw the tags for pla and was like 'oh NO i just spoiled myself on the game i recently got but haven't opened yet...' bc it hadn't occurred to me to dodge spoilers on the internet for it bc i never thought a post about this franchise i wasn't into yet like this would organically appear in my line of sight

third of all as for your actual point yes i agree!! sad lonely blonde man mourning the loss of an ancient culture, one of very few survivors of it, it's not clear what happened, both pursuing a deity in some regard, etc. but like in opposite directions. you think waka's gonna turn out to be evil but he really is some genuine-hearted dude who loves you a lot and it hurts. meanwhile volo appears to be the guy who understands you and respects you more than anyone else but psyche he was just using you! it's tasty

i suppose as for 'waka is a better character than volo' you could say waka's motives and backstory are significantly clearer. it isn't difficult to extrapolate meaning out of volo's actions or puzzle out what he considers to be wrong with the world that needs to be fixed given his interests and the underlying lore of this game but it's true that it's never explicit. but nonetheless given that one character is a hero (not even an anti-hero or anti-villain, just straight up an ally even if he doesn't appear to be helping at first) and the other is a villain it's sort of hard to compare them like that. similar vibes as dudes on their own but being the narrative tools that they are they're very different

#asks #feliciadraws #also: my greetings to the esteemed feliciadraws; biggest waka stan on this site! lol #okami #okami waka #pokémon #legends arceus #volo #pla

[damn-it-a-hogwarts-legacy-blog]

Omg thank you for answering my ask! 😭🩷

To be honest, as much as I don't want the notion that Ominis died alone in the 1920's (or worse, probably killed), I also have the morbid curiosity to actually know what happened to him; canon-compliant wise. I mean, I could understand why the developers said he died just before Tom Riddle was born. It was out of convenience for the actual HP plot, that Voldemort truly was the last Gaunt out there. I think that's lazy writing but what's worse than that is the fact that Ominis seems like a character that was made to "fill in the blanks" of other people's stories. And that hurt me more than anything.

I suppose this is the reason why I'm personally as invested in the whole Gaunt family line as you are. It's either I'm in denial that what we know about his fate is truly what it is, or there's definitely something more to this. I believe there is a reason why Ominis is blind in the whole HL lore. If Avalanche decides to continue this game into a franchise, it would be extremely wise on their part if they dig super deep into all the characters' background — especially Ominis' and Sebastian's. There's too much plot holes in this that I can't imagine the developers leaving unexplored.

As a lot of people say, having the Gaunt Manor scrapped in the storyline was a bad decision because Ominis' character is such a goldmine for all of us. Just my ramblings I'm so sorry for spamming you 😖

I'm extremely happy to talk to you about all of this—no need to apologize, thank you for the second ask!! 💚

Yeah, the fact that Ominis even exists surprises me, given how much thought they put into adhering to canon. They were so careful with so many details that I also simply can't accept something wild doesn't happen with this boy in one way or another. Unless I missed a social media post, I don't think the devs have ever explicitly said he dies before Tom Riddle and it's purely extrapolation based on book canon? I'm very bad at keeping up with social media tho so if an official source did explicitly say it somewhere please let me know haha.

He definitely feels like a character that was just made to fill in gaps for other characters for sure, but it makes me happy that, as an NPC, he's second only to Sebastian in terms of fandom popularity. But I can understand why it would hurt anyway. I've definitely felt that with other characters in other fandoms and it's not fun.

I'll be real, I have been participating in fandoms for a very long time and I have a strong track record of being head over heels for the characters that audiences aren't supposed to get attached to (villains, unpopular characters, narratively insignificant characters, characters who die... usually all of the above...). Eventually, I learned that canon could make me sad and dampen my enjoyment, which has happened a couple times until I actually left those fandoms because I was too sad, or I could just say "well nuts to that, I don't like this one thing, so I'm doing my own thing." I absolutely understand the need to hold onto that canon compliance tho, I certainly used to be in your position with this kind of thing. And if more focus on canon compliance is what makes you happy, absolutely go for it—we all need to approach the source material in the way that makes us happiest. Fandom should be about having fun, after all :)

For me, I enjoy the mental exercise of remaining as canon-compliant as possible while also filling in the gaps with whatever I want. Like oh, canon very clearly implies Ominis died in/before the 1920s? Well to that I say "everyone else in-universe merely thinks he died and he's actually living a very happy, quiet life in the countryside with his spouse and kids because it makes me happy" lol.

Thank you again for the ask! I love getting to yammer endlessly about stuff like this with others and I adore getting to hear others' perspectives on this stuff. My inbox is always open for convos like this 💚

#hogwarts legacy #ominis gaunt

[coyotevallie]

please tell us your thoughts about jedidiah and lucille's relationship i need to know

THANK YOU FOR SAVING ME I WAS SO SAD THAT IT GOT EATEN ..... but yeah jedidiah and lucilles relationship sort of fascinates me ...... this isnt gonna have a cohesive Thesis or anything and a lot of the things i raise i dont really have answers for bc i think we're gonna get More lucille lore and so its kind of hard to like .... nail down any hard answers rn so im kinda just rambling abt my thoughts but yk . mainly the like ... Secretive nature of their relationship sort of fascinates me theres this feeling throughout that their mother-son relationship is something that needs to be ignored and kept secret . which Does make sense in the broader context that jedidiah might not wanting the kids or even his co-counselors knowing, thats fairly normal (nobody wants to be a nepo baby lol) thats not really what im talking about, im more focused on how this permeates their interpersonal dynamics, mainly in hive of anxiety. jedidiah speaks to lucille in a way that is incredibly formal - the way an employee speaks to their boss, but dialed up even higher than that, up until he starts getting emotional. the effort being put into avoiding the fact that lucille is his mom is Strong, though interestingly lucille doesnt fall into this role as much - though she does change her behavior after jedidiah calls her mom, implying that there is some amount of going w this on her end as well. calling her mom is something that is used as a last resort, and its notable that jedidiah is EXTREMELY upset before this point. before jedidiah resorts to acknowledging the fact that lucille is his mother, hes already had several angry outbursts and almost started crying. it takes him being so frustrated that he loses the ability to speak coherently in anything other than repeating jesus over and over for him to Finally resort to calling her mom. and interestingly, the one time lucille shows favor to sydney over jedidiah within the events we see in canon flips these roles: she speaks to sydney in secret and goes behind jedidiahs back, which also happens to be the one episode where lucille expresses public affection towards jedidiah. just an interesting little detail. its just really interesting to me bc it makes me wonder how long that dynamic of secrecy has been going on? theres some conflicting evidence on this - sydney references jedidiah knowing what love and care looked like, but he has a father so its not clear enough if thats really referring to lucille to be able to extrapolate it. jedidiah makes a sort of dry joke about lucille never teaching him how to hug, but lack of affection doesnt Necessarily equate this specific weird dynamic they have going on. jedidiah mentions to joshua and yvonne that he works for his mom which COULD imply that weird dynamic wasnt a thing in college so they already knew, or it COULD mean that he just said it bc he was in the middle of a rant, or it COULD mean that the counselors just know this information, or it COULD mean fifty different things . u see why jedidiah and lucilles relationship is reaaalll hard to analyze lol . anyway im sleepy so im gonna finish this here but basically im kind of fascinated in the layers of how fucked up they are and i really want to know How Long theyve been this fucked up and Why theyre this fucked up and AGH

#more thoughts lol sorry #jedidiah seems to put more effort into this secrecy generally pseaking #but why does it HAPPEN is what intrigues me #and why does lucille keep pushing at him over and over until he breaks and drops it #calling him petnames like honey after he does so #what is going AWNNNN there

[protect-namine]

hiii i saw ur tags on the new genshin video and was wondering if you remember when/where the hexenzirkel was first referenced?? this was my first time hearing of it and im super curious what bit of lore i mightve missed! i didn't start playing until right after the first GAA ended (rip) so i know for sure theres some event-exclusive albedo/mona/klee stories ive missed out on. im not finding anything helpful on the genshin wiki though so figured i'd just ask! love ur url btw :)

I love your url too! it's cute!!

okay I'm about to unearth this can of worms so bear with me for the length; the hexenzirkel is one of my favorite mysteries in genshin. I imagine that the wiki page might not be updated with everything yet since this is really the first time we've heard of them in an official capacity, but we can extrapolate a lot from what we previously knew. I'll put this under a read more. :D

from what I remember, we didn't actually have any info on hexenzirkel for a long time. the first time I saw it ever mentioned was from lisa's voiceline on mona.

