#also smth smth fire is a symbol or whatever and stuff

[turkey-sandwich]

Ryuseitai sure loves putting fire in their mvs

[buggiethedrag0n]

HAIIIII my new reference sheet 4 any1 who wants 2 draw meee :333

i have way more outfits than just these 2 but i dont have the energy 2 draw that much lololol

the raccoon tail patterns that go infront of my chest are fake hair extensions btw :)) i have a lotta different ones

ANYWAYYYYYY the rest of mah info under the cut :33 !!!!!!!

Full name: Bugthing (you don’t get to know my last name 😁)

Aliases: Bug, Creature — Buggie (FRIENDS/FAMILY ONLY)

Species: Concept Dragon (Fire, Type 3) / Angel (Type 4) hybrid

Planet of Origination: The Concept Universe / ‘The Void’

Age: I’m not telling you that. (OOC: usually it depends on which universe i throw him it but i typically characterise him as my age. which makes him a minor.)

Height: 8’9”

Gender: Biologically female; identifies as transmasculine & xenogender

Pronouns: He/Him/His, Xey/Xem/Xeirs/ It/Its/Itself, They/Them/Theirs — Blood/Bleed/Bloodself, Gore/Gory/Goreself (FRIENDS/FAMILY ONLY)

Sexuality: Solian, fictosexual, fictoromantic (i use the term aroace in conversations tho, its easier :3)

S/O: None. Technically. Unless you count my F/Os (that being Galacta Knight, Holly/THK, Moonjumper, and Shamura)

Family: Parents, brother, a number of cousins (and technically that one fankid i made for me n holly named Moggie but. They’re not canon.)

I’m an artist and fanfic author, and Nebbie’s assistant as a newly ascended Creator entity!!!!

Buddies with uhhhh God :))) (or Jesus ig but her name is Yk here. I call her Nebulis/Nebs/Nebbie tho. Bc we’re friends :3) (he uses all prns btw)

Bc of my fun powers and rights as Nebbie’s assistant creator I get to travel to whatever universes I feel like. Both to make sure everything’s going well and nobody’s broken the space time continuum and also to hang with my favs.

I like to call myself a Nice Boy(TM) but thats only really to my friends/family (not including my brother because I fucking hate him). I can get REALLY mean when I’m upset/if i don’t like you. But yeah I’m usually pretty ok!! Not the best person out there but at least I’m not a bigot lol. SPEAKING OF BIGOTS a lot of my very outward “”””cringe”””” behaviour is from me just being comfy in my own skin and pissing ableists off On Purpose bc I find it funny (it is).

I’ve lived in the Concept Universe/Void my whole life, but I tend to wander off to various universes both for My Duty(TM) and also I Like The Characters. I was first given the opportunity to leave the Void when I was abt 8 I think? My good buddy/auntcle figure Xephyr asked me and my brother if we wanted to check out what ppl were doing down there (with Nebs’ and our parents’ permission ofc), and we agreed. I’ve never been normal since (that’s a good thing though).

I don’t USUALLY do fighting stuff (unless I’m in like a COTL variation universe or something) but when I do I usually just use fire. I might be a pyromaniac. Which is concerning because I have fire magic and can easily commit arson. Yeag :)

Hex codes

(Not including the bracelets or hair extensions)

Body/both fits or smth:

#0E0E0E — Horns / Burns / Burnt feathers / Fit 1 base

#0400B4 — Iris

#D80000 — Tail tip

#FFB7A7 — Blood / Blush

#F8D7CF — Scars / Wing webbing

#EBE6E6 — Freckles

#FAFAFA — Skin

#FFFFFF — Teeth / Talons / Septum piercing gems / Glasses lenses

#F7FBFF — Sclera

#F2F2F2 — Hair / Feathers (the ones that AREN’T scorched)

#F9DEBF — Halo star / Light magic things 2

#F3B16D — Halo / Light magic things 1

#000000 — Nose / Septum piercing / Fishnets (alt fit) / Glasses frame

Usual fit:

#0F0F0F — Belt base

#910000 — Fit accents

#C40000 — Belt accents

#BEBEBE— Belt buckle

#3A2222 — Socks (ignore the fact that this isn’t in the ref image plsss)

Alt fit:

#161616 — Shirt base

#2E2E2E — Shorts 1

#464646 — Shorts 2

#CCCCCC — Belt buckles

#DFDFDF — Belt 1 studs / Chains / Choker & cuff spikes

#F3F3F3 — Shirt pattern 1 (anarchy symbol)

#81FF5A — Shirt pattern 2

#FF5AEC — Shirt pattern 3

#FA0000 — Cuff / Choker

Funny Rainbow Checker Belt (gets its own section bc SO MANY COLOURS):

#D70000 (red)

#D76D00 (orange)

#D79200 (orange-yellow)

#D7C000 (yellow)

#65D700 (yellow-green)

#00D73E (green)

#00D7BD (teal)

#009ED7 (light blue)

#0034D7 (dark blue)

#5300D7 (purple)

#7200D7 (purple-magenta)

#B600D7 (magenta)

#D700B7 (pink)

#D70065 (pink-red)

Socks (again, its own section bc too many colours):

#FF6690 (pastel red)

#FF9997 (pastel red-orange)

#FFB881 (pastel orange)

#FDFFA7 (pastel yellow)

#84BCFF (pastel blue

#9C84FF (pastel purple)

#A210FF (magenta)

(istg if you draw any nsfw of me ill devour you)>🐜

~bugmod

[blackstarchanx3new]

0w0

Hallo! I was wondering, how did you learn to animate? What interested you in it? What do you use? Even if you don't have the attention span to do it often, I think it's really cool that you can.

I learned from YT animation tutorials. There's tons you can learn from.

I use Clip Studio Paint currently (The version that's better suited for animation I forget which one) and the one I made the Shadow and Dark animation with, but also use Adobe animate (Great for symbols/puppet stuff which I love)

Fire Alpaca used to be the one I used for the videos shown below and that was before they added more features from what I can tell?

Honestly you can animate with anything I just love having a real time audio timeline in Adobe and Clip.

I'm that weirdo who made these, so I've been at it for awhile now. I used to have the patience for longer stuff but my brain is fried now adays.

Learning how to Key Frame efficiently + Drawing good thumbnails/story boards to work off of would be my honest advice for beginners that NO ONE seems to think to mention.

Keyframe advice: ONLY. DRAW. WHAT. IS. IMPORTANT.

You can add in-betweens later don't just GO FOR IT. Keyframe the movement out FIRST THEN add in-betweens. Only major poses to get the movement across you can fill in the gaps later. This seems fucking obvious but uhhhhh. UHHHH. COMMON KNOWLEDGE IS ONLY COMMON IF IT'S MENTIONED TO HELL AND BACK???

Clean readable thumbnails help so much. I have a tendency to just draw scribbles...Don't do that. Lmfao. Moral is low as shit when you can't tell wtf you drew through or are trying to convey with the chicken scratch.

When you're an animator by yourself you are the Storyboarder, the Clean up artist, line artist and effects artist.

DO EM ALL WELL OR THE ANIMATION WILL SUFFER. 😭

Don't let the storyboards be shit it'll fuck the rest up TRUST ME.

Having audio you're willing to listen to on repeat for HOURS helps too.

I was interested in animation because I was a bored 12 year old with too much time on his hands and the need to DRAW. FOR HOURS.

Honestly tho i just love the fact it's smth that impresses people XD

Makes me feel powerful... I can literally draw whatever I want. Such an ability.

