#So why not use them against the eldritch gods that rule this world?

[hypercubecats]

Page 5: The physics lesson continues…

Krita brush pack by @abluskittle

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[skeine]

So the Tree of Atrophy's vision implies that Exandria will survive Predathos's release and abandonment as it chases the gods: "left below, the blue waters and green of the world lay bare". Implying left uncorrupted, but no longer protected by higher powers from greater threats. But what's to prevent new gods from sliding into the vacuum left behind? Or new elder evils from razing the world? Or other planar threats like mind flayers or githyanki or demon hordes?

I wonder if Ludinus accounted for this in his plan. Because according to Ira, the Malleus Key was designed to moor the moon. We're assuming that was for long enough to use the solstice to break the cage around Ruidus, but what if it was also designed to do exactly what it's doing now? Open a crack and just hold it?

The leyline disruption Keyleth and Imogen are sensing suggests that, much like Moleasmyr's spreading corruption, Predathos's power could be infecting the whole leyline network and spreading its influence across the world.

Ludinus's notes went on about his admiration of Ruidisborn and their power, its source something intrinsically antithetical to the gods. How many children have been born near a Ruidis-infected leyline or nexus in the last couple weeks? How many regular folks living their lives near a leyline or nexus have been continuously exposed to Ruidus's flare through it for days on end now? This could be creating a massive new cohort of Ruidis-touched, maybe even Exaltants, all across Exandria.

I wonder if this extended solstice isn't just due to the Bells Hells' interference, but was actually part of Ludinus's plan all along—his gift to the world. A massive part of the population now manifesting powers that brand them, willingly or not, as enemies of the gods. Who pass this inheritance on to their children and grandchildren. A new breed of mortals beholden to no divinity, with the power to defend their independence from any threat that comes in the wake of the gods' abandonment. With the power to challenge the dominance of the gods' chosen, should Ludinus's plans fail, or if he succeeds, to defend themselves against new gods and new planar threats that may rise from the void left behind.

After all, why rely on a capricious eldritch horror to save the people when you can give them the means to save themselves?

I love the possibilities this could open up for the future of Exandria. Ordinary people with these strange new abilities popping up across the land, challenging the social order, threatening vested interests fighting to hold onto their position and influence, being conscripted by the powers that be to prop up their rule, trying to just live their lives and realizing that power also means those who will try to exploit it...

Yeah, very interested what this could mean for campaign 4

[snugglyporos]

@infinite-xerath Honestly it's fairly simple: if there are people, Noxus wants to conquer them. It doesn't matter how bad the environment is. It also helps that Noxus doesn't seem to know about the literal gods and Eldritch horrors waiting for them, beyond probably dismissing them as local legends. It is telling that the Shadow Isles are apparently the one place that even Noxians want nothing to do with.))

Yes, but trying to conquer a frozen wasteland is leagues more difficult than trying to take over already developed territory. I know that in universe it was probably sold as 'oh we'll just go and beat them and they'll join us' but conquering a wasteland after you just sued for peace in two other conflicts strikes me as a tad unwise?

Because while I am not particularly up to date on my Demacia or Ionia lore, I am fairly certain there are things like roads and farms and the like, an ability to live off the land, so to speak. You take it over, make it yours, and then put it back to work doing what it was already doing.

The Freljord seems to survive on raiding? Mostly? And the things and places that don't are not particularly easy to get to?

To use a real world example, there's a reason why the vikings settled where they raided and not the other way around. There's a reason why the romans only made it halfway through Britain and to the Rhine, because at some point the ability to sustain a population of a certain size is impossible without endless amounts of moved materials.

Basically, you could probably station the entirety of Noxus' army in say, Demacia. Demacia has farms, the population that was fighting is now not fighting and replaced by Noxians who are in those jobs. But you could not do the same thing in the Freljord, because the Freljord has no way to sustain a giant army like that if it's just sitting there. It can't live off the land, the land is barren. It can't extract tribute, everyone can just get up and leave to other parts they don't control. They could try to build permanent things there, like roads and garrisons and the like, but those things are entirely dependent on aid from Noxus proper and if that doesn't come the whole thing falls apart?

And there's no way Darius, being a war genius, wouldn't know all of this? Unless his entire plan hinged on defeated the Freljordian armies in battle and capturing their leaders and making them submit. Or, it's an invading russia in winter situation, where there's just... endless expanses of nothing for hundreds of miles and it never gets any better.

Here's the other reason I can assume that either LeBlanc or Swain wanted him dead: not only was Darius defeated, he was captured, as was his son, who died against Sejuani's forces.

So Darius is defeated and captured, his son died there, and basically every time they lead an expedition into this place everyone dies horribly.

But the thing is, it's this endless attrition and stalemate that causes Darius to return and end up part of the council that now rules, because the Freljordian conflict is such a catastrophe. And yet, even still, he sends more expeditions to try and reclaim what little they built there, only now all the various scattered tribes are united either under Ashe or Sejuani.

So as far as I can tell, the opinion in Noxus should be that the Freljord is an icy deathtrap with nothing of value in it, except snow and angry tribesmen. Darius of all people should know that, he couldn't win against them and lost his son to them, and he apparently thought so poorly of the conflict that he turned him to overthrow the leadership with Swain and Leblanc.

The only thing that makes sense to me is that Noxus can't admit it got beaten by tribespeople and poros and beast men. So it has to say the conflict is ongoing so they don't lose face. But this is clearly not a conflict Noxus is winning, mainly because they destabilized their entire country in their biggest attempt at victory.

[rainy-weather-supremacy]

FBI OPEN THE FUCK UP!

Who means the most to who?

If given a chance to lead a better life, would they? (W no trauma n stuff)

Who’s the worst at keeping secrets?

why do eldritch patrons take such an interest in the glass family? Are they just so fuged up?

If they were transported into any world of mine (you choose) what would they do?

Who has the best style?

Worst at cooking?

Who is scared of each other (COUNTER QUESTION >:) )?

Do you have any songs for them?

Please fill this out and return it to your local law enforcement.

I CALL ON THE 5TH AMENDMENT! …just kidding I'll fill put your form. Remaining silent is stupid anyways I wanna go to prison! xD

Mikaela & Tara and Avery & Daniel, as well as the people that are dating and/or/married mean a lot to each other of course. Toby and Arthurs kids are also very important to them. It's kinda basic in that, I suppose.

I think all of them would take that chance except for Tara- They would want to continue their crusade for justice even if it meant having to suffer for it.

Mikaela, I think.

They're always kinda looking for someone to 'feed' them and somehow every Glass that turns up is an eldritch waiter. Esther also had something to do with it, but mostly yeah. They are just like that.

If it was the Museum Archives universe, it's probably mostly that Leon would try not to get sent into the afterlife and in the Baldur's death one... most of them would either run from or fight the government to keep their powers even tough they're using them for stupid shit like tax fraud. Also Tara (with Mikaelas help) would go insane hunting down everyone that worked on the mistletoe project over in that world.

Daniel 100%

Camilla: Technically makes the worst food since she's a chef who purposefully serves rotten food that seems normal but secretly isn't. / Avery: Rich kid that literally only knows how to make coffee. Survived college by hunting animals in the woods and just. Devouring them whole.

Jane is scared of Mikaela, since they can do fire and she's partially made of wood, Camilla too for a similar reason (plants everywhere on her). Mary and Daniel are a little afraid of each other but would rather die than admit it. Toby and Arthur are kinda scared of Granny (even tough she's literally one of Toby's moms lmao) and Avery thinks Mary is scary.

GOD DO I! ...yes. Yes, I do. Here's some I wrote down:

Mary and Jane: Tightrope; Here's to coming out; Holy Mary

Mary: Hurricane; Surface pressure

Daniel and Mary: Brothers; Nemeses; Evelyn Evelyn; You always want to bomb the middle east; Allies or enemies

Daniel, Jamie, Avery, Mary and Jane: Heaven says

Daniel: How bad can I be; Gay or european; Ship in a bottle; Not evil

Tara: Voices in your head; All you wanna do; Where is the justice; Laplace's angel (Hurt people? Hurt people!); Battle against a true hero (That one version from the Undertale musical)

Daniel, Jamie and Avery: Like real people do

Avery: Running with the wolves; Rule 31: Calamity

Tara and Mikaela: Partners in crime; Lonely king

Daniel, Jamie, Ozan, Avery, Mary, Jane, Toby and Arthur: Rescue me

Leon: Momento Mori - The most important thing in the world

Jamie: Ruler of everything

Esther and Granny: Song to go insane to; This is love

Everyone (The whole family): No children; Stay calm; Turn the lights off; Violence & spiders; This is Halloween; I'll fight; Welcome to the internet; How far we've come; Teenagers; Join us for a bite

(To one or two of these I actually copy-pasted the text into the notes app and kinda wrote down what would happen at what point if it was an animatic if you're interested idk)

SO YOU WANT ME TO GIVE THIS TO YOU?! HUH??? WELL GUESS WHAT! GUESS WHAT???!?? I'M GONNA! HERE YOU GO!

*I fold the paper into a paper plane and throw it at you* 😃👍

[cymorilcinnamonroll]

8 level

Humans were brought from another world — a compilation of Eastern Ukrainian tales from Mikola Levchenko mentions a very short tale about creation of people. According to this story, humans were created by God in another world and then brought to the current world by angels. When this world will come to its end, God will come and transport us somewhere else.

Everything is undead - in many different parts of the Slavic world it was believed, that aside from mythological creatures I've mentioned, spirits of the dead can become winds, plants, birds, clouds and (somehow) steam.

Elijah the Prophet can destroy the world - Elijah, known in the Slavic world as Ilya the Prophet, is a pretty popular saint, who seems to have obtained some pretty non-Christian characteristics. It was said (although mostly in the Southern Slavic regions) that God himself had to put a giant stone on his head or tie his arm to his leg, so that he wouldn't burn the world with his lightning. Ilya is often mentioned in different descriptions of the Judgement Day as someone who burns the sinful Earth.

Werebears - werebears are way rarer in folklore than werewolves, and unlike volkolaks, they don’t have authentic Slavic names. Bears, as mentioned, are mostly presented in folklore as human-like creatures (and sometimes there’s even some kind of magical block that doesn’t let shapeshifting spirits and monsters turn into bears). However, there are some off-hand mentions of human-to-bear transformation being possible. For example, one book of magic says that to turn into a bear, you have to master the wolf transformation. There are also rare mentions of other kinds of shapeshifting - into cats, pigs, birds, insects, toads or even inanimate objects. This is not counting folk heroes and villains, some of which can turn into many different animals from oxen to ants.

Humans will be succeeded by dwarves - some bylinas, tales and apocryphal books that mention how giants used to rule the world before humans also mention how each generation of humans is becoming weaker and lamer, and someday people will become tiny. This is a basic folklore motif of “kids these days are insufferable, must be the end of the world nearing”.

Eldritch legs helped to pull out the Turnip - most people are familiar with the short and lighthearted story of the Turnip. Yet there’s a very obscure version of this story, where the dog, cat and mouse are replaced with five literal legs. Who are those legs attached to? No one has any idea. One hypothesis states that this tale was initially just a mnemonic tool to memorize important farming seasons.

