#Winners at War

[nora-durst]

watching winners at war with the boyfriend who has never seen any other season and knows minimal lore is so funny because he keeps being like “if boston rob is such a threat then why don’t they just band together to vote him out. if i were on that island i would simply vote boston rob out. rip to everyone on his tribe but i’m different” and i’m just like you don’t get it!!!!!

[reef-sys]

i miss themed seasons </3

[theriverbeyond]

both Harrow and Gideon dgaf to such an extreme degree that I sometimes forget how much of a bad time Ianthe was having for the entierty of Harrow the Ninth.... being forcemasc'd by Naberius' soul, ridiculed constantly for her inability to use the grafted arm they forced onto her, crying at night, experiencing being apart from her twin for basically the first time ever, her only peer was HARROW, the food was undoubtably terrible as were the old people, she had to psycologically grapple with the looming terror of the Ressurection Beast, whatever the fuck she saw that had her screaming in the River etc etc etc like my girl was going through it and the only reason why it isn't more obvious is because Harrow&Gideon are truly winning the idgaf war

[itsmetheabnormalone]

Leave it to the Tolkien adaptation to show a battle of the ages with literally no winning party.

the elves died and lost Eregion

the dwarves lost their king to the ring, with Durin losing (hopefully just) his friendship with Elrond (and not also his wife)

Adar has the ring for now, but he's losing his children - who are literally the one thing he's fighting for - either to death or to broken trust

even fucking Sauron isn't really going out of this (episode) as a satisfied winner, bc he still doesn't have the rings

[gammarads]

it's giving "starscream is drowning" "this ain't about him"

[sillygoofyart]

soul art because he won the fandom war polls

(technically the soul eclectic won but shh)

also @muckablucka you wanted to see this right

[ddeck]

he is losing in a poll against a wizard

[bikananjarrus]

lucky cassian and r2 have two options each!

(this was inspired by my rewatch of kenobi and seeing tala w ned-b. i didn’t include them bc we don’t get a lot of them, but i just love people and their droids <3)

[nora-durst]

we just watched the first episode, bf stans yul (nerd recognizes nerd), hates tyson (who i fully forgot was a winner lmfao), and has described adam as “the kid in your class that you don’t want to be paired with for a group project” abdjdfgjkdsghlk

[petrenocka]

I genuinely cannot get over how tragic layer 7 is, in the most classic literally sense of the word.

It begins by introducing people who were punished for trying to break free from their eternal doom, by becoming tortured perpetrators of their suffering and captivity. People made Cerbery of their own Hell.

It tells you of machines fighting machines at the behest of humanity that is no longer there to benefit or suffer from the war. Spending meaningless bloody existences in pointless if spectacular carnage because it the only thing there is to them.

It reaffirms that the only thing that awaits the machines as the violence escalate is them becoming absolete. Killing begets more killing and thus fighting is suicide.

The chorus yells: The purpose given to V1 by its makers is hollow, it will not achieve anything, it only ends in your obliteration. Even if for the sake of prolonging it's existence it only serves to end it.

The Layer of Violence crescendoes in an explosive fight against V1's natural prey. It does exactly to a tee what it was made for.

It is too late now, but Gabriel did escape God's purpose for him. V1 will likely never be rid of Humanity's.

[cinemagal]

Jack Lowden as Collins DUNKIRK (2017)

[ominouspuff]

just wanna say your art is PHENOMENAL! omfg your Commander Fox art has me screaming with how badass it is!

There’ll be no living with him now

Thank you so much!! This is sweet of you to reach out to say; I’m glad you’re enjoying!!

[boydadbuck]

evan buckley I need you to be so fucking for real rn

[setzeri]

Christmas is nearing in WWII era Finland and these Lotta Svärd volunteers have to spend the holidays on the field. Each one has asked for your help with the upcoming night shift on Christmas Eve

[blasphemousclaw]

Let’s talk about Mt. Gelmir

Mt. Gelmir is one of my favorite locations in the game because of its striking environmental storytelling… the minute you start exploring the slopes of the volcano, you can just FEEL that something awful happened here. The imagery is so potent that I wanted to go through every detail of the region and explore how it supports and expands the story we’re told through dialogue and text. Let’s start with the text on the Mt. Gelmir sword monument:

“The Assault on Volcano Manor

The squalid, the sick, the blasphemous;

A wretched, unending war with no glory”

This dismal description refers to Leyndell’s attack on Praetor Rykard’s forces at Volcano Manor. After the Shattering war broke out, Rykard declared his intention to take up arms against the Erdtree itself: this was not just treason, but blasphemy, marking him as “an enemy, never to be forgiven.” We can conclude that Rykard’s blasphemy was so unacceptable that Leyndell made it a priority to silence him as quickly as possible, sending an army straight to his doorstep. I believe it’s implied that Rykard had the Mt. Gelmir Minor Erdtree burned as his first act of blasphemy; we find the tree destroyed amidst a smoking ruin:

The assault on Volcano Manor, introduced to us by Gideon Ofnir as “the most appalling battle in the entirety of the Shattering,” was the site of some of the most horrific violence in the entire story. Traveling around Mt. Gelmir, we can observe the gruesome aftermath of the battle and the remnants of the armies continuing to struggle — some scattered groups of Leyndell soldiers remain, while the only troops left to Rykard are his marionettes and iron virgins, since his knights have long since deserted him after his hideous transformation. (Side note: I love the detail that Rykard uses marionettes and avionettes, which were “crafted to serve the sorcerers;” it further cements his identity as a sorcerer and his connection to his Liurnian heritage.) Despite having no real soldiers though, Rykard’s grim constructs seem to tear through the remaining soldiers of Leyndell with ease, which we can observe in real time:

The death toll of this conflict cannot be overstated — the slopes of Mt. Gelmir are literally piled high with bodies.

Within a pit of corpses, we can find the spirit of one of Rykard’s men, who says this:

“Lord Rykard… If this putrid field of death is what your blasphemy would bring, then I can no longer abide. No one can.”

These unspeakable horrors are enough to make Rykard’s followers question if the cost of resistance is too high a price. Leyndell’s armies are just as badly affected — stranded on the mountain with no hope of reinforcements, we can observe several soldiers feasting on the bodies of their fallen comrades:

These soldiers have long abandoned any hope of achieving glory, and are little more than mindless husks at this point. Furthermore, if we return to the sword monument, something you’ll notice as you make your way over is that there are several Leyndell soldiers who are affected by the frenzied flame. At the same time, the troll soldier guarding the door to the Manor is also affected by the frenzied flame:

The frenzied flame is affecting soldiers of both sides of the conflict here, which tells me it wasn’t being used as some kind of weapon, but that it took hold independently… I believe that the frenzied flame was embraced by the soldiers here due to the sheer hopelessness of those who have experienced this uniquely horrific battle. The ethos of the Three Fingers is essentially that the world is full of unendurable pain, so it must all be melted away so no one will suffer ever again: “the Greater Will made a mistake. Torment, despair, affliction... every sin, every curse. Every one, born of the mistake. […] Those who gave me grapes howled without words. Saying they wished they were never born. Become their lord. Take their torment, despair. Their affliction. Every sin, every curse. And melt it all away.” (Hyetta)

The soldiers who fought on Mt. Gelmir have experienced untold suffering, the very worst of humanity… it makes perfect sense that such people would be susceptible to the essence of the frenzied flame; to want to burn this tormented world to the ground.