#I actually like Gaius as a character a lot

[deus-and-the-machina]

ffxiv garlemald discourse is so funny because people will go "ugh people just cant stand it when things aren't black and white" and then you look at how the empire are portrayed in stormblood and shadowbringers and its like hm. that seems like a pretty intense and accurate display of violent imperialism to me! Wow I wonder why people in this day and age may find it hard to feel sympathy for them or even hate them on principal. god its such a mystery.

the games like 50/50 to me on how it tackles these themes because I actually like the garlemald arc in EW, I think it has a lot of horrific and powerful scenes depicting how self destructive fascist propaganda and beliefs are, but I also think it doesn't go far enough on some fronts. the garleans' xenophobia is most notably and obstacle to getting them to accept the contingent's help, which is what they're there to do,

but there's never an admission of harm from any garleans on the uuuuuuuuh massive amount of war crimes the nations around them are still suffering from they're just kind of like "we misjudged you...but you actually wanted to help us all along" like yeah thats great now can we get you all some deprogramming because you keep talking about returning to your prime and glory days and I think we need to unpack some stuff you really SHOULDNT return to. im not even really talking about EW proper but the patches where things are a bit more chilled out and people are recovering.

It feels like they wanted to have their critique of imperialism and also have things end with the beauty of human connection and reaching out and these things just don't mesh well because hey a lot of your modern day audience is not gonna like having to treat people yelling xenophobic things at the cast and your character with kid gloves after you showed them hours and hours of the awful things these people's beliefs have done. especially in the present day hoo boy.

[my-current-obsession]

I gotta say, it took me a bit to really get into Rune Factory 3 (in fact when I first got the game and tried it out I quit after like two hours and didn't touch it for a few months just because the gameplay was a bit janky and it was missing some quality-of-life stuff I was used to having in 4 and 5 and I got really frustrated), but on my second foray into the game it really sucked me in. I might even like the story and especially the romance aspect better than the other games.

I really appreciate that the romance is a forced part of the narrative; you literally can't access the final dungeon and beat the game until you pick a girl to marry. And BECAUSE of that, this game went hard on actually developing the girls and giving you ample time to spend with them. The request system basically functions as a "route" for each girl, and while I've only completed (9/9 one-time quests done) a few of them (Raven, Daria, Marian) I've really enjoyed everything thus far and felt the relationships develop from strangers to friends to love.

And unlike 4 and 5 where I have clear favorites in terms of who to marry, I honestly don't know who I'm going to pick yet. The only girls I'm NOT particularly interested in are Carmen, Colette, and Kuruna. All the other girls are great and I'd be happy to marry any of them, though I AM leaning towards Raven, Marian, or Sakuya (who I WOULD have completed already if not for some of her events being locked behind plot progression...).

[devotedlystrangewizard]

duty roulette is so funny as a concept like ok. queue into levelling roulette. heres the dungeon that happens before the most traumatizing event in the game. or tower of zot with the arkasadora? the level 89 dungeon that is such an emotional beat when you go through it during msq? and then also heres the swamp level again. you really thought you escaped aurum vale didnt you

[picaroroboto]

For the past couple days, I've been unfortunately cursed with thinking about Zenos yae Galvus. I don't even particularly like him - not that I dislike him either, Zenosfuckers you can put your scythes down - but it seems to me like a lot of the fandom either greatly misunderstands him, or doesn't even care to try to understand him, which from an objective standpoint as someone who cares deeply about writing in video games kind of pisses me off. But I'm more pissed about the fact that I'm apparently going to keep thinking about this issue until I actually write a character analysis of him.

Q: "But, what even is there to analyze with him? Isn't he all about wanting to fight the WoL and nothing else?"

Well, you wouldn't be wrong with saying that. That motivation is at the forefront of his character, and even if you look closer, everything about him comes back to either "violence" or "lack of understanding of others". But there are more meaningful sides to his deceptively simple character. That question of meaning is what I really want to look into - what does his character mean, what symbolic or thematic role does he play in this story?

Q: "Better question: why are you posting this on your art blog/Fate meta sideblog?"

Good question, with a stupid answer: I have all of 6 followers on my FF14 sideblog, and around 150 here. Let's go under the cut so they don't have to read a wall of text, unless they want to.

When you look at and compare FF14's villains, you can see a very clear change, no doubts thanks to the change in main writers. ARR Gaius and Thordan are more or less two-bit villains - Gaius's memeable iconic Praetorium speech gives us insight into how fascists try to justify themselves but little into Gaius's actual personality, while all Thordan gets as far as depth of character is an NPC in a sidequest remarking that he wasn't always a bad person and was probably doing what he thought best for his nation. Nidhogg is a little more understandable, since revenge is a relatable motivation to anyone who's been hurt by others. In Stormblood, Zenos and Yotsuyu are both presented as deserving of pity even as they do terrible things. Come Shadowbringers and Endwalker though, the story takes a greater interest on why villains like Emet-Selch and Elidibus do the things they do, and the player is allowed more options to try to understand them and see how similar they are to the WoL. Hell, Hermes and the Endsinger are barely "villains" at all, with the level of sympathy the story shows them.

What I'm getting to here is that Zenos, with half his arc in Stormblood and the rest in Endwalker, is sort of caught in the middle of this shift. He played the role of the rival character in Stormblood really well, but come Endwalker, he's standing on a stage full of heroes and villains with grand causes and deep motivations, as the guy whose sole motivation is fighting for pleasure.

It seems he's not unaware of this contrast himself - when Jullus confronts him for ruining Garlemald for no good reason, he retorts with "Would you be happier had I a good reason?" Zenos makes no attempt to justify his own actions and doesn't care that his reason seems incomprehensible and unforgivable to others. Yet in that same cutscene Alisaie hits him with the fact that if he keeps living solely for pleasure, he'll die alone. When next we see Zenos, he's alone at the Royal Menagerie waxing philosophical about what he really sought in the battle with the WoL.

See, what really motivates Zenos isn't just the thrill of battle - this guy has gotten Battle High and the joy of human connection confused. Really.

Even before he gets so perturbed by the idea of dying alone, there's other suggestions, like his proposal of friendship to the WoL when they fought in Stormblood, and then later his dying words in which he explains that he never understood others - at his core, he's just lonely. I know there's an official side story that tells it, but you don't need to know the exact details to glean that he had some sort of tragic backstory. Sad, but not a surprise, considering he's the prince of the Garlean Empire, raised to take the throne and continue the Empire's legacy of violence.

