#I lost it when I first saw this cutscene because of their expressions | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

blackjackkent · 9 months ago

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It's stupid, perhaps, but writing this stuff out makes it all feel very immediate and intense and I sort of feel like I've run a marathon coming out of this final battle, though not - I imagine - to the degree that Hector does.

We get a very long cutscene of the tide turning in the city, the mind flayers losing their potency and the locals running them over in triumph. It wasn't as epic as some of the previous cutscenes so I didn't record it, but it ends quite epically - a crowd of screaming, cheering citizens in front of a battered Sorcerous Sundries, with a line from the narrator atop it:

Narrator: Everything you did, everything you sacrificed. It was worth it for this.

True enough. Hector can hear the cheering as he and the others haul themselves, exhausted, from the water, and for a little while he just stands there and listens, letting the feeling of victory - of having saved so many - soak through him and slowly start to feel real.

Karlach keeps close at his side as they walk along the dock; she has one of his hands clasped tightly in hers as if she never plans to let it go. He is desperately grateful that, whatever lies ahead for them, that she survived this long, that he can experience this victory with her at his side.

The others, all his friends, everyone who traveled so far with him, are all waiting along the shoreline.

"We did it," Karlach mumbles, as if she still can't quite believe it herself. "We actually did it. And the city's still standing."

Devastated, yes... but standing. In the morning, they'll have to see how much has been lost. But for today... Hector allows himself to think about nothing but what will survive because of them, because of what they went through, what they did.

"My powers..." Wyll comments wonderingly. "They're draining. Just like Mizora said they would." He smiles crookedly. "A small price to pay in the grand scheme of things."

Hector grins, reaches out to slap him on the shoulder. A small price indeed - Wyll is free for the first time in years, free of both the tadpole and the pact, free to choose a new course of his own design.

"I should feel relieved, yet my blood still simmers..." Lae'zel mutters. A pause as she works through her own emotions, and then-- she smiles. Hector isn't sure he's ever seen her smile with such sincerity before.

"The parasite," she says, turning excitedly towards Hector. "It's withered, dead along with the Netherbrain! I am cleansed! I will never be a filthy ghaik!"

She pauses, and then her smile fades, her head dips reverentially as she returns her eyes to Orpheus. "Only mild offense intended, of course," she adds, with just the slightest hint of humor, but it fades instantly in favor of the more serious grimace that is her usual mien. "You did the unthinkable," she says quietly. "And I'm grateful for it."

Orpheus shrugs, turns and moves past them off the dock. "Even when my time in the Prism stretched out like an eternity," he says thoughtfully, "even when escape seemed impossible, I never lost hope. I knew that my destiny was to liberate my people. To return to them triumphant."

He turns back to face them, his tentacles twitching. "I was wrong. It seems I can only fulfill one part of my destiny. My people will be liberated, but I cannot return to them. Not like this."

He pulls a blade from his belt, offers it to Hector, his strange alien eyes showing a clear sadness.

"You helped me destroy that abomination. Now help me destroy myself. You must kill me."

Without waiting for an answer, he kneels on the dirty, blood-spattered cobblestones and turns his attention to Lae'zel, who has moved up next to Hector with a grave, grief-stricken expression. "But first, Lae'zel," he says soberly, "I need your promise."

Her eyebrows lift questioningly. Perhaps she is simply too exhausted, but there is none of that eager subservience that once marked her, when Hector saw her stand before Vlaakith. She simply waits, expectant, for the Prince's command.

"Carry my hope," he asks softly. "Carry my burden. Call my dragons, Quulos and Quuthos, and ride to the Astral Sea. Destroy Vlaakith. Release our people. Be our future and our legacy."

Lae'zel blinks, and blinks again, astonished into complete silence. After so much work, so much struggle - to survive, to be recognized, to reach the front lines of a war for her people's fate - she is being asked not only to join that war but to lead it.

More than ever in all the time he's known her, she suddenly looks like what he has known her to be all along - terribly, terribly young. And as she has in the past, as she's started to realize her respect for him and his for her, she looks towards Hector with a question in her eyes.

But he shakes his head, smiles slightly. "This is your choice to make, Lae'zel. Not mine. I entrust it to you." It would never have been his choice to make - but he is proud to stand at her side as she makes it, a decision that she has worked so hard to earn the right to.

What happens to Orpheus... in truth, Hector is feeling too much and all of it too deeply at present to spare a tremendous amount of thought for the man. But Lae'zel... he is proud of Lae'zel. And he knows that whatever battle she chooses to take on, she will be equal to it.

"Duty," she says pensively. "All my life, I've traveled in its slipstream, not once questioning its path. In its service, I came here. And now... in its service, I leave."

She turns to look towards Hector, and he is surprised to see the weight of emotion in her eyes unlike any he's seen before.

"I will carry your hope, Prince Orpheus," she agrees. "And I will carry your burden. But to that burden I must add my own. The loss of those I leave behind."

Hector looks back at her steadily. With a slow, cautious movement, giving her time to evade, he reaches out and puts a hand on her forearm, holds it there for a long moment. Words seem inadequate. I will find some, later, before you are gone, he thinks to himself. Something that articulates what you have become to me. A sister in violence.

Her lips twitch slightly, as if in understanding.

"La'ch cras'ht h'mak vlek. So be it," Orpheus murmurs. "Now, give me my freedom from this form."

Hector turns the knife in his hands hesitantly, meeting the mind flayer's piercing gold eyes. He knows why Orpheus asks, and that he would likely ask for the same thing in the other man's place. And yet... "You don't deserve to die," he says quietly.

"I will not be ghaik!" Orpheus insists fiercely. "I did what I did to save my people. The rest is up to them. Someone else must rise within the ranks to lead the revolution against Vlaakith. Give me my freedom from this form. Release my soul to the Astral Seas while I still have one to call my own."

Phrased like that... Hector can't deny it to him.

Give Orpheus the honorable death he craves.

Hector so rarely fights with a blade that it always startles him to feel how easily the flesh gives. There's a soft sucking sound as Orpheus gasps for breath, his eyes widening.

"Gith'ka tavkim krash'ht..." he whispers... and dies...

For a long time everything is still. Then Lae'zel turns abruptly and walks past Orpheus's body, out into the open square beyond.

"Quulos!" she bellows. Her voice seems to echo in the silence.

No response, for a moment. Then one of the dragons wheeling overhead comes at her call, coming to a crashing landing before her, pale fire drifting from its mouth.

Quulos. Orpheus's dragon, and now Lae'zel's. How long has she hoped to ride such a dragon one day? Did she ever picture such a case as this?

She takes a cautious step forward, raises a hand in greeting to the enormous creature; it snuffs a greeting in return, cocking its head to one side. Its eyes glint with intelligence, understanding.

She hesitates, looks back at Hector. "I can never forget you," she says, and her voice is heavy with emotion. "Your name will be etched in our slates. You will be called Mla'ghir - liberator."

He smiles slightly. "You will have no need to forget," he says quietly. "I will be here when you have need of me." A pause, and then he fumbles out the words he has learned from her over the months, all filed away in his memory as if for this moment - some ungrammatical, awkward representation of a much deeper feeling. "Chraith'kan zharn, t'lak'ma h'taka, n'gi, n'varsh." May your enemies know agony, my sister in battle, my student, my teacher.(*)

Her eyes brighten. She turns away, and without hesitation climbs onto the dragon's back.

"To the skies!" she calls.

The dragon lifts, its huge wings sending gusts of wind across them as it launches itself upwards.

They all watch, wondering, silent, as their friend disappears, and behind her, falling into line behind their new leader, go the entire githyanki force, vanishing back into the Astral Sea.

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(*) Critical levels of artistic license; Hector doesn't get to say anything here in game, let alone cobbled together githyanki words pulled from the FR wiki. XD

#bjk plays baldur's gate 3 #hector carlisle #awwwww i really like this ending for lae'zel #c:

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aticklishpercivalwriter · 5 months ago

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Updates

Yeah, so it been busy for me lately. List below:

Job Interview Monday, will hear back today if I get the job or not.

Making the itenary for my family trip

Shopping (For my little bro's birthday and myself, two tablets. Got good deals, but still the most money I have ever spent in my life 😭)

Adding on, making sure I still have enough money 🙃

Played the Bedtime Story quest in Genshin and man that was emotional. Spoiler: When she said Aether's name and he was like, "You're the only one who calls me that," not just because they were talking but because that hits so hard. Everyone calls him Traveler and hearing his name for the first time in forever was like, oh man. Heck it rang deeper for me because there was this one fanfic of Lyney and Aether that was exactly like this (I'll try to find it). If I remember correctly, Aether was crying because he was feeling so lonely in the world doing all these commissions over and over, helping the people in Teyvat and for what? No lead on his sister and everyone calling him Traveler and he like completely lost his identity/way. Then Lyney came into the picture and the moment he said Aether's name like "Aether, that's your real name isn't it?" Aether was like crying and they eventually kiss, and yeah, so many emotions. We're not going to talk about Hoyoverse making it so they don't remember.

Writing the Zhongli and Itto fic. The reason I put it off for so long is because I didn't know how I can write their dynamic and the plot. I got it now though! I'm sorry for the two who requested for them that it is coming to you this late :(

Just being so tired. Like I feel exhausted everyday and I don't know why.

Getting jealous over Genshin males. Yes, I get jealous and when you see artwork and writings of hot male characters, and your favorite ships kissing each other, being themselves, smut, fluff, and tickles, all the time, you get jealous of wanting something like that in the real world. It passes...eventually...then comes back.

Got a Playstation Plus trial and was browsing the games when I saw Tales of Zestria and Final Fantasy. I've read many fics of the two and loved them and was curious how the games fair. Wasn't disappointed at all, I just started mind you.

So, Tales of Zestria, I loved the ship between Sorey and Mikleo when I read fics and seen artwork of them and now I can fully appreciate why people ship them. They have a great dynamic and are funny even in dangerous situations. Also, is Mikleo like jealous? Once Sorey starts talking to the girl he saved, Mikleo is like pouty when Sorey isn't giving him as much attention as before. There was a couple lines where Sorey goes, "I hope Mikleo isn't worried," and when you talk to Mikleo he goes, "It wasn't like I was worried or anything." Give him attention Sorey!

And then Final Fantasy, the VII Remake, one. This is my first time playing Final Fantasy, so I am really out of the loop. I thought I would see characters like Ignis or Noctis from the fics I read, but they must be in a different version or I haven't encountered them yet. Action and fighting was the first thing I was doing in the game and I was hooked. I love to appreciate the graphics and fine details that goes into video games and this was no exception as I took in the experience, the cutscenes, everything. The dialogue, the other characters, Cloud Strife (main character), the story so far, it's so cool. Then Jessie brings up how Cloud is good to look at and then I actually look at Cloud and yeah. Why is he so hot?! You probably know my type knowing who I like in Genshin. Like his arm muscles are well defined. I am a sucker for males in tank tops and showing off their arms. And his cool hair, his facial expressions, his sass. Why does he look so good!? Ahem, gotta stop. I am also interested in his story more than anything like what happened? There's these flashbacks and yeah. This game has me hooked, okay? I admit, I searched up Cloud Strife thirst trap (I'm sorry, I had to. I blame the fan artists for making Sethos hot asf with arm muscles. @cawiechan on Twitter for example. I'm obsessed.) and you know what came up? "FF7 Remake transforms the horniest Final Fantasy into a full-on thirst trap" So, you are telling me the first Final Fantasy game that I play is the horniest and a thirst trap? Hey, I'm not complaining and I find that really funny.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading! I consider this a safe place to talk about stuff that I wouldn't talk about anywhere else and where I feel welcome, so thank you for making me feel accepted here :) Wishing you all well and talk to you all later ❤️!

#percival stuff #updates

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hanniejji · 2 years ago

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wild bunny

[ scaramouche x child!reader ]

summary: whenever scaramouche looks at the young child that always stood idly beside him, he is reminded of a certain fledgling that he once lost.

notes: had a sudden burst of writing juice because of the scara cutscene that broke my heart, tis my usual platonic shit agenda lesgo | m.list

words: 972 | warnings: a lil rushed because i typed this while at work LHASHAHAHAHA also mentions of dead pipol lmao

"what the fuck."

scaramouche stares in disbelief, jaw slacked and furrowed eyes pointed at the small cocoon of blanket on the couch in his office. your fluff of hair is disheveled, eyes unusually puffy and teary rather than dull. the small trail of sheen on your cheeks confirms his suspicion.

the unfeeling stray he picked out from the wilderness of inazuma is crying.

he had not seen you express a single emotion other than conflict, anger and bloodlust before, so for you to be crying—alone—it's safe to say that the balladeer is undeniably bamboozled.

"what are you wasting tears for, brat?"

maybe he should have been a little softer when approaching children in their… vulnerable state. but honestly speaking, scaramouche doesn't exactly know if that applies to you. children under the wing of the fatui aren't exactly normal—especially, children who can wipe out a whole team of fatus. nonetheless, you are still a young fledgling, exposed to the truth of this world where the gods are cruel and being weak does not equal to survival.

you remind him so much of kunikuzushi.

he grimace at the reflection, a parallel that coaxed him into taking your battered form under his wing—an unbelievable truth, as much as he denies it.

"i lost the bunny."