[ayzrules]

✶ 𝐇𝐗𝐇 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐒: 𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 & 𝐇𝐎𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐒, 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇 & 𝐃𝐀𝐌𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍   Long story short, I have been thinking about this for wayyyyy too long now and wanted to get some ~thoughts~ & analysis written down! This post is going to be...fairly long, lol. Apologies in advance :D

  Also, if you can’t see the last gif (the one for ‘holy’), click here. Tumblr keeps fucking up the image when i try to upload it :////

  This post is probably going to be about 2/3 yorknew & phantom troupe/kurapika focused, 1/3 chimera ants, maybe with some references to other arcs (including manga-only arcs) mixed in. so, ofc, tons of spoilers ahead! also, i realize that my blog theme is hard to read (and i’m p sure clicking ‘keep reading’ sends you to the og post itself), so i’m linking the post w/ full text copy/pasted in on my art backup side blog (which has a more legible font) here. 

✶ 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇   I’m sure absolutely nobody is surprised with me starting here - there is just. SO. MUCH. DEATH. in hxh. & right from the start, one thing I noticed that togashi really emphasized was the #4 and its connection to death. in japanese, chinese, and im p sure some other asian cultures the number 4 is pronounced like the word for death so it’s associated with death in general, and boy oh boy does the ‘deadly number 4′ thing show up E V E R Y W H E R E. we get to the hunter exam, and hisoka is applicant #44. kurapika is #404. i didn’t notice it at first, but this was so intentional holy shit. togashi is NOT SUBTLE.

  So pika & hisoka are, right off the bat, associated with death. okay. and then there are even more clues to drive the point home: hisoka is member #4 in the phantom troupe, kurapika’s birthday is april 4th (aka 4/4). 100% not a coincidence (!!). with hisoka, it’s pretty obvious why togashi’s throwing all this death 444444 stuff around - dude is a psycho murder pedo clown, literally gets off on killing people (and there’s also the fact that judas sits 4th from the left in the last supper painting, and he’s sort of the judas equivalent for the phantom troupe). with kurapika, though, it’s a bit more subtle and woven deeper into his characterization, which i LOVE. togashi puts the mans in blue & gold & white (traditionally ‘pure’ or ‘heavenly’ colors), makes him so fucking kind & so good-hearted.....when he’s not relentlessly pursuing his revenge, ofc. more on this in the next section, but pika = death. togashi has made that v v v clear.

  Backtracking a bit to hisoka, though, I also just wanted to point out the 4 is death symbolism in the fortunes too (GOD i love the fortunes): in one translation, he’s the false fourth moon, and in the og japanese (i think), he’s the false hare (4th in the lunar zodiac or w/e it’s called. i don’t know the japanese cultural influences here, but in the chinese legend that established the zodiac animals, they race across the heavenly river & the top 12 animals got zodiac slots. the hare finished 4th, so it’s #4 in the cycle). 

  And just as a final note, Tserriednich is the fourth prince of the kakin empire, and also another dude who has a hard-on for murder & other gory shit. again: togashi is not subtle with this, lmfao

✶ 𝐇𝐎𝐋𝐘, 𝐔𝐍𝐇𝐎𝐋𝐘   As probably everyone who’s gotten to yorknew knows, togashi is so 0 fucks given when he wants to be. I mean there’s the whole thing where he just. took New York and decided, Yorknew. LMFAO, but also, he made the main antag of that arc be named chrollo lucilfer, sit around in a ruined church, have a reversed cross coat, pale & dark-haired/dark-eyed, generally dressed in dark colors, very terrible murder guy. liiiike......chrollo x devil symbolism game is 1000/10 at this point lmaooo

  And i know absolutely nothing about christianity in general, but pt/kurapika & yorknew arc is just so full of christian imagery/symbolism! one thing that i L O O O O O O V E though is how togashi really blurs the traditional christian-coded good/evil, holy/damned boundaries.

  Back to kurapika: he wears gold and blue, his coloring is very stereotypically ‘angelic’, he’s precious and good and kind. his chains are all about ~judgment~ and ~healing~ - some of the chains are also in literal cross shapes, aren’t they? And the chain dagger in his own heart...the imagery is very startlingly similar to the immaculate heart of mary, where the swords stabbing thru the heart apparently represent seven sorrows. IDK much about this stuff other than the visual similarities; literally had to google ‘daggers through heart christianity?’ to even get the name of that thing LOL. anyway, at first, it seems like togashi establishes him as the ‘angel’, the ‘good’, the ‘holy’ in the angel/devil, good/evil, holy/damned dichotomy between him and chrollo.

  But that’s not the end of the story. his entire storyline is driven by a huuuuuuuge giant desire for vengeance, first of all, and then there’s the scarlet eyes, which canonically are seen as demonic/cursed/what have you (according to one of the movies or smth? where they show pika as a 10 y/o?), and then we also have red eyes in modern culture being associated w pretty much the same thing (vampires, anyone?). the fight scene with uvo has everything in b&w besides the blood on his face & his red eyes & the moon (<<< more fortune foreshadowing & symbolism, i love to see it), and there are tonssss of scenes where he has to suppress his rage. so all of that is obviously not very angelic of him i would say LOL. in fact, what i find super interesting is that the scarlet/red eyes (which are ‘demonic’) is actually the driving factor behind his super powerful nen abilities; this ties in so well with the fortunes & death associations imo! the fortunes call him the ‘death-bringer’ in one translation, or ‘half-angel, half-death’, so that’s one side of pika = red eyes = death, but there’s also the fact that emperor time is literally draining his life force. so pika = death for both himself and others namely the pt, question mark?

  Now for chrollo: togashi’s devil symbolism is EXTREMELY overt with him, but i love the subtler jesus references too. the church thing, obviously, and the st. peters cross which is cuz st peter respected jesus too much & didn’t think he was worthy to die in the same way as him (or something like that, i am the most atheist person in the world & hxh is literally my entire christian education pls) but is also used as an anti-christianity symbol these days. bandit’s secret looks like a bible, lbr, and mans has a cross tattoo.

  Other things beyond visuals - 12 spiders, 12 apostles; hisoka’s betrayal, where member #4 can be thought to correspond to judas sitting 4th from left at last supper. and this miiiiight be a bit of a stretch, but i think the meteor city being the place of origin may also play into the blurred line between angel/devil and holy/damned here; meteors are defined as space rocks that are in earth’s atmosphere, becoming incandescent in the process. meteorites are for the kinds that actually reach the ground. and idk, lucifer was cast out of heaven / sky too right? so i think there might be some subtle fallen angel imagery/symbolism playing into the pt as well

✶ 𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 (𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐊𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐒)   Last section yay! i don’t have as much to say about this, besides when i was making chimera ant arc edits & realized that there might have been some subtle gon/meruem parallels???

  So obviously, everyone knows that line killua says to gon - “you are light” - and then i was just remembering that meruem’s name means.... “light that illuminates all” (!!!!). maybe it’s a coincidence, but knowing togashi, i’m leaning towards nahhhh. there HAS TO be some kinda meaning there (!!).

  Going back to the events of the chimera ant arc....ooh boy. let’s see: gon is optimistic & hopeful even in the face of kite potentially being dead, killua says he’s light, they find kite & dude is fucked up, gon is pissed. gets all angry & ~dark~, especially during the palace invasion when he’s staring pitou down as she fixes up komugi. then the actual fight against pitou: more darkness, more anger, but through it all there’s still light, namely his jajanken being very orange & fiery lookin.....and that final sequence, where he puts all his possible nen he’d ever have into his ~final form~ or wahtever & turns into a male version of true form!bisky but dressed in a crop top & short-shorts (i am SCARRED, btw. s c a r r e d !). there’s just huuuge flashes of light as that’s going on, and it reminded me of supernovas or dying stars when i was thinking about it, where the star is like, collapsing under its own weight? & burning thru its own fuel, until there’s nothing left except a dwarf or black hole or what have you. one final, extremely deadly burst of light & energy before death.