At his core, he's a very lonely person, but also a thing of violence, raised using violent methods for the purpose of causing more violence. Violence is how he lives and breathes - the only way he gets any sort of connection with others in a world of hurting and being hurt is the brief connection warriors dueling as equals can sometimes find. Don't deny that this sort of connection exists - FF14 is great at making fights that are both fun and tell a story. Hence, why he goes crazy for the WoL, but also refers to them as "friend". In their fights, he senses (or thinks he senses) similarity between him and them. Beneath all the madness is a pure, genuine joy in seeing the self reflected in the other...but he also instantly gets on the train to projection-town, population Zenos, and assumes the WoL is exactly like him, ignoring or failing to notice that they also fight for deeper meanings. The worst part is, he doesn't even notice that what he's actually seeking in fighting them is connection until Alisaie's aforementioned callout.

So he goes and angsts for a while, then turns into a dragon again and flies across the universe to help us kick the Endsinger's tail feathers, then issues his challenge for that duel he'd been longing for. But what's changed is that he starts with a question - "Such pleasures you sought for their own sake, and for no other reason, is that not so?". Dying after the duel, he's full of questions too: "Was your life a gift or a burden? Did you find fulfillment?" Alisaie's suggestion that he'd die alone actually spurred him to realize what he actually sought in the WoL, and now he's asking all these questions in an attempt to, for the first time in his life, genuinely connect with another human being.

The questions aren't important just because they're a sign of how Zenos has changed in Endwalker - they're actually the thematic heart of Endwalker! ARR may have had "Answers" as it's theme, but EW is the expac of questions. Namely the biggest question of all: What is the meaning of life? Different characters have different answers to that, leading to the grand-scale symbolic conflict being the Endsinger's despair - her belief that there is no meaning in life - versus whatever reasons the WoL chooses to live for, left, as always, up to player interpretation.

When you look deeper, Zenos isn't actually as out-of-place in the symbolic conflict as he first seems. His depressed worldview - that metaphor about drowning in a swamp again - seems to align with the Endsinger's view about life being meaningless. But he aids the WoL in defeating her. In that way he serves as part of the answer to her question about the meaning of life. He may have resented life at times, but he still found meaning in chasing pleasure. Not the strongest or most beautiful reason to deny oblivion, perhaps, but it did enable him to help the WoL triumph. I think of Zenos's philosophy as being connected to the concept of "Amor Fati"...largely because this quote explaining it sounds like something he'd say, or at least agree with on some level:

"and if our soul has trembled with happiness and sounded like a harp string just once, all eternity was needed to produce this one event—and in this single moment of affirmation all eternity was called good, redeemed, justified, and affirmed."

So he does have a meaningful role in Endwalker, as the "Amor Fati" against the Endsinger's "Memento Mori". I think that in this the story shows that his reason for living, while somewhat shallow, is not necessarily a morally wrong thing in and of itself (setting aside for a second all the people he hurt in his pursuit of that). It's just that, since it is a lonely pursuit that denies everything except for his target, it still feels empty. The core of the counterargument against the Endsinger's despair is that both pleasure and fulfillment are necessary to live a meaningful life in a meaningless universe, and that's why Zenos is here in Endwalker. Why he even exists in the story in the first place.

Even if you're one of the people who deeply hates Zenos...well, you probably wouldn't have read this whole thing if you did, but I still think it's important to read into characters you dislike, because every character in a story is written for a reason. Plus, trying to understand even their worst enemies is one of the WoL's key traits as of ShB and EW. With his last breaths, Zenos was trying to understand the WoL too - carrying this understanding of him with you as we move into our next adventures is the least you can do for your "friend".

[notedchampagne]

What makes a tlt au work for you? Do u have any favourites out there/that you’ve thought of?

its hard because it can go down to the writing! i have a huge bias for things that put focus on the characters acting awful and driving the story forward- if a story has a plot thats great, but its the difference between "gideon and harrow keep meeting up at parties and fall a little bit in love every time" and "gideons angry she lost her childhood to the cult so she attends a party with the tridentarii to shotgun adolescent experiences, and harrowhark, frustrated that gideon is pulling on her metaphorical leash, follows to stalk her". the former retains a 5+1 fic format and is more bite-size, while the latter puts more focus into their growth as characters. im not great at articulating what i like specifically, but ill put my favorite fics below:

what if nona was dogs tugs at my heart: its post-canon, slice-of-life, and has a unique concept (said in the title). i judged a book by its cover because i thought the premise seemed too silly at first but ive been made a fool and its pet clown. it feels so true to nona the way its about all the things nona loves and how she gets to explore the world through new eyes. i love the way it explores characters softening up and getting hurt through a third person pov

we have always lived in the apartment by @thatneoncrisis i keep saying this but for the love of GOD guys this au is so good it makes me cry and feel such a deep catharsis from it. it takes gideon and harrow and the ninth as a cult and explores their struggle to adapt to a modern society when noone ever gets a break (WOW ITS JUST LIKE IN REAL L-). quinn writes the sides of griddlehark i think go overlooked in fanfic often: their codependency, their tendency to lash out when theyre defensive, their mutual paranoia and different coping mechanisms, harrows psychosis and gideons bitterness, their relationships to each other as being the only other person who really understands what the other suffered through. god. i feel lightheaded.

"but SAM, i dont like angst but i want to see this writing!" read gap between a tragedy and a comedy