"the what?"

he crouches in front of the couch, forearms on his knees with an exasperated look on his face, though his feelings are far from the expression plastered on display. he has an inkling about what's upsetting you, now that he looks over you once more.

you and that thing are practically inseparable.

"i lost the bunny you gave me."

and by bunny, you meant the stuffed bunny he gave you a few months after he plucked you from the wild.

the one scaramouche gave because the first time he saw you was when you were blankly staring at the lifeless bunny on the ground. it died from the aftermath of a wild goose chase. a few weeks before he found you, fatuis and random nobushis would turn up dead in the wilderness of inazuma. it infuriated scaramouche. camps upon camps of fatus would be thrown into disarray and their rations are emptied. when he sent his underlings after the perpetrator, they'd fail to come back with good news. worse, they won't come back at all. he'd come upon them sprawled on the dirty ground somewhere else, dead.

so he went after the menace himself.

that's when he found you in the middle of a fatui camp, his underlings basically useless at this point, slumped on the ground and the poor innocent bunny in front of you. it's later then after he apprehended you that he found out that you were protecting the tiny mammal.

you were just a kid trying to survive in a world filled with monsters, strong enough to protect yourself but helpless and clueless when it comes to the life of others.

when his eye caught sight of a ragged stuffed bunny in an abandoned village, he grabbed it on impulse, faltering only when he was about to hand the now clean stuffed bunny that he stitched up himself. despite being confused as fuck, he casually tossed the thing at you, telling you that it's of no use to him and that you should act like a kid more because your indifference is creeping him out.

he prefers you over any kid by the way. don't tell him i told you.

"i'm sorry," his eye twitched, irritated at how you seemed to be so bothered. it's just a random stuffed bunny, nothing great about it. but he supposes that for someone at your age and comprehension, it must've meant something special for you.

and it does, a lot.

"it's just a toy."

"you gave me that bunny."

he sighed audibly, rolling his eyes before pushing himself to full height, arms crossed.

"it's not the only stuffed bunny in the world, idiot."

"it's the one you gave me. i don't want just any stuffed bunny."

now this, caught him off guard.

you seemed to be genuinely sad about losing the bunny, an expression he only saw on the day you first met. the same look on your face when you failed to protect something you deemed precious. if you're directing such sentimentality towards the stuffed bunny, then you must've really loved it.

more so because it came from him.

scaramouche is brought back to centuries past, an image of a different child flashing before his eyes.

he feels his chest tighten, but he dares not linger at the thought.

"look, you little gremlin," scaramouche grumbled, masking this unfamiliar feeling with exasperation and irritation—he dares not display such thing. "we can just get you a new one and it would still come from me. who the hell do you think provides for you, huh? me, no one else."

he sees your eyes brightened in the slightest, now facing him. he can literally imagine an invisible tail wagging with how you seemed to perked up. another unfamiliar sight, but not unwelcomed. if anything, it's going to be what he thinks of for the next few weeks, unbeknownst to him.

"but how about the one i lost?"

"forget it, it's ragged anyway," he gestures you to follow. "move your little feet, we have places to be and things to do."

the sound of your feet trailing behind him is something he would come to love listening to. that and the slight tug on his sleeves where your little hand naturally clutches around.

a week passes, you found a pristine white bunny in your quarters. it looks different from the one you used to have, but the stitches are familiar and the small electro symbol on its torso is one that you will not mistake for a different person's handiwork.

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pawscreatures · 3 years ago

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screenshots part 3

I wanted this to be its own post so I can breakdown how the scene goes since you can't play the cutscenes as a video unless the cameras at the in game angles, so these can only be taken frame by frame.

as emma's dying, snake looks away towards the ceiling before turning back to them. when she takes her finale breathes and otacon goes "emma!? emma!?" snake then turns completely away with his back to them, with a shot of his profile.

what isn't shown in game is snake’s expression after a fade to black (well, two fade to blacks in quick succession) while his back is still to them

after this is another fade to black to the shot of big shell as otacon’s talking about his childhood, and when the scene goes back to them snake is then turning around to face otacon and emma. his face is back to a more “maybe upset, but keeping it in” expression. seeing the comparison between the fade to blacks is night and day... and notable he only looks visibly upset while no one can see him

if I was just a bit more crazy and determined it's technically possible to take a of capture every frame and then put them together to make a video... but that person isn't me. but it Would be interesting to see his expression changes in real time because it is animated, and towards the end while he’s still anguished looking it seems like he’s shaking his head slightly

(also, my guess is that they had a vague idea of where they might want the camera be so they animated snake’s face in case they wanted to include a shot when it came time to "filming" the cinematic. why they ended up choosing not to I have no clue. I think there would have been huge added emotion to the scene since I don't think we often, if ever, see snake that upset)

edit: I've gone through almost all cutscenes with snake in them and looking at his face when the camera wouldn't be on it in game, and he's never animated if off screen unless getting from point A to B for the next shot. or any other characters either (hense the screenshots of raiden during the hug where he just stands there).

this combined with someone's tags I saw here makes me think maybe it could be purposeful it's off screen. maybe snakes not only hiding his pain from raiden and otacon (coming from maybe sympathy and care for him and not wanting to burden him more, maybe even from guilt) but from the player as well. you don't get to play as snake because you'll never be snake [like raiden] and you don't get to see him emotionally vulnerable because he wasn't made to let it show, both literally in universe and in meta. snake has a persona he plays that's the image of what he was intended to be, but he isn't that person. he isn't an invulnerable solider who can never faulter like zero intended, like everyone sees him as, that the player sees him as. or that could be entirely unintended that it works well in that way.

not to write a entire novel here, [too late? (;ŏ﹏ŏ)] but also: I think the reason snake is so distraught isn't because of emma dying per say, because he has no emotional attachment to her, to him her death is like any other innocent life lost on the battlefield... except it's not, because he knows how much otacon's hurting. this isn't the first time he sees him cry... but he knows him now. he cares about him. he probably knew how important seeing emma again was to otacon and could have been been a second chance to 'fix' his family. and I think That's whats hurting him so much.

#mgs #mgs2 #the document of metal gear solid 2 #mgs screenshot posting #otasune #solid snake #otacon #pawscreatures

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cinnamonest · 4 years ago

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Y’all are too nice to me I swear… here I am being horny and nasty on main and I’m getting encouraged, damn. But for real ( ´ ω ` ) thank you so much!!

I’m gaining more confidence to post more smutty stuff and the kind of dark shit I like, so I might go back and make more nasty Childe content later on too… After Albedo, I got Razor and Zhongli coming up, and a few ones I just worked on for fun. But yeah, just in case it wasn’t clear for anyone who followed me, I’m going to be writing almost entirely dark content and some really nasty stuff, so just be aware of that, and don’t consume my writing if that’s something that may be harmful to you.

Albedo is so pretty… and such good dark content material… He treats you like a science experiment but has the audacity to make it hot smh

I haven’t seen a whole lot of him outside the cutscenes, so potentially ooc (as if yandere content isn’t already ooc, lmao)

Albedo - Yandere Profile

tw: general yandere content, obsessive behavior, stalking

tw (below cut): smut, noncon (seriously, you’ve been warned)

What are they generally like? Lucid, aware? Obsessive? How do they behave?

Very much aware. In the beginning, it frustrates him. He’s never been particularly attached to anyone, outside of his former instructor. He’s always enjoyed being out on his own, spending extended amounts of time by himself – the desire to be around someone is a foreign feeling for him. He immediately notices how bizarre the emotion is for him, how it changes his behaviors. His self awareness combined with perceptiveness makes him able to acutely recognize not only how unusual this emotion is for him, but also how the extent of his feelings, the types of desires they ignite in him, is unusual even for “normal” people who aren’t social recluses.

He’s frustrated by his own actions, feels embarrassed at how attached he is to you, how easily you make him flustered and trip over his words. As he is a very aware yandere, he’s definitely afraid of rejection to some degree. He has no idea how to navigate feelings and interactions with other people, he’s never really had the desire to form a particularly strong bond with anyone before. As such, he’ll come across as very awkward, and he will interact with you less than most yanderes – he knows he’s just going to embarrass himself if he talks to you, right? He’ll just mess up and say something strange, so instead, he opts to watch you from the shadows, go to places where you are, but keep a distance from you, just being able to watch you makes him feel fluttery and overwhelmed.

He will definitely be one to collect things from you. He collects plenty of things for the sake of science, this is no different. Or so he tries to tell himself, but he can’t delude himself even if he tries. He knows its weird, he knows its wrong, but the overwhelming urge to have things of yours is too great to resist. He’ll start off with more innocent things, but it will gradually progress to not-so-innocent… items of yours.

It may not be obvious, but he’s actually a fairly sensitive person, at least regarding you. He places a lot of value in what you think of him, and wants to ensure you’ll respond positively to him. He views it like a science – there should be some formula by which he can put in the correct actions, and produce a specific result. Unfortunately, unlike real science, there’s not much room for trial and error – he feels he only has once chance.

How likely are they to kidnap their darling? How quickly will they do so?

It will take some time, as he’s got to get over his own nerves first. He’s torn between the fear of you hating him for such a thing, it would be the end of the world for him, but also the desire to pull you away from the world, to keep you hidden from others, to have you all to himself, to be the only person that gets to look at you. If you start showing positive signs, reacting positively to his gifts, expressing interest in conversation with him and going out of your way to see him, he’ll start to get more confident, think that he can afford to do something that might sour your opinion of him, hoping it will merely be temporary.

He’ll probably start to do so several times and back out. He’ll set out at night, make it all the way to your room and stand over your sleeping form, and he’ll start to worry, wonder if someone saw him, see holes in his plans, he gets too nervous and bolts. He’ll persuade you into being alone with him, and although its the chance he’s looking for, again, he’ll get nervous, worry about being caught, run through all the what-ifs, and miss the chance. Honestly, when he does finally take you, it will probably be not planned, but in the heat of the moment, a rash decision from desperation. Something like you coming to visit him to tell him you’re leaving the area, came to say goodbye, and he’ll panic, ultimately grabbing you by the arm as you try to leave and dragging you back inside, silently, but forcefully.

How difficult is it to escape from them? How do they keep you restrained? How do they deal with attempted escape?

Moderately difficult. Your best bet is to take advantage of his tendency to be absent minded when he’s absorbed in his work. He gets very lost in his thoughts, to a point where he’ll completely zone out and be oblivious to the world around him. On the downside, this means you won’t have much time to cover distance, he’ll be close behind the moment he realizes you’re gone.

The route he’ll probably take is actually one where you won’t need to be too restrained, because you’ll be taking… a little research trip. Out to the most freezing, desolate areas of the mountains. He’s convinced the knights he needs to stay there for his research, but in reality, he’s internally panicking, as he tries to figure out how to make this work – after all, you two can’t stay here forever. You’d be foolish to run out of the little cabin he’s bought, out into the perilous freezing cold and jagged, high slopes. At first, he thinks there’s no way you’d try it, so he’s content letting you have free reign to walk around as you please. If he has to leave for whatever reason, he’ll probably lock you into a single room, but he won’t chain you up, as again, he's really trying to avoid making you hate him.

If you prove to be determined to leave, he’ll be hurt, but mostly concerned for you. He’s actually not one to get too mad over an escape attempt – he’ll blame himself, or theorize it’s just a natural response your brain triggered. Against his first choice, he’ll end up having to get more strict with your restraints. If you get too whiny, though… you might trigger one of his more frustrated moments.

“I didn’t want to have to do this… I’m sorry. I can’t risk anything bad happening to you. Tell me if it’s too tight… I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t blame you. I know you’re probably panicking over all this, but you’ll get adjusted to it, I promise. Just… just give it some time… it’s not so bad, living with me, I promise.”

“Don’t be like that. You’re only tied up because you tried to leave. You should understand why you have to be kept like this… If you don’t want to be restrained, you shouldn’t have run out, trying to get yourself killed.”

How easy are they to trick, deceive, or manipulate?

For all his academic intelligence, he’s not highly skilled with people and socialization. He’s not too good at being able to tell when he’s being lied to, and he definitely won’t pick up on subtle manipulation. It’ll be pretty easy to wrap him around your finger, he’ll do what he can to make you happy.

Once he finds out you’ve lied to him, though, he’ll get pretty upset. He likely won’t trust you again, and will require proof of anything you say, or set out to find out if you’re telling him the truth or not.

How lenient are they? What privileges can you have, and what will you be denied?

He’ll try to accommodate you, giving you things you ask for, but he has limits. He’s too paranoid to let you have any contact with the outside world. You do have him wrapped around your finger to an extent, though. Whatever he’s doing at the moment, he’ll drop it in a heartbeat if you want to spend time with him in any way, even if its just you asking for food or to take a walk. He’ll be willing to take you for very short trips outside, no further than a few yards from the lodging, if only because he knows sunlight is vital to your health.

What kind of rules do they have? What kind of punishment would they use?

The basics will be there – don’t try to leave, don’t be difficult with him, try to cooperate, be obedient. However, he’s also particularly overprotective of anything that can hurt you – even yourself. Under no circumstances can you handle anything that can hurt you – that means no cooking, no knives, no lifting anything heavy, no going outside without him. If you’re determined to cook something, he’ll have to stand right behind you, and watch while you do it. If you get so much as a little cut or burn, he’ll take over, insisting you go sit down after he tends to your “wounds.”