  On the meruem side of things: born into a dark cave, exhibits a traditionally evil/cruel/wicked/whatever personality/traits so that has ppl associating him with darkness. then he gets to know komugi, starts to appreciate other aspects of humanity, seems like he could have actually turned into a decent person who doesn’t want to eat everyone - so that’s a ‘path to light’, maybe? - and then the extermination team yeets themselves into the palace, netero takes him out to bumfuck nowhere, they fight. netero’s fighting is just ALL light, from his giant ass golden 100-type guanyin bodhisattva to the poor man’s rose. again, there’s the sense of finality to it all, in a similar vein to dying stars: netero comes in determined to kill meruem no matter what, and we all know netero doesn’t flake. then we see netero get destroyed after the zero hand, and he triggers the rose, and everything is burning & on fire before the flames are put out and all turns dark again.

  But wait!!! pouf & youpi revive meruem and all he does is play gungi with komugi, even with the poison of the rose. he eventually dies, and the gungi pieces in that final shot of them together (i am BAWLING just thinking about it holy shit) has one that’s all white, one that’s a black ring and white inside. i assume all white is for komugi, who has never done ANYTHING wrong in her LIFE, so i like to think that the 2nd one is for meruem - born “into darkness”, literally & figuratively, but he turns something like ‘good’ by the end. it’s interesting how togashi has sort of gone for a bit of a subversion here: the hero going from light to darkness, and the main antag from darkness to light.

✶ 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐂𝐋𝐔𝐒𝐈𝐎𝐍   AahhhhHHHHHhhh so if you read all the way down here through my LONG rambles, tysm! i would LOVE LOVE LOVE to hear what other people think about all this, and i’ve FOR SURE missed tons and tons of stuff - chimera ants is just. SO MUCH. and i don’t know it as well as yorknew eeek.

  I’m not sure if i’m really ~knowledgeable~ in any other areas relating to hxh, so this might be the only one of these that i do, but i definitely think about some of this - esp all the religious symbolism & #4 stuff - a ton! so in the meantime, if it’s of any interest, i’m just going to shamelessly plug my hxh x religious beliefs/superstitions edit series :D lots of love to all!!!

[venusinmyrrh]

@shimmerge​ asked:

What are some ways you chose to honor or work with Jupiter if you do? I'm limited in my ability to do rituals and wanted to try to do smth for this Thursday since Jupiter is in my sign that day

Doing work on Thursday is a great idea, since that’s Jupiter’s day! Jupiter is the planet of expansion, prosperity, and abundance - many people think of Venus as the money planet, but Jupiter is actually the most ideal for bringing in a steady flow of ever-increasing cash. And while Mercury may be the perfect road-opener to create new opportunities, Jupiter is the one that will make sure those opportunities keep paying off.

Some basic stuff: Jupiter’s color is blue, its traditional number is 4, and its glyph looks like this. Some herbs associated with Jupiter that might be easy to find depending on where you live are dandelion, honeysuckle, and sage. Jupiterian stones are anything blue (especially sugilite and sapphire) so even if you have glass beads or fake stones, as long as they’re blue, go for it! No need for fancy rocks that cost a fortune or take up space.

Things to Do (under the cut)

Wear blue: Jupiter is known for his kingship, and what better way to honor the king than to wear his colors? If you don’t have any blue clothes, then blue nail polish, blue jewelry, or even blue lipstick can be a great way to carry his power around with you all day. For maximum effect, combine it with gold for wealth, green for money, or orange for opportunity (associated with Mercury!)

Light a blue or white candle: This is a pretty easy one as well, if you have access to both candles and fire. Carve something into it, rub it down with oil, roll it in herbs, whatever you like - or just sit gazing into the flames, the way humans have done for hundreds of thousands of years. (We are all part of something bigger than ourselves.)

Meditate: This would be a great thing to do while your candle is lit, especially if you don’t want to leave it unattended (which you should never do anyway unless it’s in a jar AND you’ve taken extra precautions!) Sit quietly somewhere you won’t be disturbed and visualize yourself having everything you want as if you already have it. What is your life like? What do you do each day? How does it make you feel? Now backtrack: visualize how you got there. See how one thing led to another which led to another, taking you all the way from where you are now to where you want to be. Feel proud of yourself! Allow yourself to be sure that things will happen just this way.

Draw a sigil: My sigil formula is symbol that reminds me what I’m trying to achieve + symbol of a thing that can help me achieve it. Trying to get more money? Doodle the glyph for Jupiter combined with a dollar sign until you come up with a design that looks nice, and there you are. Draw it in a notebook, tear it out, and hang it up. Carve it into a candle with a penknife or a paper clip. Draw it in black sharpie on something that is also black. Paint it with water on a window or a door. Draw it on an index card to put in your wallet (very appropriate for Jupiter!) Don’t like designing? Just use the symbol linked above - the important thing is that you’re making a mark with intention.

Write a petition: Write down what you want in the present tense, as if you already have it. “I am wealthy, with no financial worries for the future. I have more than enough money to buy clothes and go to restaurants. I fly first class when I travel, which I do often.” Get into detail! Be descriptive and passionate. Many people become so overwhelmed with emotion at this part that they start to cry, and that’s a good thing. When you’re finished, take the paper and burn it, bury it, throw it into running water, tear it up and throw it off a cliff, whatever. Just put it out into the universe and out of your mind, so it can do its work.

Make a vision board: Jupiter is a big, big thinker, so make something that depicts your long-term goals and your wildest dreams. It’s best to do this with your hands, as in a physical collage, but pinterest boards and tumblr aesthetics work too! The important thing is that you don’t limit yourself in your vision. Your goals are more realistic than you think.

Make big plans: You know that thing you’ve always said you were going to do? Commit to it now! Buy the guitar you’ve always been meaning to learn to play, make that big painting you’ve been thinking of for a while now, or call up your old college friend and tell them you’re planning on visiting next year. The first step is often the biggest and hardest one to take, so once that’s out of the way, the rest of the details will become a lot easier to sort out.

Do something generous: True kingship is stewardship. If there is something you have an abundance of, whether it’s time, knowledge, patience, or skill, consider giving some to a person who could use it, just to help them out. When we are generous with the world around us, we express our trust that the world will be generous with us in return.

Cook with butter or eat something deliciously fatty: Be generous with yourself too! Jupiter is not stingy with the good stuff, so don’t hold out in the name of discipline. Some great foods to incorporate would be fruit, cheese, nuts, meats, bread, pie, cake, or champagne. The king doesn’t need a reason to throw a feast, and neither do you!

For more information, check out:

Betwixt the Shadows on Youtube, run by my boss at the occult shop and the head tarot reader who is also an accomplished astrologer. They take questions every week!

@salvatore_modern_witch, my boss’s instagram, where he posts lecture videos based in his forty years of experience in planetary and ceremonial magic. (It is not very fancy, because he is an old man, but it is super informative!)

Sphere and Sundry, which combines the most potent planetary magical materia with the most incredibly comprehensive product descriptions I have ever seen. Even if you don’t feel like shopping, their website is worth ransacking for the information alone.

Austin Coppock’s online almanac and just in general everything that @adapembroke has going on.

Go forth and be merry in your power!