"SAM, i also like when gideon and harrow are horrible because theyre maladjusted teenagers! but i want more antics where the characters drive things forward over angst!" read whats eating gideon nav

you just aint receiving is one of my FAVORITE modern aus of all time (and i heavily recommend the authors other fics as well!) if you really want to see how much i love this fic the fact that my comments take up the entire phone screen probably says a lot. its hard to put it concisely: it keeps harrows air of misanthropy and cruelty but redefines it as the result of her upbringing and personal struggle to live in a university while dealing with a backpack of mental illness and frustration. it changes gideons personality as the daughter of john gaius in a way that makes sense having her grow up with johns middling parenting skills and getting everything she ever wanted (connecting it back to kirionas personality in ntn!). it brings in side characters (specially palamedes. my beautiful boy palamedes) in ways that compliment harrow and gideon but not so obviously that they only exist to be supports. they have their own lives and ideals. its a modern au that brings in the boiling politics of johns cult uprising once again in a really novel way

semi charmed kinda life by @griddlebait. jesuchristo and all his middle names this fic is GREAT for you if you want a slice of life, coming of age type modern au that explores what its like for gideon and harrow if they actually got the space to see who theyd become outside of the stifling fate tlt has for them. as far as modern aus go im usually very hesitant to read them because im afraid modernizing the characters takes features away from their core but i really love and respect the way the author treats the 69ers with care and draws distinct lines that shows me how their grow and change while keeping a line to the anchor. also they write HIDEOUS (complimentary) PINING. DISGUSTING. some of these chapters were so chock full of dyke drama that they made me nauseous and whimsical. i think once a friend said this fic felt like if gh could be reincarnated and i like that descriptor a lot

til the cows come home is another postcanon fic that made me feel sick and crybabyish about it- i would definitely recommend it if you want to explore a happier ending with griddlehark! with this and what if nona was dogs the thing i like most about them is that they mix up vulnerability with pain and fear, so it feels more lifelike that way if that makes sense. i lost my taste in fluff fics over time but when its interspersed with struggle and characters causing problems because they cant cope with themselves it feels much more earnest and raw

this became very long. im not sorry

[autumnslance]

Normally I'd agree many Final Fantasy games have rather young protagonists. It's because they're usually single-player JRPGs made with the assumption of younger players, and like most Young Adult media, create characters that cater to that, even if it ends up with teens running the world and fighting in wars. And for many players, the first time playing these games is in childhood/adolescence/very young adulthood. So it's YA anime.

Final Fantasy XIV does not fall into that same mold, despite the "Teen" rating for legal and distribution purposes.

The majority of the FF14 cast, including the bulk of the main characters, are between 20 and 40 years old (the Scion Archons, Ishgard Elf Husbands). Many other characters are between 40 and 80 (Ishgard's Counts are all late middle aged to elder dads/grandpas, Gaius is mid 50s, Jehantel and Ran'jit are elderly, all still active). The younger characters (especially with any authority or special position) like the Leveilleur twins, are actually outliers. And the youth of the characters between 16 and 20 years old tends to be plot relevant, where that inexperience and naivety causes problems and drives story (Nanamo's arc at the end of ARR into HW, Alphinaud and the Crystal Braves, Ryne's determination of self in ShB, etc).

Characters have a variety of appearances; some characters in the same age ranges look very different. Varis is only 4 years older than X'rhun but Varis's model shows the stress and disagreeableness of his life a lot more than the RDM trainer's. Cid's in his mid-30s but with the beard looks older--and without it he has a baby face (hair color doesn't matter, cuz they do keep the anime trope of "everyone's got white or silver hair"). Lalafell are designed to be anime-cute halflings so it's hard to tell their adult ages even if they've got facial hair like grandfatherly Papashan. The pad'jal of course look like kids, but the youngest main pad'jal is A-Ruhn in his late teens; all the others are adults stuck in adolescent bodies. E-Sumi is a few hundred years old. Kan-E uses various methods to look older so other leaders and people from outside Gridania will take her seriously as an adult. The padjal introduced in the StB WHM quests is a child, and that's the plot; she's not in charge of anything, or has any particularly advanced-for-her-age skills. She's just a kid having a really rough time.

This inability to determine age by looking and assuming isn't just due to limits of the game engine and character creation options; it reflects real life. I met my work team for the first time in person recently; one person looked older than I know them to be, thanks to months of stress and health issues. While all of them were shocked to remember I'm in my 40s as according to them, I "look much younger". Most people are actually pretty bad at guesstimating ages based on appearance, due to the variety of folks' lives.

Speaking of kid characters, many of the children we interact with, like the Doman Adventurers, are between 12 and 14 and act much younger. Khloe has this going on too, with her age "corrected" to 13 (when previously listed as 10), but she acts way younger to me. Most of the actual child characters are treated like children, and it's not until they get to 14-16 (Honoroit, Leveva) that we start to see them treated like maturing adolescents and having some responsibilities, but still young and prone to the kind of choices one expects of less experienced and more emotional youth.

As a MMO, FF14's primary audience is actually adults; teens do play the game, but also age up with it if they keep playing. If a 15 year old began playing with ARR's release, they're in their mid-20s now. Having a primarily adult cast, and treating child characters like children, and adolescents like young people figuring out how young adulthood works, makes sense for this game.

FF14's time bubble is also part of the issue; a developer tool to keep it so they don't have to worry too much about character ages, new models so often, or how long things take in game. Timelines are then intentionally left malleable for the players' benefits, to create our own stories and determine how long things take for our WoLs and their tales. Some folks have their stories pass in real time, some compress it to a year per expac, some expand it out even longer. So the ages the characters have listed in the lorebooks and rarely in game (which is then reflected in online resources), is a starting baseline. Personal headcanons as always should be applied (including changing around some character ages to fit one's own story if necessary).

Also, FF16, made by the same team, has a brief prologue/tutorial section where the main trio is between 10 and 15, guided/trained by adult characters, experience the inciting incident trauma--and then we spend the majority of the game with the main cast in their 20s and 30s. The game also has a mature rating, featuring some sexual situations, lots of violence, and stronger language than other FF games. It's made for adults, and its cast reflects that.

So it is a matter of audience expectations; for a MMO, you're going to have an older and aging player base, and the varied ages of the cast reflect that, as do their varied appearances and experiences as adults. The young characters are treated closer to how their youth should be; still with respect for those in positions like Nanamo, but also prone to errors due to inexperience that drive story. In other FF titles, which were made to be more YA-focused, a teen and young 20s cast were treated much differently. But even in the single-player FF titles, if they are made with adult players in mind, their cast and stories likewise reflect that.

[fgfirenation]

Aaaand I decided to explain myself over my last post from yesterday ( or early morning ), because I just can.

I'm not gonna @ the person, who made me grit my teeth from anger because while I'm a jackass, I'm not a complete one.

For now.

So let me set it straight for you all whining Arena people out there :

While I'm not familiar with Arena, I did research most of the lore with my bff.

And you know what?...

We prefer Journey's lore more than Arena's by a lot.

Now before you pull out your swords and guns at me, and start bitching, let me explain why :

I see that y'all are so attached to your Arena lore, but... COME ON!