At the very beginning, he’ll be hesitant to punish you too much, as part of his plan to get you to like him. However, he can be a little easily frustrated, and your safety and well-being comes first, even if it means he has to make you upset. He will have to restrain you, take away what little privileges you had. If you try to bolt while you’re outside, no more going outside. If you try something foolish like attacking him with a knife when he gives you cooking privileges, you will lose said privileges. Really, the worst part of it all is the humiliation, being treated like a dumb, incapable baby that can’t do anything for yourself. He insists on doing everything for you, even down to bathing you and dressing you, even feeding you if you can’t convince him to take restraints off your hands. He’ll talk down to you in that way, too, talking to you as if you were a child.

How do they deal with rivals, or perceived rivals? Will they get rid of them? Will they kill them themselves, or find another way?

It’s a situation he’s not prepared to handle, and he’s unsure of what to do. It strikes fear in him that you might have someone else interested, so he has to get rid of them as quickly as possible. He’s not opposed to killing, if it comes down to that, but initially, he’ll try to work behind the scenes – expose something that will ruin their reputation, get them accused of a crime. This would also be one of the possible aforementioned situations that might cause him to kidnap you a bit earlier than he normally would, as well. If he can’t get rid of them easily, he’ll just take you away from them.

He will absolutely try to make you hate them, try to ruin your image of them, and he’s rather good at falsifying evidence for his claims of their behavior. With his alchemic skills, that sort of thing is easily possible.

How easy is it to make them mad? What does their anger look like?

He gets more frustrated than anything, when you’re being difficult. This is mostly just him sighing quite a bit, speaking a bit harshly, even pouting and sulking a bit if you’ve offended him. But true anger in him is not pretty, and almost never happens. It’s a buildup, a slow rise that has a boiling point. If he reaches that point, he can definitely get mad enough to hurt you, it’s actually kind of terrifying in how sharp of a contrast it is to how he normally is. It’s a side of him that’s very difficult to draw out. He’s not one to yell or shout, no, his anger is a suffocating silence, he slams down whatever he’s holding as he stomps over to you, grabbing you by the arms hard enough to bruise, and dragging you by the hair to whatever he has planned.

With mild frustration outbursts, he will feel justified, but if it reaches that intense anger, he’ll usually give at least a little apology, tell you he didn’t mean to go that far. He hates to think of you fearing him, but ultimately, if that’s what’s necessary to keep you safe, then he can live with it.

Do they see you as above them, beneath them, or equal to them?

It’s an odd mix. On one hand, he sees you as utterly fascinating, the most beautiful thing he’s ever laid eyes on, more than any landscape or art he’s seen or made, an invaluable treasure to be kept on a high pedestal. Simultaneously, however, he will treat you like a child, thinks you can’t do anything for yourself. It’s a bizarre duality, but one he is consistent on. You’re precious, so very precious, and he’s undeserving of you, but at the same time, you need him to be safe and sound.

How determined are they for you to love them? How hard will they try to make it happen? Or are they content just having you?

Of the genshin boys, he’s one of the most determined. He’s not good with people, and he doesn’t really have anyone particularly close to him left anymore. He tends to keep people at a distance. You sort of fill an space inside him that he never knew was empty, a void he wasn’t aware he had until it was consumed by thoughts of you. He doesn’t need anyone or anything else, so long as he has you with him, but he really, really wants it to be true that you love him. He doesn’t need you to even love him as much as he loves you – he doesn’t even know if that’s possible – but he just wants to know that, even if only in the slightest, his feelings are returned. He’s so distant from everyone else, but you wormed your way into his heart, even if you didn’t intend to, with your smiles and softness and kindness towards him. For the first time, he feels weak around someone, but in a way, it’s a good feeling. He wants to be able to be vulnerable, be weak, and not have anything to fear by doing so.

He’s lucid, though, so he doesn’t expect you to love him immediately. As he’s not good with words or displays of affection, he’ll get you all sorts of gifts. Rare items that you wonder how the hell he obtained them, beautifully crafted little trinkets from all his searching and time traveling, more clothes than you could ever wear. You’ll start to feel a little guilty, it’s so much, and you’re certain he doesn’t have that much money. He’ll blow it off, say it’s no big deal, but if you insist, he’ll have to start finding new ways to convey his affection. In captivity, he won’t stop trying, but he’ll understand why you might be angry. In that case, he will utilize what he’s learned from research in books he’s read. He knows that eventually, with him being the only one you have, the only company, the only one to talk to, the only source of touch, you’ll eventually have to cave. You’ll become attached to him, bond with him, whether you like it or not. He knows how powerful the affect of touch can be, and will make sure to hold you in his arms, keep you on his lap, make you crave the only source of human touch you can get. Dependency, he thinks, is the gateway to you loving him.

Bonus: Is there anything that makes them unique, in comparison to other yanderes?

Drawings. So many of them. Much like his drawings he uses in notes, he’s found he tends to start scribbling a familiar face when his mind drifts off. He’s memorized every little detail of your face, every curve on your body. If you’re ever snooping around, you’ll eventually uncover a book of sketches he has solely dedicated to drawings of you. Drawings of you laughing, smiling, sleeping, drawings that you’re certain were of real events you were at, that you didn’t remember him being at. Every bit in perfect detail. If you confront him about it, he’ll be horrifically embarrassed, insisting they’re no good, or, if you’re upset, trying to reassure you it was all from his mind and totally not him lurking in the shadows as he watches you.

Also, if you want to make him happy, get him on one of his spiels about his work, his interests, anything that he can catch onto and go on and on about. He’ll catch himself rambling and apologize for being “annoying,” but if you reassure him, and express interest, that will make him feel particularly appreciated. It would be a primary way to get on his good side and manipulate him, or lull him into false security to make your escape, if that’s what you’re looking to do. But be warned, it will only work once, and he’ll be far too hurt to let himself indulge in sharing these things with you again.

General perverseness: how sexual of a person are they? What’s their drive like? How touchy do they get? Do they have any reservations about sexuality?

Publicly, definitely highly reserved. He’s easily flustered, and thinks of sex in a very scientific way, for the purpose of procreation. For fun? He knows it’s enjoyable, but can’t separate it from his very analytic, scientific way of viewing things. It’s a formula, you touch this here and pull that there, and the result is supposed to be orgasmic bliss. He just isn’t very familiar with pleasure – he doesn’t drag out masturbation, even, as that would be a waste of time. He gets it over with quickly, taking short breaks during his work. He is a fairly high drive, though, and gets the urge fairly frequently, about once or twice a day.

He’ll be hornier with your presence, having to leave more frequently to get off to the little things you do, quickly getting himself off while recalling the mental image of you holding a pen in your mouth, the little moan when you stretch, the way your clothes fit to your frame.

Prior to abduction, he’s not particularly touchy at all, in fact, he’s very jumpy if you touch him. Once he’s gotten you alone with him for the foreseeable future, isolated, dependent, he’ll gain more confidence, be willing to give into his cravings to touch you, hold you, eventually progressing to groping you, moving his hands up and down your body, under your clothes, slowly peeling them off.

He’s initially a bit ashamed of his urges towards you, feels guilty every time he gets off to you, but will likewise gain more confidence once you're his.

A guy can only fight off the urge for so long before he cracks, before he can’t continue to care about the consequences. For him, that point is when he knows he finally has you all to himself – his worries fade, and while the guilt is still there, it’s far outweighed by desire.

How forceful are they? Do they care about your willingness?

He does care, but as stated previously, it’s hard to fight the urge for so long. It will be torture, but for the first few days, he wants you to “adjust” to your new “home,” and not add to your panic. After that, though, he’ll try to assess your reactions. If you’re extremely resistant, he’ll give you more “adjustment” time. He can’t really hold off forever, though, and eventually, maybe a few weeks in, comes to the conclusion that if he just does what he wants, so long as he’s gentle and reminds you he loves you, it will help you get past the mental barrier in your mind. He’s convinced there’s simply a psychological issue, and that sometimes, people need a push. It’s like having a friend who can’t swim – sometimes, you just have to throw them into the water, help them get over that mental hurdle, and they’ll be grateful in the end. That’s what he tells himself to justify it, anyway. He has enough… anatomical prerequisite knowledge to know what’s good and what’s bad, and will take your body’s positive reactions as a sign of what you really want. Is definitely the kind to use that against you, holding up his fingers to your face after you cum on them, as if to prove a point.

“See? I told you, you just have to let go and give in to what you want… if you didn’t, my fingers wouldn’t be dripping like this, now would they?”

What sort of kinks or fetishes do they have, or would they fill?

He wants to experiment on you. This manifests as him being something of a service top without really intending to be, even if you’re not exactly happy about it. He likes to watch your reactions, watch the way your body moves, test the pleasure you get from different things, discover what it is that you like, even if you weren’t aware of it. In particular, he’s fascinated by the fact that girls have so many types of orgasms. He’ll want to try them all, watch and see which ones are more intense than others, which ones make you convulse, makes your toes curl, your eyes roll back. Which erogenous zones make your breath hitch, make you twitch and whimper. Probably the type to be determined that he can make you cum just from something like sucking on your nipples, and he won’t stop until he achieves it. He’ll also want to try everything. At least anything that he thinks has some potential to appeal to him, mentally. He’s a busy man and hasn’t really taken the time to explore his own sexuality, and has virtually zero experience.

Edging, overstimulation, forced orgasms

Experimentation also means testing limits and thresholds. He’ll bring you up to the edge, learn to watch for the slightest of signs that you’re close, listen to your breath, watch your face, wait until you’re just so close and then draw back, stopping just short of letting you catch that high. Then he’ll let you drift back down, and bring you back up again. No amount of begging will make him show you any mercy, you’ll only cum when he’s decided he’s observed enough. He wants to push the limit, see just how close to the edge of orgasm you can get without spilling over, just how much it takes to drive you insane. He’ll also want to see how far you can go after it as well. Orgasm won’t be the end of his ministrations, no, he wants to see how much stimulation you can take. You won’t be able to get away from his tongue, he’ll grab you by the hips and slam you back down, continuing to lap at you even if you’re so sensitive it’s painful. Watching you cum will just make him rut into you harder, bruising and abusing your insides to a point that they’re so sore you can feel it long after it’s over. At first, he might feel a little guilty, and may very well after it’s over, but in the heat of the moment, he can’t fight the insatiable urge to listen to you squeal, feel you convulse, watch the tears from overwhelming pleasure run down your face.

He’ll make it his personal mission to see how many orgasms the female body is capable of within a given amount of time - per day, per hour, how quickly you can have them in succession. For scientific purposes, of course. Anatomy and human biology isn’t really his main field of focus, but he likes to expand his research horizons.

“Just one more… cum one more time for me, then we’ll be done. Come on… I know you can, just one more.”

How do they feel about pregnancy or babies? Do they want them?

He’s actually good with children, usually. He has a calming effect on kids. He isn’t sure how he feels, though. To some degree, he fears his capabilities to parent, thinks he would be too cold to be a good father. But he also likes the idea of a protege, an heir to his title, one he can teach everything he knows. If he does end up having one, this fucking nerd man will read every book on pregnancy, birthing, and parenting that he can get his hands on.

Also, he’ll absolutely be one to track your cycles, even better than you can. He’s researched enough to know exactly when you’re most or least likely to get pregnant, and you can’t help but notice how much more he seems to cum in you when you’re at your most fertile. Nor can he deny how satisfying it is to watch his cum slowly drip out of you, watching you twitch with aftershock and slowly drift off in exhaustion.

What kind of (nsfw) punishments would they use?

Unfortunately for you, since overstimulation and edging are already normal and everyday for you, he’ll have to amp it up a bit if he’s trying to make you regret something. He might get rougher, abusing more pleasure spots on your body, keeping his hands, mouth, and cock occupied all at once with driving you over the edge until it’s painful. But if you’re exceptionally misbehaved, you might not ever get a release to his edging, instead left to suffer from being so close, tied up so you can’t finish yourself off.

In moments when he’s really, truly angry, the peak of it, and that blends with arousal, he’ll really, really throatfuck you. Grabbing the back of your head and shoving his cock down as deep as he can, holding you there as you gag and choke, feeling your throat convulse around him, desperately trying to pull back for air. The movements are harsh and brutal, pulling harshly on your hair, moving at a pace so fast you barely have a second to breathe. Thankfully, when it gets like that, he won’t last long, emptying out into your throat, holding your jaw shut and demanding you swallow. If any spills off on your chin, he’ll gather it up on his fingers, hold it to your face, and command you to open your mouth, suck it off, and swallow again. That’s at the peak of his anger, though, and you’ll have to substantially piss him off to reach that point. He’ll apologize later, holding you close, but his guilt doesn’t change the fact that it’s one of the most intense orgasms that he’ll have, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t sometimes think of doing it again, even without provocation. He’s restrained enough not to, but the thought is there… and deep down, he’ll entertain the idea.

What body parts of their darling do they like the most?

The curves of your body, no matter how defined or faint they are, no matter the general shape of your body, to him it’s the most beautiful thing. He’ll definitely want to draw you, even if you’re not too keen on posing. He’ll run his hands up and down your body, squeezing every little bit of flesh he can, moving his palms over every little curve, every inch of your skin.