[lycheej3lly]

assorted thoughts about farewell my concubine which i watched the other day w my mom who like sparknotes’ed the movie for me as we went along. she’s my no fear shakespeare. anyway putting them on tumblr bc i find it better for archiving purposes. ty to max for talking the movie out w me after 😊

spoilers obvi

the whole "by nature i am a boy/girl" stuff reminded me a lot of the concept of sexual inversion which was like when old homophobes assigned men the action of "liking women" and vice versa. thus linking gay men w femininity bc they like men which also sees a trend just like in Society(tm). at the beginning everyone else is super happy when douzi gets the line right but there's still smth like hollow? about that scene to him. when he adopts the baby, taking on the traditionally feminine role of caretaker. and then at the end when they both get the line "wrong" but he like almost reclaims(?) himself as a boy. yeah. and ofc when leslie cheung says that thing about a good actor is androgynous in one of his later interviews

but then right after that he kills himself which could be bc he recognizes that their socially conservative society won’t allow them to be together or bc he wants to end his life w what he sees as a symbol of their love..? or maybe it just isn't more complicated than what xiaolou says earlier in the movie when dieyi asks why the concubine has to die: because that's the play!

that said it is very weird that people take that line to mean that playing the concubine made him confused about his gender and start liking men or whatever, which is smth my mom said and apparently a lot of articles online. like gd that Is the concept of sexual inversion which is obvi not how being gay works but also just narratively dieyi's feelings for xiaolou def started before he started playing that role

i also think there's a lot to do w fate, like when juxian leaves the brothel and the manager person (i know there has to be a better word for this but god i cannot think of it rn) gives the whole "once a whore always a whore" speech. and then in the end when juxian is villainized bc she used to be a sex worker

but then i’m also kind of confused bc when they first introduced the story of farewell my concubine (the opera) they said it means you only control your own fate...? hm.

also there was SOMEONE talking about karma earlier in the movie which i remembered when dieyi starts yelling about retribution at the denouement but i can’t remember who and in what context and it’s nagging at me

maybe the sword as a symbol of their struggles? it always appears at important moments in their life as almost this recurring character - douzi wanting to give shitou the sword when they were younger, when yuan and dieyi first meet (ew), when yuan and dieyi drunkenly recreate the opera scene and dieyi puts it to his neck, when xiaolou is being interrogated, i’m def forgetting some - but then it's interesting bc when xiaolou throws it into the fire, it's juxian who goes to retrieve it and returns it to xiaolou before hanging herself like she recognizes its significance

smth smth subversion bc xiaolou who is supposed to play the Man is the first to crack, whereas juxian never snitches on anyone even as she is forced into the spotlight

also think it’s weird that people don’t think dieyi’s love was reciprocated? xiaolou left juxian after her miscarriage to go find dieyi and slapped her for telling their shifu that dieyi was addicted to opium. there’s def more but those are two scenes that stick out to me

anyway i too am in love with leslie cheung and gong li. xiaolou kinnie moments

ALSO the behind the scenes vid was so fun and insightful. can’t believe the scene of juxian jumping into xiaolou’s arms and the scene of their shifu beating xiaolou as an adult were real wtf. and having to film the scene in front of the fire in 90 degF beijing weather in full opera costume omg

really appreciate the research that the actors put into their roles - like gong li reading books about sex workers in that era of china and leslie cheung’s extensive training for his accent and jingju such that they didn’t even have to use the doubles they’d hired

love love love all the callbacks throughout the movie - when xiaolou says “i’m the one to blame, hit me instead” like what douzi did at the beginning of the movie after he and laizi ran away (oh and laizi also. man.), when dieyi says the same thing to juxian and rejects smth she offers at her and xiaolou’s wedding party and after no one tells dieyi that xiaosi was supposed to replace him as concubine yu

the editing for the part where the eunuch rapes douzi was so chilling and so good - the pan to the painting and then the bell toll, and douzi staying silent when shitou asks him what happened. fuck.

also really enjoyed the scenes when dieyi and juxian would be petty towards each other for more shallow reasons lol

i have thoughts about xiaosi that have not really crystallized yet. passing down the torch gone wrong etc etc...

[vardasvapors]

🌻 ?

I’m making good on this meme’s Threat to talk about whatever I want, but I will mercifully add a cut, in order to post an embarrassing TMI 17-point list i wrote to my gf to summarize 17 all-consuming narrative kinks I’ve had all my life that are all satisfied by the concept of the Holy:

[MORE]

1) irreversible high-cost high-reward choices (and the associated intensity of Desire and Knowing Its Worth and Sacrificing and Electrifying Life-Changing Moment), extra good if being hit by the full reality of both what you’re sacrificing and what you’re getting into is accompanied with a sense of giddy euphoria/wild laughter/childlike glee

 2) double-edged swords/things that come with a Price but where the price/‘bad’ edge doesn’t invalidate the good edge and/or is actually inextricable from the good edge, the idea of the good edge existing without the bad edge being nonsensical (see e.g., peredhil choices)

3) permanent Marks/Changes/immutable evidence of an experience (sometimes magic ones, but also like scars, mutilations, intentional rite-of-passage things like tattoos/body-mod, or practical ones like sex - the misogyny of its cultural context soured it but when i was smol i used to be absolutely breathless about hymen-tearing l m a o) 

4) being turned on by/longing for things/experiences that are assumed to be universally unwanted/revolting/self-destructive/inhuman, freak-like, depraved   

5) an experience usually only possible for a moment made in some way to be eternal (including but not limited to variations like magically everpresent memory, experience being encrypted/packaged/imprinted) 

6) people experiencing/seeing/touching/reaching/speaking with/entering smth Sublime and Huge and Extreme (divine revelation just one example), going crazy and blissfully uncaring of norms or other’s opinions from ecstasy; either alone or in combination with words that are so powerful they can destroy or mark the speaker or hearer, sights/sounds/touches so powerful they destroy or mark the body, the abstract or metaphysical leaving its scarring or imprint on the physical

7) some kind of connection between a ‘small’ or ‘normal’ human and some sort of supernatural majestic creature (ranging from like, ‘just elves/humanoid aliens’ to ‘terrifying monster/fae’ to ‘incredibly inhuman magic/cosmic force’), esp when the rly powerful thing is rly Invested or interested in the Smol 

8) ppl being proud/fond/sanguine about a ‘gross’ or 'pity-inducing’ superficially-wretched state/disfigurement/mutilation/burden/lost attribute of theirs bc it’s Meaningful for a reason, lol buddhism stuff, or ppl being very cavalier/unfazed about displaying the signs or indicators of intimate personal info (markers of a religion/race/species, kink stuff like collars/brands, weird xeno and fantasy race shit)

9) extreme longings or desires or driving impulses that have no thought-out or concrete justification

10) fire (scientific nature of being the embodiment of a chemical process not a substance in itself, human history/development status, aesthetics and symbolic place) 

 11) light (esp science - speed, nature of photons, relationship to time, the age and travel distance of starlight, photosynthesis, the sun’s life-giving energy and sight-giving light + deadly destructive cosmic rays and blinding light) 

12) personified source universe creator god interpretations but like, ones where the interpretor has spent at least 3 seconds considering the god’s pov (v rare)

13) beings who are Too Much and/or Too Much for most but not all who encounter them; or hurt or inconvenience or overwhelm by their very nature but arent guilty abt it bc that’s their inescapable nature (eg the tardis, looking into the heart of the Tardis)

14) incidents where a weird counterintuitive emotionally-torquing respect/intimacy is demonstrated through extremely ungeneralizable and questionable/extreme/RACK edge cases where someone fulfills another person’s extremely dangerous/destructive/painful/freaky request/desire, and not holding back/making a diff decision abt the other person’s own good or smth  

15) ‘weird’ or ‘crazy’ and bizarrely blissful/unbotherable/spacey/unseemly-ly cheerful and jokey and easily amused ppl that are unsettling/mysterious to others due to being too happy, not performing emotions in expected ways, laughing at their own jokes or non-jokes, appearing to be noticing/thinking about something else, esp if they’re monks/mystics/shady wanderers/odd foreigners/really old decrepit Seen-It-All types, that post about astronauts when they return to earth

16) ppl who have been Extremely Changed by an Xtreem™ Experience they may not be able to explain or convey fully to others even if they’re willing to try 

 17) 2 ppl touching or exploring each other’s souls (esp when the two ppl r v v v diff in nature, including tho not limited to like, human + completely inhuman vast entity)

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

Athenas Masterpost

This is going to cover everything Athenas, like the official page and trailer, both new trailers, the art book preview, and some stuff shown in the ign trailers. It’s a lot.