Mona? She seems to be an excellent mage, but I'm not a part of their Hexenzirkel. The idea of Irminsul exploration and formal tea parties just leaves me cold.

and barbara's character story about when alice tried to turn her into an idol (lol):

"But... aren't The Seven the ones that people are supposed to worship?" / "Yes, but not exclusively…" replied Alice, an elder of the Hexenzirkel, as she groomed the young girl for stardom. "Read this, it contains everything you will need to know."

I'm not super updated on lore but I believe those were the only instances we've seen the hexenzirkel actually mentioned by name before this year's windblume.

so for a while that was really all we knew: that there's this coven of witches who have tea parties and explore irminsul. and since irminsul was such a big mystery, it was intriguing to know about them! however, since we know that alice is an elder, we can kinda extrapolate a lot from what we know of alice.

(interestingly: lisa mentions hexenzirkel as if mona is a part of it, but mona's official affiliation is of mondstadt. I'm also not sure if mona knew about the hexenzirkel, or much of them, though she certainly knew about her master, and albedo's master, and alice. so idk if she's officially a part of them, but lisa seems to think so?)

(also, lisa was apparently known as a grand mage at one point but that's all behind her now and she won't tell us much about it)

what we know about alice is scattered in many areas, but what interests me is that she:

is the rival-friend of mona's master (from mona's story quest) and was in possession of her diary (which she left with klee)

is friends with rhinedottir/gold, since she took care of albedo after rhinedottir left with the heart of naberius

is the author of the teyvat traveling guide

seems to know about other worlds existing. some speculate that she herself is a descender since she references a lot of outside-Teyvat stuff (like her dialogue in the first GAA), and it was curious how she was the one to narrate aloy's character miscellany instead of dainsleif

"Teyvat's borders have grown fragile these past two years — looks like Mommy's going to have to get busy." what does she have to do with "teyvat's borders"? this is from the wings of feasting description (yes, the KFC glider)

is immune to irminsul memory wipes (from how she narrates wanderer's character miscellany, she seems to know who wanderer really is). in the same video, she mentions that she has a special job that allows her special privileges that allows her to observe the world through different perspectives (sidenote: lol dottore would kill for that kind of privilege)

is in good terms with venti, since he knows everything about how to get traveler to GAA, literally gives traveler the cheatsheet for the lantern in this year's windblume, has the dodocommunicator, etc.

from there, the community just kinda associated alice with rhinedottir and mona's master (we now know her name is barbeloth, as in barbelos the mother of all in gnosticism, which is another whole can of worms). and have (correctly) inferred that they both must be part of the hexenzirkel with alice.

we also know that all of their children/successors are in mondstadt (klee, albedo, mona) and are actually good friends. from mona's character story 4, we know that they regularly meet up to have lunch and exchange knowledge ("since [albedo and mona] are both people who seek to unveil the principles of the world, and both are accomplished students of famed masters, aligning themselves with one another and working together is perfectly normal."). I think this will become important in the storyline later (like maybe two years later lol), especially since alchemy and hydromancy are very closely tied to the secrets of teyvat, and they are both fields that albedo and mona learned from their masters.

the rest of this post is mostly speculation, but I've heard some interesting theories about the hexenzirkel over the past two years:

the adventurer's guild was set up by the hexenzirkel. some people have cited that the roof of mondstadt's guild looks like a witch's hat. ashikai made a whole video about this theory (which also has a lot of info that I probably haven't covered) if you're interested!

skirk (the person in the abyss who taught childe how to survive there when he fell in) is also a member. I think that's not confirmed right now, since we now have the names of the witches and skirk wasn't mentioned, but maybe they could be a successor like scarlett?

hexenzirkel has deep connections to istaroth and might even worship istaroth. I don't have all the details to how this theory came to be, but I remember thinking it seems possible! I think it's because mona/hexenzirkel has a lot of the star of ishtar symbol. albedo said that mona's island in GAA (minacious isle) was literally a mountain razed by barabatos and it's from the location where the thousand winds temple is (in the first GAA we follow a seelie from there back to mondstadt, which confirms it). it was also the island where you travel between past and present AND where you can see the sky with purple hues for the first time (before we got the desert in sumeru). usually the skies of teyvat are in blue-green hues. with the revelation that the witches once tried to fight venti, I think this lends some weight to their istaroth connections (though of course, venti is friends with them now). them sending their successors to mondstadt kinda harkens back to the time when mondstadt worshipped both time and wind simultaneously in the distant past.

finally, the new windblume event actually points to some new theories. the video seems to imply that mona is a fallen star that her master scried upon. whether or not she fell from the "true" or "false" sky is unknown at the moment. I used to think she might be a daughter of outlanders, but maybe she's actually a descender herself? or a star of the false sky? either way, I'm always curious about how she came to know a song unknown to teyvat.

But sometimes, on a clear night, she can be seen on a high mountain slope. There, Mona gazes up at the stars in the sky — so close, she feels, that she could almost reach out and touch them — with gentle eyes, humming an unknown tune to herself.

so all in all, hexenzirkel lore is pretty scattered. but once you know the key figures related to them, you can just dive into their lore and you'll eventually find out about them. I got into them because I liked klee and albedo so I read their character stories, which led me to alice and mona, which led me to the hexenzirkel.

now that they're finally officially introduced in the game, hopefully we'll see more of them in the future! I think, given that it took them 2+ years to be mentioned without any official appearances from the members, that they'll be important to the endgame story when we circle back to mondstadt/celestia/khaenri'ah.

sorry this was very long, but hope that gives you brief introduction to some of the most mysterious factions in the game! I love them so much, so I'm glad they're getting attention now from other people!!

#ask me stuff #paopujuice #liveblogging genshin #genshin lore

[unlicensed-un-proffesional]

What gets me about most “lore” heavy video games is, it’s complexity for the sake of complexity, and nothing really else. Lore heavy creepypasta’s or ARG’s too. Like I enjoy them enough but, at the end of the day what was it really for? What is it really saying? It feels like an adult doing the thing children do where they play with their toys and complicate and distort the story until by the end you have a “narrative” of some sorts that is technically by surface level standards rich and complex, but without much reasoning behind it, thematics, ideas, you know? Where does it connect? Why does that need to happen to serve the narrative? What does it really feel like?

I’m not going to name names, because we all have different levels of understanding that will lead us to believing some things do and do not apply to this idea that others will definitely disagree with, but it’s kind of disappointing when by the end, there isn’t really much of a reason to have to learn all that crazy lore. It’ll have you go “WHAT! THATS CRAZY!” But nothing really else. It’s “quirky lol” in writing form. And sometimes it’s meant to be like that, for laughs, like the TF2 comics. But pretending to be serious and offering really nothing in terms of messaging is kinda disappointing.

What emotions had actually brought these ideas to the people in a media form and consciously impacted their development? You can extrapolate unintended subconscious messaging, or tell why people did certain things, but does it really have a, reason? A feeling they’re trying to communicate? A simple lesson told through an active experience instead of a lecture? What did you feel when making it and put into it with reason and drive? What will I and others feel long after we put the story down? What will we think and feel, even if we can’t name it, even if you can’t name it, this essence has to be there to justify the complexity, the darkness, the mystery, or else, what was it even for? Not everything has to be so profound, but if it’s not, please don’t pretend it is.

As much as I ramble, I bet you get what I mean.

#hexacles.txt #pentacles talks #it’s pronounced pen tuh cleese

[convexicalcrow]

I have to ask, now that I’ve slept properly, I’m surprised you haven’t wrote anything of Vex Scar and Grian. Given you have a lot of ship stuff of Scar corrupting the fuck out of people. I’m thinking he has done something similar to Grian at one point. Given their time together in 3rd Life. Hmmmmthis now gives me dark shipping ideas.

Also what are your head canons and lore in Vex people?