Assault on Dobrynya - In a very obscure variant of the bylina “Kama battle” after dealing with the regenerating army through the force of prayer, Dobrynya leaves the battlefield, when he’s ambushed by the polenitsa named Latyngorka. She pins him to the ground and then does a thing modern people call “facesitting”. Yeah, by assault I’ve meant the sexual kind. Ilya of Murom saves Dobrynya and says something like “dude, just kick her in the butt, don’t you know how to handle women?”. Shortly afterwards Dobrynya kills himself out of shame.

Popeluha - pretty obscure Ukrainian creature that is made out of ash, that was thrown out of the house, but not covered up with dirt. She looks like an old lady (as always) and attacks people in the dark of the night, trying to strangle them. To get rid of her, you just need to throw some dirt at her. I’m a bit suspicious about this creature, but eh, it’s on wikipedia.

Yarchuk - yarchuks are the firstborn puppies (or puppies with two white spots under their eyes, that kinda look like a second pair of eyes). These good boys are literally the strongest weapon against any kind of witch or spirit. They can see through their disguise, and wounds caused by their bites do not heal on such creatures. That’s why witches try to kill any such dog while it is still a newborn puppy. Need any other reason for why they’re evil?

Pact with Leshy - Leshies are known to lead people astray in the woods. Why? There are different answers, but one of them tells that Leshy takes them as guests/wives/prisoners/slaves. And sometimes Leshy will teach those people magical secrets. That’s why some people who returned from the forest after going missing become warlocks. Another, less traumatic way to interact with Leshy is to form a pact. Some people like shepherds know how to summon Leshy and talk to him, for example to ask for protection for the herd.

Magical control over Rusalka - some stories say that you can catch rusalka by putting the pectoral cross onto her. She will obey this person and help with housework, but will inevitably escape next year’s Rusalka week.

Russian Forbidden Tales (or Treasured tales) - a collection of tales of vulgar content by Afanasyev. It typically features crude sexual humor. An example of such a tale can be a short story about an argument between anus and vagina.

ALL CREDIT TO ORIGINAL REDDIT POSTER ON DEPTHS OF INTERNET DURING MY SLAVIC PHASE!!!

The Slavic Iceberg

[lassieposting]

Mevolent panicking. That must have been such an alert for Vile.

Vile like: That's not fucking good.

Oh 1000%, like

Mevolent is almost a thousand years old at that point. He's been fighting since before Vile's grandparents were even thought of. He is not someone who is easily rattled. Vile has probably never heard genuine fear from him before. Anticipation, yes. Uncertainty, sure. But Mevolent isn't really afraid of anything, except the Unnamed and letting his gods down.

But he is absolutely not expecting the Faceless One to attack. He was born into the faith, so he's spent literally his entire life in their service (apart from the whole 'fucking a heathen' thing, but he's hoping they'll let that slide because...at least Vile is a useful heathen?). He believes he's about to witness something beautiful: the restoration of the natural order, the triumphant return of the gods he's worked so hard for centuries to rescue. He knows he shouldn't, but he really thinks he's about to be rewarded; he's going to get his celestial pat on the head, his god is going to tell him he did good.

It's like. The most inconceivable betrayal for him. The Faceless One attacks its own priests and their messiah, its most dedicated followers. And that's terrifying. Like he doesn't even know what's going on. Is it angry with them? Did he take too long, or do something incorrectly? Is this his punishment for his transgressions? Doesn't it care that he's been loyally fighting for it all his life? Isn't this the creature sending him instructions in his visions? When he glimpses it out of the corner of his eye, he sees such terrible things...he doesn't even realise he's yelling.

So yeah, it's absolutely a "drop everything and run" situation for Vile - for everyone who's close enough to hear the ruckus and can hold their own in a fight. Quite a few people go loony because they tried to help and saw the eldritch horror - some redhood guards, a couple of passing servants, Eliza.

It also causes one of the biggest fights violent have ever had, lmao. Because Nef says the ritual "never worked again". So at some point, Vile finds out Mevolent attempted a do-over - because like, he wants answers, he wants to know why, he wants to know what he did wrong - and he loses his ever-loving mind. He's gone from wanting to go to war, alone, against an entire race of these things to never wanting to be anywhere near one again. Have you gone completely mad? That thing almost killed you, almost killed both of us, and you want to open the door for another one?

It's an ugly fight. Like, an ugly, ugly fight. Vile very nearly walks away completely, a hundred odd years after his prime!verse self abandoned Mevolent, but ultimately Mevolent concedes that bringing the gods back would probably end very badly for everyone including himself, and he quite likes ruling the world, so no more trying to bring back the gods. So they have very angry makeup sex instead, and eventually things smooth over and go back to normal.

And that's why, in the modern day, alt!Mevolent has still not brought back the Faceless Ones, even though he probably could've figured out the right adjustments to the ritual by now.

[honkhonkrichard]

Theory: Stanley Uris was Murdered.

Tagging @vvanini I hope you can follow this okay it’s very word vomity lol

Okay So TW because this post will touch on Stan's death ad the methods behind it

I propose that Stan Uris was murdered. by IT. In his home on that fateful night. I think that Stan posed the biggest threat to IT and therefore IT felt the need to take him out before the battle even started.

Allow me to explain.

Okay, so, I need to lay out some basic "rules" or "facts" before I make my case. They are as follows.

- IT planted it's roots in Derry, and finds it difficult to leave, but still can at it’s own wil.  If you read the book (I honestly don't blame you if you haven't) You'd know that once the Losers kill IT for the final time, Derry (the Physical town) is obliterated. Buildings explode, sinkholes appear, things are flooded. The town is in ruins by the time that the Losers leave the sewers. The movies don't adapt this so If this is news to you thats fine. the bottom line is that destroying IT destroys Derry, like ripping a tree out of the ground with all it's roots. Because of this, we can make the claim that while it can Leave Derry (as it does every 27 years) it probably takes tremandous amount of power to do so, which is why IT only goes when the cycle is over. Why does this matter? Well, what if IT left Derry to get to Stan? The murders had stopped for about a week when they're all in the Jade of the Orient. Plenty of time for IT to cross from Maine to Georgia. Side Note: We KNOW IT leaevs Maine to elsewhere in the world because of King's extended universe all interconnecting. it's not far off at all to make the claim that IT is the same evil that haunts, say The Shining's Overlook Hotel, which is in Colarado.

- IT is omnipresent This is also a given, IT lives everywhere, and can fuck with time and space in godlike (or maybe eldritch like) ways. in IT: Chapter Two, when Mike claims "IT Doesn't know I know what I know" he's unfortunately wrong, because we know that IT can be in A) Multiple places at once, B) can manipulate anything on the drop of a hat (See: Stan being teleported away from everyone else in Chapter One, Everything about Neibolt, etc) and C) Knows everyone's deep fears. This is further proven by IT Saying things like "Beep Beep Richie" (although this is Horribly Horribly executed in the films, ugh.) and so on and so forth. On top of all of this, We can make the claim that IT can exist outside of Time as well, given that IT is immortal. SO, what's stopping IT from Knowing Mike was going to call them all back (Espically considering that IT TOLD Mike to do this?). Even if we keep IT's omnipresence to the location that IT inhabits (in this case Derry) IT would still have knowledge of where the losers are through Mike. And if you take the Lucky Seven/Chosen Seven route (oh my god I got theories on that too) you could argue IT knows where they are inherently due to their cosmic status.

- Stan is the "most Powerful" loser So, obviously all the Loser's are powerful, espically considering they're the ones who Defeat IT (Again going on to the Lucky/Chosen Seven theory). This next claim is going to be less focused on what the 2019/2017 Movies do because they are Bad Movies and that's a whole other rant. However, in the book, Stan is (to my knowledge feel free to correct me on any of this) the only loser to Actively ward off and 'defeat' IT on his own without running away. He uses his belief in this what is Real (birds) to ward off what is "not real" (IT). The other losers do manage to take down IT in their own Right, but Stan is ultimately the one to Really get IT. This is because Stan's character revolves around Belief and Willpower. These are, in some form or another, the ways to Defeat IT. the ritual of Chud is a battle of Wills. in the book, Bill takes IT down and Eddie does the final blow. In the Remake (ugh) the losers can defeat it Technically using the belief that IT isn't as powerful as it claims because IT's "just a clown" (Ihatethatfuckingendingsomuchugh). Stan being much more skeptical than the rest of the group in his ability to understand Reality vs IT's illusions is a powermove, and IT knows that ability doesn't go away as Stan grows up, but rather he gets more powerful. Stan is the Only loser out of the 6 who left that has any sort of knowledge about IT, where the other losers have nothing. Bev has nightmares, yes, but she still forgets them. We're told in his chapter (Chapter 3, Six Phone Calls (1985), Part One: Stanley Uris Takes a Bath) that he has some hazy knowledge of his place in the Lucky Seven, and even goes so far as to MENTION it sometimes, even if he doesn't quite remember or understand any of it, his knowledge of IT and Derry is worlds more prominent than that of the rest of the losers.

(page 52 of IT:  "Stanley, nothing's wrong with your life!"  "I don't mean from inside." he said. "From inside is fine. I'm talking about outside. Something that should be over and isn't. I wake up frmo these dreams and think, 'My whole pleasent life has been nothing but the eye of some storm I don't understand.' I'm afraid. But then it just... fades. The way dreams do." OR  page 45: He had been smiling a little. Now the smile faltered, and for a moment he seemed puzzled. His eyes had darkened, as if he looked inward, consulting some interior device which ticked and whirred correctly but which, ultimately he understood no more than the average man understands the workings of the watch on his wrist. "The turtle couldn't help us," he said suddenly. he said that quite clearly.)

So, Stan has some cosmic knowledge of IT and Maturin and his role in the battle against It. What does any of this have to do with his death? Well, let me point out some other things about Stan's death that always stuck out to me. - His death chapter is narrated by his wife, Patty, rather than himself. The other chapters - almost all the other chapters - are narrated by their respective Loser (the caviot for this is Ben, but Ben is also wasted out of his damn mind so its understandable.) - Stan's personality is few and far between in the book, but we know he has a weird little sense of humour and that he's incredibly logical. I think that this logical part of him would be able to understand that Suicide is Never Ever the answer, and that it would cause FAR more problems than it would solve. (the 2019 movie tries to reexplain his death and it's crap and i hate the letters i hate the letters so much im gonna explode) The other losers try to rationalize his death by saying "He would rather Die Clean than Live Dirty (Page 506, Chapter 10, The Reunion, part 3, 'Ben Hanscom Gets Skinny') but he had already BEEN Dirty when he defeated IT the first time, and I think he would've recognized that. - upon finding him, Patty (in her narration) notes that Stan's head is bent back over the edge of the bathtub, so from his sight she would have been upside down. If Stan DID kill himself, why would he be positioned like that? It's unnatural, like someone Posed him. - the cuts on his arms are two length wise cuts. I'm no expert but.. that's suspicious. That's weird. - IT is written in blood on the wall. Why? Why would Stan right THAT of all things? You know who DOES like to paint with blood? IT.

Alright, returning to my thesis statement, Stanley Uris was murdered. Do I think Stan genuinely was going to take a bath at 7pm (which we're told is weird for him)? Yes. I think that's absolutely a thing he could have done or planned to do. Do I think he slit his wrists and commited suicide so he wouldn't go back to Derry? No. Not even remotely.

Let me paint a New Picture.