There will NOT be endgame spoilers in this post. If there’s anything that comes up that I want to discuss, you can find it in a spoiler post I’ll be making soon :) I DO discuss a thing that occurs during the first 3 hours of BL3, though I think that’s pretty okay with y’all lol

tl;dr: there’s too much to summarize. 13 days until bl3. lmao im screaming on the inside.

“A misty, tranquil planet that has recently attracted the wrong kind of attention. Athenas is mostly uninhabited, save for a sect of monks known as the Order of the Impending Storm who have made their home in the high peaks of the mountains. What secrets do they guard here, inside ancient walls that were built long before humans set foot on Athenas?”

We definitely got a lot less info for Athenas than the other planets, and I can see why. They want to keep it mysterious.

Also, I’m not saying I totally called it that the pyramid was Eridian, but I totally called it. I am surprised it’s implying that the entire area was built by them, but what can ya do 🤷‍♂️

Anyway, since this post is long overdue, let’s just jump right in!

The Athenas video is nearly half the time of the Eden-6 one, so there’s not a lot to cover unfortunately:

We’ve seen this shot multiple times before

also the emphasis that Athenas is ‘tranquil’ and ‘peaceful’ ahahahaha no it’s not.

i love these dudes! Order of the Impending Storm!!! I wonder if their funky goggle things have anything to do with Sirens, like how they have Siren-trackers. I also really love their outfits. lowkey want one of these robes.

a great overview look of the area leading up to the pyramid. I got more to say about this... but it’s probably best if i leave it for later on in the post after we get more info

also, note the water and the rocks and stuff on the left there. This will come into play later... not even in this post. a later post.

also i totally called this being an ancient aliens reference lol

Vault logo on the flag there. definitely shows how much these guys worship the Vaults

This!!! I have so much to talk about here!

alright so now that we know what the vault keys look like.... this doesn’t appear to be part of any of the Vault Keys we’ve seen. especially not the Promethean one. not even the pyramid shaped one.

im mostly interested in this because this is obviously a monk, her robes match the ones we saw above with the hood. she doesn’t appear to be Eridian because we’ve seen the Watcher and the other Guardians, who are built in the image of the Eridians, and she looks wayyy too human. We’ve also seen statues of the Eridians in that one shot of the Pandora temple.

so it seems like the monks have gone inside the pyramid before and... built this statue? for some reason??? It’s interesting that she has an extra pair of arms as well. I wonder if she is like the Siren ancestor of Amara. which could prove my theory that the next successor of Amara would have another set of arms... it might also explain why Amara’s tattoos are everywhere on the buildings (outside of her being the Tiger)

it would also explain this shot, the skeleton with the book, which we now know we’ve seen before with Maya:

so even though they’re protecting the pyramid/temple, i don’t think they’ve been avoiding it entirely- at least not for the first time after discovering it. maybe they stopped going in after they discovered something bad, somethin like iunno... the Rampagers?

it would be Really Weird if the Eridians built that statue, especially when they probably didn’t know what humans looked like at the time. unless of course they helped shape humanity or smth. meaning they probably personally created Sirens. oh that’d be wild... i wonder if we’re going to learn about how early Sirens shaped humanity in that case. discovering fire could be entirely different lol

“hallowed land” 

i wonder if this is where we’ll have anointed gear explained to us... i imagine the order is still worshipping Eridian/Siren stuff, so them having all sorta knowledge of this stuff would make sense

more Maliwan. you guys notice we see cultists purely on Eden-6 (outside of the crashed ship), but Maliwan purely on Athenas? a mix on Promethea, tho that’s bc we’ve actually gotten gameplay. 

So my guess is Maliwan has joined up with the cult (be it through whatever means: Maliwan is in) and they’re looking for the Promethea key. which makes sense. they’re attacking Rhys on Promethea, so when he helps us out, word probably gets back to Maliwan (somehow) and they swap from wanting to take over Atlas (either by defeating them w/ Zer0/that giant space laser/whatever or just changing priorities) to wanting to open that fuckin Vault. Teaming up with the CoV is the best way to ensure that happens. I’m sure there will oodles of betrayal going on between the two parties.

I LOVE THESE THINGS

THEY’RE AMAZING

GOOD BOYS

in all seriousness, actually, im curious why we don’t see these good boys on Promethea. maybe they’re only for the top-tier squads? (mechanically, probably higher-level enemies) they look super high tech, so i would not be surprised if Maliwan thought Atlas would be an easy takeover so they didn’t send everything they could have

Nog! not much to say here tbqh

“Protect Athenas Before It’s Too Late”

I imagine before Maliwan gets the Vault Key or some other wild power, like power over the Rampagers. seriously, in the We Are Mayhem trailer, there’s a rampager are fighting on the side of Maliwan (altho if this is The One Rampager, or just One of Many is hard to tell. it could morph depending on which element it is. we just don’t know. personally i think there’s 1 per planet... i’ll explain later)

From the Art Book Preview:

Alright yes. “Maliwan forces have already seized control of the monastery, where part of the Promethean Vault Key has been located, turning a simply recovery mission into a vicious firefight...... A large and foreboding crypt built into the side of the mountain was also designed, and might perhaps have housed the Vault Key fragment deep within its gloomy interiors”

i don’t think this means the crypt is like an actual area. it would be interesting to discover that the pyramid is a giant crypt because... jesus. it would fit with the whole pyramid theme, at least. altho im wondering if this is more like a labyrinth situation where they’re trying to keep a Rampager inside as well as the treasure... which MAY be a Vault Key Fragment

Actually, this brings up a great point: did Atlas spread the Vault Key out throughout the planets? Is this where Typhon originally found that Key fragment? wtf was in the Vault that Atlas needed to disassemble the Key and return its fragments? oh boy i hope it’s something scary

From the Moze Eden-6 E3 Gameplay:

oh ye this. okay so this is definitely 100% Eridian. I’m guessing we get this from Athenas because this seems like a fairly important object and, well, Athenas is all about Eridian stuff. When we go through the next few videos, keep an eye out for the temples. You’ll see the glowing red diamond shape constantly reappearing there.

one of the devs admitted that there are hunks of Eridian Writing left around the world that will ‘open up’ things for the players, so I imagine this is exactly what we’ll use to get to it. If this IS only for endgame stuff I’ll be slightly disappointed. I know we have access to this before Eden-6, since there are gameplay videos that show the player breaking the Eridium chunks with this thing. the above one is from the Moze Eden-6 gameplay, tho I’ve also seen newer footage from the Balex gameplay with this same tool

The following clips can be found in this video:

im mostly interested in the wall art here

what looks like a sun or a planet

this symbol which makes an appearance elsewhere

these two are the same area, im imagining this is the fight up to the pyramid, with Maliwan forces and barricades everywhere

the sun again in the background (middle top)

this cool piece (bottom left of the above pic) which looks like a hand covered in glowing blue. i imagine this is some sorta representation of Phaselock? mainly because of the blue orb in the palm of her hand

not much to say about this area tbh. looks like a residential area to me, so possibly not in the residential district

writing on the top mid-right. 

idk why i just noticed these trees are green and not red but yeah, that’s interesting. so probably a different area from Amara’s trailer aka: not Partali

and yet we see amara’s tattoos on the building in the back right. sorry for such terrible quality btw, tumblr ate these images and spit them back out

These clips can be found in the Borderlands are Yours trailer:

looks like the small building we see directly next to Maya and Ava

altho very clearly not the same exact area so im curious what these are supposed to represent. tbh im kinda reminded of graveyards. i really hope there aren’t corpses in those omg

another better look at the two pieces of art. i imagine the one on the right has something to do with the eridians given its in a diamond shape, which we know has something to do with the eridians now

also im not playing amara first (possibly last. depending on how i feel fl4k may go last) but HOLY SHIT her action skills are beautiful