I'll be honest, I find Cub and Scar a far more interesting pairing to write for than Scar and Grian. No shade on Scarian shippers ofc, but they're just not that interesting to me. >_> I suspect it's bc I'm just hyperfixated on Cub so, I'm far more interested in ConVex stuff than Scarian stuff. Unless it's Cub/Ariana Griande, that I do ship (ty AK <3). But yeah. Not my thing! But if it's something you wanna run with, feel free. <3

(also it was Ren and Martyn that got me into 3rd Life, so my heart will always be with them over desert duo. >_>)

As for headcanons and lore, that's a longer answer. And this will get rather long so strap yourselves in lol. :D

For me, I tend to stick fairly close to canon? I just maybe extrapolate a little from that. So my Vex are a hivemind, a collective. They exist mostly in another realm/plane of existence as spiritual beings, and only come into the overworld through being summoned by Evokers, or by possessing players.

This other plane of existence I tend to refer to as Vexspace, and it's where the Vex reside and hold all their power. Evokers do not have access to this space as they are not Vex, but they act as priests and high priests, and are more seen as individuals than the Vex are. The Vex have a hierarchy, though it's both strict and loose at the same time, given the Vex don't really see themselves as individuals but as a collective.

Scar and Cub are considered Holy Vessels of the Vex, as they are used to channel Vex magic into the overworld. Possession by the Vex is done when they have need of physical bodies, and is done by wearing the Vex masks. The Vex masks have other powers, not just possession, such as unlocking their Vex forms, and giving them access to higher streams of Vex magic they would not otherwise be able to access, tho Cub is the only one who really takes advantage of this.

Cub and Scar can always hear/sense/feel the Vex around. There's always that connection to Vexspace. By extension, they are always aware of where each other is as well. They can travel through Vexspace to find each other, or visit other mansions, or other places where they want to go, but they don't always use this method of transport bc they are players first and it doesn't always occur to them to do so.

Which brings me on to mansions! They're like home bases for the Evokers as priests and high priests in the overworld. Connections to Vexspace and Vexkind that are highly charged with Vex magic. Vindicators act as protectors of the mansion, the Evokers, and the Vex. I know some have used mansions as a name for a collective of Vexes, but that isn't my thing. For me, mansions are their overworld homes especially for Evokers. It's where the Vex can learn about what's happening from their eyes and ears in the overworld, and how they did get a lot of their intel about the overworld before Scar and Cub came along.

Indeed, Scar and Cub have been responsible for great advancements in Vex magic use, bc ofc players are creative in a way Evokers aren't. Evokers have names these days because one day, Scar and Cub built a Cathedral to the Vex, and named the high priest. The Evokers name themselves now after stars found in Cub's Book of the Stars to honour how much he has taught them about Vex magic.

There's probably more I'm forgetting, but it's 12:30am and I should probably head to bed lmao. But that's the main gist of my Vex lore and how I write them. I don't really vary much from this bc I like to be consistent. But yeah, apart from that, I really just write from the ConVex canon and work from there.

#convexical asks #convex #hermitshipping #scar/cub #scarian #cub/ari #treebark #ren/martyn #vex lore #evoker lore #convex lore #world-building #headcanons

[unproduciblesmackdown]

this isn’t the most straightforward interpretation of “why a giant swan made of light appears to rue before mytho kind of casually phases out of that swan” but i choose to hc that, actually, yes he Can choose to assume the form of a giant swan made of light at his convenience/discretion

like, not like we didn’t have the instance (twice, now) that one of tutu’s sort of like, alternate forms is A Giant Swan Made Of Light, so who knows maybe it’s meant more like “here you go, riding the wave of hope magic to transport you here for this moment” or just that he has to magically get from point A to B somehow and why not have some extra detail about it looking cool and throwing in another Swan visual to do so....etc etc. but also we do know that mytho and tutu Share Powers so why can’t he also be a giant swan made of light voluntarily like he can choose to use the plant/flower magic himself. and the whole implication that [at least some original tutu Essence] is legitimately contained in his physical magical gem heart which sorta goes hand in hand with them sharing powers. i choose to interpret all this as “mytho can also be a giant magic light swan” because that would be sick and i want that (and also b/c 4 min ago i was like “gee it’d be cool if he could bust out some like Special Power to drive off the raven when it kills lohengrin b/c what are you gonna do, Not?” and Hmm)

couple more [fond pairs of screenshots] b/c where else would i put them

thank you to a buffering pause like hell yes. epic (only now did i finally pick up on his cape being secured behind one shoulder and at the waist....big shoutout to practical rhombus swan battle dance outfit. panache)

love whoever designed his sword like Sniff it’s so beautiful w/the Wings Outstretched Swans guard and the heart formed by the necks/heads and the tiny crown detail and it’s Such a pain to draw lmfaooo.....cherish this v nicely dramatically executed moment, joke’s on anyone not actively appreciating pt’s music selection And how it uses that soundtrack......also always a bonus for me when the Milo Expression shows up in the wild, the one i am always drawing. you know like (8o as it were. raised eyebrows / wide eyes / mouth slightly open. :o and bless the ballet posture completely unironically (why would it be ironic i watched this series B/c of the ballet) like sob looks great....imagine if he was just standing there Not striking this pose, where’s the dramatic impact. thank u king

#princess tutu #although if we suppose he got his Magical Shared-With-Tutu powers From her..... #and we assume tutu's Textual 1 Pg Appearance in prinz und rabe happens after lohengrin's death....that's a wrench in the plan #But nothing to say that the prince and tutu never interacted before that specific page. who wants that? no one. i never say that #and then there's also the idea that yes they both have this same sort of Magical Repertoire but they still just have it independently lol #e.g. Before tutu literally becomes part of anyone's heart or anyone teaches anyone anything / transfers abilities or whatever goes on around #here.....the author's convenience gem lol. #but yeah dialing it back s/o to the person with a whole long reply on this whole ''why do the prince and tutu have Shared Powers / similar #magic motifs here lol'' with ''well maybe Good Magic in this Lore is [this stuff they're both doing]'' like yeah that's sure a feasible take #thank you This Series for having so much going on to extrapolate from like Yes you may connect these threads Yes it's all so ambiguous / #there's such little concrete info that you can think abt it as much as you want / however you want and there's no evidently Correct Vs Not #answers so you can just run with it. and i will. mytho can be a swan; i like the White Hair Was Eternal Battle Stress idea and also i like #that it was a side effect of [tutu's Story appearance] heart merging stuff b/c it's Swan Visuals lol. and maybe also the stress of her just #disappearing too lmfaoooo....but then if the point of it was Imparting Hope suppose it couldn't've been That stressful or else....L #anyways i love mytho shoutout to him and everything he's up to #anytime in the series it's like ''yeah everyone thinks mytho's just the best'' like well they are correct. applauding him. giving him the #ability to morph into a giant bird of light whenever he feels like b/c it would be cool.... #i like to think no scabbard exists for his sword b/c he can just Put It Away as [it senses he doesn't need it rn and turns into the 2 swans #of light again which will return whenever they're summoned] like imagine. the drama #although also apparently it was just....lying around as an Artifact and then fakir is just like yeah gotta give it sm blood to get it going #but then again. mytho Had that sword out and about when he lost his heart wherein he also presumably did not have access to Magic Abilities #so no Swan Light stuff / no emotions with which to get all that stuff going so....the sword is just bro it is just sitting here.....

[vaguely-concerned]

So I got an anon ask a long time ago that, from sketchy memory, said something like: Who do you think had the better/worse home life growing up, Graves or TF? And I’m super sorry because it’s gotten lost somewhere on this blue hellsite and I can’t find it again anywhere I’ve looked, but I thought I’d try to write out a post as a response anyway! I’m sorry it’s so late, it took me a while to know how to answer aaand then I had to rifle through my drafts fifteen times to see if I could find it. Again, oops and sorry lol. (In general, if you’ve sent me an ask and I haven’t answered… please know that’s on my little ping pong ball of a brain bouncing erratically around in here, and absolutely not on you.) Also I’m going to mention some stuff around physical and emotional child abuse and trauma in this – nothing graphic or in depth, but just in case anyone needs the heads-up!