That fucking thing is already 5-6 years old! A lot of the lore is ALL OVER THE FUCKING PLACE! ( Don't @ me. )

Like, grow tf up already! It was about time your lore from Arena had to change.

While it does seem really interesting, I almost had an aneurysm, while trying to understand it ( It's probably just me, but again, who tf knows- ).

A lot of lore things are probably so outdated, that it makes me want to shoot myself without a second thought.

I fully support Lilith Games for changing the lore, because they made it easier for the new players to consume it without somebody having FNAF lore insanity war flashbacks. ( Like me- ) And it feels like a breath of fresh air.

Worse changes have been made before by the writers. ( Gaius from Dislyte. I'm not forgiving you for this, Lilith Games. )

Also fuck you to whoever said that Lyca is a Mary-Sue! ( Yes, I'm holding a grudge now. What about it? )

Lyca is the last person I would ever dare to call a goddamn Mary-Sue. I've been in the Creepypasta fandom for already a fucking decade and when I tell you I have seen all sorts of Mary- and Gary-Sues from there FRONT TO BACK WITH ALL FLAVOURS OF MARY-SUE IN THE EXISTENCE OF HUMANITY!

If you want to call her this, go first to the Creepypasta fandom and witness wtf we were forced to see for years, and then come back to bitch at me. ( Actually don't, because I don't give a shit. Ok, maybe I do, because I'm a dick- )

Also fuck you for calling Lorsan annoying! This mf is the most ADHD little shit-coded thing with Berial, that I have ever seen in my entire life. So move on! He's absolutely adored by a good huge portion of the Journey players. Including me. I dare say he's a lot more boring in Arena than he'll ever be in Journey. I'll never manage to see him as a monk-type and calm character. My brain is short-circuiting, while trying to imagine this.

Also, I'm gonna be completely honest with you, I absolutely love Waves of Intrigue and Song of Strife. I absolutely adore Soren as a character and the ' Jinx and Vi from Arcane ' war flashbacks I got from Sonja and Nara-

Now for the endgame of my angry rant...

Did you really think that your fucking beloved Arena lore would stay the same?

Did y'all for real think it'll stay the same? Well, guess what :

If you did, then I'm sorry ( not sorry ) to tell you whining folks, THAT IT AIN'T GONNA STAY THE SAME!

You needed to see this coming from 2000 miles away, yet you somehow missed it entirely and of course it'll hit you in the face full force!

At this point, Idk if you expect absolute perfection from Lilith, good accurate lore, shitfarts or what else-not.

You change your opinions faster than a League of Legends player. I can't believe that I got angry over what's supposed to be a MOBILE GATCHA GAME! You managed to raise the rage bar for me more than Megamind 2!

I'm sorry to say this ( Everybody can express their opinions, duh- ), but you make absolutely some of the sorriest of excuses I've ever seen.

And I'm gonna quote the YouTuber Schaffrillas Productions for this :

' To the point that I think F-tier doesn't do this justice!

THIS SHIT BELONGS IN G-TIER! '

CONGRATULATIONS, YA ARENA LORE FOLKS!

And I'm gonna end it here before these people come after me and try to behead me.

What a fantastic way to come back to Tumblr after a year, right?

Bye!

[gmax]

WHY! TIS VALEN VAN VARRO VIC VON VIVIVIVI THE WEAK LINK IN THE SORROW OF WERLYT!?

firstly to me he fails to be interesting as a foil to gaius and his beliefs -- he's more of a straw man than an actual commentary. when gaius was so complex and believable in the ways he was a terrible person it's frustrating that the only thing they can seem to come up with when making a character that is meant to reflect his bad qualities and create a closer examination of his flaws is "cartoonishly evil scientist that doesnt believe in the sanctity of life because 🤷"

and he's not interesting as an antagonist to the auri siblings either. him being the one driving the plot is just the point to me where things became uninteresting and one-note. it paints the siblings as victims who just.. found themselves in an inescapable bad situation and are trying to make the best of it when they could have been so much more. as someone who's into mecha who can tell that the person who wrote sorrow of werlyt is also into mecha the weapons and the pilots are a highlight of the questline. child soldiers are being fed to war machines and turned into monsters that resemble the colonizers that took their homes and lives from them. it's haunting. it should have been amazing. but the story both refuses to give them agency and risk bloodying their hands and refuses to engage with what their lack of agency means. and i cant help but think valens is part of what makes it feel that way.

but then the way the writers refuse to sit and let characters that arent necessarily meant to be "bad" people do bad things without sugar coating it or attempting to make up for it frustrates me. gaius is a big example of this to me. i have problems with sorrow of werlyt besides the way they chose to write valens but he feels like a representation of a lot of the issues i have. i hope this makes sense.

also you can take all of this with a grain of salt it's just my onion based on my reading of werlyt lol 👍

[thedaselcor]

Tiwasday, the 4th of October, 522

Will’s eyes traced slowly along the curves of Merlin’s body as he got dressed, pausing to watch Merlin lace the two sides of his undershirt tighter, and tighter.

“Why bother with all that? If you can change it with magic, I mean.”

“It’s just a backup,” Merlin explained, casting a soft glance and warm smile over his shoulder at Will before bringing his attention back to the mirror. “In case anything happens, I like to make sure I look as close to the same as possible without the magic.”

“In case what kind of anything happens? Do you go around falling unconscious a lot when I’m not looking?”

“Aren't you always looking?” Merlin teased, before adding, “it’s not really in case of anything, I just want to look as much like myself as possible. So,I keep my hair the same, I build the muscles, I wear the undershirt, and I only make subtle changes to my face no one but you and my mother would ever even notice… in case. ”

ɱ

It had seemed foolproof, back in Ealdor. Merlin had known who he was young enough that he’d been able to grow into his system without anyone really knowing. He changed little enough about his appearance with magic that someone would need to be exceptionally close, and pay exceptional attention to his face and general appearance to ever notice a change,even if the magic did fail him someday, somehow. 

Later that month, when Merlin’s mother sent him to Camelot, it seemed his secret was even safer. In Camelot he was going to be even more of a nobody, a physician's apprentice. Who would pay that close attention to a nobody ? Who in Camelot could possibly know his face well enough to notice the subtle changes if he was somehow rendered unconscious?

To Merlin’s credit, Arthur didn't notice the first few times. They’d actually known each other well over a year when the inevitable day finally came. 

