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While I'm still talking I have a few more ot1 relationship hcs and observations (platonic this time)

Ophilia and Therion were both born in Creek. All we get about Therion's past in game is that he's presumably an orphan from the Riverlands, but has no attachments to any given town in the region. The closest thing to non-Darius related backstory dialogue we get from him is a cagey comment towards Ophilia in her ch2. I don't think they were friends or even recognize each other, but I can imagine Therion hearing Ophilia mention Creek and instantly becoming attached to her against his will. It makes him agreeing to travel with such a large group earlier on in his character arc easier to believe. The way they might see each other is interesting too. Ophilia envies the way Therion moved forward on his own and developed such resilience and Therion envies the way Ophilia rose above tragedy and became someone so archetypically good. In reality they're just two very different outcomes from the same situation.

Alfyn tried to save Yusufa. I've seen this a couple times in fics and I like to think it's the reason Primrose agrees to let Alfyn "life is a wonder" Greengrass tag along on her revenge quest. I have my own octopath canon in my brain and in it Alfyn and Primrose are the only two present for Primrose's ch1. Alfyn and Yusufa get along famously so when she dies Alfyn literally can't bring himself to leave Primrose. Alfyn historically does not handle death very well, so the idea of letting the woman Yusufa died for walk away on a suicide mission somehow makes him sicker than the fact he just watched that same woman kill several men with nothing but an old knife and some magic.

Speaking of Alfyn's relationship with death there is so much untapped potential between him and H'aanit. They both have ideologies based heavily around mortality. Alfyn spends the majority of his story considering the relationship between morality and the worth of a human life while H'aanit acknowledges death as something that should be balanced and unbiased. H'aanit canonically helps Alfyn gather ingredients for medicine while Alfyn's secondary class in the ot2 ex battle is hunter. They are constantly learning from the other's ideas to the point it changes the way they approach the world around them.

Ophilia met H'aanit first and immediately decided to travel with her when she found out Z'aanta was missing. Ophilia barely thinks about her father for most of her story and I choose to read that as repression instead of a writing oversight. She's barely a week out of Flamesgrace and the first person she meets is a young woman fretting over the unknown status of her father. Of course she's going to project and do everything in her power to help.

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Took 5 fanfic's worth of Z'aanta ASMR but I get it. I get now. It finally really clicked.

And I can't believe it took that long when it's actual banter they, H'aanit and Z'aanta, have in the script between each other in the game. It took me the 20th time I've had to do this to rehash and rework Z'aanta dialogue (because Jesus Christ dude, your level of drama) to fully get it.

I do not say this as a jab: I've heard a fair amount of comments from others over H'aanit's character that the fact that she "didn't grow much as a character" wasn't really for them, but despite the fact that I personally disagree (and maybe that's why I didn't see it as readily), I see now that's also the point.

Because Z'aanta is the same way.

-

[while they are mimicking a memory from H'aanit's childhood]

"Aw you're blushing? You mustn't have grown all that much then."

"No, and you've learned nothin from this misadventure either."

"No, I didn't. (Because in my years I have come to know myself)"

Your Honor, they mean so much to me.

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miscellaneous wealth cast art

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i like sazantos a lot and am very intrigued by the potential of him getting an en va in Octopath 0 hehe

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Little bit of sketchbooking

Just in time for Octooath 0 to be announced!

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Scrapbook sketch requests

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To start: I could not have foreseen Octopath Traveler 0's announcement. Dude just trust me when I say this idea tickled me back in mid-June kinda deal.

But, Octopath Traveler will be celebrating its big 8th anniversary next year, so I'm gauging interest for an Octopath Fan Anthology to celebrate.

Since fans would not be here celebrating the new title without the original, this anthology would be open to ALL titles in the series (including OT0).

For more information, please refer to the Interest Check form linked below. Happy travels!

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Octopath Traveler 0 where, since the original 8 have already been shown, they keep their Traveler Stories as side quests, and one of the changes made to accommodate 0 is Y'nuush gets replaced with Z'aanta.

Since I don't think I'd ever expand Full Wage (fanfic)'s continuum outside of a really short one-shot not at all relevant to this, but recently had the absolute pleasure of meeting Y'nuush in CotC (H'aanit's Traveler Story), so thoughts on how I'd fit her in to that story because she honestly is not the wrench that I thought she would be, but rather, to my surprise, easily insert-able.

[Dear reader, this is the disclaimer that's to say this isn't meant to be reasonable. It's meant to forward my own agenda of making my blorbo Special(tm) for fun because I'm the one who's stuck in hell unwell about him]

First, I cannot (can) believe they just made genderbent Z'aanta because--for gacha reasons--they couldn't "get the rights" for regular Z'aanta to appear, I GUESS. Though my thanks go out to her comically done fusion of Z'aanta and Susanna if only for being able to appeal to my own inner world.