#yandere x reader #yandere genshin impact #yandere albedo x reader #tw: extreme content #tw: noncon #yandere albedo

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verycherrymary · 4 years ago

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Let me preface this by saying that I know nothing about Resident Evil and I probably won’t play any of the games but I was curious because it’s hard to ignore a tall, elegant, older woman. My curiosity was piqued and I decided to check it out. I watched playthroughs and cutscenes and sort of got the story but I can definitely (and probably) be missing things. I say this so you can take my opinion with a grain of salt.

That being said, I think that switching the order of appearances between Heisenberg and Dimitrescu would have made the story better.

SPOILERS BELOW

Now, I do not say this because I wanted Dimitrescu to live longer or anything. I say it based on what Heisenberg and Dimitrescu bring to the table and how, in my opinion, it could have been better utilized by the story.

Let’s start with Heisenberg. He’s clever, so clever that he has figured Miranda’s plot which is something that the other three lords do not seem to have done. He’s also the newest member of this twisted family and so, he functions a lot like a bratty, youngest sibling who is the black sheep. But he’s also the favorite. Miranda awards him the honor of deciding what happens to Ethan. In her journals, Miranda seems to favor Heisenberg. And even as someone who watched the walkthroughs, Heisenberg is great. He’s funny and he seems the most “normal” out of the four lords (sans the whole killing thing, ya know.)

He’s also extremely persuasive.

And it’s this persuasion that, in my opinion, was underutilized. By the time Ethan gets to Heisenberg, he has beaten three of the lords. Ethan discovers that Heisenberg pretty much figures out Miranda’s plot and wants to destroy her. He’s the only lord that expresses disdain towards Miranda and, for a moment, he tries to convince Ethan to help him. But obviously, by this point, Ethan has no reason to side with Heisenberg.

But what if this happened at the beginning of the game?

What if Heisenberg could have convinced Ethan to help him out? What if Heisenberg told Ethan that he hates the other lords and that he’s been wanting to get out of this family? What if Heisenberg was the one who told him about the four lords (and not the Duke). When I first saw the trailer and saw all the pictures in the background, I actually thought Heisenberg’s role was going to be one of a guide almost. Your first look into the mess that is the village. (Also, I thought the X out picture of Dimitrescu was because of his disdain for her.) And sure, he told Miranda he wanted to kill you, but maybe it was all for show. Maybe Heisenberg came up with the idea of a game to allow Ethan to escape his crazy family. Or maybe Heisenberg was just supremely impressed with Ethan and thought Ethan was the man for the job, to take down Miranda.

This would have made Heisenberg live up to being “the most dangerous” as the Duke said. Heisenberg doesn’t care about the conventionalities of his little family and so, he has no restraints. He’s on his own mission and he’s going to use Ethan to get it. Until something happens that makes Ethan realize that Heisenberg is going to double cross him or maybe has double crossed him.

Granted, I have not watched everything and there could be things that I am missing, but while the game kind of touches this idea of Heisenberg being a double crosser, it does so kind of weakly. And in my opinion, a lot of it has to do with the fact that it came so late in the game that it kind of lost its effect. Had Heisenberg been the first villain you encounter in this strange world, maybe it would have changed because he would have been your first source of information. And if you relied on Heisenberg’s tellings of what is happening, then you have an unreliable source and as a result, your information may be unreliable, perhaps to Ethan’s detriment. Again, adding to this “dangerousness.”

So what about our lovely Lady Dimitrescu? Well, she has the makings of a closer. Lady Dimitrescu is like the character on the stage you can’t take your eyes off. Her design is a large part of it, but it’s also her attitude and personality. She’s a diva, from the way she talks to the way she walks to the way she conducts herself. In her mind, she’s the best and all of her other “siblings” are beneath her.

And it’s this ego that is underutilized in my opinion.

Leaving Lady Dimitrescu for the end would allow her ego to grow and ultimately be her downfall. In her mind, she’s the best. She’s the oldest, the most responsible, and the most dedicated to Mother Miranda. So if she saw Heisenberg fail, Beneviento fail, and Moreau fail, well that’s not a big deal because she’s Lady Dimitrescu and she’s too big to fail. Mother Miranda made a mistake in trusting Heisenberg because look what happened so of course, it’s up to big sister Lady Dimitrescu to clean the mess her siblings made.

And that would be her downfall.

Because then when Ethan Winters comes and starts killing her daughters, one by one, her ego gets plucked further and further as she becomes more unhinged. This is her house, her daughters but this man is storming through them. Now she’s failing too, just like the rest of her low life siblings. But she’s better than them so how is this possible? We already know from her journals that Lady Dimitrescu has the issue that every oldest sibling seems to have: this need of validation. And she was determined to get that validation by proving to Mother Miranda that she had made a mistake and by getting Ethan Winters.

But now, she’s alone. Her daughters are killed. Mother Miranda will be so disappointed in her. And she too is failing, just like her siblings. She’s feeling an incredible amount of pain and loss. It would be enough to send her in a rage, to devote herself completely to destroying Ethan Winters.

And if this wasn’t an action game, I think that the best takedown for Lady Dimitrescu would be one of her own creation. One where all the tragedy, shame, and humiliation causes her to make a dumb mistake that allows Ethan to bring her down. At the end, she’s not so different from her siblings and she too falls.

Karl Heisenberg and Lady Dimitrescu are the two ends of the same rope, each tugging at each other and believing they are superior than the other without realizing that they will both be hanged by that rope. They stand out because they have personality but it feels like their personalities were not used to the full potential. For me, that’s the most disappointing part of it. I don’t mind if they died, in fact, it’s to be expected. The issue is always the treatment of a character before they died and I just don’t feel like either character was used to their full potential.

Like I said, I have no clue talking about and I’m not part of this fandom. I just hate seeing really interesting characters just kind of pushed aside. The other two lords have their own interesting parts, especially Donna. But Heisenberg and Dimitrescu really had the chance to be something more and it didn’t happen.

But this is just my opinion and it’s uninformed and I don’t want hate, thanks.

#lady dimitrescu #karl heisenberg #i don't know what i'm saying #alcina dimitrescu #resident evil #resident evil village

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tirayuanshen · 2 years ago

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Hello! This is just me asking for your spoiler-filled thoughts after finishing Sumeru's Archon quest because I saw you finished and I have so many feelings myself and would love to read yours.

HI SORRY FOR THE DELAY LETS GO (SPOILER WARNING)

Sumeru's quest was SUCH a step up from the past archon quests. In act 2, I loved how you actually felt the emotions of the traveler as they were stuck in the samsara (I remember very clearly how, when Paimon told Dunyarzad "sorry we overslept", I was like "that's not gonna leave a great impression since you guys had the same reason yesterday 😭" until everything started happening exactly the same and I was like. hold tf up. And then the whole mystery of what's going on was very immersive too, with all the reasoning steps taken to figure out the truth - like my mental gears were actually turning along with the traveler trying to figure it out, though of course the truth was way beyond what I could imagine. Nilou's dance scene was gorgeous, and Dunyarzad was one really great NPC that I genuinely liked.

3.1 had some really cool parts that I love to go back to - the cutscene talking about Deshret and Rukkhadevata (it's quite sad to see that Kasala tells the desert-dwellers to not forget of what Rukkha did for the desert, yet in the end, they did :'( ) and SCARAMOUCHE'S BACKSTORY ANIMATION!! oh my god that was the key that turned me from being "eh he's alright. a bit extra perhaps. interesting bits of backstory so far" into "I would bark for you, king". His CN VA did a really great analysis of that video that stated his interpretation - the "second betrayal" is a mockery of the friends and family that he doesn't have, and "third betrayal" is actually his bitterness that he couldn't do anything for the kid, and all of that just solidified into an anger since nothing ever turns out happily for him. For someone who's not quite human, his characterization is so human in a painful way that displays all of humanity's ups and extreme downs. Scaramouche is just such a fascinating character.

3.2 ARCHON QUEST!! Such a good finale omfg. The best parts, for me, were any moments with either Nahida or Scaramouche (or both). The way i was like simping when the illusion of Scara spoke to the traveler? His lofty, "godly" tone was like... aw you're so into the role that it's almost cute haha.

When we went to break Nahida out of her locked consciousness and you hear her talking to herself about all her efforts being met with disdain and abandonment, and her voice was so heartbroken and choked that my heart shattered into a million pieces... and also the traveler spoke!! Definitely worth remembering.

Scara boss fight(s). God. For one, his battle themes SLAP. Two, voice acting was so key here, and I think the CN VA was phenomenal - while in the mecha, he still has that lofty, deliberate voice of a "god" - but when he's defeated, you can hear the panic and desperation hitting him like a sledgehammer. The change in tone is just that audible. Honestly that scene where he lost the gnosis made me feel so bad for him 😭😭 he's usually so arrogant and temperamental but this thing, the reason why he even exists, has such a hold over him. His expressions were also heartbreaking 😭

But the angst doesn't end, because there was the Nahida and Rukkhadevata scene and the tears were POURING down my face because, again, the voice acting was great (you could hear Nahida's voice getting higher and airy from tears) and also the expressions, I think it's the first time we've had such realistic intense crying in the game. Rukkha is someone we've only known for a single scene, yet it was enough for me to feel really sad that the entire world would forget her and her benevolence. Zhongli's line "Those who come to witness will witness, those who are born to remember will remember" hits real different here.

in summary, i love the gods of sumeru that we met in this quest (i count scara in this category)

#ask

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star-sworn · 3 years ago

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ok but consider: sora, lost and alone wherever he is, writing a letter to kairi that he knows he can’t send, echoing what she did with writing letters for him, and he’s discussing his feelings for her and his decision to give it all up to save her and his regrets over not spending more time with her and it’s bittersweet and 🥺😭

Aw fuck. I can’t believe you’ve done this. How am I supposed to go on with the rest of my day/life after reading this. I need to lie down. I need to stare at a body of water and recover.

I remember feeling so bad for Kairi during that scene, I was like girl. You have a phone. Get over your inferiority complex and text that boy. But it kind of grew on me. It’s just her expressing her feelings for herself. But for Sora to do this, when there’s no hope of sending the letters to Kairi… don’t do this to me. Sora is such a doer, always helping someone, that it wasn’t until 3 that we really saw a lot of moments of reflection. That’s something I adored about 3. When he’s talking with Anna, he remembers his past with Riku, stuff like that. He wasn’t so focused on finding/saving his friends that Sora himself got more room sort of shine in kh3, weirdly enough. Sora must be so lonely wherever he is, and that must just be crushing him. Thank you for making me grieve for my boy for the fifth time today, sunset… So for him to turn to writing letters, a way to talk to Kairi when he can’t talk to her, a way for him to channel what he’s feeling? It breaks my heart. And that’s almost the worst of it somehow, that you just know he doesn’t regret it. That he doesn’t regret giving it all up for her.

Oh man, but the regret of not spending time together… this one is really fucking me up today sunset. I’m assuming you, like me, knew about Sora disappearing at the end of 3. If not, you’re lucky. Because the whole time I was playing, all I could think was “I’m about to lose him. He’s about to leave and he doesn’t know it…” And I’m sure if he knew, he would have made more of an effort to spend time with her, and with Riku. That was the one and only gripe I had with kh3. I think with all the balls in the air, all the ends to tie up and new threads to start, the destiny trio just got lost in all of it. There isn’t one scene with the three of them just being friends together like they used to. And even when they’re in the same room, Sora and Kairi don’t even make eye contact. Some of those cutscenes in 3 were so weirdly directed, I swear. I think that’s part of what made the end of Re:Mind so satisfying, why it warms my heart so much. Because he did make the effort to spend time with her, we just didn’t know it yet. He finally put her first. He told Riku, told Mickey no, she needs me, and I’m putting her first. And then they went on like 4 dates together. He didn’t spend his last days/hours/moments with all the gang. Not even with Riku. Not even with Riku and Kairi. Just Kairi. I don’t think I’ll ever be over that. He left this universe holding her hand and staring into her eyes. And I’m sorry, I’m basic and cretinous, but I love the ending of Melody of Memory. Kairi needed him, and he was able to reach across the divide of reality itself to save her. He made a vow, and he kept it. It’s romantic as hell to me. I just hope Kairi will have a chance to step forward and realize this wish, that it’s her turn to save him this time. Here’s hoping.

I can’t take full credit for this, but I remember seeing a post on tumblr where someone talked about Sora texting Kairi on his Gummiphone from unreality, even though he of course didn’t have reception, and none of the texts went through, but he kept doing it anyway. That reminded me of your headcanon about the letter writing. Imagine him taking pictures, texting her, telling her me misses her. I think writing letters like that somehow makes you feel even more alone. Jesus Nomura please just give my boy back to me stop making him sad… But imagine Kairi rescuing Sora and Riku and when they get back to their reality, all the text messages start flooding into her phone, a diary of months/years of heartache and separation, a record of his thoughts, him pouring his feelings out and now she’s finally seeing it now that he’s okay… Similarly could you imagine Kairi coming across sora’s letters once he’s home, reading them and crying because he went through so much, but also because it’s over, he’s alright, he’s home now? She'd keep them stored away somewhere forever.

Anyway, this is going to haunt me for at least a week, so thanks I guess? Lol seriously thank you for sharing and vibing with me about Sora, it’s always welcome. Put that boy back where he came from, or so help me!