It's May 28th, 2016, or 1985. Stanley Uris gets a call from Mike Hanlon. Stan is incredibly hesitant to go to, and says he needs time to think about it. Or tht he'll try. He can feel the starts of a Panic attack, and as he's remembering the circles of Hell he went through as a child, he tries to hold himself together. He doesn't want his darling wife to see his break, so he says "I think I'll take a bath" and nothing else before going upstairs. he hides in the bathroom. He closes and locks the door, because, well, he's panicking. Locking doors is one of The Small things he does. Is it usually the bathroom door? no, but still (OCD is a bitch, and even with medication, but this is a special case). He looks in the mirror and tries to breathe. This is fine. He can do this. They killed IT once before and they can do it again. He thinks about his younger self, the promises made, and how he could explain all of this Patty in time to catch a flight to Maine. It's terrifying, but if his friends are going to bite the dust, he wants to be there with them, wedding vows be Damned. Then he looks at his reflection again. A younger, rotted version of himself stares back at him. IT crawls through the mirror. Stan freaks out, obviously. This isn't real. This Can't be real. But IT utilizes this notion against him. It digs it's claws into his arms, and forces him to bleed out in the bathtub. IT then sets the scene nicely. Razorblades on the counter, a bloody signature on the wall, a horrible posture of Stan's neck. So on and So forth. and then IT returns to Derry. IT's a little weak, yeah, but Stan is dead. That's what matters. the Lucky Seven has now Officially broken, and the balance shifts in favour of the clown.

So that's the theory. feel free to correct me on anything or engage I have plenty of theories on this story and I like discussing this stuff :).

[kathyprior4200]

Sinner’s Key and Ring Travel Theories

If sinners could travel to the other Rings via the Hellevator (tm):

Angel Dust goes to Lust, sees Asmodeus is worse than Valentino

Husk tries out his gambling luck in Greed.

Niffty goes to Dreamsville in Sloth to live her fantasies, until she's brought back to Hell as it were.

Charlie swims and meets the Eldritches in Envy. It is also where Malantis (Hell's Atlantis) is located.

Vaggie duels with Millie in Wrath.

Alastor enjoys grand feasts in Gluttony, selling hearts, organs and meat in Creole style dishes.

 The Hellevators are magical elevator devices used by the hellborn to travel to the different Rings/districts. The elevators fly through portals in different colored skies, from Pride at the top to Sloth at the bottom and back. The elevator has buttons with the different Ring names lit up "Pride" "Greed" "Lust" "Envy" "Gluttony" "Wrath" "Sloth". Each Hellevator is guarded by security to ensure intruders, sinners and dealers cannot pass. Creepy music-box music often plays inside.

Sinners cannot travel to the other Rings (1) because Lucifer's punishment involves ruling a realm full of sinners, and Lucifer hated sinners because he believed that angels were superior to man and that his father should've paid proper attention to him instead. Plus, he thought humans were primitive. (2) Only the hellborn can withstand the harsh environments of the other Rings and the effects of the portal traveling in general.

The Sinners Key may very well change that. The black device could allow sinners to travel to the other Rings without magic holding them back. (Perhaps only the Hellborn know the magic code to get into said elevators.) And Alastor may use it to cause more trouble and chaos. Why wouldn't a serial killer cannibal radio host want to laugh and scheme as Lucifer's reign slowly crumbles as sinners fight and revolt against the very system that brought them suffering/paradise. With more sinners learning the truth about Hell, war would be likely...and perhaps Alastor's true desire to see his mother may come faster. Alastor wouldn't have to be in power at all (he doesn't want power anyway)...he would be the mastermind behind all the events...and could bask in endless entertainment! For Alastor, Charlie naively trusting him fully and failing a lot would be even better!

Sinners physically cannot go to the other Rings. Unless...Lucifer does not want any sinners to travel to the other Rings because if they did, the former humans could discover Hell's system and secrets. With so many sinners around, they could overthrow the Seven Deadly Sins and expose Hell to the other humans to corrupt it further...at least that's the overall fear. Kind of like how Heaven fears that sinners will invade Heaven, bring chaos to their orderly structures and create HHWII (Heaven-Hell War 2), hence why the exterminations happen in the first place.

Charlie may not be able to save everyone...but she sure as Hell will try to save as many as she can to reunite them with their families in paradise. (Angel Dust, his mother and sister Molly, Alastor and his mother). Sinners may very well be living in a chaotic paradise matrix, oblivious to the real sufferings going on in Hell. (Same with the denizens of Heaven). Sinners and saints alike, trapped in two grand afterlife systems, pitted against each other.

Charlie and the Hazbins will have to face their darker selves and society if they have any hope of saving anyone.

“What If…Sinners Could Travel Through Hell’s Rings?”

 Hell’s Rings or Circles are various districts or locations in Hell with certain attributes. In Dante’s Inferno, nine circles of Hell are listed: Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Anger, Heresy, Violence, Fraud and Treachery. Each circle had its own punishments for the sinners to endure that corresponded to how they were in life. In Hazbin Hotel, on the other hand, the Circles or Rings as they are called are named after the Seven Deadly Sins: Pride, Greed, Lust, Envy, Gluttony, Wrath and Sloth in that order from top to bottom. The seven demon overlord rulers each rule their Ring: Lucifer for Pride, Mammon for Greed, Asmodeus for Lust, Leviathan for Envy, Beelzebub for Gluttony, Satan for Wrath and Belphegor for Sloth. In Heaven, the districts are called Halos named after the Seven Heavenly Virtues: Humility, Charity, Chasity, Kindness, Temperance, Patience, and Diligence.

  In our main Hazbin Hotel universe, for an unexplained reason, sinners (former humans) cannot travel to the other Rings of Hell. They are only stuck in the Pride Ring, which is the main setting for Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss. Only those born in Hell can travel to the other Rings. They travel via a magic elevator called the Hellevator that travels through portals in the different colored skies. Several theories may explain why it’s the case. First, it could be Lucifer’s punishment, seeing as he hates humans and believes that God should not have favored man over his own angelic children in Heaven. The second reason could be that sinners cannot physically tolerate or withstand the other environments and the traveling to the different Rings.

 But a third reason may be that Lucifer himself is hiding a sinister secret. If humans knew about Hell’s hierarchy and locations, the fear of human hordes taking over Hell’s foundation and the overlords may be the case. It is similar to how those in Heaven don’t want an overwhelmingly large amount of sinners overtaking their orderly world and questioning all the authorities.

 In addition, the fact that sinners in particular can respawn in Hell unless killed by an angelic weapon may be the source of the concern. After all, even the most powerful king or ruler in any dimension would fear an uprising of thousands of individuals who would just revive themselves.

 But what if…for a moment, sinners found a way to enter the other Rings? What if they could do so with the help of a very special black Sinner’s Key…a key that could change the fate of Hell, Heaven and Earth alike?

[orange-waterfalls]

Vampire!Reader x Markiplier Egos

ty anon for the request

A/N: YES. IT'S BEEN A WHILE. HAPPY FUCKING HALLOWEEN. I absolutely remembered today is the 1 year anniversary of ahwm absolutely this is not a coincidence what are you talking about ahahahahha. I've been busy w/ school and drawing and general depression and anxiety with the current situation but I'm getting back into it! Vampire reader. That's pretty much it. Rated T, a bit of cursing, mentions of blood, mentions of fangs. A slightly suggestive phrase but that's just Illinois like there has to be at least one with him it's the law. ALSO. NEW RULE? IF I'M DOING LIKE HCS OR SMTHN I WILL DO 6 AT A TIME. I CANNOT BE WRITING 14 DIFFERENT EGOS AT ONCE I JUST CAN'T I'M SORRY. anyways enjoy!

Vampire!Reader x Egos Headcanons

General

Not much PDA

Not much going out in general

You have to cover your whole body when you do, unless it’s nighttime

You spend much of your time inside or in the forest

You’re basically nocturnal

You do drink blood, and you don’t need a lot of it

You drink human blood only if they give permission

You don’t kill people

You know or know of some other supernatural creatures that exist

You are friends with a werewolf. One specifically. You know the one.

Darkiplier

You both are edgy as all hell it’s perfect!

Politely asks you not to bite him

a) because he’s not human and b) because it’ll hurt

You both are very calm and well-spoken. So. not much happens.

However, you are both, in fact, dumb bitches, so things are still entertaining

“My darling, would you like some garli-mmm nevermind...”

You go out with him sometimes on romantic moonlit walks

You don’t have to wear as much then

You make him get a pet, a black cat specifically

He loves it

You named it Darko, Dark for short, and he hates the name

Like he hates the name a lot

It is irrational how much he hates the fucking name

He calls it DA

He never explains why

When you want blood he’ll trap a deer or something

You go into the forest and drink a little of its blood

He’s surprised

“What am I, a werewolf?”

He’ll ask you about supernatural creatures, and how to defend against them

You’re pretty sure he’s an eldritch entity so you aren’t sure why he’s asking YOU

He won’t ask how you became a vampire, that seems personal

He never gets startled when you turn into a bat

He can hear your lil wingbeats from a mile away

Sometimes you’ll sleep as a bat and he just smiles at you hanging from the fan

Fine with you not interacting with others, like he does much of that…

Just likes hanging out in your fucking giant victorian mansion with you

Wilford

We all know that his type is, in fact, edgy bitch

Therefore, you are perfect

Dark clothes? Check

Edgy backstory? Probably

Kinda scary? Oh absolutely

And he loves you for that!

He doesn’t want to be a vampire, but he fuckin loves your teeth

He’ll ask you to bare them and then he’ll do a happy wiggle afterwards

He loves dancing with you, slow or fast

It’s always romantic

He’s basically a god so like. Anything you ask for he’s gotchu

You said you were hungry and he fucking kidnapped someone

You said you were hungry, that was on you

You then explain that you don’t need a whole FUCKING PERSON

He then steals some blood bags from the hospital

“Oh, calm down! They have enough!”

Likes taking you out, so you go on night walks a lot.

You’re not used to social interaction, so he makes sure to steer you away from people

Unless you want to talk to them, then he starts up a conversation and lets you take over

You don’t understand people, and neither does he! It’s great.

Likes when you turn into a bat

He doesn’t know why, it just makes him happy

You made him adopt a black cat

He named it Colonel Whiskers

Loves you and your castle and your weird ass little quirks

Actor

Bite him.

BITE. HIM.

LET HIM BE IMMORTAL

You refuse for the sole reason that he is a dick.

You do get along because you both are, in fact, pretentious

You wear those silk robes around the house, and he gets mad at you

HE is the sexy mysterious one, COME ON!

At least you won’t have an edgier backstory than him…

Likes slow dancing with you

Very much enjoys your Aesthetic

Believes that he too belongs in a Victorian era castle isolated from the world

Loves the dark romance

Is a Fancy Boy

Was fully prepared to murder someone for you to drink their blood

Surprised when you said it wasn’t necessary???

Buys a horse or smthn

Asks about supernatural beings and which are immortal

He asks that a lot

He worries you sometimes.

Hates it when you turn into a bat

You’re small and you fly around and you’re fucking GROSS

He doesn’t. He doesn’t like animals very much. Besides dogs I mean.

Buys you clothes because you’ve been wearing the same shit for fucking EVER

Don’t worry, they’re all black, dark purple, or dark red

Sometimes you decide to go on a walk and he tags along

Possessive bitch

Thinks you’ll leave him if you talk to other people

He scares them or leads you away

Was fine with a black wolfdog you brought home after searching for food

Names it Phoenix, and you call it Nix for short

Is deeply in love with you, but will never say or show it

Yancy

He thinks you’re wonderful!