Okay, so my personal headcanon/what I’ve built for my fics* is that they’re both only children of single mothers. Graves has no idea who his dad is and Mama Graves possibly has only the haziest approximate idea too haha (none of the candidates would be promising long-term prospects in any case), but in Bilgewater logic he basically grew up with the idea that in having one living parent with any kind of investment in his survival (and occasionally even happiness, an embarrassment of riches here) he might as well have hit the jackpot. TF’s dad died when TF was very little and he doesn’t remember him, and that loss is partially why his mother wasn’t able to do a very good job at the parenting thing. (She probably would have done better with a dependable partner and less depression weighing her down, but there’s some underlying emotional immaturity there too that was the real problem.) Between the two of them he probably did have the safer environment around him growing up, though; child rearing among his people was a good deal more communal and tight-knit than in the gutters of Rat Town, he was raised along with a bunch of cousins/other kids. (He was seen by most of the adults as kind of a weird annoyingly precocious kid – there is a certain kind of adult who’ll get very uncomfortable around an uncannily observant and inquisitive child – and there were Family Politics at play there as well that meant he had a subtle sense of being on the outside already there.)

Graves’ mom was physically and verbally abusive (and drank too much periodically, mostly when he got a bit older) but also had some genuine care for his wellbeing and safety, especially physically, while TF grew up with a largely emotionally unavailable and neglectful mom who collapsed into helplessness and rejection whenever he needed things from her, and then was completely abandoned by her and everyone else in the family in the end. He did experience some much better and more loving connection with his (paternal) grandfather, but his grandfather also struggled with an ever worsening serious health condition that was slowly growing terminal as TF turned eleven or so – by the time he got exiled at thirteen his grandpa was barely awake for hours at a time some days and couldn’t really do anything to help him :(

And now let me try to show my work a bit around what parts of their lore I’ve extrapolated/built this from and elaborate on the long-term effects on their ways of dealing with relationships!

So to Graves being the recipient of indifference feels much worse than anger or conflict in relationships, because his primary attachment relationship taught him that interest, even in the form of anger, was a sign that he mattered to his mother; her anger (often born of fear and boy does Bilgewater offer a lot of things to fear) and insistence on being involved in his life (so he wouldn’t y’know end up being eaten by a warf rat or something while being a dumbass kid lol) were proof that she loved him and that he had some sort of importance in the dangerous violent world he was born into.

He takes TF running away from him as a sign of indifference and rejection/abandonment, which is why it just keeps escalating the rage and hurt in him during the whole chase scene in Burning Tides; to him it reads as more and more proof that TF doesn’t care about him and never really did, that he’s blowing off all the pain Graves has been through the last ten years and that he’s desperate to convey to someone (because I think that’s also part of why he feels he needs TF to listen to him before he actually does anything violent to him; he needs someone to hear and witness how much it hurts, even if that’s not the vocabulary he knows how to use. And he needs TF to listen both because he thinks he’s the one to blame but also because he’s the person he thinks would understand or that it would matter to – aside from his mother he’s the only other person he has actually had such a close relationship with. Some parts of him still know TF as ‘love, safety, home’ even while other parts are on the war path with lethal intent, and the raging parts carrying the abandonment pain go ‘well, then I’ll fucking make him feel this as much as I do one way or the other’ (sinister intent). Even that is still a bid for connection on some level.)

I really think part of Graves’ way of feeling and showing love is grounded in mutuality that way. Even in that twisted form, what he wants from TF is mutual connection. (Which is why TF disappearing into his Cool Magic Gambler Persona TM bothers him so much, because it leaves him ‘alone’ and without that back and forth flow of call and response of connection between them (look at their moment in the crate in the animated short for an example of what I mean – the way their bodies and gazes do an effortless sort of a back and forth sway of expression: TF leans in with a conspiratorial air and stays there as Graves takes in his meaning, Graves leans in eagerly as he gets it and TF smugly settles back against him, and you can see how much they BOTH enjoy it. TF could just have used the card immediately, but his first thought is to share their imminent triumph with Graves and make a moment of it, have a connection. I don’t know how clearly I’ve managed to express it with that, I just go on Vibes and that’s why I write fiction lol. See also the immediate easy back and forth they fall into at the end of Burning Tides, where so much can be left unspoken because they know each other that well, and how it makes Graves GRIN when only like fifteen minutes earlier he notes it’s been a long, long time since he laughed. Which then gets the paranoia briefly kicking in for a moment because that’s Dangerous Territory to his trauma brain, but I really do think that their safe established connection is part of how Graves has honestly been getting back on his feet with surprising speed and ease considering Everything.)

There’s an ability to fully commit to an idea of us without having the I become lost there that I think must have started very early. As lacking and harmful as she was in other ways Mama Graves did provide that sense of unflinching ‘me and you against the world you little shit’ psychological security.

(Graves is also very quick to hear criticism where it isn’t even intended because oh boy Mama Graves always had something to complain about, TF has had to do a lot of baffled ‘…Malcolm, that is NOT what I said where the fuck did that come from’ unpacking with him over the years whenever that kicks in for him)

Meanwhile TF had to learn to fashion affection from indifference growing up: he basically learned from his mom that the best thing he could do for her was to need nothing from her, to make her life as easy as possible however he could and intuiting the things that would accomplish that without troubling her, and if he did it right she would give him some superficial attention and affection, and that’s what love is. Writing it out this is… very very sad. She would also sometimes have unpredictable anger episodes where she’d snap at him instead (often rooted in repressed shame because something in her recognized this is not how it’s supposed to go) – they were rarer but did some real damage whenever they happened. This is where his ability to read people probably started getting honed to its razor sharpness.

As you see there’s a brutal lack of mutuality in this dynamic, and a reversal of how the parent/child dynamic should actually work, the kid desperately having to do their damnedest to regulate the parent to get any needs met at all and not really managing it, because that is the DEFINITION of getting set up to lose, it just can’t work. (And I do think that mutuality Graves freely offers in close relationships is a huuuuuge part of why TF is so attracted to him both initially and enduringly, it fulfills basic needs he didn’t have met as a kid. His mom set him up to give and give and get very little back, but Graves has that basic sense of fairness that he doesn’t want TF to give him something without him getting something of equal value back in return, it just seems against some sort of code haha. There’s no honor among thieves but there is between partners, sort of thing.)

It’s also why he defaults to Flight in very tense situations – when the angry dudes came for him in the incident that lead to his exile he had no one safe to go to for help, and he was one small slip of a kid against a bunch of drunk angry adults; there really wasn’t a lot else his brain knew how to do than get away, and then he’s abandoned for it on top of it all afterwards. Trauma sandwich with shame for mustard holy shit.

I am basing this heavily on the underlying theme in Burning Tides that TF thinks that by running away he’s helping Graves by making sure he won’t put them in a position that’ll invariably seriously hurt (or worse) one or both of them while he’s so angry that he’s not in his right mind, and he’s SO frustrated that Graves doesn’t see that – “Will you ever learn? Every time I try to help you – ”. No, actually, the feeling I get is more that he thinks Graves does understand it – that it’s such a self-evident part of how relationships work that he MUST know it – he’s just ignoring and devaluing it, which is what seems like rejection through TF’s eyes. He’s essentially trying to regulate Graves’ emotions for him in an (innocently instinctive, I think) manipulative way, and he’s hurt and confused as if by rejection that Graves doesn’t accept that or won’t play along with it. “I’m trying to shield you from the consequences of your actions here because I care about you; why won’t you let me???” hahaha. In the process he also can’t take Graves’ emotions seriously or meet them until he’s been chased into a corner and is forced to, because as far as he’s concerned his job is to give them an out from all that and he can’t bear doing ‘his part’ while forced to take in just how broken Graves is inside and what it means; that he’s lost him all over again. There’s no simple ‘okay okay hang on I can fix this by myself one moment please’ here, sunshine.

Interestingly Graves DOES seem to recognize this uh love language of TF’s as it were, when he’s less severely triggered:

Damn me, he’s right. I do things my way. Always have. Whenever I pushed it too far, he had my back. He was always the one with the out.

But I didn’t listen to him that day, and I haven’t since.

And now, I’ve killed us both.

And this is the exact realization that makes him believe TF is telling the truth about what happened back then, and makes him try to save him. It’s not quite forgiveness just like that, all at once, but it is a clearing of Graves’ poor trauma-battered brain’s confusion, like he can finally see both of them clearly again and that there is deep love on both sides here even after everything.