Frigsday, the 29th of Martius, 524

Arthur burst into Gaius’s workshop, carrying Merlin, unconscious, in his arms. The storm raging inside him entirely overshadowed the practically apocalyptic storm of rain and lightning outside.

“He’s been stabbed. Poisoned, I think,” Arthur declared, panic beginning to creep into his voice as he neared the end of the clear series of actions he’d known he had to take to save Merlin. Action had always been easy for Arthur. The rest… not so much.

Gaius indicated Merlin’s room with a slight nod and a serious eyebrow, as he sprung into action and gathered the necessary medical supplies. Arthur followed the direction. Once he’d laid Merlin down he removed his shirt and cut the bottom of his undershirt to expose the quickly festering stab wound on his side. Then, he sat back, perched in worry but letting Gaius work.

ɱ

“I don’t think anyone else saw…” Arthur said, once Merlin seemed relatively stable, partly to Gaius, and partly to the empty space in front of him just to process the shock. “Anything interesting I mean, anything…” He sighed heavily before adding, “my father can never know about this.”

Gaius nodded, solemnly. “Not if you want Merlin to live, no,” he answered after a long pause. 

It was a testament to Gaius’s character that he didn’t bother to mention his own life also hung in the balance. Gaius had chosen to be so entirely devoted to Merlin’s care and protection since Hunith had sent the young sorcerer to him that his own part in the equation had long since lost all relevance. 

Arthur was acutely aware that he’d just made a very similar choice by bringing Merlin to Gaius for treatment, by choosing this of all possible paths. And yet, he couldn’t regret it, regardless of the legal and filial weight of his choice.

ɱ

Arthur sat with Merlin until dawn broke over Camelot, never sleeping, but he could stay no longer. For one thing, his duty as a prince had to come first, despite his world altering decision. For another, if he was absent much longer it would cause a panic, and a panic would bring nothing but pain down on Merlin and Gaius.

“If he wakes…when he wakes,”Arthur started, as he bid Gaius goodbye--but he couldn’t bring himself to actually form the feelings into words. Instead, he let out a sigh and settled on “I’ll have a list of duties ready for him, when he’s well.” Like the story so far? Check it out on Ao3!

[obsessionrepression]

I’ve always thought Uther was an interesting character. It would be so easy to write him as just the super evil guy who kills magic users for fun, but he’s more complex than that. I think they did him dirty in the episode where he came back as a ghost, because that was almost a blind evil rampage. I would think excusing that in-canon would maybe be saying that it was because he was a spirit, and so all his worst traits were exaggerated. However, in his life, he really did care about Morgana and Arthur. Did he treat them terribly? Sure. Was he a terrible person? Obviously. But he was still human, he wasn’t all terrible. There are some scenes where he’ll risk his life for Arthur or just show some of his humanity. His relationship with his wife is a bit confusing, because on one hand, he cheated on her. However, he also went a little insane when she died and definitely lost most of his morality after that.

Morgana and Merlin both exhibit traits of Uther, depending on what you believe his relationship with Ygraine was. Morgana is blinded by her hatred and she kills innocent people in her twisted conception of revenge. However, Merlin also loses a lot of his morality and humanity at the thought of the one he loved (Arthur) dying. He killed many of his own kind to ensure his safety, even going so far as to advocate for the continued ban against magic despite knowing of its potential for good. Even Uther could have claimed ignorance to this point. It’s not super clear, but it seems that magical communities were always more secretive, even before the Purge. Gaius had magic, but wasn’t extremely skilled. It’s possible that after Ygraine died, Uther’s grieving, no longer fully sane mind reasoned that magic truly was evil. His logical reconciliation with people like Gaius was that maybe magic just corrupted over time. However, we still see Uther turning to magic when things get very desperate. This could be because (1) he just got very desperate and was willing to do whatever it took to keep his family alive, (2) his opinion on magic got less radicalized with time, or (3) he never believed in the first place. I’m leaning toward option 1, just because we also see him risking his own life at times to save his family. Again, Uther is NOT a good person, but he does seem to love Arthur and Morgana.

Merlin didn’t have this ignorance of magic, and was fully knowledgeable of what he was doing when he told Arthur that there could be no place for magic in Camelot. Like Uther, his loved one dying caused him to lose his humanity. Not to the full extent of Uther, but it was there. The difference between Uther and Merlin was that Uther reacted after Ygraine died, and Merlin was trying to prevent Arthur’s death. I could see the potential of a much darker Merlin once Arthur died.

Or, y’know, Uther could have just been a “bad guy ™️” who hated everyone. But even though I hate him, I do like to think of him as a more complex character. I’d like to think that in a really weird, twisted way, he did actually love Arthur and Morgana, and maybe Ygraine??? (but that was complicated). He was evil, but I would love to have seen more of his backstory.

[katyspersonal]

hey what's the deal with Gaius armor set confirming Loretta isn't an albinauric?

I saw his set in details on Fextra and even discussed it with someone, but might have missed something ...

Actually missing a lot for obvious reasons, but Loretta is essential for my AU, need to know everything abt her 😊 BTW I headcanon her being not albinauric. Maybe mixed somehow for some reasons (had such thoughts, need to elaborate)

Ah, it is this thing!

This bit confirms that there is a correlation between Albinaurics and not wearing shoes or pants! Some have legs, like Latenna, but you can tell they're weak as they have to use their wolf companions to move around, others have their legs already fade just like Albus said:

(Post by Zullie the Witch ( x )) With Gaius, you can't really see it by normal means as it is obscured by the boar's saddle, but he doesn't have legs at all anymore it seems:

(Video by BonfireVN ( x ))

Meanwhile, Loretta clearly has legs, and pretty much armoured too, and uses them to ride her horse!

There were other clues prior, such as description of her staff saying that her being an Albinauric is an "absurd rumour", or Albinauric Staff's description saying that the secret of Albinaurics is casting sorcery using Arcane when all Loretta's sorceries are Intelligence-scaling! But the legs thing really DID it for me!

P.S.: That makes Loretta second character who is not THE oppressed species she sympathises with but only cosplaying as one. Another character like that is Dung Eater. And since he has been at the Haligtree they had to have the "we're not so different you and I" showdown and I will NOT be convinced otherwise fdjfdjsfds

[barbwritesstuff]

How do you come up with the names of your characters?

Very haphazardly and off the top of my head. A lot of the time I just choose a name with the intent of swapping out names for better ones later... and that never happens.