THIS FUCKER

i know he’s probably a vault monster but like... 

idk i feel its kinda sad gearbox is showing off a VAULT MONSTER of all things in so much promo material. like why is he fighting with Maliwan/the cult in the We are Mayhem trailer??

sup with that?

does he have multiple stages?? is that’s why he changes elements? goes from two heads to wings to extended necks. like wtf is up with this guy?? he definitely looks like he can be elementally charged given his eye sockets aren’t glowing when he emerges like they do

here but then

this dude looks like he has an entirely different skull like...

this dude is a corrosive one who also seems to be working with Maya (who i guess IS probably the corrosive aligned siren)

and we’re guessing the nuclear charged one is the one from Athenas... for reasons i’ll explain below

AND honestly i've been thinking and maybe the fire one is actually from Promethea? and maybe there’s another that’s on Eden-6 and another on Pandora?

alright so i have 2 reasons for this. one involves spoiler talk with the cloth map, so that won’t be discussed here (but if you see the map and the planets, you’ll understand what i’m alluding to here, most likely). the other is that in this screenshot of all the quests from the Eden-6 demo:

we see immediately after “hostile takeover” is the quest “the impending storm”. which is, indeedy, a reference to the Order of the Impending Storm. We know they’re on Athenas, so I imagine we run over to Athenas to get part of the Vault Key. We’ve established from the art book that’s where it is.

but then after The Impending Storm, Space-Laser Tag (which we all know is that giant-ass laser thing in the asteroid belt), and Atlas, at Last, there’s a quest called Beneath the Meridian.

And we know this area... is definitely underground. we’ve seen with the fire-y boy that the ceiling is just rocks

then we see this shot with the nuclear (?) one where the window outside is clearly showing off mountains/sky, which we know is kinda Athenas’s deal

and we know these two areas are the same v ^

since there’s the same ‘Vault’ in the background

so my only problem with this entire theory that there’s multiple rampagers is that

we see the twins killing/absorbing the red/fire one’s power which is also on athenas since the background is the same as the vault area from the above two pictures. unless there’s a similar vault-thing on promethea and eden-6. we know there’s one on Pandora, but that one is outside so.

so i guess they are the same beasty boy but... why why why show us one of the vault monsters

it’s so cool going in blind and not knowing what you’re going to get out of it.

so im going to say this is a minor vault monster (especially given it’s not exactly the same rock-like design as the other vault monsters) and the ‘vaults’ are actually something smaller. maybe they hold keys, or the pieces of the keys, or they’re part of that teleportation network i keep talking about (and i guess i should just make a seperate post about it) but i don’t know if these are actual Big Boy Vaults. especially when the Rampager doesn’t match actual Eridian-created Vault Monsters

that said given we see a bunch of dead guardians on the floor, its possible the rampager killed them? but i get the feeling we might actually be the ones to pull the trigger cause... combat is fun

so. yeah. if the rampager is guarding something that’s fine. i wanna believe teleportation network. i’d love to see the twins come in, walk out of that vault, absorb the rampager’s powers, and then walk out after locking us in like ‘peace’ and we have to use the teleportation system to make it back to promethea with the vault key fragment or whatever

[im here after the cloth map reveal like... uh huh. i see. u dumb bitchard.]

idk i just thought this was a fun screenshot lol

BoRdErLaNdS

ah yes

that’s eridium

this also appears to be in the temple, but, like, again if there’s more than one temple this could also be on Pandora or even Eden-6. Kinda leaning towards Pandora. HOWEVER since we only know for certain this sort of temple area is on Athenas (from that one statue shot), we’re gonna analyze this bad boy right now (also lowkey think this is Pandora because of the varkid nests but shhh)

what do i actually have to say about it? uhhh not much tbh. i think i’ve said all that needs to be said concerning the twins mutating cultists with slag/eridium. 

i will say im pretty shocked at, like, the eridium HORNS and shit. so maybe this is just some cool little miniboss. (okay not mini because look how big he’s gotten!! just like Bloodwing :D)

you know what, it looks like he’s standing on one of these

floor tile things, and now im super curious. is the fire part of a trap? is it powering this lad up? i definitely know he’s a cultist because he’s got the neon light tubes on his shoulder pad

see here

you can see these on other cultists like goliaths and such and such

also this is pretty similar to what we’ve seen in the LLE (especially the powersuits) given their bodies also form eridium crystals when they’ve ascended

i feel like its powering him up

you know during the fight with bloodwing when Jack powers up bloodwing using the elemental flamethrower things? would be interesting if this is similar to that.

like dis

yeahhh

the radiation boy is back and he’s actually elementally charged this time

huzzah

also i love the chest mouth lmao

has anyone here seen stretch armstrong? like that one episode where Gabe (crostini man) gets turned into a bunch of flexarium monster chunks

but yeah, awesome mouth my guy.

im curious if it’s being elementally charged to cryo or if it’s stopped being charged. if this is like a cutscene between different stages in the fight, etc etc. 

this also looks fairly similar to this area here

but red this time. which... may tie into the elemental stages. which maaaaay tie into those floor platforms elementally charging that demon baby up above. bloodwing 2.0!

You can find the following clips in the Official Guide to the Borderlands:

god i keep telling myself to be on the lookout for athenas clips but i get so distracted by the gorgeousness of this fucking game i forget and have to keep going back

if that dude in the back floating was t-posing i would have lost my shit

new Siren tattoos!!! we haven’t seen these before. they’re very flowy, i love them. i hope we get to meet the siren with them!

i also loooooove this area in the back. i hope we get to climb it and explore. i would love to just be able to climb to high up areas in bl3 and look down and see the area i just came from. it’s possible! we have the technology! thousand cuts / bnk3r ascension 2.0!!!

more of amara’s awesome looking powers

zane has 2 trans pride skins im so happy 😄

also look at how teeny tiny that ‘Vault’ is in the back!!! it’s only like 2x the size of Iron Bear!!! gimme BIG vaults!! GIANT VAULTS

also also

the VOID vault

i get a feeling these are connected somehow.

sniper spoooot

not much to say about this tbh. zane’s claw things look fucking dope tho. i want one irl.

we’ve seen this shot a few times before already

alright before you get mad, let me explain why i think this is athenas

you see this picture

this maliwan jackass. the building to his left is 100% athenas architecture.

the rocks in the top picture look identical to the ones next to him. plus we’ve seen water in the distance of some of the areas of Athenas

it could also be Eden-6 (which honestly i would not be surprised if it is instead) but given the ivy and the rocks i felt it was worthwhile to put in. plus the moving eridian structures are so cool looking. i feel like that’s going to be a puzzle.

oh oh also

maybe that area leads into/exits from here? because they’re both underground in cavern-like areas

but like... it could also be eden-6... because of that one shot of the temple area in the side of the cliff ASDFHDGJFJGFHSD

still radiation charged. 

also seriously this ‘Vault’ is wayyyy smaller than a regular Vault. like... the one in BL2 that you can walk right up to... huge. and nothing even comes out of it. the Warrior climbs up from over the edge

the bl1 is much bigger than this one, too. also the vault of the traveller, i would argue is the biggest out of all of them but eh

for the Vault of the Sentinel, the actual arch we see... i’ve already gone over why i don’t think that’s a ‘real’ vault and that its all more of a simulation, but you can read that whole thing here bc i am trying my damndest to not get off topic for this post because holy fucking shit. this got long.