Not only does he recognize it, he even gets it deeply enough that what he returns is in the same language:

Now, at the end, I believe T.F. I know he tried everything to get me out, like he did all those times when we ran together. This time, for once, I’ve got the out. I can at least give him that.

(Which is also proof that Graves is not unheedingly ‘my way or the highway’ or incompetent in relationships, incapable of taking on another person’s point of view and seriously considering it, or cruel or particularly aggressive in close relationships when not completely torn up by trauma. And again that mutual shared sense of fairness I think is at the base of how their dynamic works. He recognizes what TF has done for him and tried to do for him and what it means, and he wants to return that in kind, not least because it’s the fair thing to do. Again, it’s about the mutuality of it all! Graves may need some time to muddle through and figure it out sometimes but y’know he gets there he gets there eventually lmao, in some ways I suspect he can actually be more mature and levelheaded about interpersonal stuff than TF, who, poor man, is just one big aching quivering abandonment issue most days)

Like when it’s finally clicking into place what’s actually going on, that the care he’d thought was there hadn’t been a lie all along after all – suddenly the world makes sense again. Which seems to be enough for him to meet death if not peacefully then at least not as broken inside as he was before that moment and realization. (TBF TF could probably have been a lot more communicative about his intentions instead of expecting Graves to understand it just from his subtle maneuverings and like Vibes haha, but well that was the unspoken deal with his mother, that it had to be seamless so neither of them had to face what was going on)

It feels like a lot of their current issues in communication comes from Graves exasperatedly being like ‘Tobias I don’t want to be managed, I want you to just talk with me like a normal human being’ and ‘chasing after’ him when he pulls away because he feels abandoned, and TF having forgotten how to like… Person during that decade when he was alone, instead just doing that ‘what does this person want from me (and how can I use that to manipulate them)’ dance he’s gotten FRIGHTENINGLY good at with other people and that doesn’t really work with someone that knows you so well and actually wants your company. It’s going to take some sinking in that Graves doesn’t want him for what he can do for him but because, y’know. He’s him and they’re Partners.

I think TF can handle the current (understandable lol) turbulence in their relationship, but his biggest fear is to be really, truly seen by someone and deemed unworthy and abandoned, having let them that close. So in a weird fucked up way he was more okay with Graves trying to hunt him down and kill him than he would have been if he had looked at him as all that he was and went ‘actually y’know what? Fuck this and fuck you you’re not worth it, I’m just leaving without you’. Truly a “TF, he wants to kill you” “*wobbly teary voice* at least someone wants me for something” “TF NO” situation.

TL;DR: their parents were both terrible and dysfunctional in their own ways, but Mama Graves would n e v e r have left her kid alone on that riverbank; she’d sooner have cursed the rest of them black and blue and flipped them off with both hands before marching off with him. Accuse her of many things and rightly so, but she was no coward and she was loyal as fuck to the few things that mattered to her, she would have tried to fight the devil himself with a frying pan for that dumb fucking kid (if she was sober enough that day ouch). In the other direction TF’s mom would never have hit him. TF had more of an experience of a safe community, but then he also had a much more brutal and complete abandonment at the end of that. There are probably very good reasons Graves left Bilgewater for the mainland when he was barely even more than a boy. …man there are so many ways to mess up a child’s brain huh thank god they found each other and mostly managed to make that work honestly

*With the caveat that there’s some wiggle room for change here as I work on my TF POV WIP and refine the ideas I’ve got in there – change more in the small details than in the big picture concepts, though, I think I’ve got that moooostly settled now? also I really want to stress that this is just my ideas and opinions, if you imagine something completely different for their backgrounds that is Valid haha

#anon I hope you see this and also that my full on psychoanalysis at the slightest provocation isn't... too over the top haha #tf x graves #twistedgraves #tfgraves meta #league of legends #writing this all out really helped me solidify some stuff I'd been struggling to put into words so thanks for the prompt!

[everything-laito]

damn the brain be out here going BRRRRRR here’s the Laito and Cordelia Analysis (with a little bit of Karl sprinkled in) Part III

wow my fingers are freezing but my brain sure isn't! 

aaaanyways, iiiiiit’s trauma time!!! Am I a productive member of society by writing these analyses? No. Do I gain anything by writing them? Kinda, my brain gets exercised and they’re fun to research for. But if you haven’t read the first part or the second part for some reason (I recommend reading them in order), there they are. 

Once again, trigger warnings still apply; mainly about trauma, isolation, etc 

I’m gonna talk about the trauma and effects it had on Laito and to attempt to extrapolate why he is the way he is. I have a lot of examples I want to go over and stuff to talk about, so I think the trauma part is going to be split between two (or maybe three) parts. I also have a little bit to say about Karlheinz.

As always, big ass rant under the cut! 

Section 6: Neuroplasticity and Trauma

Oh???? More science vernacular??? You BET! Ok, neuroplasticity. I know I’ve talked about it on this blog. But, I seriously doubt that there is a madlad who has read all of my analyses (speaking of which, I should update the master list lmao) and I don’t expect anyone to do that LOL! Anyways, this neurological concept is the ability of neurons to adapt to certain circumstances or stimuli by creating new neurological pathways (through synapses). This basically relates to memory and learning. It’s why we don’t stay the same person as we grow and develop. It’s responsible from mindset changes to response to traumatic events. It plays a huge part in trauma, which is why “repressed memories” occur as well. 

Trauma, taken from Psychology Today, is defined as: 

...the experience of severe psychological distress following any terrible or life-threatening event. Sufferers may develop emotional disturbances such as extreme anxiety, anger, sadness, survivor’s guilt, or PTSD.

It’s a basic definition. And although I’d assume people would know what trauma is already, but knowing the lexical definition of something can be good to know before going into it. 

Obviously, Laito has trauma, there’s literally no refuting that. But, the point I’m getting at, is the reason why he is the way he is today is because of neuroplasticity. As previously stated, we are going to assume the DL vampire brain works similarly or the same as a human brain. So, because of the stress put upon the brain (Cordelia’s actions and Laito’s general upbringing in a stress filled household), Laito’s brain was rewired (neuroplasticity). This section doesn’t really have much new information, but I wanted to give a baseline since there’s many people who don’t know what neuroplasticity is.

Laito’s definitely different than what he was as a kid. He still kind of had his smarts, and might have been  but as we’ve deducted from the first part of this series, he might have been groomed. On top of that, the brain is easily moldable when you’re a child (which is why grooming makes sense for Laito’s case), and continues to snip brain cells off and form new connections. 

Section 7: Little intermission about Karlheinz 

I know I haven’t really talked about Karlheinz yet. So this will be the section that I do it in. I know this part is about Laito’s trauma, but it’s so hard to not just weave other characters into it. Nothing is stand-alone, which is why it was so hard for me to plan this out. I was debating about saving this for another analysis, but I feel like it fits. 

I referenced this in Part II, Section 5 of this analysis series. Basically, Karlheinz throws Laito into the dungeon and locks him up. Not Karlheinz personally, but he ordered someone to do it. We don’t explicitly know why, but there’s several implications. A huge one is that it was part of Karlheinz’ experiment. Before Dark Fate, I was like “wait, so did Karl find out about Laito/Cordelia? And got like jealous or was like ‘nah this shit fucked up no thanks’?” I was really scratching my head on that. But in Dark Fate, you find that Karlheinz knew about Cordelia and Laito, and even really wanted it to happen. Which is all sorts of fucked up. This really put Laito in for a loop. Here’s a scene from Dark Fate: 

Laito: That woman always, always believed in Karlheinz. Laito: She believed he married her because he loved her, wanted her. That’s why she was sure that one day... he will give his love only to her.  Laito: But she was tricked. She wasn’t loved from the start... Laito: -And I’m a victim of this unbelievable mistake... That’s how it is. Laito: I was treated as a vent for her feelings. Yui: ...Laito-kun... Laito: I’m sure he knew that something like this will happen... He is a god after all... Laito: I was hoping that... He just overlooked it up until now... Laito: But... I was naive.  Laito: I was only planned a scapegoat. 