#goldensunset #a true homie #the big KH Sad #I just finished 0.2 and when it played the original version of Simple and Clean during the credits I actually cried #I haven't even known about kh for six damn months and im already nostalgic for it #its so cool to have a fellow newcomer to talk about it with #id love to hear your thoughts!!#hope you're having a good day today hope the weather is nice where you are :)#long post #is anyone surprised #kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts meta

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butwhatifidothis · 4 years ago

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I have thought it would have been a hella better game if Sothis had been the protagonist too! Here’s how I imagine it would be like:

Byleth is the actual reincarnation of Sothis and the child-Sothis we see at the start of the game is actually her subconsciousness. Sothis/Byleth is still the emotionless mercenary with no social skills when the game starts, but she does become more and more emotional and expressive as she begins interacting with specifically Rhea, Flayn and Seteth, her old family. They do form a bond with the lords and the students though (I think the dynamic in AM as a close friend is nice) and most of Byleth’s thoughts are shown through child-Sothis’ commentary.

They can still have the “protagonist being ignorant about Fodlan” thing going on, but with a little twist that it is actually because Sothis keeps confusing the old Fodlan of her era with modern Fodlan and gets blinding headache all the time but actually that is her getting flashbacks. Because of this Jeralt took them away to Morfis (which didn’t exist in her time yet) and they only returned recently after being hired by Rodrigue who had them take care of some bandits in the Kingdom (that is why she has heard of the Tragedy but doesn’t know the details of it).

For example, when she leads the class to the Red Canyon, she mistakenly thinks it is a big, prosperous city that is supposed to be the capital of Fodlan and the lords and Rhea have to explain to her the legend of Zanado. Then she faints and gets a flashback of a beautiful city called Zanado with many humans and dragons living together in peace and unimaginably sophisticated technology located in the exact same valley. She confuses a lot of places with old Fodlan too. To her, Arianrhod is still a small fishing village, Fhirdiad is a food paradise and tourist’s attraction, Goneril is the capital of Agartha, a neighbouring belligerent nation, Enbarr is an ordinary small town where she landed when she first crashed into Fodlan, the Valley of Torment is a fertile valley with a large population focused on agriculture, the Church of Seiros is supposed to be called the Church of Sothis instead and she doesn’t know what the knights are because such concepts did not exist in her time nor Morfis, etc.

Of course, because she often gets so confused by the current Fodlan, the lords and Rhea still have a lot of explaining to do every time they have to travel somewhere like they do in the game. Claude becomes very suspicious of her too.

When she gets attacked by Solon, child-Sothis merges with Sothis, now reincarnated as Byleth, and regains her memories and power as the goddess and from now on her emotions and stuff are back. Then a cutscene showing Sothis’ memory of how and why she came to Fodlan as an alien, how she created the Nabateans and passed her knowledge to the humans in Fodlan, how Fodlan thrived as a nation of Nabateans and humans living together, how Agartha rose as a highly technologically advanced belligerent neighbouring country in the east and how Fodlan and Agartha fought in a war that devastated the entire world so much that she spent centuries healing it until it finally began prospering again and she went to sleep. In her memory we are also shown that the Nabateans all had symbols like the current crests of the 12 Elites and we are misled into thinking those with the crests are the descendants of the Nabateans. The cutscene then ends abruptly when Sothis is jolted from her sleep and the last thing she sees is a wicked man (Nemesis) raising an axe on her and a young girl’s screams that she knows it’s her daughter Seiros.

She is very confused right now because apparently the world she knew is just completely forgotten by the people, and apparently five of her children founded an empire called Adrestia with a human an entire thousand years ago. She knows they can live longer than 1000years and realises they must still be alive now and wants to find them. She also doesn’t know how she died too and is rather panicked that she will be killed again if word gets out she is Sothis. Ah, and she is very curious of the true identities of the 12 Elites as their first names were not recorded and shared the same crests with some of her children. Sothis worries if they were her children who adopted a different surname because that would mean her children fought amongst each other and may be they destroyed each other to the point that Fodlan was in such a ruin that no one remembers the old Fodlan now.

After this cutscene showing the old Fodlan under Sothis’ guidance ends, Byleth who has now remembered her life as Sothis and regained her full power, wakes to Rhea singing a lullaby very popular in old Fodlan so Sothis thinks Rhea may know something about the old Fodlan, but she is paranoid because she thinks there are parts of her memory missing and does not know for sure if Rhea is trustworthy. As a result, she doesn’t immediately tell Rhea she is Sothis and Rhea is not aware that her mother has already come back.

Rhea suggests having Sothis sit on the Holy Throne to jolt her memory and she accepts, hoping to remember what happened to her after the man with the axe showed up. However, before she can sit on the actual throne, Edelgard comes in with her soldiers and battle begins. Then the Imperial army attacks the Monastery before Sothis gets a chance to investigate and talk to Rhea/Seteth/Flayn. Sothis is completely stunned when Rhea turns into a dragon to protect the people because she finally realises Rhea is Seiros all along. She goes back immediately to protect Seiros when she is in danger but gets hit by Thales’ magic energy balls and falls down the cliff. She manages to tell Seiros she is Sothis before falling down the cliff though.

From this point, the route differs into the three non-CF routes.

SS will be a more personal story about Sothis trying to recover her memory and finding out what happened to her family. Sothis will also slowly realise Seteth and Flayn are her family and Macuil and Indech will also join them on this route to help rescue their little sister. Unfortunately, none of them can tell Sothis what exactly happened on the day of the Red Canyon Tragedy because Seiros was the only survivor and the four of them weren’t present in Zanado at the time. They can only tell Sothis that the five of them banded together with Wilhelm, a human and later Seiros’ husband and fought with Nemesis and his 12 Elites who tried to conquer the southern half of the continent and subjugate them to his tyranny. They can confirm the 12 elites were not their siblings and just magically got the crests of their family via unknown means. In the end Sothis rescues her daughter and storms Shambhala. The family are happily reunited and strive to rebuild Fodlan together after Rhea explains what she did to Sothis in her infant state.

VW will be a story about Sothis and Claude learning about what happened to old Fodlan and Agartha. Claude notices that Sothis has been reading up on the founding of the empire/church and the legends about the 12 Elites/saints too. He suggests they team up because he is also doing the same thing. Sothis tells him about the truth of her identity, her missing memory and the old Fodlan she remembers. This clarifies things up for Claude so Claude actually opens up to Sothis and begins trusting her as a friend and the rest follows canon. Rhea will explain what happened in the Tragedy and the fates of their family. Sothis and Claude take down Nemesis to avenge herself and her family. They also learn that Agartha is why Almyra and Fodlan fight all the time.

AM will still focus on Dimitri and the Kingdom but this is how I would frame the story: Sothis thinks the Kingdom nobles descended from the 12 Elites are the descendants of the Nabateans and may know something about her children and what happened to them. Sothis asks Dimitri if he has heard of the Nabateans. Dimitri doesn’t know anything but promises he will help Sothis investigate into this. Everything follows canon until Cornelia’s death, who not only taunts Dimitri about his stepmother but also mocks Byleth that she is assisting the descendants of the 12 elites who slaughtered her entire family 1000 years ago in a war against the descendants of her own children. Sothis in the end comes to term with the possibility that Dimitri’s ancestors might have killed her and her family and continues to support Dimitri as she believes he will make a good king while Edelgard is currently a terrible ruler who has caused the suffering of thousands of people.

CF, on the other hand, will be a much darker story. After Sothis wakes up to Rhea singing to her, she gets to choose between “ask Rhea” and “ask Edelgard” about the saints and the elites. If “ask Edelgard” is chosen, Edelgard will ask why and you can choose “tell Edelgard the truth”. She will lie and convince Sothis into helping her by telling her that Seiros and the four faints did a major cover-up and they were the ones who killed sothis and turned their blades against the rest of their siblings for power. The man Sothis saw in her memory was a bandit hired by the five saints to kill sothis and the other children, known as the 12 elites now, banded together to resist Seiros around a heroic mortal that is Nemesis. When they lost, Seiros hunted down the 12 elites, crafted weapons from their bones and gave their blood to her own allies. The church then lied to the people again that the 12 elites were helping her because one of the five saints didn’t want people to remember their siblings as villains forever. Her own ancestor wilhelm helped Seiros in her unjust war for power and she intends to make things right now and asks if Sothis wants to be a part of that. If Sothis refuses her offer and expresses her scepticism of Edelgard’s claims, the game will immediately end because Edelgard will kill her.

If chooses “yes” then you enter the CF route. Edelgard tells Sothis she intends to declare war on the church to take down Rhea and take back the lands occupied by the evil descendants of the people who slaughtered Sothis’ children, aka Faerghus and Leicester. Edelgard, however, tells Sothis she intends to capture Rhea so Sothis will be able to ask Rhea the same questions to prove her claim. They do not return to the Monastery for the Holy Throne ritual and the coronation scene and war declaration scene play instead. When Sothis returns to the Monastery, she is with the Imperial army intended to conquer the Monastery. Sothis confronts an infuriated Rhea, who is extremely mad about her betrayal, and asks why Rhea/Seiros sent the assassin on her and killed her siblings. Seiros quickly realises Byleth/Sothis is in fact the reincarnation of her mother, but Edelgard notices that and has Thales attack Sothis from behind to prevent Seiros from telling Sothis the truth and swaying her to their side. Sothis falls off the cliff and Seiros tries to kill Edelgard for turning her mother against her and killing her again before she retreats to the Kingdom.

Five years later, Sothis wakes up and rejoins Edelgard’s army only to find out the Empire is on the brink of collapse against the combined might of the Kingdom-Church-Alliance with only Garreg Mach, Gronder, Fort Merceus and Enbarr left in their control. Not all of the Black Eagle students are fighting on their side either - Ferdinand, Dorothea, Petra and Caspar have abandoned the Empire and are fighting for the Kingdom-Church-Alliance army while Linhardt and Bernadetta simply refused to join the war. Instead, Ladislava, Fleche, Randolph, Count Bergliez, Arundel and Jeritza have become your new units.

Sothis continues to help Edelgard in the war and they quickly reclaim the territories lost to the allied powers. As they continue to push forward, Sothis encounters Seteth and the other three saints too (Indech and Macuil joined Rhea after learning of what Edelgard did to Sothis) on the battlefield. They will try to tell Sothis the truth and you have an option between “question Edelgard’s claims and spare them” and “believe in Edelgard’s words and kill them”. If the former is chosen, the game will end immediately as Edelgard will backstab Sothis instantly if she knows Sothis has turned against her. The rest follows canon, but Seiros will try to tell Sothis the truth again on Tailtean. Sothis will be killed if she believes Seiros instead of Edelgard here too. Heartbroken and traumatised by the fact that her mother has killed all of her only remaining family members and has already tried to kill her twice and is about to come and kill her again, Seiros transforms into a dragon in Fhirdiad and sets the city to fire once the citizens have been evacuated, hoping to bring down all of her enemies including her mother with the fire in order to avenge her friends and family.

In the end, Sothis kills Seiros as canon but loses her power and immortality as a goddess because it was Seiros’ magic that kept the creststone alive, and without the protection magic on the stone it would just be an ordinary stone and couldn’t function as a heart. Sothis almost dies without a working heart but the Agarthans save her by a heart replacement surgery on her using Seiros’ heart on the condition that she will give them the Crest of Flames creststone and the sword and share her blood with them regularly. Everything else continues as canon and the route can end with a realistic dark ending (everything crashes and burns) or a fake happy ending (the one in the game).

YOOOO dude this is great! Byleth as a character is so uninteresting, at least to me, because the only actually interesting thing about them is something that was done to them, not something they did. Byleth was born without a heart and was given the heart of a long-dead Goddess to let them live - neat! Intriguing! But nothing else catches your eye like that about them. They live on as a mercenary who apparently only wanted to ever ask questions about anything ever at all once they get to the monastery. The biggest thing they’ve done is make a name for themselves for how well they fight in battle.

Now, we pivot the idea of Sothis being the protagonist, that’s where things start getting interesting. She fell from the stars and created new life? She helped humans prosper in knowledge only to have that knowledge be used for evil? She healed all of Fodlan from the devastation caused by the war humans enacted and fell into a sleep because of it? Those are all things she does that are worth getting to know more about. Her being murdered during her rest by another greedy human and was reduced to nothing but a dormant consciousness for a thousand years being coupled with the “being given the heart of a long-dead Goddess” being what was done to her isn’t the only interesting thing about them anymore. That’s all stuff that offers so much to the player to want to delve into, especially with a character who is gradually more and more vocal about their want to learn about themselves, with thoughts and feelings about what happened to them, what happened to their family, what they did in the past they can’t remember.

I especially like all the ways you can just get a game over in CF - in a way that reminds me of that one mission in Sacred Stones where if you beat the boss you get an insta-game over since he was your only way to progress the story lmao, except this is turnt up to 11, and instead of punishing you for being a dingus and fucking up the plot, in a way it’s trying to save you from becoming a kin-killing pawn to a tyrant.

About the only thing I might have a bit of a ehhh with is Agartha being why Almyra and Fodlan feud, just because I find them feuding due to themselves and not a third party to be more interesting to me (personally! That’s just for me lol, it’s not an inherently bad notion!), but thanks you so much for sending this!!