Alright so. Onto the website pictures

another cool shot of the academic district, really showing off the pyramid in the background. god i wanna know what that is. could be the temple (underground things notwithstanding). it’s probably holding that statue with the vault keys in either arm

you know the one, it’s at the beginning of this post. but damn that thing is huge!! i am hoping it holds more than just the promethean vault key. 

did i already talk about how there are siren tattoos written along the edges of this area??? because... damn.

also the symbol for what is probably Vault Key sitting right smack dab in the middle??

also sorry i just noticed those blue shapes are moving. like a fountain or something?? weird light.

i mean... the trees are also warping in the background. wonder wtf is going on here... 

anyway whatever she’s holding actually doesn’t match up with any of the vault keys we’ve seen so... wtf are you???

a very nice shot overlooking the water. also a wind turbine in the background. i think the area on the left is where we’ve seen ava and maya? but dont hold me to that lol

definitely looks the same. even has the tree

another shot of that area i think we’ve seen Amara fighting in

big shot of the pyramid with the vault symbol everywhere. and the planet with the beams coming out of it. which in retrospect...

anyway that’s spoiler talk so let’s talk in another post.

another shot of athenas from a slightly different angle, we’ve seen this one before, too, and i remember because i complemented the road signs

annnnd im tired. good night everybody.

[basiliskeleton]

i have been thinking about each of the apprentices’ interactions with magic and each other and i just realized that 3! fits into the number of interaction needed for a 5 + 1 fic idea so here is the draft of 5 times the apprentices had a moment of understanding and 1 time they did not

coco and tetia: sweet moment! Callback to first friendship! maybe coco mentioning how things are so complicated now and tetia being like ‘hey at least we’ve got our magic to make things a little better in whatever ways we can. we’ve grown!’

Coco + Riche: connection through individuality and fear, trying to find place in society? they’re kinda polar opposites, coco sees learning her own magic as a means to the end of saving her mom, as much as she loves it. riche sees making her Own magic as the ultimate goal. in her arc she learns that her creative vision/herself will come through in whatever magic she creates so she doesn’t need to stick to a few elements out of rebellion, but she still has her specialties that she want to develop (implied in lots of ribbon stuff). ultimately it is important for both of them that they are the ones to learn magic themselves rather than having other people do magic work for them

agathe and riche: moment of. regrouping after riche’s arc. riche’s scratching small symbols into the margins of her paper as Qifrey teaches, a steady flow of strokes that makes agathe whisper ‘stop repeating the glyph, i feel like i’ve heard the same wave wave circle pattern so often you have to have it by now’

and agathe looks down and realizes even though everything sounded steady, they’re all different tiny glyphs 

‘i’m trying to get stronger, right?’ (riche says without malice)

agathe feels guilt curl in her stomach at riche’s apathy, thinking back to the whole ‘you’re not strong enough to help with your magic rn’ moment, knowing that a part of her said it to get her friend Riche out of there and part of her relished being the useful apprentice even in a sickening situation (girl definitely has a inferiority complex and need to prove herself) but everything jumbled together and

riche draws the final marks at the end of class to activate them

colors burning freezing spring up

that magic… your magic looks good, nodding

riche whispering agaffection? and agathe shushes her

agathe and tetia: they were the first ones at the atelier, also in contrast to riche and coco, tetia’s ‘i want to make ppl happy with magic’ and agathe’s ‘i want to prove myself better than my family who rejected me’ motivations match in that they both use magic as a tool for an end goal. idk what their moment would be though. they don’t really talk to each other outside of a group setting in the series

tetia and riche: they seem like the OG friendship of the atelier, so they’re chilling out like old times, working on their magic… fire and calm imagery, riche says smth like ‘your magic is so clearly yours... riches is just...” and tetia’s like bro what are you talking about our magic doesn’t need to be alike and isn’t alike and riche perks up at that

agathe and coco: these guys are the +1 interaction because they. are working on understanding each other. anyway they have a misunderstanding where coco’s like ‘hey agathe qifrey’s out can you help me with this fire shaping spell i’ve seen you do it a bunch of times before’ 

agathe makes a fuss about it but agrees, they’re talking while getting work done. it comes up that it’s agathe’s birthday soon, coco’s like why didn’t you tell me!! and looks agathe straight in the eyes while positively beaming about all the celebrations that they could do

and agathe has no idea what coco’s talking about because the girl in front of her is smiling so brightly. agathe goes red, yells smth about how birthdays are no fun they’re all formalwear and politeness and coco should have learned this spell already, and walks away.

later at night agathe knows she was too harsh so she looks into coco’s room to see if she’s still up, agathe wants to apologize (very nervously and with little plan), and she sees tons of half finished glyphs on the floor of the spell that they had been working on. coco is asleep at her desk, a pen resting where it must have tumbled out of her hand when she drifted off. 

agathe feels Not Great thinking that she pushed coco to unhealthy limits and puts a blanket on coco and leaves, putting out any papers that may be a bit on fire. she makes up her mind to apologize somehow in the morning, and misses the paper under the desk that’s alight with wavering words

HAPPY BDAY AGATHE

[surefleur-arc]

my name ?? is jay. my game ?? is making terrible intro posts. anyway, hello hello !! i have lowkey been stalking this rp since it opened ?? waiting for a good time........ to join. so y’all gonna get this fckin off the rails bitch have fun. ( also like this or hmu if u wanna plot !! i got some possible connections listed below but !! )

━★ ( eiza gonzalez, female, she/her ) hey, that’s ( fleur castilla ), who’s lived here for ( eight years ). the ( twenty-six ) year old is known to be ( intelligent & confident ) but you’ll find that they can be ( volatile & manipulative ), too. i heard they work as a ( bartender at oasis ) and ( teen idle ) by ( marina and the diamonds ) always seems to be playing around them. ( torn scripture, a neglected gideons, building fire, wolf smiles, dramatic and overdone orchestra pieces, dracula’s fake beard, 90s bops, mythos tales. )

BACKSTORY

( TRIGGERS: death/murder, fire )

aight y’all lemme start by saying that,,,,, this bitch just fell off her ROCKER one night but we’ll get to that later

she was born in phoenix, az ( #symbolism ) to this WEIRD-ASS guy and,,, his wife + her mom obvs. later on, they had another kiddo.

emmanuel castilla, maria castilla, moses castilla...... wondeR what thAt connection iS

ya i came up with this backstory after i already named fleur lmao

when i say “weird-ass guy” i mean like,,,, basically built an aboveground bunker. like. weird dude. loved censorship too.

evolution who ?? idk her.

and...... i mean....... her mom was also pretty fkcin weird. like. she 110% got it from hanging around emmanuel and only emmanuel for years.

SUPER RELIGIOUS HOUSEHOLD. SUPER CUTOFF FROM EVERYONE. moses and fleur were both homeschooled but it was a TERRIBLE curriculum.

darwin who ?? idk her.

anyway. so we gonna skip ahead a lil bit bc if we dont this’ll be hella long but it’s p much all just excess stuff that elaborates on what i mentioned above ( weird dude, super cutoff, super religious )

we gettin’ to the meat of things:

one day, she caught a whiff of freedom. one day, she learned that a bunch of things....... EXISTED ?? 

ONE DAY SHE GOT REAL MAD.

so honestly what better solution to expressing this than to set ur house on fiRE ?? with legit everyone still insiDE ??

ya fleur legit went off the rails.

went from fleur to pauline real fast. totally convinced she was basically slaying satan.

if u kno what im alluding to then we vibin

emmanuel died. maria died. moses almost didn’t die but nah moses died. 

OFF THE RAILS.

literally. off the rails. like. 

pauline.

that far off the rails.

apparently police are useless bc she’s free n walkin around rn !! and she got the inheritance !! aka “the death money”

irl. i would rly hope the police would be capable of figuring out who set the house on fire. like legit. fleur was basically like the one suspect who else would it have been ?? i mean. sole survivor. inherited all the money. had a shitty alibi. left almost the second the investigation was over. like.