God, when I played this, that just freaking struck me to my core. That’s so awful. Ironically... Karlheinz probably has some high level of emotional intelligence. I don’t believe he could be labeled as a sociopath, considering he has this high level understanding of pathos. He’s not god in a sense that he controls everyone individually himself. He’s so good at manipulation that he basically creates fate itself (whether you believe in it or not). He’s generally intelligent and cunning, and it also just helps with the fact that he’s immortal and can time travel. He knows cause and effect by now, and I believe Lost Eden said something about how he’s done so many different “timelines.” 

The definition of a god in a philosophical sense can be broken down into three words: omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. More wicked cool jargon! Yay! Here’s what they mean for extra clarification:

Omniscient: All knowing Omnipresent: All seeing Omnipotent: All doing

Sure Karlheinz doesn’t absolutely know everything, nor can see everything, and he definitely has limits to his power, but he has gained knowledge through living for so many years and time traveling; he has familiars which add to the whole “all seeing” part; and he has a lot of power. So basically, in the most semi-”realistic” sense, it would definitely be the closest being to any kind of god.

Karlheinz is probably the reason why Laito himself has such contempt towards religion, and the existence of a god in general. Sure, the boys are like “that shit’s made up by humans” in general, but it would make sense for Laito himself to have that specific hatred. It makes sense that these vampires would be like “oh that’s made up by humans” when they’ve been around forever and have seen multiple religions come and go. (I’m mainly talking about in DL’s lore case, not starting a religious argument; please don’t take it as such––just to clarify)

Section 8: Isolation

Originally, the previous part was going to be about Laito’s isolation being locked up. However, I went off the rails and it turned into that little intermission. This is going to be a shorter section, but I still wanted to talk about, and it will weave into the next section. 

There is no implications about how long Laito was locked up (and tortured) in the dungeon. There’s also no implications about why he was tortured. But torture and isolation puts such stress on the brain that there’s definitely going to be some kind of outcome if persisting for a good period of time. So let’s take a look at what that does to a person. 

Once again, taking this with a grain of salt. I imagine vampires don’t need to rely on social interaction as much as humans do, considering they live forever. But we don’t know. However, throwing Laito into a state of isolation implies that it would be some type of torture or harsh punishment for a vampire, which therefore implies that social interaction is a necessity for emotional function. It’s just sound, inductive logic. 

So now, as for isolation, I’m using this article as reference. It’s a pretty interesting one to read. Here’s another extensive article as well. Basically isolation can cause:

Depression/anxiety

Immune system deficiencies (basically more likely to get physically ill)

Sleep cycle changes (if put underground or with limited natural light)

Hallucinations

Paranoia

Issues with processing information and more susceptible to persuasion/manipulation

We have no clue if Laito’s experience fits all of these. Also, the second one can be crossed out because vampires in DL can’t get physically sick in the way we can. Also, unsure about the sleep cycle stuff considering they are used to being in the dark. Hallucinations and paranoia can’t be crossed off nor proven. 

Being isolated physically and mentally exhausts the mind, which is why it’s also a way of torture. Laito implies that he was tortured with physical devices, but regardless, it’s still stress on the mind. This type of stress definitely goes along with what was mentioned with neuroplasticity and trauma, which also supports the last bullet point: issues processing information and being more susceptible to persuasion/manipulation. Take this flashback from Maniac Prologue in HDB that I used in Part II section 5 (but here’s even more context):

Laito: ーー Let me go!! Let me out of here! Butler: I can’t, young lord. We’ve received strict orders from your father. I am deeply sorry, but please stay put for a while. Laito: What’s the point in having me chained up in here!? Butler: ーーI am very sorry. Laito: Hahahaha…You stupid old man! Do you think that this will make repent!? How foolish! That demon! Has his brain finally rotten from spending too much time with humans!? ー Cordelia appears Cordelia: ー Oh? Laito: …!? Have you come to save me? Cordelia: Oh dear. Ufufu…I’m sorry Laito, that isn’t it. Laito: Eh? Richter: ー Why are you here? Laito: …That’s my line. Cordelia: Okay, okay. No fighting! More importantly, Richter…Come here. Laito: …!? Cordelia: Nnn…Hey, Laito. You are a good boy. Laito: …!! Cordelia: Right, Laito? Laito: Yeah, that’s right. I’m…I’m a good boy after all.  ーー Besides, I’m the type of person who only get more aroused from this kind of thing.

Although I also use this to support the whole Stockholm syndrome point, this could also be supported with the trauma isolation also holds. His mind is being re-molded into the facade he holds. Also, note the whole “do you think this will make me repent?!” part. Just a very interesting thing. The word “repent” implies that there’s something to feel guilty about or the person knows that what they’ve done is bad. It just goes to show that Laito has some part of guilt or moral compass still in tact. 

You can also argue that this scene was when Laito just got locked up, or he’s been here for a while. Either way, he could have also been socially isolated before this too, just hanging around Cordelia like it’s implied when he was a child. Remember the whole not being in bed 9/10 times when he was a child? Yeah, controlled social isolation. We also rarely see Laito with other characters in his flashbacks. I don’t believe we see him with his brothers in any of his flashbacks from what I can recall; he’s usually with Cordelia. Just implies (to me) that he’s around her a lot. And being locked up is also a more extreme case of that, which would mold the brain even more. 

I know that was a LOT to process and read. I sure hope this still is cohesive for you all. I’m pretty bad at organizing this kind of stuff; it’s a bit difficult since it all just goes together. Which, kudos on the writers of DL, because that’s just good writing. I was going to put something about gaslighting in this part, but that might be too long, so I’m going to make that a separate part or include it in the next part. 

If you have any questions, feel free to just put it in the inbox. I’m planning on making the last part of this series answering all the Laito/Cordelia questions I’ve received, or just general questions pertaining to this analysis in general, whether it be tangential questions or clarifying questions. 

Hope you all are still enjoying this ride as much as I am!  -Corn

#analysis #diabolik lovers analysis #diabolik lovers #dialovers #dialover #laito sakamaki #sakamaki laito #raito sakamaki #sakamaki raito

[genshin-djinn]

Genshin Impact Chapter 1 Act 3: A Reaction.

Chapter 1 Act 3 is what took my experience with this game from “good game” to “masterpiece”.

THIS POST CONTAINS MANY, MANY SPOILERS FOR GENSHIN IMPACT CHAPTER 1: ACT 3

Genshin Impact has some problems— actually, it has a shit ton of problems. But during the fight against hordes of Fatui, with the Adepti channeling their abilities through my gang, flying through them as Oz, decimating them with Diluc— I just thought, this is the best time I’ve had in a mobile game in my life.

This game might not be perfect now— it’s only a quarter of the way done if we’re counting Karenri’ah. But it will be a fucking masterpiece once it’s all out. If this is the level of quality we’re getting for our archon quests, this game is going to be an amazing time on story alone.

KEQING

I love Keqing with all my heart. If she were alive today she would be a socialist here to topple the ruling 1%. When ningguang asked Aether who they trusted more, her or Keqing, I hit the Keqing button as fast as possible.

I think one of my favorite things about Keqing is that she’s so completely honest, which is unusual for a Liyue politician. If she doesn’t like something, she’ll speak out against it. If she thinks something else should be happening, she’ll make it happen. She can probably be deceitful at times, but in general she’s straightforwards in that she wants a government for the people and by the people.

I can’t wait for her story quest!

NINGGUANG

pretty.... voice pretty....

Ningguang is cool. Her JP voice is very pretty, like she could do ASMR videos online or smth. One thing I decidedly did not like about Ningguang is how her personality just ???? flips? In the middle of the quest, for no reason other than “because plot”.

It’s established that Ningguang cares about two things more than anything— the Jade palace and Mora. Why, then, would she destroy the Jade palace for the sake of Liyue? I get that she’s a good person at heart at all, but I want to see more of her indecision, her brain saying “mora” and her heart saying “Liyue”. The way she just flips on a dime isn’t really strange but it does contradict with her preexisting characterization.

Childe’s Boss Fight!

The section of this quest from Childe’s fight to the Adepti + Qixing battle is just nonstop adrenaline.

Childe is IMO a lot more fun than Dvalin (sorry Dvalin). I’m at WL5 and have a tendency to play fast and loose with important mechanics like.... dodging, for example.... and Childe’s Mask Electro form ended up destroying my team. I killed him with Guoba because everyone else besides Xiangling was dead. I

Another thing I really enjoy about Childe’s boss fight is that in the irrationalities of Childe as a character, it actually makes sense. Genshin is decent at making weekly bosses logical excursions— Andrius wants you to get stronger, Dvalin’s weekly fight is ~~all a dream~~; but tbh sometimes the weekly bosses don’t make sense. Andrius wants to train us, not murder us! How does dvalin, a dream slash memory that doesn’t exist, manage to knock someone out?