Occasionally names will have some slightly deeper meaning, but only very slightly.

For example, Vicky and Ed are named after British royals just because I wanted to very quickly give them names that sounded like sibling names.

Marcel got his name because it began with 'M' and I wanted to give him an M name to help ease the transition between calling him Medici and Marcel.

Iliya is named after a character in War and Peace because a) Russian b) book lover. I used a different spelling to make it less obvious (but I've now just confessed so now it's really obvious).

Tracy was originally Trixie because I wanted a T name to match with her Tinkerbell name and Trixie also rhymes with Pixie... but I decided that was actually way too on the nose and so went with Tracy instead.

Pretty sure Sergi just got his name off some 'common Romanian names' list somewhere.

Gaius is named after Gaius Julius Caesar because I'm nothing if not obvious.

Marco just showed up and I was like 'I'm Marco' and I was like 'okay'.

I'm sorry. I'm not a very deep thinker when it comes to names.

[cerastes]

What are some of the greatest/most impressive feats of strength in Arknights’s story?

Taking the overall narrative and worldbuilding into account, I believe the most effective aspect of Arknights' narrative is that they managed to make Terra feel like a breathing, living world and setting instead of a vehicle for the point-of-view character to exist in and act upon. This is specially remarkable for a mobile gacha game, as settings in these tend to be exactly that sort of vehicle instead of world that give any hints of existing when outside the player's immediately vision. The way I like to think about it is, "if a tree fell somewhere in this setting while my intended point-of-view or self-insert character isn't there to see it, did it make a sound?”. In Arknights, Girls' Frontline and SIGH Epic Seven (credit where it's due), the answer feels like a yes to me, whereas in every other game of this kind, it feels like a no, if you know what I mean.

This is intrinsically tied to the cast of characters: It is an inevitability that games where a guiding principle is to release an immense number of characters throughout its lifetime will have characters that will never have any relevance whatsoever besides existing as a minor piece in the world, and Arknights is not immune to this. Even other works of a different base nature and with a much smaller casts will be victims to this: In Trails of Cold Steel, for example, you have a pretty big cast of playable characters, some of which are very well developed and have a lot of screentime and development, and others who are Gaius Worzel. However, this leads to two aspects of Arknights as a narrative and as a game telling a story and fleshing out a world that I appreciate:

The first is that those characters that do get used, are for the overwhelming majority fun and interesting to see and accompany throughout their narrative, and rarely for me, I include the usual point-of-view character in this, Doctor. I tend to have a pretty big dislike, if not disdain, for characters you're meant to self-insert into, I sincerely cannot stand them. Doctor definitely has a big of a self-insert nature to them, but there's also a lot of the Doctor that is actually pre-established, such as them being a weirdo, tending to be very effective but also causing troublesome aftermaths that others then have to clean up, and being particularly good at bonding with assassins and underworld types, among other things. More importantly, Doctor is not present in most side-stories. This is fantastic and leads to the second aspect I appreciate.

This second aspect is that the cast has legs to stand on without needing the protagonist or POV character. You'd think this is a problem mostly limited to gacha games due to their usually flimsy narratives and structures, right? Except, this is actually a huge problem in pretty much every corner of narrative art! I can think of countless comics, manga, cartoons, anime, light novels, novels, and much more, eastern and western, that just tend to have worlds and casts that center entirely around the protagonist, for the protagonist. Whether it be a US author writing out their post-apocalyptic hoarder fantasy or a Japanese author detailing the trials and tribulations of a relatable nobody that a myriad of girls want to have sex with, and even some other pieces of art perhaps not so comically easy to make fun of, it's a consistent aspect of them that the protagonist is the center of the universe, both in terms of events and what the rest of cast thinks about, talks about, and takes action upon. Obviously, this results, in my opinion, in weak worlds and weak casts that have no legs to stand on. I appreciate that even without Doctor around, Arknights does a good job of having protagonists of their own little stories in the side stories: Olivia Silence is a joy to follow when she takes the lead in a Rhine Lab story, Kroos has been one of my favorite characters to be able to experience events through with the Sui stories, Skadi and the Abyssal Hunters are exciting to watch in Abyssal Hunter stories, and the latest event as of the writing of this post filled me inspiration, seeing Reed star in a character piece that tells us more about someone so immensely reticent to open up. It's by having interesting world events occurring throughout Terra that don't have the input of Doctor, and thus lets us see more and more of this huge cast of characters taking the lead that I think is a fascinating experience for me as a reader that keeps things fresh. It's even allowed me to come to appreciate characters I initially didn't care about, such as Bagpipe and Magallan, and see, in most games of this nature, if I don't care about a character frame one, it's probably going to stay that way because, well, if I didn't care about what their limited assortment of pre-cooked lines had to sell me on, then I'm likely not going to care about that character likely not showing me a new aspect of themselves impactful enough to change my mind in an event they'll likely just be an accessory to.

It's upon this base that I think Arknights stays interesting and fresh: A solid foundation that I can agree with and that keeps things dynamic and interesting. Specific events and story beats that I think are interesting are a natural result of these baseline aspects, but it all traces back to the cradle, to these baseline aspects that facilitate those cool narratives in the first place.

[cinderflower]

Thoughts on SotE now that I've seen/explored essentially everything the DLC has to offer.

This post is quite lengthy so I've put it under a read more.

Overall, I did enjoy this DLC and most of what it included. There were only a few major issues I had with it and most of it is from a lore perspective (wow guess about what!) and a lot due to my own personal preferences. So I'll start with the positive, because there is actually a lot of positive with this DLC.

Gameplay: I really enjoyed the gameplay and world design of the DLC, the new weapons, etc. Overall from a pure gaming perspective this is primarily peak FS. While the bosses could be excessive at times with how few openings you get and how short those openings are, that didn't bother me at all for the most part. Most bosses felt fair and rewarding to fight and defeat and tbh at the end of the day that's mostly what I care about when playing these games. Metyr, Rellana, & Putrescent Knight in particular stand out as the two I enjoyed learning the movesets of and fighting the most (except Metyr's lazer beam spin attack, good god).

Level Design: The levels acting as self-contained areas similar to the base game was definitely appreciated and I did enjoy having to figure out how to traverse the map to get to the various places. Each area was unique and visually stunning - though the lighting and saturation at times was jarring. The frenzied flame area in particular stood out to me as something I'd love to see revisited again from a design and mechanics perspective. Also the Cerulean Coast and Trina's area were gorgeous.