#ask #anon #anti edelgard #Anti-edelgard #just to be safe #like omega safe lmao #this is so cool!!

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haldenlith · 3 years ago

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Season of The Thief

This post got me going on thinking harder about this, and I just gotta get it out into the universe. I must.

Now, this is more discombobulated than The Thieving Magpie exotic quest, and I only have how the season starts, but that’s something right?

To preface, Ardwynn would’ve been a wandering NPC the player can interact with since around Warmind. Just some background info.

SO! Season of The Thief would come right after Season of The Risen. It’d open with a cutscene (in-engine, not fancy cut scene) of the Guardian flying into the Tower Hangar, like usual. Nothing fishy. They get out and go up and maybe stop to “talk” (ie Ghost does most of the talking, probably) to Amanda or Saint. The camera slowly changes focus to a crew member in one of those grey jumpsuits those standard NPCs wear, hat on and tilted down a bit to help hide their face, just strolling up to the Guardian’s ship. They’ve got a datapad and everything, looking like they’re just there to inspect the ship, make sure everything’s fine. Ah, but they get to the ship and the camera switches to being zoomed in, and they turn juuust enough for the player to see that it’s Ardwynn. Next thing you know, the scene switches to the Guardian’s ship suddenly moving, with crew dashing out of the way, and a commotion starts because, well, someone’s stealing a ship. Amanda naturally throws a fit and the commotion continues. We switch to Ardwynn in the ship.

Ardwynn: “Oh, shiny. This is fancy. Guardians get the nice stuff.”

[comms] “Whoever you are, you better return that damn thing! We will shoot you down!”

Ardwynn: “Wooooow, seems really counterintuitive to shoot it down when you want it back. Besides, cool your jets, I’ll bring it back. Eventually.”

Scene changes to the ship getting chased, and it just fades to black. The quest updates with the usual “Go to the H.E.L.M.” You get debriefed by Zavala, who says the last location they were able to follow the ship to was the EDZ, and that you’re to go with Crow to try and figure out just what the hell is going on, because it’s fairly unprecedented for someone to so brazenly steal from The Vanguard like that.

The next part of the quest tells you to go talk to Crow... because you don’t have a ship. He has to give you a ride. (Which honestly makes sense, given someone has to drive the ship back when you find it. Note this only applies to this quest. You can go wherever like normal.)

As flavor, whatever ship you had equipped IS missing from your inventory, replaced with a “fake” ship with the flavor text “I’ll bring it back eventually.” You get that particular ship you “lost” back when you find it in the EDZ. Another bit of flavor is the load screen doesn’t have your specific ship during this quest, it has default colors Radiant Accipiter.

So you get to the EDZ, and you have to go talk to Devrim. He first expresses surprise that the ship wasn’t you, because he thought it was, and points you in the direction he saw it fly.

Crow: “Well, that’s a start. It shouldn’t be too hard to find a whole ship, right? With any luck, we find the ship, we find the culprits. This is certainly an interesting change from tracking Lucent Hive...”

You go off to the Maevic Square part of the EDZ map. You find your ship just sitting there, and you have to fight off some Fallen trying to poke and scrap your ship.

Ghost: “There’s our ship, but no ship thief. Who on earth steals a ship and then just... ditches it?” Crow: “That’s a good question. You know, this... feels like a trap. I’ll have a look around. Be careful.” Ghost: “We should also look around, but keep your eyes up. Something’s fishy...”

You go around and have to pop over to various spots around the area and scan, like the “go to spot and stand there” patrols.

Ghost: “There’s really nothing here. How bizarre. Hey, actually, the guy that was on comms... Didn’t that sound like Ardwynn? ... Oh boy.” Crow: “Hey, I did find something, but it’s just a symbol on a tree. It makes me think of Eliksni house emblems, but I don’t recognize it. I could see if I find more, but that’s going to take some time.” Zavala: “Hmmm... I don’t want to waste time chasing a thief, but they did get through our security and steal a ship from under our noses. We don’t know if they’ll be back to steal something else, and we’re stretched too thin to also be bleeding supplies.” Crow: “That was pretty impressive...” Zavala: “Regardless of how impressive it was, we need to squelch this problem now before it escalates. Crow, try and see if you can’t find any more of those symbols, and report back when you have eyes on our culprit. Meanwhile, Guardian, report back here. You have your ship. We’ll just have to be happy with that right now.”

The Guardian reports back to the HELM, with another cutscene between The Guardian, Ikora, and Zavala.

Ikora: “The symbol matches up with whoever has been stealing from the weapon foundries.” Zavala: “The foundries? Which ones?” Ikora: “All of them. It also turns out that someone has had sticky fingers for a while. Tess reports someone has been stealing engrams. The manifests show that Banshee has been missing parts. Amanda noted that her tools have started coming up short. It’s not been anything particularly important, at least not until the theft of the ship. Someone’s been slipping under the radar for a while.” Ghost and Guardian look at each other, having an idea they know who. (Ardwynn used to be able to be found at the Tower, near where Drifter and Ada are.) Zavala and Ikora look at them. Zavala: “... Guardian, is there something you’d like to share with us?” Ghost: “Um, well, about that...”

About that time, Crow walks in, followed by Ardwynn, who is flanked by two masked members of his Magpie crew. Zavala and Ikora are a little confused by this development. Zavala looks to Crow. “Crow. I thought I told you to report when you found something.”

Ardwynn: “And he diiiiiid! Lookit this guy! Getting the job done.” [He throws an arm around Crow, who just half glares at him.] “Not a touchy-feely guy, huh? Alright. Fair enough.”

Ikora actually seems a little amused, though still cautious. “And to whom do we owe the... pleasure?”

Ardwynn: “Ardwynn! King of the Magpies! A pleasure to meet everyone. You must be ‘Commander Zavala,’ and then the lovely Ikora Rey. Love your books. Big fan.” (Ardwynn does an impression of Zavala when he says “Commander Zavala”, by the way.)

Zavala’s clearly had enough of Ardwynn’s shit. “Tell me why I shouldn’t have you arrested this instant.”

Ardwynn: “Because we’re going to be business partners. I have eyes everywhere, eyes that are clearly more observant than yours. No offense, Crow. You seem like a great scout. But, you guys seem to be a little thin on the recon front, namely because y’all missed something.”

Ardwynn has one of his cronies pull out a dataslate and hold it up, showing very clearly the banner of The Concordat. “Tadaaaaa.”

Zavala: “The Concordat? They’ve been quiet for some time since they left The City. Why resurface now?”

Crow finally pipes up: “Ardwynn’s theory is it’s because of the factions getting exiled. The remainder of Future War Cult and New Monarchy might have joined up with The Concordat. It makes sense, honestly.”

Ardwynn: “ALSO, the people down there are really not fans of you guys. Like seriously, you’re not winning any popularity contests any time soon. And then with the Big Ball doing the one-two step, and everything, man... I bet Concordat membership is at an ALL. TIME. HIGH.” Ardwynn circles around Ikora and Zavala to examine the terminal idly. “You guys uh... you guys are rackin’ up enemies like a machine gun has bullets.”

Ikora: “And you’re offering your help... how? What do you get out of this?”

Ardwynn leans against the terminal, pulling out a knife, beginning to idly toss it up and down. “The Magpies help by doing what we do best, my dear. We steal their stuff.” The scene switches to Crow, who realizes that’s his knife. He immediately pats himself down to make sure Ardwynn hasn’t lifted anything else. “And what do we get out of it? ... That warm fuzzy feeling of doing the right thing.”

Ghost: “Why do I get the feeling that’s not why you’re doing this?”

Ardwynn: “I’m hurt. You know I’m an honorable thief, my floaty friend.” He holds Crow’s knife out in Crow’s direction without looking at him. Crow walks over and slowly takes it. “Besides, what have you got to lose?”

Long cutscene, I know, but that would be it, signalling the actual start of the season. From there you’d run battleground-esque missions called “Heists,” where you basically fight your way in (including planting explosives to blow your way in) before running around hitting various points, killing mobs that are guarding stuff before tagging it to be grabbed by The Magpies via doing a “defend the point” sort of objective, before doing an escort back out with the stuff.

Or something like that anyway. I might do a separate post with various dialogue lines I had in my head that would either happen during the mission or be left as messages at the terminal, but I’ll stop here for now since this is getting a bit long.

#haldie rambles #OC: Ardwynn #destiny 2 #long post #my silly head coming up with silly ideas #but for real I hope we get to deal with The Concordat at some point #destiny Crow

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obeymemc-marcie · 4 years ago

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Special Guest Appearance

(That's the title of this one)

Warnings: NSFW, Dom!Levi, a smidge of tail action, MC uses she/her pronouns with female genetalia, slight masturbation, mentions of demon in heat, let me know if I need to add more! 💜

"Hey there Deviltube, L3 here and welcome back to another video. We're going to pick up where we left off here playing Skyrim. If you remember we were-"

Marcie mouthed the words with a practiced ease as she lip-synced his signature intro, dangling her legs outside the rim of his tub bed. Her eyes roved over her own device as she played through the same quest he was currently livestreaming. He had told her before that he didn't mind if she'd made an appearance during one of his streams, but she knew this was his passion and didn't want to distract him from it. Besides, playing along with him always made her feel giddy, gave her a sense of happiness she couldn't explain.

Today, however was a little different. After his last livestream, Marcie had pulled up a walkthrough to read ahead through the next quest. She still wanted to play it through with him but this time, she wanted to make an appearance during his livestream.

It had been almost a full month since his last heat and now that he had Marcie, well it was a little easier for him to get through it, but Marcie also knew he dreaded the heat cycle. It made him insatiable and dark, rough and driven by lust and the pure primal instinct to mate. Marcie couldn't help the bolt of pleasure that danced along her spine, pooling in her lower abdomen remembering how he had been with her. She licked her lips, fighting back a moan, as she felt the ghost of his tail coiled around her throat, his cocks penetrating both of her holes at the same time. Her blue eyes fixated on her screen, set in determination and she squeezed her thighs together just slightly, already feeling her arousal dampen her panties. Today would be an interesting livestream indeed.

"What do you guys think, should I fast travel to the Greybeards or run there?" Levi panned his camera to the area surrounding him and his eyes caught some bandits in the distance, "or should I go kill those guys and steal their horse?" He paused for a moment to rummage through his character's inventory as the comments flowed in, all his viewers casting their votes.

That's when his nose picked up a scent, light at first but unmistakable as it whirled around his senses, embracing him. The scent of sweet oranges and subtle notes of peppermint mellowed out by eucalyptus and tied together with lemongrass; it was the ambrosial scent of his human's arousal.

Orange eyes could see her legs swaying over the edge of his tub in their peripheral vision, he caught the movement as her legs moved closer together and get smell became more potent.

Levi snapped out of his trance when he felt his mouth begin to salivate and turned his attention back to the game. He saw a prominent blush spreading out across the bridge of good nose, painting his cheeks and a light pink in his livestream camera feed. The pupils of his eyes narrowed into slits but only so briefly he thought he'd imagine it. Shaking his head, he faked a few coughs and cleared his throat, hoping it would dispel the blush and felt a stirring in the back of his mind.

"H-hey," his voice cracked and he cleared his throat again, reaching out to take a swig of his energy drink. "Guess I'm going to go steal a horse," his laugh was forced but he quickly found himself delving back into the game.

Marcie was biting her hand trying not to laugh. Watching his face, his real time reactions in the corner of the steam, oh he was going to punish her for what she had planned. She smiled, practically humming in anticipation. Bandits had not spawned in her game so she led her character over to where his would be on his playthrough and paused to wait for him. Making as little sound as possible, Marcie pulled her shirt up and over her head and placed it on the blankets next to her. Levi engaged in combat with the bandits and took the opportunity to pull her legs down and tug off her jeans as well, leaving her with just her bra and underwear on.

The full scent of her arousal washed over him, no longer held back by the denim. He paused his game mid fight to catch his breath. Comments poured in, some asking if he was a noob for chickening out of a fight, some asking if he was okay because he looked feverish. His eyes cut back over to the tub and noticed her legs were not hanging over the rim anymore. Listening for a moment for any indication she was doing something indecent in his bed, Marcie noticed Levi was looking her direction on the livestream and held up her hand, giving him a thumbs-up signaling she was okay. Hesitating, he turned back to his game, face felt like it was on fire. The red stuck out against his normally pale face.

"Sorry about that," Levi saw he was sporting a small pout and changed his expression to a small smile, sheepishly looking into the camera, "I guess I'm not feeling too well today but I still plan on carrying out the rest of this mission." Talking helped him shift his mindset back into gaming mode and soon he was making his way to the Throat of the World on horseback.

A few hours had passed, Marcie found herself lost in the game as well until she'd heard the words she'd been waiting for. While reading the walkthrough, she memorized the key phrase for when she would act out her plan. Levi had a knack for letting the cutscenes play all the way through, soaking in the dialogue and cinematography like a long-awaited movie.

The voices droned on as she saved her game and put her console to sleep. Peeking her head above the top of the tub, her lips spread in a conniving smile; the mischievous kitty about to eat herself a canary. Readjusting her breasts to plump them up in her bra, she crawled out of the tub and slunk down. His attention was solely focused on the monitor, watching the Nordic heroes battling against Alduin's forces, eyes sparkling as he watched the scene unfold. She almost felt guilty for what she was about to do. Almost.