Childe as a weekly boss actually makes perfect sense. He’s an adrenaline junkie addicted to the thrill of fighting people— to put this in modern AU terms, he’s the guy who’s first in line to ride the rollercoaster that failed all of its health and safety checks. Childe wants to befriend the Traveler entirely because they’re stronger than him, so that he can fight them over and over again until he’s the strongest. Of course, this will never happen, because the Traveler is the MC and therefore is stronger than all others. However, in this way Childe being a repeatable boss makes 100% perfect sense— he actually wants to fight the Traveler again and again and again.

The one question I have about Childe is how in the living feck are the Fatui letting him join the Traveler and fight for them *against the Fatui*??? I think this might be touched on in Childe’s Story quest, which I’ll do in a bit, but like????? They let him keep his delusion and just walk over to Aether like “aight fam I’m on your team now”? How?

Jade Chamber/ Guizhong Ballista vs Sea Monster Fight!!

Basically, all my charged adrenaline from nearly dying to Childe just came to a head in this one huge fantastic fight.

And Xiao :)

I absolutely loved seeing the Adepti and the Qixing work together. This fight was probably my favorite fight in the whole game— the music was amazing (soundtrack where), the graphics were so nice, the adepti were so feckin cool, using everyone’s abilities was n I ce. My adrenaline was reaching its highest point at this fight and it was just perfect. It was just so fecking fun after days of WL5 pain, having to pop like five ultimates to kill one hillichurl, to be able to just demolish swathes of enemies with Fischl and Diluc, run around like a madman thanks to Xiao, have infinite health idr who did that for me but bless them, just absolutely destroy.

Ever since I hit WL5 I haven’t been able to really just go insane during a fight and stop caring about HP/ when to use skills/ dodging and this have me that opportunity.

Zhongli’s Deal

*punches Zhongli across the room with the power of being the player character* I love this man so much.

Zhongli Zhongli Zhongli Zhongli Zhongli. I AM VERY ANGRY AT HOW THE PLOT RESOLVED HIS STORYLINE. But it also makes a lot of sense. And I think, for once, Zhongli should be allowed to be selfish.

Because choosing to leave Liyue was a bit selfish. He’s leaving the country that adores him, loves him, gives him shit for free; to its own devices and then to a completely unknown fate once the new Geo Archon becomes god and takes over. But he made a frankly fantastic plan and can now leave the country, for now, in peace.

I was absolutely delighted to see Zhongli in Morax form. Making deals with La Signora, being a complete and utter puppet master who set this entire situation up and played Childe like a kazoo; but just like his dear friend Venti, I think Zhongli is happier when he’s just Zhongli, the eccentric mortal. He seems so much happier and so much more relaxed when he’s forgetting about mora and eating dinner with Aether and Paimon. Rex Lapis might have just put Liyue through the wringer, but he can now put down his 3000- year long reign and just be the happy, eccentric Zhongli.

Zhongli’s little bit of insecurity over being a “bourgeois parasite” makes perfect sense now— he doesn’t want to be seen as Morax, a superfluous god who’s using his name to get whatever he wants from the humans he watches over.

But also the part of my brain that feeds off lore nEEDS to KNOW what Zhongli got from Tsaritsa. What could be worth a gnosis? His own happiness isn’t enough— Tsaritsa is likely going to use his gnosis to try and destroy Liyue. What could be worth that?

My main thought would be either “someone’s protection” or “another gnosis”, but I don’t think the latter is possible. The former could be possible but doesn’t really make sense either— a) whose protection is worth putting an entire country, much less the world, in danger and b) the Fatui are out to kill everyone who isn’t Fatui, so they won’t agree to spare a major player in the war to come like that. Brain go brrr.

I’m very hyped for Zhongli’s story quest, which I think is coming with his banner on Dec 1, when Childe’s banner ends. I really hope that Zhongli visits Mondstadt and chills with Venti for a while, but anything with this guy would be fine lol.

LORE

We got a lot of lore this update and I am delighted by it.

Firstly, we get a tiny hint of how Visions are bestowed— “if a person shows true strength of will at a desperate and fateful moment in their life, the gods will look upon them with favor.” Vague but more than we had before.

Next we got some neat lore about Inazuma— firstly, that it’s led by a god named Baal and secondly that it steals everyone’s visions. I’m very hyped to visit because guess what fam aether doesn’t have a vision.

Final Thoughts

In case you can’t tell from my insane ramblings, I loved Chapter 1 Act 3 and I absolutely cannot wait to play through Childe’s story quest and Chapter 2 and beyond.

The Prologue in Mondstadt set the stage for Genshin. We started out in a fantasy environment with a fantasy tale of an immortal bard and a dragon. Mondstadt was an excellent introduction to the world of Genshin.

And now? We’re starting to build on that. Chapter 1 brings us another story of another god and their relationship with the country they watch over. Liyue is much less of a traditional fantasy setting and takes the darkness we saw in Mondstadt— a friendship ruined by manipulation and suffering— and build on it. Now we don’t just see the Fatui more often but we also see more of the Treasure Hoarders and the way both groups kidnap and experiment on humans.

Mond started to introduce us to the Fatui, but Liyue is where they really start bringing continuous plot relevance. Inversely, we saw much more of the Abyss Order in Mondstadt than we did in Liyue. I’m extremely disappointed we didn’t see any more of the Princess this chapter, but it makes sense given that Chapter 1 was really more about the Fatui than the Abyss Order.

All I’m trying to say is the Liyue arc was an excellent continuation to the stage Mondstadt’s arc set. Now, we’re on to the world of the Eternal Shogun, Baal! I’m really excited to meet new characters and experience new stories of Inazuma, but I hope we’ll continue to see Mondstadt and Liyue in the future. Mondstadt is likely going to be the most “boring” of the countries we experience, cuz it’s just so classically fantasy- themed, but it will always be the first country we explored in this world.

After Inazuma (if I had to take a shot in the dark, inazuma’s arc will take from December 23 to maybe March or April) we’ll go to Sumeru, which I am really extremely hyped for because it sounds extremely different from Mond and Liyue and we’ll meet Cyno and possibly even Collei! (just me extrapolating lol). I can’t wait to see where Genshin Impact goes story- wise, because its first major update has brought so much to the table.

.

#genshin impact #genshin spoilers #gi spoilers

[cruelfeline]

can I just flop into your inbox and despair for a hot second about how like. bewildered I am over the lore of spop??? I thought about doing this as proper asks but then it got... long.

Sure! Anyone can flop into my inbox c:

idk if it's me and I'm just dumb and not getting it?? I've gotta go back and comb through the show I guess bc the wiki and google and the internet at large are the opposite of helpful.

but no okay the show kept saying that the first ones were basically - etheria's first settlers or whatever the hell right?? something along those lines? am I remembering this correctly? that's why the etherian's CALL them the first ones? (I mean but Prime did too didnt he now that I think about it. I'm not sure why he would though, the context for why the etherian's would use the term and why he'd use the term are different?) ugh whatever, like I said I gotta go back and comb through but I wanna say that the implication was that the first ones were the...First Ones to be on etheria. which is like....??

Mm... it’s a bit unclear, but Mara speaks in a way that highly implies that there are native Etherians already on Etheria when the First Ones arrive. One of them being Razz. 

I doubt that Etherians really know much about their own history; their records seem sporadic to me, so they may or may not know that the First Ones weren’t actually the first sapients on the planet.

And Prime doesn’t really call them the First Ones; he simply acknowledges that that is what Adora and the Etherians call them. I don’t recall him calling them anything specific.

bc then when it comes to the whole, heart of etheria thing, and the runestones, and all of that? and then the princesses? I'm honestly just so confused as to how it all is supposed to fit together. bc then uh where did the five royal families come from to begin with? were the runestones there from the start? were those five families magically connected with those runestones from the start or were they only connected and whatnot after the first ones were all like "hey so uh, if you synch up to this rock you can do cooler magic" but then if etheria was already being ruled by several different courts of elemental royalty or wtf ever, then they couldnt really call themselves the first ones. but Also it's just (and I think you've addressed that the showrunners seem So Much More Interested in telling the catradora gf drama angst saga then fleshing out their world building lmao) it's kinda just like... why do all of these families only have one child? why do each of the princesses of power not have a sibling? like what if - considering mooooost of them seem to be orphans lol - one of them trips down the stairs and smacks their head on the floor and dies?? I guess uhhh, now your kingdom doesn't have a ruler??