Originally a bit mean to you

He thought YOU thought you were better than him

He saw the fangs and backed off

He asked about them and you answered, so you got along

Asked if he could be a vampire

You asked if he wanted to be immortal. He declined.

Suggested you drink his blood when you were hungry

You said it wasn’t necessary, but he pushed

Stared at you the whole time

“what’s your issue” “this is very… intimate.”

On that note: has an issue with intimacy

You’re very cold naturally, so you’d want to cuddle

He awkwardly shifts away

Once he gets more comfortable, he might cuddle with you

Loves the silk robes you own, they’re so fucking COMFY

AND THE SILK SHEETS?? Heaven

Absolutely loves all the fancy shit you have

You teach him how to waltz and he teaches you how to tap dance

You have a very equal give and take relationship with everything, it’s great

Neither of you like social interaction

You will if you HAVE to but mostly keep to yourselves

You love Yancy's prison buddies

They love you too

Asked if you knew mothman

You couldn’t tell if he was joking

He absolutely Was Not joking

He sings to you sometimes

It echoes through the place and the Aesthetic man

Hates it when you turn into a bat

Bad. No. Stop. Scary.

A small animal flying at him is a no go

Alternatively: get him a pet dog and he will love you forever

He names it Elvis. Yeah you know why.

Overall loves you and your aesthetic, and you could tell even before you got together

Illinois

Excited but doesn't show it

He's met PLENTY of supernatural creatures

Ghosts, gods, there was a thing with that werewolf one time…

(He has the scars to prove it)

But a vampire? That's new

He doesn’t live at your place because he travels a lot

He still stays there sometimes between adventures

Uncomfortable with how clean it is

You are. An immortal being. And you take the time to clean. What the fuck.

“Would YOU wanna spend eternity in a dusty ass mansion?”

His flirts are often about your fangs

You threatened to bite him and he said “promise?”

Said you could drink his blood, but you said no

“I don’t know what the fuck you got in that bloodstream”

Doesn’t do walks but takes you on adventures

If it’s a cave. And you turn into a bat.

ONLY if you turn into a bat

Sidenote: he fucking adores when you turn into a bat

He just thinks they’re neat

Uncomfortable with how soft everything you own is

NOTHING is soft in nature

Except. Like a lot of things. But don’t tell him he’ll get mad

Doesn’t really want a pet bc he’ll never be home to deal with it

He’ll be fine if you get one though

He wants to name it Nathan Drake he doesn’t care what it is

NERD(see: Uncharted)

Will never EVER wear a fucking suit

He will DIE before he wears a suit fuck you

Dislikes anything remotely fancy

Talks about the creatures he’s met

you get Bard Vibes if ya know what i mean wink wink nudge nudge he's a whore is what I'm saying here

You hang out normally mostly

He refuses to acknowledge his feelings for you

Not after the mermaid incident.

He eventually will, i promise

Magnum

He’s a pirate, he doesn’t care

He’s seen sirens, ancient spirits, probably Davey Jones at some point

A vampire? Low on the list of dangerous creatures

He has a whole ship made outta wood he’s not that worried

You don't really sail with him often

When you do, you're seen as a threat to anyone and everyone

He loves that about you

Warned you not to bite him or he'd stake you

You promised not to and that was enough for him

You get along with the crew fairly well

However do NOT turn into a bat around them

They will not hesitate to shoot

"UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT, MAN YOUR BATTLESTATIONS!

You can maybe do it around Magnum and only Magnum

Doesn't like your house

He belongs to the sea

But can and will steal your sheets for himself

A pirate can have a little silk, as a treat

Offered his crew's blood to drink after a while

You declined because you don't know what the fuck kinda diseases they have

Doesn't really want a pet. He can't tell them what to do.

You bought an axolotl and he loves it a lot

Its name is Delta but he has deemed it Magnum Jr

Can't really. Fit. In any suits you have

He has to go out and get one personally tailored if he wants it

Likes dancing with you

Slow dancing. To Danny Boy.

He can't dance but that's ok he tries

You talk about land creatures and he talks about ocean creatures

So far he despises werewolves and skinwalkers

He likes spending as much time with you possible

He doesn't much like the idea of a relationship bc of his uh line of work

But he loves you

[transdemigod]

The Final Ritual and the other 13 Entities

So I’ve been thinking, since the only ritual to succeed in bringing in all the fears was still controlled by the Eye, what would it have looked like if it were one of the others in charge? The end result would have to be the same, since all 14 have to come into the world or else none of them will stay, but there are a lot of elements to the ritual itself and even how the new world works that seemed to be exclusive to the Eye. Here’s what I think would have to be the same: obviously the Archivist position is important, so I think each of the Entities would have to come up with their own “center”. A person, or something else, who has in some way been marked or touched by all the other fears, but still embodies their main patron. Also, since the original Watcher’s Crown was still present in the main ritual with the Panopticon being another center of power, I think the Final Ritual would still be based on the original ritual attempt, or at least take some ideas from it. The whole thing would probably vary based on who does it, but those are the elements that I think are important. So here’s my ideas of what that might look like for the other Entities.

The Buried’s ritual was the Sunken Sky, and they basically just threw a whole town into a pit. Gertrude’s idea to counteract it by throwing in someone touched by void could actually be used to enhance the power of the ritual, I think. Instead of just the Vast, the person thrown in could be marked by every fear, and would have a role in the new world as the center of power. The new world would be completely underground, with maybe only Vast domains in the sky above, and the center of power would stay in a chamber at the center of the Earth, roots reaching out to pockets of space where other domains exist and drawing in sustenance. The Center might even be a good name for the role, evoking the image of them being surrounded and crushed.

The Corruption didn’t really have a ritual, but it’s implied that it was trying to crawl through a door made by Prentiss’ worms. Maybe it would instead crawl in through a person? The focus of power, marked as usual by every fear, would spend some time festering in rot and preparing themselves to be a perfect home for the Corruption, until it bursts out of them. The new world would probably be covered in bugs and mold and other agents of the Corruption that go around feeding on the fear harvested by the others. The focus of power could maybe function a bit like a Hive, connected to every being of Filth that lives in and feeds them.

The Dark attempted to make a world of the Extinguished Sun, using a literal dark sun they made in space. I think it would be present in the new world, but probably not the main focus of power since it doesn’t have a way to include all the others. This one would probably be similar to the Eye’s, with someone marked by all the fears performing a simple ritual to bring darkness and fear to the world. Instead of the sky being covered in eyes, there would be no light anywhere except for the domains, where people need to see what they’re afraid of. The world might even change to be like the empty darkness of space, with the dark sun and the focus in the center and the domains orbiting around it. I think the focus of power would end up blind, maybe even performing the act as part of the ritual, and be able to sense and feed on fear without their sight.

The Desolation’s cult probably had the right idea making a Messiah for their version of the Scorched Earth. That is essentially what the Archivist was for the Eye, except they didn’t know that she had to be marked by all the fears. So, Agnes Montague would be the focus. It’s implied that the goal was to eventually destroy Agnes and release her power, since she prevented the ritual in canon by dying in a less destructive way. I think this would probably still happen in the main ritual, using the power of Desolation to destroy her body and release the power of all the fears. She would probably still rule the new world as a form of energy, like a massive flame that burns with the force of all the fear being fed to her. Like a flame, I think the world ruled by Desolation would burn out quickly. Sure, all the fears would be there for a while doing their thing, but Desolation would want to consume faster and faster and would likely run out of living beings fairly quickly, leaving them all to starve.

The End doesn’t need a ritual, since it eventually gets everything. I think it wouldn’t bother trying to bring in all the fears, but let’s say for the sake of argument that it wants more, and decides to kill its siblings. That would probably be the whole ritual, just ending everything in the world. It would feed for a little while as everything dies, then fade away like the rest of them. A world ruled by the End would be nothing, essentially, but it’s nature as an eldritch being means it would have to have something to feed on, so those two things don’t really work together. It would probably create a kind of Death God, marked by all the fears, to bring them all together only to be killed. Which is probably why it doesn’t want a ritual at all, it wouldn’t be very interesting.

The Eye, of course, had the Watcher’s Crown, brought by the Archivist who was marked by all 14, and drinking in fear from all the others through its Panopticon. It’s possible that since the Archivist wasn’t originally the one in the center watching everything, there could be more than one center of power. But he also said that the Eye wanted him there in the Panopticon, so I think it’s natural for the one who is marked to also end up in the center.

The Flesh had The Last Feast, a ritual where they just threw a bunch of meat in a pit. Not very creative, but I think the pit was supposed to represent a mouth. Maybe it was supposed to end with the Flesh consuming it all and coming into power, but it never got to finish since Gertrude blew it up. In order to work and bring together all the fears, the pit would have to consume some element of all of them. The simplest way to do this would probably be to prepare sacrifices that have been marked by all the fears; throw in someone that was consumed by bugs, someone who fell off a building, someone who anticipated their death their whole life, etc. The pit itself would probably be the focus in the new world, perhaps coming into being as some sort of creature. Or else the ritual could be altered and a person or animal consumes the flesh marked by fear, and that one would be the ruler of the new world. Whatever form it takes, the being of flesh would be fed fear in its physical form, consuming until it all runs out.

The Hunt was never able to complete the Everchase, because they didn’t want the hunt to end. Simply catching its prey probably wouldn’t be enough power for the ritual anyway, so the hunt would have to involve all the fears and coalesce into some great event that changes the world, then starts the chase all over again in the new world. The focus of power could be someone who is hunted by some aspect of each fear, then in turn hunts them. Maybe it takes the form of an arena of some kind, where 14 avatars are thrown in to kill each other, with the goal of the Hunter winning the fight. It would probably take a few tries, but the victor of the hunt would get to continue their chase once every fear enters the world. They could have their pick of victims, much like Daisy who traveled between domains, killing whoever she pleased.

The Lonely ritual involved isolating a bunch of people, with the goal of eventually cutting them off completely and leaving them the stew in their own fear. I think whoever the focus of power is, they would have to be alone right from the beginning of the ritual. They would go around and face each of the fears, being marked by them, all without any human contact except the avatars who hurt them. This would be difficult to orchestrate unless the person was willing, but their isolation would bring the fears together with the Lonely in charge. They would rule over the new world by themselves, of course, never interacting directly with any of their victims but still benefiting from their fear. The world itself would probably be very spread out, with most of the people being fed on having to face their fears alone, except for where being around others is involved in their fear.

The Slaughter ritual began and ended with World War II, called the Risen War. It’s implied that it failed because the ship it took place on wasn’t blown up in the end, but I think people deciding to end the war had something to do with it as well. I think the ritual could only succeed if the people involved fully commit to the fighting, and of course if it is able to involve the other fears as well. This would probably involve something similar to my idea for the Hunt; a massive fight involving avatars of all 14 fears. The Hunt’s fighting would play out a little differently, with the main focus being tracking down and killing their prey, but the Slaughter’s ritual would just be an all out bloodbath. The focus of the ritual, which will be called the Soldier, would have to fight and be injured by all 14 fears, but emerge victorious and bring them all into the world. The Soldier would have the power to kill anyone with ease, although the domains would probably bring back its victims to be killed over and over again. The new world could even be structured like a war, with the Soldier leading the fight against anyone and everyone, fears fighting amongst themselves for more power.