Lore: Trina!! The main standout that I enjoyed was the Trina lore. Also the lore regarding the shadow realm, frenzied flame, the fingers, Ymir, Messmer, and Marika all felt mostly seamless with the base game with most having callbacks to lore scattered around in the main game itself. There's a few things I disagree with fandom's interpretation on already but that's to be expected.

Most of the positive is a lot of what people have already been saying so I'm not going to belabor the points too much.

Now, what didn't I enjoy?

Gameplay: The excessive re-use of base game mini-bosses, specifically the ones I already hated fighting (dragons, death rite bird, fallingstar beasts) ended up all feeling like a chore rather than being rewarding. Similarly, the furnace golems got really old really fast and the gimmick ones weren't even enjoyable to figure out - I'll absolutely skip them if I play through this again. Lastly, I'm convinced the Commander Gaius fight was designed in a lab to be utterly miserable to me specifically because it had every single mechanic I hate in a fight.

Level Design: Some areas were so incredibly barren it was a chore walking through them. As mentioned above the shadows and saturation at times was jarring so I do wish that had been cleaned up.

Lore: By far the lore I was most excited for is the lore that disappointed me the most, and not even necessarily because of the story it was trying to tell, but how it told it. I've always from day 1 been onboard with a version of Miquella that strives to make the world better from a sense of naive idealism that ends up leading him down a similar path as Marika once he sees that everything he tries fails to come to fruition, that he cannot undermine the Golden Order and the state of the world with what power he has and with the power he has at his side. I am onboard with a Miquella who piece by piece compromises his ideals in an "end justifying the means" kind of way - so my complaint is how they actually went about trying to tell that exact setup.

Before even the Radahn debacle, the heavy heavy heavy leaning into the bewitchment aspect of Miquella was so incredibly disappointing because it strips his character of what I personally found so intriguing about him: a character who lured people to his side for his sense of idealism, people who then had to come to terms with their own atrocities committed on his behalf for the sake of this ideal future, and all the complexities that accompany that. I always find that mind-control, bewitching, etc in fiction is an incredibly difficult tool to use in a way that is narratively satisfying which is why I detest the use of it so much, because it does exactly what it did here - it took the characters who had their own motivations, lore, and complexities pre-DLC and stripped them down to being either one-note, victimized, or it trivializes their own lore entirely. Primary casualties of this lazy writing choice: Miquella, Mohg, Radahn, and Malenia

Moving into Mohg - I just hate it, what can I say. It's all the above. The whole reason Miq needs his body is such a weak plot point that I have no words. The bewitchment takes this character who was such a beautiful narrative foil to Morgott, strips him of that complexity, and is now forever cast into the victim role. I'm not saying he isn't a victim, don't get me wrong, but to me it was more compelling when that victimhood was at the hands of Marika and the Golden Order. It felt satisfying seeing a character in contrast to Morgott who rose in the Erdtree's defense trying to make something new in response to being outcast and shunned. Sure, were the means at the hands of an Outer God? Yes. Was the blood cult cruel and wicked? Also yes - in fact, as I write this, Mohg seems more of a mirror of Marika than anyone else. Suffering under the current regime and creating an empire to overthrow it; but unable to claim godhood himself like Marika did, he needed a surrogate candidate for godhood, specifically the Formless Mother's godhood: Miquella (assuming only empyreans can become gods and Ranni's body is gone and Malenia is already under the influence of the Rot God). The reasoning for his kidnapping of Miquella is already there, so why did the DLC feel the need to cheapen everything about that narrative to just go "haha jk he was bewitched this whole time" ! Unsatisfying. Deeply disappointing.

Radahn is baffling, even now after sitting on the lore for a few days, it is utterly baffling to me. I get how the DLC set everything up so please don't try to explain it to me, I get it, but it just makes no sense when looking at what the base game set up and even Miquella's ideals? If Miquella is looking to build an age of compassion, why choose the character who wants to be a warmonger? They even re-state numerous times how Radahn finds that war suits him, which makes sense, because his character was about aspiring to be like Godfrey who was The Warmonger Extraordinaire. It made sense that between his allegiance to Sellia and his tutelage under the Alabastor Lords that he would hold back the stars (which control fate, though the DLC did muddy this up too, a post for another time) and would use that power to defend the control he had and seek out more control. But why would he seek it out at Miquella's side and make a vow for an age that would end in the lack of war? That would put him docile and complacent, nothing more than a tool, at Miquella's side?? Especially because if he idolizes Godfrey, surely he would have seen how when Godfrey no longer served his purpose, when there were no more wars to fight, that Marika cast him out - so why would he ever agree or make any sort of vow to that end? It makes no sense to me. It also absolutely makes the whole battle of Aeonia so trite and meaningless, so utterly devoid of any of the dynamic that made it compelling.

Which brings me to Malenia who actually got me interested in ER lore in the first place. It was her character that got me more interested in Miquella and consequently Mohg as characters. So what the DLC has done to her character is nothing short of tragic to me. What was the point of it all? Obviously for her scarlet rot to be cured is a big part and her loyalty to Miquella is as well and I do still believe she would go to would go to devastating lengths in his name (at least pre-DLC). But post-DLC? With the Radahn lore? Why would she entertain the battle of Aeonia in the first place? Why would she nuke herself and Caelid to try and kill Radahn if it was all "according to Miquella's plan"???? It cheapens the devastation, it cheapens her character, and it makes her look worse. Also Miquella was there as well as we see from dialogue with Freyja where he cures her of her rot so ??????? Why did Finlay have to single handedly carry her back to the Haligtree???? If this was all planned???? Someone please explain this to me because I cannot make it make sense.

The most glaring sins of all the above is that while the other lore the DLC expanded upon had roots and foreshadowing in the base game, the whole of Miquella's story in the way they decided to tell it - with the exception of Trina and his core motives - had nothing in the main game. It was all net-new information added in the DLC. And sure, DLCs are supposed to expand upon the base game and give new information, I don't disagree, but when everything else in the DLC has tie backs to the base game and this plot point doesn't? Not an item description? No environmental story telling? It's just bad writing. I refuse to believe the Haligtree statue is Radahn not Godwyn based on the base game lore, that's lazy as fuck justification. Similarly, I've seen people point to Loretta, and sure if Loretta was encountered in Caelid where all the Radhan lore was but she wasn't, she was with Ranni in the Ranni area so that's weak as hell too.