So, my understanding of the runestones is that they were devices created by the First Ones in order to enhance and better control the magic of those naturally in tune with certain elemental aspects of the planet. I don’t think this is explicitly stated in canon, but I assume as much by extrapolating from the purpose of She-Ra’s sword. As we learn over the course of the show, the First Ones did not create She-Ra, but they did create the sword. She-Ra is an Etherian entity, some form of planetary guardian or what-have-you, and the First Ones created the runestone sword in order to control that entity and incorporate it into the Heart of Etheria. I would assume that the other runestones serve a similar purpose.

Now, as far as our current Etherians not knowing this: this is a fairly common sci-fi trope. The idea of the original purpose of something (usually some form of advanced tech) being lost as information is lost to the ages is often used to facilitate protagonists not immediately knowing what a thing is for. Like... oh, if you’ve ever read the Dragonriders of Pern series. That’s a good example: Earth colonists land on a planet, find it inhospitable, genetically engineer empathetic dragons to help fight the threat, and... well, people live there for generations, forget their origins, regress technologically, and just assume that there have always been dragons on Pern.

As far as single child Princesses and whatnot: likely a by-product of the show already having a million characters, and siblings not being needed for the plot! I mean, the show already had enough to deal with; no need to add more fluff.

and yeah it's a kids show but it doesnt ;__; none of the any of it makes sense to me.

what is the Heart of Etheria even supposed to Do again??? like we know it's a superweapon that channels magic and like, Mara trapped etheria in despondos 1000 years ago so my soft theory is that the first ones were maybe using it as a last ditch effort against Prime? I mean is the sword just.... gps coordinated to fire at prime regardless of where he is in the universe or whatever?? bc I mean at that point is prime on etheria's doorstep?? I don't! I dont understaaaand.

Well, since it never fires, we cannot know for certain, but Death Star-style planetary destroyer seems logical. 

I do like the headcanon that it was actually a last ditch effort to defeat Prime, especially since we now know that the First Ones fought him and apparently lost!

This is an interesting concept to me because, while their colonization of Etheria is widely regarded as Bad, because colonialism is Bad, the idea that they did it in order to try to save their own lives, and potentially the lives of others in the universe, makes the situation far more morally grey than it might initially appear. Yes, their colonization harmed the Etherians, but might it have been worth it, if they had succeeded and killed Prime a thousand years ago? Would that have prevented the genocides he committed on other worlds? Would sacrificing Etheria have been worth it if, say, a thousand other inhabited planets had been spared as a result? Not a set of questions the show asks, but meaningful ones, in my opinion.

why does Prime want it? like is he not under the impression that messing with it is gonna like... pretty much blow up everything within a big ass huge af radius? he said something or other about purifying the universe and starting over or some nonsense like that but??? like you'd be dead too my guy. you might be egotistical and narcissistic and vain af but I dont think he's that stupid as to think he's somehow immune to giant fricken explosions.

Oh, I think he has some idea of how to survive it. He can body hop. He is, in some sense of the word, eternal because of that. If She-Ra hadn’t stepped in, he likely would have succeeded in continuing his existence. The way he speaks, one may even infer that this sort of thing has happened before.

But, hard to say! Thankfully, we don’t have to find out c:

and I'm just. I just wanna know more about the spop world at large you know?? like. I just want All the world building and backstory and explanations to things. I have so many questions.

anyway sorry for kinda dumping this giant wall of shrieking nonsense in your inbox I'm just like. I dont... I dont get it. I dont get any of it lmao and I wanna get it! like the whole universe of this show could be so cool and so fun and interesting but it's like... some of the pieces dont seem to.. f i t

yeah

Ah, such is the burden of a world that has only enough worldbuilding done to facilitate its story, no more and no less. But! At the same time, this means that we as viewers can infer many things from canon and fill in the blanks with whatever we prefer. Leading to a lovely variety of fandom content to amuse us for some time to come c:

[itsclydebitches]

Thats why I find most video games are just lackluster in terms of story. Including the heavily praised for it ones. The inherent pacing issues and the sometimes complete opposite characters between cutscene to gameplay make game stories so hard to truly take seriously for me. It's why I don't get it when people only play games for story because that's almost always the worst part. We want morally complex stories without the gameplay to back it up.

Speaking specifically about Ruby, the most frustrating thing for me is that she is flawed. She’s meant to be a power fantasy and in certain respects still is (simple soul, silver eyes) but the concept of Ruby being a power fantasy because she’s perfect doesn’t fly for me, simply because Ruby is so clearly struggling in so many ways. An incomplete list: 

Is introduced as someone who is very introverted, awkward, and has difficulty translating her talent into leadership (canon)

Ignores aspects of her identity due to trauma (extrapolated - when I bring up the writing issue of “Why didn’t Ruby ask about her silver eyes until mid Volume Six?” fans point out that she probably couldn’t deal with it until then. If so, that’s a problem to acknowledge)

Is bottling up all her anger and doesn’t know how to work through it in a healthy manner (canon + extrapolation via Volume Six)

Is incredibly reckless with a tendency to jump straight into a fight without considering the repercussions of that choice (canon - Qrow’s fight with Tyrian, throwing herself into a canon, and now standing against Salem)

Is incredibly naive about the world and what she can accomplish in the here and now (extrapolated/interpreted - yes, that’s inspiring, but as I’ve written elsewhere RWBY has added too much realism to its story for that kind of blind faith to sit well. It’s both a strength and a flaw)

Relies too much on her weapon (canon - supposedly, though this one is admittedly weird considering no one else gets called out for that)

Tells lies, keeps secrets, and manipulates people in a way that, while not necessarily wrong from the audience’s perspective, Ruby has already labeled as inappropriate behavior (canon) 

In short, Ruby is very, very flawed. Especially in these later volumes. The problem isn’t that she’s perfect but only that the writing insists she’s perfect. At the start of the story it’s announced that Ruby is the simple soul who will save them all and thus any flaws paled in comparison to that, but we still got to watch her (somewhat) work through personal issues like her difficulty communicating and leading her team. Her supposed strengths outweighed her flaws and her flaws were definitely characterized as cute, but it was still something. Once the show decided she’d moved past that (which never needed to happen. Flaws like that can impact the story all the way through)  RT brought back her recklessness (Ruby charging the death stalker in her initiation despite the others’ warnings is very similar to her charging Tyrian/jumping Cordovin’s mech despite Qrow’s warnings) but then they seemed to drop that for whatever reason and started scrambling to come up with something new for her to overcome. Enter Ozpin’s sudden insistence that using Crescent Rose as much as she does is bad and the volume concluding with Ruby successfully hitting Mercury. That’s a “flaw” that was introduced and solved in a matter of episodes. By the time we got to Volumes 6 and 7 all attempts to grapple with Ruby’s flaws have been abandoned but they’re still there. We see even more now how naive she is, how reckless, how cruel and hypocritical she can be... but instead of acknowledging all that to give us a well-rounded character capable of growth, the writing tries to paint her as perfect: Blake’s promise in the elevator, Qrow’s reassurance, the group caving to her decisions despite all previous characterization, the treatment of Ironwood as a comparison to her... It’s like RT suddenly wanted that perfect character but didn’t know how to write one, so they just gave us a spiraling Ruby and had everyone else around her say over and over, “Yes you’re right. Yes we trust you. Yes you know what’s best” despite evidence to the contrary. 

Anyway I’ve got thoughts about that characterization lol. As a side note there have definitely been games over the years whose stories I absolutely adored, but yeah, just as many that I played simply for the mechanics. Or at least for the immersion. WoW was my go-to for over a decade and though I was never terribly interested in the lore, just the level of detail in the world made the grinding aspects really enjoyable.

#rwby #rwde #gaming #mymetas #Anonymous