The Spiral attempted to create a world that didn’t make sense in the Great Twisting. I think the construction itself could have included all the other fears, like 14 monuments to each of them. I can’t imagine marking a single person to be very powerful, because to be closely affiliated with the Spiral, their mind would be changed in a way that would probably make them process fear differently. It could work, but I think focusing the power on the ritual itself would be more effective. Maybe the sacrifices they brought could be avatars of other fears, each thrown into the Distortion’s hallways and absorbed into its being. The ruler of the new world would be something not quite a person, not quite a structure. Victims would be thrown around different domains to disorient them, and the laws of physics probably wouldn’t work right. Imagine a scary funhouse with different fears there to scare you, and that’s probably what being in the fearpocalypse ruled by the Spiral is like.

The Stranger would have a bigger version of the Unknowing. The original idea had only a dancer, a choir, and a powerful skin artifact. I think if they wanted to include all the fears, the performance would have to be expanded to include something that represents all of them. They could have a puppet act for the Web, some kind of shooting display for the Slaughter, maybe a gross animal show for the Flesh. I’m imagining a whole carnival of fear, maybe one that goes on for a few days to build up power. Since the dancer is the center of power for that ritual, I think she would have to be the one marked by all the fears as well. Or maybe just their presence in the ritual would be enough, I don’t know. The final result, instead of having an eye watching everything, maybe would have the Dancer in charge, drawing power from every being that feeds on fear.

The Vast tried to throw a bunch of people in a submarine, but even Fairchild said that was probably not well thought out. I usually have this one mirror the Buried though, so let's say the ritual is to throw someone marked by the fears into some kind of vast space. It could be the ocean, the sky, space, whatever is scariest for that person. The new world would probably be very open and not have a lot of ground, but enough for other fear domains to exist.

Finally, the Web also avoids a ritual because it likes the world how it is, but that's not entirely true based on what we learn by the end of the series. It has a hand in completing the Eye's ritual not because it wants all the fears in this world, but because it wants all the fears bound together so it can escape into another world. It knows that in a world with the fears, at least the way the Eye designed it, life and fear is finite, so it wants somewhere that it can always survive. I think if it took the time to plan, it could figure out a ritual that would bring the fears and make it a renewable source of energy. It must be possible, Annabelle even said that she thought the Eye was a bit simple, which makes me wonder why the Web wouldn't just do the ritual itself. It was likely missing some information, or it just wasn't in it's nature to take over like that. But for the sake of this argument, let's say the Web did figure out how to bring the fears into this world and not run out of people. Maybe just let them age and have babies. They would need someone marked by the fears, and would probably be able to do it the fastest if it decided to directly interfere. I could see the ritual itself involving weaving a sort of web, like connecting the strands of consequences together. The focus of power, the Weaver in charge, could pull the strands of the world and keep things running smoothly and efficiently, so that no one goes hungry.

[voidsentprinces]

FGO is a mythological fanfic clusterfuck...

Prologue: You are an unassuming man or madam who briefly meets their classmate, Mash. And angers their tsundere superior in Chaldea. An organization made to stop the end of the world. The one guy standing around and dressed like “I am an evil villain”. Turns on Chaldea and all the people suppose to go get blown up before they can embark on their first mission. This explosion sends you flying into Fuyuki with your Tsundere Superior and your classmate turned servant. You are the worst choice to save humanity from the end of the world. But now the only option.

Storyline of Fuyuki: Ah, good to be back in OG Fuyuki. Except everything is one fire, most of humanity is dead, and you have to escort a tsundere superior around while your classmate learns how to be a servant. Everyone is evil except Cu Chulainn who is a wizard and is your drunk uncle here to impart wisdom and snark.

Storyline of Orleans: Jeanne D’Arc comes back as Darth Vader leading an army of other historical villains including Elisabeth Báthory , Dracula, Marie Antonette’s Executioner, the Phantom of the Opera, and Darth Lancelot. You team up with Jedi Master Jeanna D’Arc as well as a younger for some reason dragonkin version of Elisabeth Báthory (just to make thing confusing), Marie Antionette, Motherfuckin’ Mozart, Kiyohime and Sigfried to stop her. Also dragons are everywhere. Darth D’Arc exists because Bluebeard wanted to give her catharsis.

Storyline of Septem: What if Emperor Nero wasn’t completely off his fucking rocker, came back as a fashionable wife, and has to fight previous Roman Emperors to get back Rome? Including a rotund Julius Caesar, an incoherent batshit Caligula, a young Alexander the Great and his hapless future successor who is an adult and just as confused as you, and Romulus. Whose death spawns Attilla the Hun as a space dressed waifu. And just to make their roles in history null and void. You enlist the help of Boudica and Spartcus to aid you. Also Jing Ke and mecha Lu Bu are there too.

Storyline of Okeanos: What if Francis Drake was a big tiddie pirate wife. Alright what if previously to your arrival she 1 v 1′d Poseidon and WON!? Alright now what if after getting her help, you fought Eric Bloodaxe, got trolled by Euryale to re-enact the myth of the Minotaur. But then the Minotaur turned out to be a good boi and joined you. Also Artemis carrying around Orion, Atlanta and David, King of Israel is there. So is Jason and some of the Argonauts but like just Medea and Heracles. Replacing the other Argonauts with Hektor from the Trojan War. Also you have to punch Blackbeard with Mary Read and Anne Bonny.

Story of London: There’s fog every where. You have to join forces with Traitor Knight, Mordred, Doctor Jeckyll, a kid Hans Christian, and Frakenstein’s Bride. Contending with Jack the Ripper, Mephistopheles, Hoienheim, Mecha Babbage, a bunch of Mannequins, and then the Mist of London just sort of summoned Nicoli Tesla and Darth Arthur to fight too. At the very end Tamamo no Mae and Sakata Kintoki arrive just to exit stage left immediately.

Story of E Pluribus Unum: Medb wants to fuck Darth Cu Chulainn but he’s not that interested. So she decides to fuck up Wild West America instead. Making Beowulf the Warden of Alcatrez, Fergus mac Roich the Heavy, and then kidnaps Rama’s Wife before mortally wounding him. Also she has to fight against Lion Headed Mecha Edison, Helena Blavatsky. The two of which are using  Karna, Son of the Sun as the Bouncer. You convince a germ manic Florence Nightingale to aid you, pick up a wounded Rama on the way, as well as Robin Hood, Billy the Kid, young  Elisabeth Báthory again, Geronomo and Nero who is trying to be an actress to fight them all. Also Scathach, Fionn Mac Cumhill and Diarmid are there too. But they just do things at random and Li Shuwen randomly shows up too.

Story of Camelot: What if the entire round table was just a bunch of psychopathic zealots who worthship the ground Arthur walked upon. And then got into a fight with Ozymandius and Nitrocris for the lulls while launching a magical tactical nuclear strike on the entirety of Crusader State Middle East. All the legends of Hassan is trying to stop them but Arash is there too. Tawara Tota is also there to distribute a shit ton of rice. Nothing you do here really matters. But Bedivere shows up to aid in the lackluster ending. Xuanzang Sanzang is also there.

Story of Babylonia: Not Enkidu answers to giant Medusa who is pretending to be Tiamat. Bringing about a massive army of demons and monsters to wipe out humanity in prehistoric Mesopotomia. Leonidas, Ushiwakamaru, and Benkai are doing their best to fight off the hordes. After three Demons go out like bosses before your arrival. Also young Medusa and Merlin are there cause why not? After befriending a woman in a tiger kigarumi, Quetzacoltal, Ishtar, and Ereshikigal. You find out defeating giant Medusa was a ploy to summon the real Tiamat and shit goes down. You eventually drop Tiamat into the Underworld where the First Hassan dewings her after which Ishtar, Ereshikigal, and Gilgamesh work together to defeat her. Ushiwakamaru is captured and comes back as an evil version of herself but with the aid Nekai and Quetzacoltal going out in a blaze of glory you defeat them all.

Story of Saloman: Every servant shows up to fight off Soloman and his Demons, turns out Soloman is the daemon Goetia possessing the corpse of Soloman. And the true Soloman is actually your acting director and base medical doctor. After your classmate sacrifices herself you defeat Goetia and Soloman decides he’s good for now and peaces out taking Goetia down with him and restoring humanity. Bringing your classmate back to life in the process.

But wait THERES MORE! The remaining Demons who survive the Goetia fight decide they’re mad they lost. So create some singularities to air out their grievances. Trapping you and the staff of Chaldea in a time space continuum until you hunt down and take them all out.

Story of Shinjuku: The League of Evil comprising of James Moriarty, Yan Qing, Darth Emiya, the Headless Horseman riding the Spirit of Vengeful Wolves, and the Phantom of the Opera take over 1990s Shinjuku for the fun of it. You have to enlist of the aid of James Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes, Darth Jeanne D’Arc, Darth Arthur Pendragon, and Edmond Dantes. Turns out Moriarty that was your ally was actually the true Moriarty and the one leading the League of Evil was the Demon you’re looking for. Summoning the power of all Fictional Detectives you defeat Moriarty. I shit you not.

Story of Agartha: Welcome to the Center of the Earth. Where the vast open plains are ruled by Darth Francis Drake, Penthesilea, and Wu Zetian. You are joined by Astolfo who takes the form of a cute anime girl but retains his gender, Chevalier d’Eon, and a young Fergus. Fighting the Queens and their respective empires with the aid of...sigh, Christopher Columbus. Surprising no one, Columbus turns out to be the true villain and with the aid of Shahrazad and a Demon almost Colony drops the Center of the Earth on top of the actual Earth, Age of Ultron style. But the power of friendship you win. Also Godzilla Heracles is running around.

Story of Shimosa: What if just after or before the Warring States period: Ashiya Doman, Yagyu Munenori, Minamoto no Raiko, Tomoe Gozen, Mochizuki Chiyome, and Shuten Doji showed up to fuck everything up? Including corrupting Hozoin Inshun just to be absolutely asinine? You get the power of a time traveling woman using the legend of Miyamoto Musashi to get into shenanigans. Also obtaining the aid of Fuma Kotaro and occasionally a robotic mecha Kato Danzo. The Demon sort of just appears backing Ashiya Doman.

Story of Salem: The Salem Witch trials but if done like the VVitch in a horror film manner. Not so much about the battles but about the atmosphere. As you, your classmate, Robin Hood, Charles Henri-Sanson, Nezha, Mata Hari, and the witch, Cirice posing as Medea for a few seconds there. Have to pose as a traveling circus of storytellers and entertainers. While the suspicions of the towns people grow darker. Ghouls and spirits begin to haunt the night. There are executions and the Demon turns out to be the one you least expect. The soul of a child is used to open up a gateway for an Outer God and shit goes down.

But wait there is even MORE!

Story of Prologue: You’ve hunted down and killed the demons. And now the world is back to normal. When a new force arrives to take over Chaldea in your stead. One of those new arrivals brings along an army to slaughter Chaldea and activates the end of the world by way of Alien Invasion. You get out of there in the nick of time via a magical meguffin mobile and now have to track down Lostbelts. Each one controlled by a King, a Master who was your former colleague who previously got blown up and now is now revived by the Aliens, and their servant as well. Good fucking luck chuck!

Story of Anatasia: Russia is fucked. Russia is SO FUCKED! That its been stuck in an Ice Age since the reign of Ivan the Terrible. The Russians are forced to use a magic to turn them into anthropamorphic beings and have been surviving barely due to the machanations of Saleri, Ivan the Terrible, Anastasia Romonov, the Master of this Lostbelt, and a particularly sadistic fox woman. With barely anything to go on and running out of fuel. You have to venture out into the eternal Russian Blizzard to get the aid of one of the locals, Avicebron and Darth Atlanta to defeat Anatasia, Ivan, and tear down their cosmic eldritch tree to restore humanity in that sector.