Marcie crept and crouched to hide behind the file cabinet under his desk, successfully concealing herself. Her nerves fluttered, she debated giving up and returning to the tub. But then she felt the ghost of his claws running down her thighs as his tongue, his forked tongue, made her see stars between her legs. Her breathing shuddered as she steeled her resolve and crept closer, crawling on her hands and knees under his desk.

Levi had been entranced by the cutscene. The graphics, the cinematography, the dialogue, the lore, it all fascinated him. The rich lore of the Elder Scrolls and here was the moment he saw the three heroes go against Alduin and witness how the World Eater was cast forward into time.

He almost missed the spike in Marcie's arousal. The scent was stronger this time, he choked back a whine. His leg started to bounce in frustration as he felt his own arousal start to stir. Levi bit his lip as he felt his pants tighten around him, he could feel another part of him start to wake up as well, after having slumbered for almost a month. His grip tightened on the controller as he shifted in his seat, spreading his legs wider to add a little more friction and pressure to his semi-hardening erection.

Marcie could feel the smile that stretched across her face, smug and victorious. She could fell herself start to drool and she inched closer. He was reacting to her. Reaching her hand down to her own apex, Marcie ran her fingers through her folds biting back a sigh and played with her clit and watched the tent in his pants twitch and rise.

Levi sucked in a breath, releasing his lip, a vein pulsated along his neck as he grit his teeth together. She was teasing him now. She had to have known what affect she had on him. The screen blacked out as it shifted to a loading screen. Taking the moment to roll his chair back, Levi arched his body, turning to look into the tub bed. He felt his heart stop when it was empty. He clearly still smelled her, but where-

Oh.

She smiled innocently as they made eye contact, raising her hand to her mouth and sucked on the fingers that were previously rubbing against her folds. Marcie groped her breast before pointing up, indicating his game had finished loading.

Levi's mouth was gaping, his face was burning red, his erection straining against his pants. His eyes slowly followed where she was pointing and he scrambled to pull himself back to his desk and turned off the camera.

"S-sorry everyone," he gulped, ignoring all the comments flowing in, "uh, technical d-difficulties," Levi cleared his throat, "let's p-pick up where we left off." Marcie snickered silently as he tried to keep his composure and placed her hands on his knees, gently squeezing his thighs. Levi shifted into his demon form instantaneously and Marcie licked her lips as his tail cracked against the tile floor.

This was supposed to be the moment in the game where he was to fight Alduin. He had spent days level crunching so he could be prepared. Oh, he was going to punish her. Levi smiled deviously and paused the game.

"I swear, some people in this house are really inconsiderate, I'm sorry, I have to go yell at Mammon again," his tail was thrashing around behind him making crashing noises to accompany the lie. Muting the microphone, Levi rolled his chair back slowly and leaned forward to grip Marcie's chin and pulled her up to meet his face, a wicked grin spreading over his lips. Marcie gulped and licked her lips in anticipation.

"You're going to sit in my lap, and I'm going to edge you until I've decided you've had enough." She nodded enthusiastically and he shook his head, and let out a deep laugh "You underestimate my power."

In normal circumstances, she would have snorted at the reference but with her current state of arousal and the way he was devouring her almost-naked form with his eyes, his words sent shivers down her spine.

Levi rolled his chair back and Marcie climbed out from under his desk. He raised his hips and commanded her to take off his pants.

"You should be wet enough to take all of me, right kohai?"

Marcie bit her lip and twirled a stand of her hair around her finger, saying, "but you're so big senpai, I don't know if my tight pussy will be able to take all of you, but maybe if you fucked my throat first?" Her lower lip jutted out in a pout and he groaned, the arm rests cracking under his grip.

Levi released a dark chuckle, cocked his head to the side, and smiled sadistically. "You haven't earned that right. You know where the lube is, go get it." She pouted but obliged, pulling open one of the drawers and took out the bottle.

"Good girl now hand it over," he outstretched his hand and Marcie whined. He was denying her of touching him, he tutted in response as she held it out to him. "You should have thought about that earlier. You have to earn the right to touch me," Levi coated his erection with enough lube and tossed the bottle onto the floor. "Now, turn around and come sit on my lap."

"Yes senpai," Marcie did as she was told, sticking her ass out further than necessary before lowering herself down, releasing a shuddering moan as his size stretched her out. The lube made it easier for him to slide in but she was still met with resistance and struggled with his size, riding him shallowly to coax her muscles to loosen up.

Levi growled, his tail cracking against the floor as he felt her walls squeeze him. It had been awhile since they were last intimate, and he could tell with the way her heat constricted around him. Leaning forward, a claw traced the fabric of her bra before twisting, slicing right through the fabric. His hand reached around and groped her plump breast as she had done earlier, his other hand moving down her body.

His fingers ghosted over her skin, feeling the flesh ripple and twitch under his delicate touch. He bit into her shoulder as his hand reached her apex, his fingers rolling themselves over her sensitive nub and lapped his tongue against the love bite.

"What's wrong Marcelline," he palmed her breast, toying with her nipple and teased the skin on her other shoulder, "I thought you wanted this yet you're struggling. Try to keep quiet as you take the rest of me or I'll have no choice but to shove my tail down your throat." The tip of the appendage slithered around her thigh before coming up to flick against her clit as emphasis. Panting and biting her lip, Marcie continued rolling her hips in slow and shallow thrusts, moving as much as he'd allow. His nails dug into her hip painfully if she moved too much.

Rolling them back to the computer, Levi switched out his headphones, opting for a single earbud so he could hear her and the game, and moved his mic to the other side, away from Marcie but still able to talk into it. He'd have to read the comments later, but he lost a few viewers.

'I bet if I turned the camera back on, the viewer count would skyrocket.' Levi mulled over the thought but she threw her head back onto his shoulder as she fully seated herself on his lap and he could see her face; eyes clouded in lust, breasts rolling around to match her panting, cheeks burning bright red, mouth hanging open, was that drool? No, only he was allowed to see her like this. No one else deserved to lay eyes on his precious Marcie.

Levi gave her breast one last squeeze before returning his hand to the keyboard. "Not a single peep. If you make a noise or try to move, I will only play longer." He kissed her shoulder, "you understand kohai?" He smiled as she nodded.

Shout-out to @kawaiizard for helping me beta read this 😭 I appreciate you 💜

#obey me #obey me mc #obey me oc #obey me levi #obey me leviathan #om! swd #om leviathan #om levi #levi smut #obey me smut #om smut #obey me levi x mc #levi x oc #Levi x mc #n/sfw

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dianaburnwood · 4 years ago

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Family, Grief, and Vengeance

Let’s talk about one of HITMAN 3′s more poignant subjects: loss.

This is probably, in my opinion, the hardest theme to tackle in this game. IO took the heavy-handed, leave no room for doubt approach when it came to themes of power, corruption, responsibility, and freedom. The messaging is clear as day, and the game almost beats you over the head with it.

Loss, on the other hand, is treated delicately. Carefully. Subtly. I’m interested in the choices behind that, and I think a lot of it has to do with 47 and his own ways of processing trauma.

Grey’s last words were: “Tell the Constant to start running.” You’d expect a blazing revenge tale after that, right? Grey obviously expected 47 to avenge him. After Absolution, you’d expect 47′s ways of dealing with grief are to go ahead and burn a city to the ground. And while he does make sure to get Edwards in Romania (and anyone who ever touched Grey, if you like), the theme is not vengeance. It’s not retaliation. It’s strangely enough about moving forward, into the light. Because revenge brings us to dark places (e.g. TLOU2), but HITMAN 3 ends on a note of hope. Of acceptance. A better understanding of the world, and how to live in it.

But I’m not gonna talk about hope here. I’ve done that already. Now I wanna talk about the darkness. And, in my opinion, never has there been a darker Hitman level than Berlin.

In many ways, HITMAN 3 was a more realistic, more mature exploration of grief. No explosions, no drinking yourself into a stupor, (though you can argue that was mostly down to guilt as well as grief in Absolution). Instead, IOI took what I think is a wonderful opportunity to explore the nature of quiet grief.

And goddamn was Berlin QUIET.

Berlin, in a big departure from other levels, has a cold opening. IOI took the risk and turned away from flashy briefings, or even a cutscene for now. Instead, we open in silence. It’s unusual. It’s uncomfortable. It’s deafening. The silence presses on you, on 47, as you’re still trying to process what you witnessed in the previous scene.

It’s a dark night, on a dark road, next to a closed gas station. There’s no sign of anything behind or in front of you, the road just stretches on into the darkness. No NPCs in sight. It’s nothingness. It’s the purest isolation, that liminal space of a roadside in the middle of the night. The stillness. The in-between. The uncertainty. The limbo.

In case we weren’t getting it, we have 47 himself. He hasn’t said anything. I’m sure they didn’t change his expression either, and yet - the lighting, the glint in his eyes - I was agog when I saw this for the first time. It’s such a huge contrast to the previous scene, it makes the entire tone of this opening feel like distilled shock.

And then... he’s wearing the coat. Interestingly, the coat is not called “Lucas Grey”. Nor is it called “Subject 6”. Instead, it’s called “Number 6″. Why?

Surely “Lucas Grey” would have been more personal... and yet, it wouldn’t have been true. That wasn’t who he was to 47. Not “subject” 6 either, a word reminiscent of experimentation. Instead, IOI chose a “number”, just like 47. And 47 wraps himself up in Grey. In Grey’s perseverance. In his cause. 47 literally takes it on himself. And I really think that echoes real people, and real grief. Smelling like the person you lost. Keeping them near you. Trying to be who they needed you to be.

The sense that something’s off, that something’s missing, doesn’t stop here at the gas station. In fact, it’s the entire point of the level. You are quite literally missing information, missing a handler, missing targets, missing weapons. You don’t even get through to Olivia when you first call. You are alone, with nothing. With no one.

While I can’t wait to run through this club, John Wick style, I can’t ignore the way the club wants me to feel. Lost in a crowd. Numb. Listening to other agents and their handler, listening to them chat with their friends about work, about getting a drink later, about dumb shit. About nothing.

I glide through the crowds like a shark. I find them. I hear the rising panic in their handler’s voice and I think “good”. Suffer with me.

But it gets taken away from you. You can only kill 5. I have no idea how many there are. On my last play, I found 11. I knocked them out to kill them later, thinking I could get them all - but once I’d gotten 5, the unconscious agents were no longer targets. They didn’t matter anymore. None of it mattered, really. The numbness comes back. Because you don’t even get the triumphant exit music at the end of this level either. It’s just the throbbing bass of the dance-floor. People laughing, drinking, dancing, sweating. A distraction from life. Dear GOD what a great setting for this moment in the game.

Leaving the club almost feels like relief. The cool night washes over you again.

And I can’t bear to leave Grey’s coat behind.

#hitman3spoilers #hitman 3 story analysis

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mrslittletall · 3 years ago

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It is now time for my review of Nier Replicant... and I won't put all the numbers in there! Who decided to name the game like this? Let's go over my points as usual. Graphics As a remastered games, of course they weren't the best. The character models looked fine, but were pretty stuff, the backgrounds were a bit muddy. The cut scenes looked really well though, loved how smoothly everything was animated and the character expressions. What I also liked was the boss design. They got some really unique designs in there and the effect on the shades was really cool with that ripple of letters appearing on them. Music/Sound OMFG, like Automata, the game SHINES here. The music is amazing, there is literally not a single bad song in the OST, a lot of them turned into my favourite songs of all time and I could stand in the Aerie and listen to Cold Steel Coffin for hours. Outside of the area and battle songs, there are a LOT of emotional songs for cutscenes to set the mod. They are so fitting and wonderful, beautiful. And the best thing? At certain parts of the game the emotional song replaces the area song for a while, letting you dweel in the feels for a while longer. Like in Automata, lyrics are used in a lot of the songs, in the chaos language often, which adds even more depth to the already high quality songs. While in Automata most lyrics were clearly duets or like songs though, in Replicant a lot of the lyrics are actually "ominous chanting". But it works, it works so well. "The Lost Stone", "The Aerie", "Snow in Summer", all have ominous chanting and I wouldn't have it any other way. Some of the songs even get into a music box version. The moment in the Shadowlord fight when the music changes into the music box version? That hits me every single time, every single damn time. Outside of the music, the voice acting. It's phenomenal. Every major character (I played with english voices) has such a good voice and delivers their lines beautifully. Brother Nier and his childlike naivetity in the beginning, turning to bitterness and rage as an adult, Kainé whose voice actor clearly had fun delivering all the f-bombs, Emil, with the voice of a cute innocent young boy and my favourite, Grimoire Weiss, whose voice drips sarcasm and which I absolutely love. And even the side characters had great voices, like Devola and Popola or the Red-Bag-Couple. Every single NPC was voiced as well, even the ones without names and I didn't find their voices to be annoying. Only voice that annoyed me was kid Gideon. Gameplay Ok, I can't praise the game too much here. It's not a bad game, not at all, BUT... Let's start with the good things. The battle system works well. You can use the four trigger buttons to use martial arts or magic and use your weapon with the square and the triangle button (yeah, I played on PS4). You have a range of different weapons, but there isn't really much difference between them. In the end I just equipped the weapon with the highest atk power. Upgrading all of them feels like a waste of time, unless you really want to read those weapon stories. The bosses are pretty unique and have to be fought in different approaches, but of course there are also a few "hit them until they stagger" bosses. The magic is pretty fun to use and you can use word edit to customize it a bit. Ok, but now the buts... That were mostly the sidequests. A few of them were fine and really worth it... and then I got a sidequest that was like "Bring me ten titanium alloys and ten broken lens." Which are super fucking rare items! So you basically ran into the same area multiple times to farm them and earn like 20.000 G for it.... and you probably have so much money already that you don't even need it. Yeah, a lot of the sidequests boiled down to "Farm some materials for me". Even Brother Nier commented on it, because he often said "That will take a while." I would have wished for more side quests like in Automata, they certainly bettered the process there. I just wonder why they didn't tone down the farming sidequests