In summary: if this was the version of lore and Miquella that had been presented in the base game I would have absolutely no interest in the story or the character. If anything this DLC has served to actively sap out a lot of the excitement and joy I had in the series because it handled the main lore I was interested in so poorly (my opinion).

I'll probably still finish Field of Reeds as well as Truth and Blood especially now because I want to see the story through with the care that the DLC should have given to the characters, but beyond that? I can't see myself remaining invested in Elden Ring moving forward, especially not if the DLC canon seeps into the main fandom. I already dislike seeing the few Radahn/Miq things I've seen because of all the points above. If you liked the DLC and the Miq lore, more power to you, but I'll be cleaning up my feed to avoid a lot of it moving forward.

And my one last petty gripe: it's like they wanted the radahn/miq fight to echo the vibes of twin princes, but they utterly missed the point of why the twin princes fight from a mechanics and lore perspective was so interesting in the first place.

[gffa]

John Gaius is less interesting to me as someone who is just a shallowly awful person, and vastly, infinitely more interesting to me as an intensely human person with the powers of a god and that has fucked him up. The things he does to his friends are done out of grief, because he doesn’t want them to be gone, it’s out of the loss of those he loved that he brings them back, that there’s almost something numb about him until the depression or the rage or the sorrow hits, because like he’s Jod, he didn’t get to where he was by being able to die, and that’s terrifying for others, but I can’t help thinking that it’s really fucked him up, too, because all that power, it’s just there, it’s in him all the time, and when someone betrays you and you have the power and invulnerability of a god and you’re a hot goddamned mess because you’re still just a person who has lived through so much pain and grief and loss, you react like a human and you reform yourself out of your own atoms and permanently explode people and go, right then, either you’re loyal or you die, because you’re fucking pissed, and you don’t want to fucking deal with it anymore, because you don’t have to, you’re God, you have the power to say, no, this stops here, loyalty or die, make your fucking choice now, instead of continuing to walk that tightrope of lying to your friends but trying to make it up to them and feeling guilty but also feeling angry, all while you’re so fucking tired. But then you feel more guilt about it, because you’re a person and you’re not trying to be a dictator, you’re trying to make the galaxy better, you’re trying lighten the mood, because it’s ten thousand fucking years and if you don’t embrace your love of puns being hilarious, then everything’s going to be so fucking boring, and you’re still angry at the trillionaires.   You stop time and tell everyone to stop attacking each other because you’re so fucking tired and just don’t want to deal with it anymore.  You’re so fucking careful, even around your friends, not to bleed around them because you know what that can lead to. I feel like John is a character who isn’t evil so much as every step is an understandable one he made, each one is a very human reaction when you have the context of everything that happened before, and then layer a whole lot of depression and guilt and anger on top of all those decisions. Is he doing terrible things?  Yeah, and he’s fucking terrifying to be around, he tries so hard to be affable and gentle, but he has so much power and he’s Just A Fucking Guy, a guy who wanted to save the world and started out from a place that so many of us have started out from, each step he took to where he got and why he lied are understandable ones, the weight inside him one that I can empathize with, I too am not always the kindest when I’m depressed, I too am not always one to make the best decisions when I feel torn between wanting to help people vs how to actually get there, like if I was face to face with a real chance to save the world, wouldn’t I do some shady things to make sure it got done, because the world hung in the balance?  Wouldn’t I fall into depression when weighed down by all that responsibility to do something when I had the power/ability to do it?  Where is the single point at which he should have said no and turned back, given all that had come before? I don’t see John Gaius as a character who set out to become Necrolord Prime, that that was the intended arc, so much as he kept making one decision after another, decisions that come from a place of very human nature, and eventually we’re here, with the weight of all those decisions behind him and no one single place that really was a hard turning point.  And also a whole lot of depression. Anyway, he’s my poor little meow meow and I hope he’s dictator of the universe for life because it’s very funny and also gives me feelings.

[universitysunflowers]

I rewatched Merlin for the first time in years and collected my thoughts.

Merlin was such a baby in the first season I forget just how tiny and innocent he was.

The number of times Merlin has been suspected of witchcraft and then got out of it is so hilarious like yea here’s this actual wizard but don’t worry he’s been cleared of all charges nothing to worry about here haha

accused by the witchfinder

sentenced to death as old man sorcerer

straight up confessing to Uther in order to save Gwen

Gaius is to old for this

Sir Leon puts up with so much shit from the Pendragon family

Somebody please give him a vacation he does not get paid enough for this (having to tell his boss that he married a troll was a real low point you can see him losing the will to live)

He's running on three hours of sleep and six cups of coffee

Corrie guard commander Fox reincarnated as a knight of Camelot (working for a maniacal tyrant in the most dramatic political court the world has ever seen will take a lot out of you)

King Cenred is the medieval embodiment of the King of Hybern like that is exactly how I imagine him when I read ACOTAR (Tom Ellis, as always, was a great casting choice)

Freya deserved better Ik she had to die to keep the Excalibur storyline going but she could have been such a great character (merlin was so sad bring his gf back poor baby)

Lancelot my wholesome baby you are to precious for this world you deserved so much better

I can't explain it but I just know Gwaine would have done well on book tok

Ok I know Morgana was a terrible queen and burned the crops but honestly props to her for paying attention to the paperwork

I can’t tell if Agravaine looked at Morgana like a daughter or if he was falling in love with her and honestly both are very disturbing to me.

Aithusa is the most adorable dragon look at his little face Ik he gets attached to Morgana but seriously I can’t not love him.

seeing him so beaten and abused is so sad please get him some help

We should have seen more of him with Merlin

How Kilgharra hasn't cooked Merlin like a costco roast chicken is beyond me, this dragon must have some sort of immortality driven godlike patience in order to put up with that boy as long as he has.

Gaius please get a hair cut

I’m a few episodes into season five and I hit that point where I know what’s coming and it’s making me not want to finish the show. I don’t want to but I feel like I should.

I crapped out. I made it to the episode where Gwen uses the stable boy to try and kill Arthur and then never finished the season. I knew this was going to happen I haven't made it all the way through the series in years. If I ever make it through the end of season five again I'll be sure to give my thoughts but for now I've fallen back into a Gossip Girl rewatch.

Sometimes I forgot to write things then wrote it down later so it might be out of order but whatever enjoy my musings.