Story of Gotterdammerung: You made it out of Russia and into the Netherlands, where it seems on the cusp of Ragnarok. You are immediately facerolled by Sigurd being possessed by Sutr. Who is under the command of a master there. Enlisting the aid of Napoleon Bonaparte you fight back against Frost Giants, Valkyries, and Sigurd. Also enlisting the aid of Brynhildr to do so. You also have to contend with a girl made up of several goddesses and Scatach taking on the manter of Skadi.

Story of S I N: Out of the frying pan and into the China if it never left or evolved beyond the Qin Dynasty. Except for the Emperor who has become a giant space base, artifical intelligence reaching immortality. After having close calls with mecha centaur Xiang Yu, Qin Langyu, an older Li Shuwen,  Lanling Wang. The Emperor sees you teaching peasants how to read and coloney drops a piece of himself on the village. You send Spartacus to punch to meteor...I shit you not. And with the aid of Mordred, Jing Ke, Red Hare, and Chen Gong. You impress Emperor Qin to come out of his shell and reveal his butterfly god form. Also the Master in this Lostbelt is actually a fucking vampire.

And that’s all I’ve gotten to so far.

[legionofpotatoes]

we decided to watch all story cutscenes from the new resident evil village videogame on a whim, since it’s not really our cup of tea gameplay-wise but seems to be this massive zeitgeist moment that made us morbidly curious. And I know how much everyone cares about my thoughts on things I know very little about, so. let’s get into it huh gamers. and yeah spoilers?

for context, I’ve only played resident evil 4 and a small portion of 5. I also read the wikipedia entry for 7’s plot recently. all this to say I was only vaguely aware of how tonally wacky the series was going in

I also completely gave up following the plot of the mutagens’ soap opera, so that paid off in spades here as you might imagine

anyway so that baby in the intro. that baby’s head is just massive. humongous toddlerdome. when ethan finds the baby’s head in a jar later on. there is no way that head would fit into that jar. bad game design. no not even game design. basic stuff. one hundred years in prison for jar modeler

if I see a single functional hetero marriage in video games I will cry tears of joy. I understand their misery is kind of The Point irt them badly working through the hillbilly romp trauma but like. sheesh. at least set that up as an emotional story goal the plot will help resolve. but nope they start off miserable and it goes nowhere

I know I know the mia thing has a huge wrinkle in it but like. not really in terms of dramatic function?? set up a happy end to the re7 nightmare (miranda can keep up appearances for all she cares) and then take that all away from angry griffin mcelroy for manpain. it will still absolutely work to set up the dramatic forward momentum. why throw in this cliche Hollywood Tension in their marriage if you’re not going to address it oh maybe because it’s normalized as automatically interesting because nuclear families are a self-propagating pit of a very narrow chance at emotional happiness relying on social stigma to preserve their empty function oops my baggage slipped in yikes abort mission

I called him griffin mcelroy because I saw his face on twitter and. yeah. I will continue to do this occasionally. my house my rules

... fuck the reason I’m hung up on this is specifically because the rest of the game is so tonally dexterous (which is a shining point to me! more on that later!), and yet they felt weirdly compelled to create the aesthetic trapping of a family-at-odds trope without following it through too well. a sign of both the good and the bad stuff to come

but listen the real reason why I wanted to talk about any of this is to nitpick the fascinating backwards-engineered nucleus of the entire thing; in that this game essentially creates a melting pot of just SO many disparate horror tropes and then makes a no-holds-barred unhinged effort at weaving thick lore to piece them all together. it is truly a sight to behold. like straight up you got your backwoods fright night situation, your gothic castle vampires, your rural-industrial werewolves, and don’t forget your bloated swamp monsters over there, with then a hard left turn into robotic body horror, and the entire ass subgenre of Creepy Doll writ large, and the bloodborne tentacle monsters, and a hellboy angel bossfight, which rides on the coattails of a mech-on-mech pacific rim bonanza, and just jesus henry christ slow down

almost all of these are textural hijack jobs that don’t really get into the metaphor plain of any of those settings but the game sort-of makes an argument that the texture IS the point and revels in it. It is kind of admirable almost. The same reason why the intro felt boxed in and unmotivated is also why the rest of the game just blasts off of its hinges to the point of complete and self-indulgent tonal abandon. I kinda loved that about it. lady dimitrescu made sure to hold her hat down as she bent forward in mahogany doorways and then suddenly she’s a giant gore dragon and you settle in your temp role as dark souls man with Gun to take her ass down. Excellent??

this rhino rampage impulse to gobble up every horror aesthetic known to man comes to head when the game wrestles with its FPS trappings in what is the most hilarious solution in creating visceral player damage moments. Since most cinematics and the entire game is in first person, that leaves precious little real estate for the devs to work with if they really want to sell griffin’s physical crucible. To wit. This dude’s forearms. Specifically just the forearms. They are MASSACRED throughout the story. The poor man lives out the silent hill dimension of a hand model. by the end cutscene he looks like a neatly dressed desk clerk who had decided to stick both his grabbers into garbage disposal grinders just a few hours prior. like in addition to everything else it manages to rope in that tinge of slapstick violence into its general grievous genre collection except this time it IS for a lack of trying! truly incredible

but wait his miracle clawbacks from everything his poor paws go through are retroactively explained away, yes, but far too vaguely and far too late to console me as I sat and watched everyone’s favorite baby brother reattach an entirely severed hand to his wrist stump by just. placing it on there. and giving it a lil twist ‘n pop terminator-style. and then willing his fingers back into motion right in front of my bulging eyes. this game just does not care. it does not give a shit. and boy howdy will it work to make that into one of its strongest suits

cause generally speaking resident evil was THE premiere vanilla zombie content destinaysh for like a decade, right? and as the rest of the world and mainstream media started encroaching and bloodying its blue ocean it went and just exploded in every single conceivable horror trope direction like a smilodon on catnip. truly, genuinely fascinating franchise moves

yeah the big vampire milf is hot. other news; grass... green. although I do love the implication that her closet is just identical white dresses on a rack. cartoon network-level queen shit

apropos of nothing I’ve said there’s also this hobo dante-devimaycry-magneto man, and I can’t believe this sentence makes sense. anyway he made that “boulder-punching asshole” joke referring to chris redfield and it was probably the only easter egg that really landed for me and boy did it land hard. I have not seen him punch the boulder in re5, mind. I had only heard about how funny it is from friends. and here this dude was, probably in the same exact mindset as me, trying to grapple with that insane mental image. with you on that ian mckellen, loud and clear

I advocate vehemently against the shallow pursuit of hyper photorealism in art direction but I gotta admit it works really in favor of immersive horror like this. the european village shacks especially gave me super unchill flashbacks to my rural countryside retreat in western georgia. I could smell the linoleum dude. not cool

faces are weird in this game. can’t place it. nice textures, good animation, but the modeling template is... uuh strange? and the hair. it has that clustered-flat-clumpy look that harkens to something very specific and unpleasant but I just don’t know what. sue me

griffin’s mental aptitude to take all this shit in stride and end every seemingly traumatizing bossfight involving some fucking eldritch being yet unseen through mortal eyes by essentially throwing out an MCU quip is just. What the fuck dude? I mean that was funny how you casually yelled the f-word at a god damn werewolf that you considered a fairy tale an hour ago but are you like, all right?? it was swinging a sledgehammer the size of a bus at you, ethan

oh oh the vampires are afraid of cold and your last name is winters. I get it haha

Pro Gamer Nitpick: boss fights seemed a bit unnecessarily long?? idk why the youtuber we picked decided the ENTIRE propeller man fight counted towards the vital story scenes he was stitching together, but man mr big daddy lite there really had some get up and go huh??

why are they saying dimitrescu.. like that. is it really how you say that word or is the english language relapsing into its fetish for ending every single word with a consonant at all costs

I’m not saying it’s a dramatic miss of a twist in context of all that’s going on, but the “you died in the last game actually and have been DC’s clayface ever since” revelation is low-key. it’s. it’s just funny to me, I dont know what to say. century-old god-witch fails her evil plan after she mistakenly removes heart from what was definitely NOT just some white guy with eight fingers after all

chris realizing he’s about to become the player character and immediately swapping out his tsundere trenchcoat for the muscletight sex haver sweater

the little bluetooth speaker-sized pipe bomb he taped to his knife was nuclear?? really??? I must have missed something because that is just too good. I buy it though I totally buy it. chris just got them fun-sized nukes in his car trunk for, you guessed it, Situations

anyway this is all for now just wanted to briefly touch on how unexpectedly funny and tonally irreverent this seemingly serious game turned out to be. did not articulate any cathartic story beats whatsoever but my god it had fun connecting those plot points. he just fucking put his severed hand back on his stump and it Just Worked todd howard get in here

[warrioreowynofrohan]

On the Easterlings in The Silmarillion

I’m aware that this is a very fraught topic and I’m aware that the portrayal of the Easterlings was influenced by racism. This post is going to focus on in-universe issues rather than out-of-universe ones.

The motivations of the Easterlings[1] who serve Angband in The Silmarillion remain very undefined. Why would people who were well away from the war choose to join it on Morgoth’s side? Why, once there and familiar with what they were serving - Angband isn’t pleasant - would they fight a hopeless war against the Valar in the War of Wrath? Why would additional Men - who didn’t show up when Morgoth had virtually full control of Beleriand - enter Beleriand during the War of Wrath to fight a losing war against powers they can’t even comprehend?

In terms of the men who turned traitor at the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, it’s hard not to read something into the fact that Bór’s people, who remained loyal, were part of Maedhros’ forces, while Uldor’s people, who turned coats and fought for Morgoth, were part of Caranthir’s forces. One of the few canon things that we know about Caranthir, aside from him having a sharp temper, is that he was a bigot towards non-Noldor. This is seen in him goading Angrod about his embassy to Thingol, and the way he speaks of Thingol (“running hither and thither with tales to this Dark Elf in his caves”); in him insulting the Finarfinians’ parentage and using it to cast aspersions on their loyalty (“let them not so swiftly forget that their father is a lord of the Noldor, though their mother be of other kin” - this is classic fifth-column stuff, made all the worse by the fact that Caranthir murdered Eärwen’s people); and in the statement that he not only thought the Dwarves were ugly, but said so (“he scarce concealed his scorn for the unloveliness of the Naugrim”). And the Easterlings in the Fëanorian armies wrere somewhere between “valued allies” and “cannon fodder” (the Silm states that a big part of the motivation for recruiting them was that Elves don’t reproduce fast enough to keep up with Morgoth’s orc supply). So...if Caranthir had mainly regarded the Easterlings as meat shields (it’s easy, from a less charitable perspective, to conclude he intended the same for Haleth’s people - and she was a perceptive woman and certainly noped out of there fast), and been less than discreet about those sentiments, it’s easy to see how they could decide this wasn’t the side that had the best outlook for them.