• Susanna (S'ooshana) and Y'nuush: for Full Wage's lore, they could easily be sisters if not twins. It would explain the Susanna bits in Y'nuush's character. I also made Susanna of the Woodlands in that fic for red string reasons that she herself is also a beast tamer, and that's why Z'aanta was initially under her (previous generation's tamer) tutelage despite taking vastly different studies (scholar).

[ OG Octopath Traveler itself doesn't say she was his mentor/master, but I personally did not interpret "like a son" to be casual given one of the central themes in H'aanit's story/character being interpersonal bonds. ]

Then, given Y'nuush's direwolf companion, she could also hold the talent/talent to some extent, but Z'aanta wasn't handed off to her initially because--given she is heavily Z'aanta designed for obvious reasons--she could have simply traveled too much on commission. Susanna, on the other hand, settled down in one place and would've been a more ideal environment to rear, at the time, a very young prentice. Then, in adulthood where Z'aanta was cautioned to return home (S'warkii) because of apparent perils, Y'nuush takes him at Susanna's behest.

[ As much as I also know what they meant when they said "met" in the Traveler's Story. H'aanit saying "met Z'aanta" in regards to Y'nuush's retirement gave me the impression that it was kind of a later experience, because why not say something like "teach" or something then? IDK that just how it rubbed me.]

• Thud, the direwolf: Z'aanta's direwolf pup given before his leave could have been thanks to Y'nuush, and with running with Susanna and her being sisters, that year in Full Wage whatever time before that summer solstice, Susanna could have reached out because the fic identifies it as a Woodlands breed and not really something in the Frostlands.

Thud's eerily relevant to Full Wage demise is me somehow, unintentionally making Z'aanta a unknowing companion killer by sheer random association given I had given Susanna a lynx companion (Sága) who also perishes, albeit from human intervention, during the narrative to protect Z'aanta on the dragon hunt (his greatest feat, parallel to the gigantes who was the one beast Y'nuush could not hunt).

• Y'nuush's retirement: the streamlined relevancy of my intricate Z'aantaganda lore in my head seen in Full Wage is Susanna, as a scholar who noticed Z'aanta as her better in the beast taming talent*, tried her best to nurture what she saw as an already above average latent talent in his youth. Then, it's Y'nuush that sees the full fruits of this nurture, and only the end result.

*It was edited out in the refinement process but originally I did have dialogue of Susanna admitting to Grotoff (OC) that Z'aanta was her better in this regard. The text still expresses that he's Oddly Good At It and she's Not That Good but it's more putting multiple pieces together instead of one nice, clean, clear line.

Then, the thing is, she sees him hunt. She sees him hunt in the combined experience of both a bright eyed young man--friendly, upbeat, open, and of all green and naive--but also the remnants of the fact that someone had put a bounty out for his (and Susanna's) head, and they had done so with a dragon, leaving a forlorn, tarnished outlook. And I like to think she sees Ische in some sense, and in a way that's similar to Grotoff's realization about Z'aanta: it's both magnificent yet horrifying to watch him.

And then she looses Thud, and it's just enough for her to stop. Whether or not to parallel what I had written in Full Wage with Sága (OC) with Thud, I haven't really thought about it tbh.

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Hugo of the Knights Ardante

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AFAIK volume 2 of @yaoithatoldman is still scheduled to release in ONE WEEK. Mods are being very patient and diligent with making this work even with current events.

Come support this FREE zine and see some art AND fic by yours truly for Aug. 1st!

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The winner is @kelbunny!

Thank you everyone who had supported with a reblog.

Come celebrate me getting old with an art raffle!

Entry is just a FOLLOW and a REBLOG. That's it. You don't even have to tag the reblog (but if you want to say something funny I won't stop you)

There'll also only be one winner, and that winner will be announced shortly after the raffle ends on July 21st.

Please note that this raffle is crossposted on my bluesky account (roaldseth.bsky.social), and the selection pool will be combined from both accounts. This is because originally this was meant to be bsky only, but theme changed, won't "reach another milestone" anywhere for a while, so no reason for those here to miss out when I'm just a little guy and it's my birthday.

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Been getting really into MHR lately

I've grown extremely found of the 'Murder Kitty' He has become my favorite creature in this series 😭😭 Appreciating him for the many body slams back to camp lmao

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please buy Raidou Remastered so that maybe, someday, we possibly get a 3rd game, potentially

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Simply being around for a character long enough opens up many opportunities in itself to things you thought would never happen in a million years.

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just got called out of work and I got so excited I put clothes on my dog

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my drawing of Black Knight Sazantos for the Project Path Action collab