in the Remaster a bit. Farming for rare items is a drag in this game and you sadly need it for 100 % (remember all the weapons to upgrade?) So yeah, definitely don't rec to 100 % this. Maybe do the sidequests, but I wouldn't do all of them a second time. Also, in order to see all the endings, you have to play through the second half of the game a bunch. That gets a bit repetitive... Story/Lore Yeah, time to SHINE again. I know this sounds strange, because I was a bit bummed that Nier Automata left so much lore outside of the game, but that kinda didn't bother me here? Probably for once, because my friend explained it to me and second, because the main point of the lore/story I could figure out myself. At first, the game left me pretty confused. We were in 2053, it snowed in summer and there were these kids, these shade creatures and these books and everything went horrible horrible wrong. And then we were 1.400 years later and saw the same kid and his sister just walking around like nothing happened? What? Regardless, I moved on and slowly unraveled the mysteries. Halfway through route A I thought that shades might be humans, but didn't had all the puzzle pieces yet. Only at the very end was it clear what happened. Also, thanks to Automata I knew about Devola and Popola being androids. Like my friend put it "They are the biggest walking spoiler for Nier in Automata." But like... I absolutely love the lore and the story of the game. See, the story is about Nier wanting to rescue his sister. Of course we should be on his side, right? Those big bad shadow creatures got her! Of course he is our hero! But then Route B happens and we get to see the side of the shades... and it turns out that they never were the bad guys at all. In truth, neither the Gestalts nor the Replicants are the bad guys here. I read in a Youtube comment that Yoko Taro designed the game about "Humans will be able to kill other people when they think they are right." That is what Nier is about. That is literally what the game is about. The last battle with the Shadowlord? Just a desperate brawl between two boys who both think they are in the right. We see this a lot in the shade stories, but it is especially prevelant in the story about the wolves and the shades in the Shadowlord's castle. The story... is about humanity... and somehow it tells a beautiful story about humanity, even though there aren't humans in the game anymore... Also, the main characters? Adorable, great, precious! I love all of them! I love Brother Nier, I love Kainé, I love Emil, I love Grimoire Weiss. They are written so WELL. I definitely feel like I want to hunt down the lore that got omitted this time, because I very much fell in love with the world of Nier. Hm, maybe when I play Automata again with the Nier knowledge stuff makes more sense as well... Overall: I give this game an absolute rec when you like good music and good stories! And when you want your heart ripped out of your chest and trampled over it several time.

#nier replicant #nier replicant spoilers #nier replicant review #review

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thefreelanceangel · 4 years ago

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Shadowbringers Is Finally Ended

With Patch 5.55 and the official end of the Shadowbringers story, setting up now for Endwalker in November, there are now a few months ahead to grind gear, finish content and reflect on the most recent expansion.

And, without any hyperbole, I can say definitively that I have never in my life been as impressed with a game's writing as I have that of Shadowbringers, both the original expansion and a lot of the patch content. I have... thoughts.

I'm a bit of an outlier; I skipped Stormblood (oops) and went straight from completing Heavensward (which greatly impressed me at the time and still does) into Shadowbringers because I wanted to get a max level character already.

Within the first few cutscenes of Shadowbringers, I was absolutely hooked.

First, let me just say that "monstrous angels" is 100% My Thing. I ADORE the reinterpretation of the standard "Renaissance art angelic figures" into something closer to incomprehensible beings taking on twisted, terrifying appearances. The human mind is a finite thing and comprehending an angel would be as difficult as comprehending infinity; these are things so alien to our experience that assuming they'd be easy to grasp and familiar feels disingenuous to me.

So the sin-eaters and the Lightwardens? SLAP.

Also, the intent behind the usage of "Light" in Shadowbringers was deliberate and purposeful. Our Lord and Savior, Yoshi-P, stated this clearly in his Forbes interview.

"The inception of this idea was very simple: in recent fantasy works, the perception that light equates to good and dark equates to evil is very set in stone, we wanted to shake this up a bit.

"Until this point in Final Fantasy XIV, our players have been Warriors of Light: the hero. However, with Shadowbringers, we leave the Source and embark on a journey to the First, and through this I want our players to discover the truth of the world, as well as think about the real nature of light and dark. That is the theme of Shadowbringers.

"In any case, a light too strong could potentially become evil. Darkness and night are also necessary for the world to maintain its balance; that's the kind of theme we will be shedding light on."

And the themes in Shadowbringers had such an amazing resonance that they were both painfully clear and masterfully executed. Not only was the theme of "balance" clearly executed in the "returning Darkness to a world flooded by Light" goal, but the desire for players to "think about the real nature of light and dark" showed in a multitude of ways.

The Warriors of Light (who we met as the Warriors of Darkness in Heavensward) are, in their home world, reviled. They directly caused the Flood which nearly destroyed their home and although they were able to save it with personal sacrifice, the populace at large is unaware of that sacrifice. The motives behind what the Warriors did is essentially lost to history; all that remains is the perception of their actions and the results thereof.

Motives, however, which you (player and WoL) are privy to.

"At long last, you see. To save our world, we gave our lives. We were just adventurers trying to make our way. An odd job here, a favor there—we never aspired to be Warriors of Light. But word of our deeds spread, and soon people were calling us heroes. They placed their hopes and dreams on our shoulders and bid us fight for all that was good and right. We fought and we fought and we fought...until there was no one left to fight. We won...and now our world is being erased from existence. We did everything right, everything that was asked of us, and still—still it came to this! You of all people should understand! We cannot—we will not falter. We brought our world to the brink of destruction, and now we must save it."

You had that fight with the Warriors of Darkness. You heard Ardbert explain exactly what happened, how they came to the point where they faced off against you, and you saw what happened when they were given the choice to hold back the Flood. And you were there when the one favor Ardbert asked was for the Warriors of Darkness to be taken home.

You see how the First remembers them and it's stark contrast to the heroes you met who were fighting desperately to save people who now spit on their names. History quite clearly has two sides and which you believe is dependent entirely on what information you have.

This becomes even more of a clear theme when you meet Emet-Selch and learn more about the Calamity which led to the entire Zodiark/Hydaelyn duality. Here, your previous experiences with Ascians has painted them solely as "villains." They are established enemies, manipulating events and people in order to attain goals which, to you, are nothing but Calamities.

And yet, as you learn more about the original Source and the Amaurotines that once lived on it, these goals are painted in an entirely new light. Instead of merely seeking to wipe out "the world" for no apparent reason or, at best guess, greater power for their deity Zodiark, the Ascians were striving to repair the damage done by the original Sundering. They, in a manner of speaking, were doing what the Warriors of Darkness were. What you, the Warrior of Light, have been doing. They were trying to restore what was lost.

Which leads into another of Shadowbringers' major themes: grief and loss.

The earliest touches of this are in Alisaie's questlines where you learn about what happens to people tainted by the Light. Families are destroyed, people are transmuted into sin-eaters and those who avoid that fate must stand by and watch as their loved ones fall to something far worse than death. "A Purchase of Fruit" shows you exactly what the end result is while also highlighting something very specific: with no hope of removing the Light's taint, knowing that all that awaits the tainted is a painful transmutation and existence as a sin-eater, those untainted make the best they can of those last days and end the tainted individual's pain before it begins.

Grief, yes. Loss? Absolutely. And yet, this is a loving, compassionate thing that those in Amh Araeng are doing. They face their own grief and loss. Rather than refusing to accept the actuality of their circumstances or refuse to weigh themselves down with taking a decisive action, they make the choice to face their grief and loss directly, even willingly taking on the guilt of their actions rather than leaving the tainted to suffer.

Magnus in Twine lost his wife and son, which immobilizes him. He can't find solance in anything save alcohol and brooding over their graves. It takes outside interference to pull him directly from his grief, to help him see past the loss of his family and look towards the future where life might once again be worth living. His struggle with grief is painfully familiar and so very, very close to many real life struggles that it's extremely poignant.

This struggle with grief is the fight the Ascians are, without question, losing. Let's set aside the "tempering" argument when it comes to Emet-Selch and Elidibus for the moment, largely because it's actually quite true that grief can spur people into committing horrific acts either as a desperate attempt to assuage their own pain (revenge) or make 'things right' in some way (vengeance).

Emet-Selch does not, in fact, properly grieve for Amaurot and the Ancients he knew. He clings to them, as Hythlodaeus tells us, weighed down by an aching sense of loss.

"And though he may carry himself with a certain glib ease, Emet-Selch is not a man to bear his burdens lightly. In fact, I imagine they have only grown heavier with every passing century. ...T'is truly a terrible weight he has chosen to carry."

Quite significantly is the word "chosen" in that. Grief is a process that involves, eventually, letting go of the pain and living with the memories of what was loved and what no longer is. Emet-Selch chooses not to do that. He does not grieve for Amaurot and his lost loved ones; he refuses, no matter how often he mentions his loss, to admit that what is gone is gone.

Elidibus, rather similarly, refuses to accept that the duty he took on when called upon to become Zodiark's heart is finally at an end. That the world he and Emet-Selch originated from is gone. Although he admits that he can barely remember why he's set on this path, he refuses to turn away from him.

One won't forget, one can barely remember--neither will grieve and let go.

Even the Ascians' characteristic arrogance and disdain for what they consider "lesser beings" is easy to read as their long-lasting struggle with grief. Considering the Sundering, all the beings that the Ascians are so disdainful of are, in fact, echoes of that which they once knew. If they acknowledged that, accepted those beings as what they are and perhaps even admitted they had worth... well... Rather like realizing abruptly that you've spent a whole day without thinking of someone recently departed, it feels like a betrayal.

To find value in the worlds as they currently are, to turn away from the duty they were asked to uphold, to choose to lay down the memories of the past are all, in essence, choices the Ascians will not make because to do so would be to let go of what's lost, to move into the acceptance of grief and that can feel like betraying those whose memories are slowly fading.

Emet-Selch's end--"Remember us."--is directly tied to his refusal to forget. To let himself have even one day without hoping for an eventuality that's highly unlikely regardless of effort, without remembering the Sundering and the Final Days. He remembered, forcefully and tenaciously, and wishes that legacy to live beyond him.

While Elidibus, in remembering, unable to deny failure any longer, finally expresses grief and loss. "My people. My brothers. ...My friends. Stay strong. Keep the faith. At duty's end, we will meet again. We will. We will. The rains have ceased, and we have been graced with another beautiful day. But you are not here to see it."

And coming from villains, quite specifically from villains that have been largely indistinct "puppet master" figures throughout the previous expansions, these story arcs were a punch to the gut. (Yes, I had to pause writing this to cry helplessly over Elidibus again because my gods, that last line just...) Villains are at their best in fiction when they're relatable. When it's so very easy to see that thin line between villain and hero.

Faced with the loss of everything you'd ever loved, with the faintest possibility of getting it back, what would you do? What wouldn't you do? Yes, the Ascians did terrible things and that's undeniable. Stopping them was necessary to save hundreds of thousands of lives. And doing so, being victorious, didn't feel like a victory and that is such a rare, rare thing in media. The Warrior of Light does the right thing, but in doing so, must face the fact that those they've been fighting have hopes and dreams and feelings and pain as real and as motivating as theirs.

And Shadowbringers does such an impressive job of turning those standard tropes around. Heroes are a dime a dozen because if you just awaken them, as Elidibus did with the starshower, well, there can be dozens of Warriors running around. Villains have heart-wrenching motivations and relatable reasons for their goals. History is multi-faceted and no one person knows what the "truth" truly is. Grief can spur people to helping others (i.e. the tank Role Quest ending) or it can fester and go unhealed and create nothing but more destruction.

There is so much that Shadowbringers did beautifully, I don't have the time to touch on all of it. The lack of "breaking the flawed system fixes everything" trope following Eulmore's liberation from Vauthry and the struggles that Eulmore faces in trying to build a functional, working social order for themselves. Embracing the value of childish dreams and tending to the smallest, most overlooked victims of trauma with the Pixie Tribal Quests. Dealing with a commander whose soldiers died and seeing Lyna's survivor's guilt. Seeing how having a single, unified goal can inspire and rally people into putting differences aside and helping each other.

Shadowbringers has finally ended with Patch 5.55. The story on the First ended with Patch 5.3. And all I can say is that this is a game that I will never forget.

#Shadowbringers #FFXIV #OOC #Yes I had A Lot of Thoughts

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