And when we get to the War of Wrath, we come to the fundamental trait that makes Men incomprehensible to the Valar, which is mortality. There are about 125 years between the Nirnaeth and the start of the War of Wrath. For Elves, that’s a fairly short time - a little longer than it takes for a child to geow from infancy to full physical maturity. For the Valar, it’s even shorter. For Men, it’s many generations. Imagine the time from the year 1900 until now. Then imagine that you had no internet, no history books, nothing to tell you about any way of life that had existed prior to that time, and that for all that time your culture has been in an environment comparable to a totalitarian state, filled with propaganda and with no access to any outside information. The Elves are terrifying, alien, eldritch beings with fiery eyes. The Edain are thralls or terrorists, and in league with these frightening beings. Service in Angband is mandatory for a large number of Men from teenage years onwards, and that place gets i to your head and twists it, so that your perspective on everything becomes still more Morgoth-tinged. And being in Hithlum doesn’t just mean that the Easterlings are on poor land with a bad climate, and oppressing the Hadorians - it also means that they’re enclosed by mountain ranges, and on the opposite side of Beleriand from the Blue Mountains, so that even if someone could concieve of wanting to run away and go back east, they’d have no way of doing so. Like the Tower of Cirith Ungol, the old Noldor fortresses like Barad Eithel have likely been transformed into guard towers for the purpose of keeping people in.

So when incomprehensibly powerful, terrifying beings from actoss the Sea attack, you try, hopelessly, to fight back.

And this is something the Valar can’t even imagine - why Eruhini would fight on the side of Morgoth, unless they were corrupted to the point of practically being orcs - because having generations that die and leave their knowledge behind so that Men living under Morgoth’s rule wouldn’t remember ever having had another kind of life, or other options, isn’t something that’s imaginable to the immortal mind.

And the Easterlings send to their kin beyond the Blue Mountains for help, because they see no other way to survive. And those kin hear The gods are attacking us, and will destroy us all! and they come, even with no idea of whether victory is possible, because what else can you do? (Come to think of it, from the Easterling perspective, the War of Wrath feels like cosmic horror.)

And the Valar don’t want to be fighting Eruhini, but this is a war, and the Valar fighting wars in which Elves and Men are involved is a little like a human trying to take sides in a conflict between two anthills - they’re simply too powerful to be able to be particularly discriminate. It’s why they didn’t go to war except as the very last resort.

And there’s a horrible irony in the distribution of mercy and of consequences. The Noldor had every possible moral advantage - they had knowledge, and guidance, and understanding of the Valar and of Eru and of the origins of the world, and a home where conflict and want were unknown, and yet the Fëanorian forces still turned to evil and slew their kin time and time again. Of all people in Middle-earth, they had the least excuse; in every way, they knew better. The Easterlings were never contacted or guided or protected by the Valar, had no knowledge of them, and by the War of Wrath had no knowledge of the Valar or the nature of the world beyond what Morgoth told them, no experience of the world beyond what he shaped. Though they were evil, they had much excuse for it; they were lost in darkness.

The Kinslayers recieved mercy. The Easterlings recieved annihilation.

*****

[1] ‘Easterlings’ is a stupid name, by the way. Hildórien is in the East. All Men, Edain and non-Edain alike, are from the East. All Elves are also originally from the East - Cuivienen is in the East, given that the Eldar had a long journey to get to Beleriand when they first travelled to Valinor. The Valar are from outside the world, which isn’t associated with any cardinal direction, so everyone to whom geographical terms of origin are applicable are from the East.

Also, I expect that most Men, and non-Edain Men in particular, would have legitimate positive associations with the East. It’s where the Sun comes from!

Also a little skeptical of the claims that the last east of Beleriand in the First Age are all full of darkness and evil. Logically, the parts of the world where Morgoth isn’t would be to some degree better than the part of the world where Morgoth’s home base is.

[sky-blue-memories]

Deemo II Teaser Analysis

So, new teaser! They gave us a lot more information to go off this time, so I’ve written up an analysis/speculation below. Feel free to mention any details I missed!

Before we get into it, just found out that tumblr has a ten image limit so can’t fit as much as I want to but you’ll see most of it in the trailer! Which you should definitely watch!

New Information

I’ll just get this out of the way for people who have already seen the teaser already, these are new details about the game that we have been given directly.

* Our protagonist’s name is Echo.

* The game takes place in a world that is constantly raining. Anyone who stays under the rain for too long turns to a flurry of white flower petals.

* People stay in the train station take refuge from the rain. When the grand piano in the station is played, is clears the skies and keeps the rain at bay.

* Echo and Deemo are searching for a way to stop the rain permanently

* The game will consist of investigation/exploration and rhythm gameplay

* Scenes are made with a combination of 2D and 3D, which aims for a hand-drawn, apocalyptic, fairy tale style and feeling

* If all goes smoothly, the game should release at the end of 2021.

Setting

Now, apart from the death rain, we are given other details about this new setting. Namely, its supposed creator, the Composer. They’re a pretty big deal, considering that there’s a statue in the train station dedicated to the guy and songs of old sang much of their praises.

As for the world itself, a friend suggested that this could be a dream world? Personally I’m against that since the world seems too big and hostile to be in a dream but at this point we know so little that anything could be possible, so I’m not ruling it out.

Also, I guess I’m putting this here, but there’s just a giant beast hanging around the station for god knows what reason and I’ve heard no one talking about it, in fiction or not. Are we just letting this one slide?? Is nobody questioning the humungous eldritch horror just outside the door

Characters

* Echo: I don’t have a lot of theories about Echo currently, other than she’s probably got That Tragic Backstory and something that could possibly make her special to the masked men (which I’ll go into later). I do love her design though and I’d do just about anything for her

* “Klaus”: As can be seen from this screenshot, Echo is sorting notes for someone named Klaus. Later in the teaser we see she finds some sheet music in this stack.

Either Klaus is a character we’ve yet to meet, or what I think is more likely, the name of the conductor/station master. What role he plays other than playing the piano to keep away the rain stands to be seen.

* Deemo: Kind of an aside but this guy is so short compared to Hans’ deemo that the thought of the two of them standing together is sending me. My current question is whether he existed already or Echo manifested him. Also, why is he harmless when the rain is lethal? And why does it seem like only he and the station master know how to play the goddamn piano

* The citizens: So currently we only have a handful of humanoid characters, while everyone else seems to be... blobs. It’s probably because its easier to draw these instead of an entire crowd (and they’re just cute) but if there is a lore reason I will probably lose it

(A background detail I didn’t notice in the last trailer is that a lot of these fellas have flowers sprouting from their heads from the rain!)

Also this one guy with the glasses is my everything right now

* Masked men: Alright we need to talk about this because surprisingly enough these guys aren’t in this teaser despite being so prevalent in the last. I hope they haven’t been fucking retconned out by rayark but honestly anything could happen

I mention these guys because they’re a part of the few humanoid characters we have, and for some reason, they’re hunting Echo? Which makes me suspect that she has some sort of special ability that makes her a target. Apart from the rain, they’re currently the only hostile force in the plot, which makes them worth highlighting. The guys in the above picture are also holding what could a photo of her, suggesting someone else has dispatched them to get her. Or they’re cops. Shitty fantasy cops look I have no idea

Gameplay

I don’t have much to say about the exploration part other than that it’ll probably play as it looks; run around asking questions, do a little minigame here and there. I would love to talk about the rhythm game part though

First off, this UI looks so darned good?? The choice of lighter colours and the rain theme contrasting the usual dull lilacs and greys of the overworld is. God it’s so good I could stare at this all fucking day

The actual gameplay looks different too, closer to reborn’s style than the original. It’s more noticeable in the teaser but the notes are travelling in a slight curve to the bar. I believe they mentioned changing tempos and camera changes too so watch out for that

Of the songs we can see there are Reverie (by satella), Dream Together (by INSPION), Fairy’s Crown, KUMO, and Kokoro Odori. Currently no returning artists yet but hopefully we’ll see some later.

I’m putting cutscenes in gameplay because I don’t know where else to put it, but we’ll be getting some CGI cutscenes apart from the animated ones. The style looks good so far so I don’t really mind

The screenshot above passes by in a flash so it’s a bit hazy. This raises so many questions for me though. What is this place? Why has the format changed? I honestly thought at first this was going to be a turned-based combat thing, but it’s probably more of the exploration part. That said, why did they change the format then? We’ll have to see.

Miscellaneous:

I recommend checking out the official website. There’s a series of snippets there called “The Boy in the Station”. I thought it was just flavour text at first but there actually seems to be some important information there. Also found out this is being developed by jengen, the folks who did reborn. They’re still hiring right now in fact.

That’s about all for now. If you don’t mind, I’ll be returning to my cave and screaming my brains out

[only-by-the-stars]

the annotated Tome of the Wild

Part five: Babes in the Wood!

- A half-moon the color of yellowed pages hung high in the sky above the figures on the ground OH LOOK IT’S THAT SAME DAMN MOON AGAIN. DESPITE THAT DAYS HAVE GONE BY AND IT DEFINITELY WOULDN’T LOOK THE SAME AT THIS POINT.

- “Idiot child. Perhaps I should've done something to make you more intelligent, instead of just transforming your body.” And here we have confirmation that it was Koume that changed her into this.

- Of course, the centerpiece of this scene is the reveal of what Midna’s been up to this whole time. In the show, the situation for Beatrice is similar: she thought that Adelaide just wanted a couple of kids to do household chores, and was fine with just turning them over to her in exchange for the item she needed to break her and her family’s curse. Until, of course, she grew to like them and have second thoughts, as Midna does here. Which of course lines up with how Midna initially thought to just use Link in TP to help herself and her people, until his actions and Zelda’s made her reconsider her disdain for the people of the world of light. Here it’s her bond with Aryll and Link that makes her hesitate to hand them over: she really likes Aryll, and after a rough start with Link they’re now getting along, and she feels a lot of sympathy for his situation with Mipha. She doesn’t want to keep them from getting home even for a little while, and when she finds out about Koume’s true intentions she draws the line, as her moral code won’t let her hurt others for her own sake and she knows Zelda wouldn’t want her to hurt anyone on her behalf either. This conflict and growth are exactly why I had an easy time casting Midna in this role, and I loved being able to write her and develop the dynamics she has with Link and Aryll.

- “Only the voice of the shadow that lurks in the woods, the king of darkness that rules the night, concerns me...” King of Darkness is one of Ganon’s titles in the series.

- “There is only his way.” A line that will be echoed by the Beast himself much later.

- “Aryll, I know!” Link froze as soon as the words were out of his mouth. We’re at the point where Link is snapping at his beloved baby sister, showing just how stressed out he is right now. He was able to relax more when Midna was around, but now her betrayal is driving him further along that path to despair I’ve been mentioning. He immediately apologizes, to his credit, but he’s still starting to crack.

- “You are in grave peril, and your fate, your very lives depend on if you heed my words or not! The Beast stalks you, seeking your fall into his grasp... but you must not allow him to capture you, you must not give in to despair!” He’s not wrong! Listen to him!

- The shadow laughed, a long, low sound that seemed to ooze up from the deepest depths of the earth where eldritch creatures slumbered, forgotten by time and the gods alike. Calamity Ganon emerges from deep beneath Hyrule Castle.

- “You forget, do you not, that your daughter's safety depends upon keeping me happy?” The first hint of the deception that the Beast is working on Rhoam.

- Aryll is now calling her frog Alfonzo, after the engineer in Spirit Tracks.

- AND THEN THERE’S NAYRU AND KOTAKE. This was one of the most FUN things I got to play with. The episode this portion is an adaptation of is probably my favorite in the show, and I had an utter blast toying with expectations here just as the show did. Maybe even more! The show leads you to believe that the character Kotake replaces is the sinister and evil one, preying on the hapless young girl that Nayru is replacing, only to yank the rug out from under you and reveal that the girl is possessed and trying to eat the brothers.

now, Nayru is from Oracle of Ages. You meet her at the beginning, whereupon she quickly becomes possessed by the evil sorceress Veran. Kotake, meanwhile, is present as a villain in OOT and a linked Oracle game, and as a friendly shopkeeper in Majora’s Mask. We just saw the villainous version of her sister at the beginning of this chapter. So... is she evil too? If you’ve never seen the show, have played OOT and MM but not the Oracle games, you probably got taken in just like a first time viewer of the show is. Only to find out too late, as does Link, that Nayru is the people-eating one, and not Kotake, who is indeed her MM self and not evil.

- Nayru laughed too, a pleasant sound reminiscent of harp strings being played. Nayru gives Link the Harp of Ages in OOA.

- Aryll has switched the frog’s name to Dr. Calip, after the NPC in BOTW who gives you the Cursed Statue shrine quest.

- “It is thanks to you that I shall finally be free to roam the outside world, after all.” DANGER DANGER, the evil spirit wants to roam free and EAT MORE PEOPLE.

- Aryll spots the danger, but mistakes it for her desire to see Link end up with Mipha and no one else. Which we all agree with, of course, but it’s not the real reason she’s uncomfortable. Link, meanwhile, is oblivious to it, at least partially because he’s sinking deeper into despair and contemplating just letting Mipha go out of his intensifying self-hatred over what he’s done to her.

- Nayru's eager whisper broke into his thoughts. He glanced up and saw her eyes gleaming with a sort of hunger as she gazed across the room at him. DANGER DANGER, SHE WANTS TO DEVOUR YOU. Again, I choose my descriptive words very deliberately.

- Eerie purple light glowed around Nayru as she hovered in the air, and her face had been twisted into something that resembled a ReDead mask. Veran’s spirit form is indeed purple, and nobody who’s ever played OOT, MM, or WW can forget the ReDeads. my favorite monster I want them back dammit

- “Link?” Aryll pressed herself against his side and clutched at his arm. “There are a lot of skeletons in here...” Remember how Aryll was so excited about digging up a single skeleton back in Ikana? Not so fun anymore.

- In the show, the whole sequence of trying to avoid being eaten was creepy, but a bit more comedic too. I leaned fully into the horror that it truly would be here, not just because I wanted to write something scary, but also because I needed something that would traumatize Link enough to push him into the breakdown he has in the woods afterwards, setting the climax of the story in motion. His feelings of failure mirror what I headcanon he must’ve been going through just before he fell in Blatchery Plain as well, the despair he would’ve felt over being unable to prevent the fall of the kingdom, the deaths of his friends (especially Mipha, who he’s grieving the most), and knowing that he’s at his limit and about to die before he can get Zelda to safety. Which is another way that the appearance of that painting in the last chapter ties in.

- Aryll’s dream sequence! OH BOY. In the show, this is an entire episode, done in the style of 1930s animation, with musical numbers and everything. That doesn’t quite translate to prose, though, so I had to change and abridge it. More interestingly, though, there’s subtle hints in the show that the dream is not real, and is intended to lure Greg, the younger brother, into the clutches of the Beast. I decided to run with that. One of the hints in the show is that the gates you see seem to be made of ivory; in Greek myth, dreams pass through one of two gates, either horn or ivory. True dreams come through the gates of horn, while false ones pass through the gates of ivory. So naturally Aryll walks through gates of ivory to reach the tower.

The tower itself is the one located in the Cloud Tops in Minish Cap. Which, here, is ruled by Princess Hilda from Link Between Worlds, who has Aryll save her kingdom from the evil Yuga. This is all a HUGE hint that this is false, a trap. Because in ALBW, Hilda was conspiring with Yuga in a desperate bid to save Lorule. And who took over Yuga’s body as part of that plan? Ganon. BAM.

- And now the frog is being called Ezlo, after the talking cap in Minish Cap.

- Link is now so deeply in despair that the dekuwood is starting to grow around him, which is what motivates Aryll to make her deal with the Beast that brings everything to its eventual conclusion.

- A dark shape emerged from the curtain of snow; it was a small, plump man with a beard that covered the entire lower half of his face, rowing a rickety little boat. His eyebrows went up as he took in the sight of Midna lifting the unconscious Link into the air with her prehensile hair. “That is one strange fish you've caught there, missy...” This is the fisherman from Link’s Awakening.

- What Midna sees in the distance is the Great Deku Tree, but I wasn’t about to reveal that just yet.

and that does it for part five!

[ganymedesclock]

Who do you think is more unknowable and eldritch: The Radiance or The Pale King?

With respect, I’m about to hijack this question, but you’ve activated my trap card. (I will drop a follow-up post that is actually Hollow Knight meta, though, since you are asking for that)

To be a bit less flippant about it: I have a lot of emotions about unknowable and eldritch. Overwhelmingly they tangle together with my feelings on normal.

I don’t think that these are useful terms to use the way that we often use them.

Let’s take a bit of a history walk.

The concept of the eldritch is often conflated very closely with the concept of the lovecraftian horror- established, of course, by Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Lovecraft illustrated in lavish detail the idea of things that are literally unknowable- that to try and hold them in our mind, to try and make sense of them, will destroy us. And that these things will inevitably encroach, move closer into us, and we will end, we will be ended and destroyed because these things will come into our minds, into our lives, and tear them apart for the irreconcilability.

This is what a lovecraftian horror means: it is something that we cannot reconcile with ourselves in any way.

Here is the important, vital thing about Howard Phillips Lovecraft:

He was a horribly racist man.

This is vital.

Because here’s the thing that I resent about a lovecraftian horror: it is not horror. We hear about “incomprehensible eldritch beings” all the time in games and stories.

How do they act?

They are almost invariably hostile. They come after you. They’re here to destroy you.

This is not horror.

This is a reassurance.

Because we are put in the position of someone who destroys that incomprehensible being. We are definitely never put in a position where our lack of context hampers us. They are incomprehensible because they do not need to be comprehended. We don’t have to think about them. We don’t have to think about their feelings or ever try to understand because they don’t need to be understood. And, yet, we understand enough to say for sure that they are bad. They are bad, but we don’t understand how to talk to them. We don’t understand how they’re thinking. But we know they’re bad.

In this way, Lovecraft has designed a beautiful, perfect system of the world specifically for bigots. Because if you are bigoted, you are forced eventually to reconcile with the fact that your models of humanity are ignorant. That people, shockingly, remain people, no matter their background, spoken language, genetics, physiology, disability, or neurodivergence. That if I forced a white man from New York onto a deserted island with his only company being an aborigines man from Australia, without any spoken language between them and few experiences in common, unless one of them actively ended the situation with violence, they would come to understand each other, and have qualities in common.

Incomprehensible eldritch horror does not exist. It is rooted in a feigned weakness of the human mind, that was dreamed, in part, by a white bigot who was terrified of anything unlike him, and terrified especially that he would see ignorance and selfishness in the pedestal he created to elevate himself and others he thought of as worthy peers above all other kinds of human being.

Here is the reason this matters to me so much: I am not, in fact, an eldritch monster wearing skin. But we don’t have a lot of those running around. We do, however, have neurodivergent human beings. I’m one of them.

From an early age, I was told that my brain is strange. That I do not think like normal people. That my thinking is disordered. This seemed strange to me. My brain does not hurt. I am not filled with suffering. Some things are hard for me. But there are things hard for everyone.

But, I was told, many times, over and over again, my brain is not normal. I am not a normal human. I need to look at the normal humans, the real humans, and study them, and understand them, and become like them. Any time something seemed hard or frustrating it was proof I had to try harder to become a real human.

In a sense, I lived Lovecraft’s horror story. I was, from my own perspective, a lone mote of humanity cast adrift in an alien world, a world I could not understand, a world that was upsetting and strange and hurt me.

I was not, however, broken to pieces by it. Nor was I filled with hatred or repulsion for the strange creatures I saw. I observed and I came to understand. When they were happy, I wanted to be happy too. Being the only normal person was lonely. I envied the way they slipped sinuously through barriers that stalked me. I wondered if I, too, could have those features, could build approximations, could emulate them, could seem like them. Now that I have grown, I am praised by my alien peers, for how much like them I seem. That I am so good at speaking the way they expect me to speak. That I thrive in this environment.

Now, if you’re following, you may have taken pause at the fact that I call myself the normal one here. After all, I’m neurodivergent! Neurodivergent isn’t normal. Autistic people like me aren’t normal. People like you are normal!

That’s the kicker, though.

Normal is not real, and this, this is the inherent failure of cordoning off characters as incomprehensible.

Because every single character is normal. Everybody on the planet is normal.

Developmentally, psychologically, “normal” is a set of blinders we put on. Because when our early primordial ancestors walked into the same meadow they usually came to, they were beset by a maelstrom of sensory information. And they have only so much energy, so much effort to look and listen and smell and feel. They cannot see, in full excruciating detail, the same buttercup that has been there every day they have come to this meadow. They cannot ruminate deep on the color yellow, the shape of the petals, until it has hewn itself deep in their mind.

They cannot, because that patch of orange at the edge of the meadow was not there yesterday. And it is not in the same place as it was an hour ago.

Our brains recognize patterns. They do this to keep us safe and help us navigate the universe at all. In that sense, there is no holiness to normal. Normal is not ever guaranteed to be good for us. Normal is just the thing that our brain filters out, does not look very hard at unless we consciously fight that reflex. It is the background against which we contrast unknown. 

I am normal. My autism is normal. If I had been raised on some kind of colony of exclusively autistic people, and you showed me a neurotypical person, I would have laughed at them. What a silly weird bizarre person! Why are they STARING like that? Why don’t they shake or flap or rock when they’re happy? Are they afraid of emotions, so they lock ramrod straight like that? This poor soul, you know, I took them to the fabric store and they didn’t touch anything, didn’t feel all the lovely textures and patterns. Could you give this creature a bouquet? Do they know how to appreciate any of their senses? A pitiful beast! Someone teach them how to be normal!

Normal becomes a rub. It becomes a sticking point, however, because we chose to live together, and we made rules, and in these rules, we betrayed our hand, our sense of normal.

The truth is if I abandoned Howard Phillips Lovecraft on a deserted island with Cthulu, I really sincerely believe that he would get over his mind-breaking wretched horror. He would find, to his shock and revulsion, that perhaps the first time he looks upon this creature’s visage it hurts. But the tenth time, or twelfth time, or twentieth time, it is merely a face.

Normal is a structure assembled by our minds for convenience and we act as if it is a god, when in reality it is merely a tool and one we can slap off the table and send clattering to the floor as if it is a doll we no longer want to play with.

Because my entire life, I have been told that I have a monster’s brain, a disordered brain, a brain twisted in a curious shape that harms my ability to understand others.

In my life I have met and imagined countless people, countless creatures, some very wildly different from me in priorities and behavior.

I have never in my life met an incomprehensible creature. But I have met plenty of things that I thought were incomprehensible- until I spent any time with them at all.

I have followed and spoken to and heard the stories of schizophrenic people. They were, surprisingly, not monsters.

I work with babies. They are not monsters either.

I have never met an incomprehensible monster. And every time I think I may have, I have been wrong, and I have needed to try harder.

So, to me, to call something truly alien in a sense that we can’t know what’s going on in their head, I remember that “lovecraftian” carries the name of a racist, inextricably embedded in its etymology.