ANYWAY

her death money took her from phoenix to seagrove where she was like “well i’ve legit reached the end of the country time 2 do smth w/ my life.”

she cruised by on her death money until she started working odd jobs. at twenty-one, she started bartending. 

she now bartends at oasis. catch her chillin.

UPDATE: her bio is right HERE and it’s extra™

UPDATE: her stats are HERE and they’re extra™

PERSONALITY

111/10 would not recommend ridin with her.

S U P E R  V O L A T I L E . i mean not necessarily in the sense that one second ur conversation will be great and the next she’ll make it horrible like in the sense that she just. goes off the rails super easy.

thus far, nothing has compared to setting her house on fire tho. all been v v minuscule in comparison.

not religious but religious. aka knows like,,,, everything about the bible??? could probs recite 4/5 stories by heart by now i mean that’s basically all she and moses learned when they were growing up. the bible. so there were hella repeats.

estp + scorpio = the most manipulative sunnuva gun you’ll ever meet. will do whatever it takes to make things easier on herself. will 110% take advantage of other people’s kindness. honestly a horrible person.

pretty!!! damn!!! smart!!! tho!!! which is unexpected since she didn’t even kno about evolution until she was like,,,,,, old. i mean obvs she basically knows EVERYTHING abt the bible like that aint a problem. she was already v well-read it was like,,,, one of the two (2) freedoms she and moses had. knew math already. knew hard sciences that didn’t call for the mention of evolution. lowkey had 2 teach herself wtf darwinism was. 

likes 2 learn tbh??? fckin nerd.

all of this added together = her thinking she’s the BEST. although it makes her way more egotistical than the average self, it also makes her way better at just??? life??? and things to come??? confident in her decisions. confident in her interactions. confident in her appearance. just confident all together.

is basically a dramatic symphony piece. probs the bAAAA BADUH DUH DUH DUMMMMM DUHHHHH one.

aint even ashamed to say that her fav group ever is tlc. SHE DONT WANT NO SCRUBS EITHER!!!!!!!!

a lot of ironic symbolism will be in her bio and will thus carry forward into interactions. bc im a pretentious douchebag.

likes 2 gamble.

thinks maury is a dilf.

loves that there sex™.

bisexual af.

loves dogs af.

connection ideas can be found here !! they’re all still being structured since i legit just got the idea for this format and legit just started working on them and some don’t even have their descriptions yet ?? but feel free 2 check them out and see how pretentious i am !! i’m 100% open to j brainstorming too !!

AIGHT AS STATED ABOVE FEEL FREE 2 LIKE THIS OR HMU IF U WOULD LIKE 2 PLOT !!

[isaacathom]

like, if i were to basically redo it to just be a fun fantasy romp - id take it back to its original sort of time setting rather than having it be urban fantasy. Finley died in an expedition about 10 years earlier, making Crystal and Akian into orphans. theyve basically been living with the D’Lore’s since then, so Akian and Chase being really fucking close makes complete sense (and was likely why they started living wit the d’lores in the first place). in that last decade, like 5 yearsago or so, SKye joins the family after the whole uhhhhh Sorix/Naten situation. my poor boys. so crystal and skye already know each other. they arent super close, mostly because skye’s a moody lil bitch sometimes, but they know each other and are passing friends. crystal works with the d’lore’s apothecary, since the d’lores are like, biiiiiiiig boys. mayors or some shit. big boys. not a king, tho. well, actually, maybe? that could be interesting. or perhaps like a pricipality sorta deal. ill think about it.

since the d’lores are royalty here, kidnapping Akian and Chase (the crown prince boy and his gf) makes complete sense. theyre a perfect ransom and way tohold the entire city/region hostage. its a crisis. skye and crystal, who are really pissed about it, decide to take proactive action. which brings them into contact with Violet, who runs a small library with her “aunt”, Dawn. Violet helps them find some information about some of the weird shit the two reported seeing before their sibs were kidnapped, and gives them a shit ton of advice on what they could do. because violet is the best.

smth smth happens, they come into contact with Will, who is an expedition man just like Finley, and also the guy with th complex relationship with Skye. the three manage to convince Will to take them along into his second trip into a portal he’s discovered north of the town, because violet thinks it’ll have useful info and then begs to come along to see it. sothe 4 go in. suhbitch, its the heaven realm, and here they meet Skye’s mother, Alexa, who has still been dead for 200 years because, lets be clear, Skye’s dad fucked a ghost. fucking crazy. fantasy is wild. and she helps give them some pointers. maybe suggests they head to Quartai, which is the Big Boy Kingdom. a probably more overtly magical/religious place, more info on Ryaris and shit, stuff like that.

the 4 go there. then im not sure how stuff resolves from there. they probably still end up heading to the southern isles, which is an even more Big Magic place that has all these portals. in between then, violet seems to disappear, following an(other) encounter with Princess Alara, angry wind mage of the hour. which isnt great? but thats because Violet realised something was off about Alara (in a way specific to Violet) and she went out alone after the others went to sleep to find her and demand answers, and then, well, shit escalates.

they finally get to the fire realm and find the castle. before they can sneak inside, Alara catches them and promptly kidnaps Crystal, under the rationale that, well, Crystal is actually quartaian royalty, she’ll be a good ransom as well! :) skye and will (and i guess ash if hes just floating around, i dont Know)get tossed in the jail cell with chase and akian. Violet, who has now assumed the position of Princess fucking uhhhhh she has a name. fuck. T- Tacha??? yea ok whatever. Princess Violet’s out here, trying desperately to avoid the consequences of abandoning the group and trying not to get seen by any of them. but after overhearing her mum and sister interrogating Crystal about shit (and probably revealing Crystal’s heritage at that time, tho idk how id tie that shit in proper) Violet decides to stop being a coward. easily talks her way into the jail, frees everyone, get them all their stuff back, and make arrangements with some sympathetic guards that escort the exhausted Chase and Akian to a portal that will plop them out near-ish to the capital city, where they will be quickly found. bonus points if one of the guards, being a local to the area, offers to then personally escort them to the palace and hand them over. if yes, then violet likely gives him something that is proof of divine intervention (like, a symbol that cannot be manufactured by a human? and that is proof that Ryaris was involved and has returned them, smth like that, idk)

then the three of them work together to free crystal from Alara, who is acting as the primary antagonist. Ryaris is getting cold feet like noones fucking business, which is why she hasnt made a single appearance apart from kidnapping the two at the start. Alara’s filled in the rest, in part because Alara can pass for human (shes more a demigod than a minor goddess, in contrast to Violet), and because Alara was a LOT more into the plan from the start. probably using some info they gathered in Quartai or in theheaven world (it definitely has a name, i dont remember it) to convince Alara that, well, no, Dalace is absolutely fucking lying to you, stop it. which is easier than you would think, because Dalace’s lies were revealed the instant Violet returned home.

Part of Dalace’s plan to escape from her imprisonment is to have Ryaris (and her daughter, tho that was a later addition) force a whole bunch of humans into constructing and using portals, which would weaken the seal and also give Dalace more power. then she can break out and wreak havoc. her end of the deal is that, once restored to full power and free, she would bring back Evelyn and Violet. Evelyn being Ryaris’ human wife, who died like 5-6 years prior to the start of the story, and which was actually caused by Dalace in order to force Ryaris’ hand. but that conceit was that Violet and Ryaris were both dead. But Violet is here, perfectly fine, and with 0 trace of any magical interference. Violet was been alive the entire time, just out of Ryaris’ sight and in a different place than where Alara ended up going undercover. essentially a stroke of bad luck.

so, yknow. Violet has overheard Ryaris talking to Dalace, and has already found out about the fact that her revival had been promised. so its like, ‘what proof do you have???’ ‘well, im here, arent i?’ ‘:|||||’ if its then additional that, after violet left the party, the other three found out that Dalace doesn’t have the ability to revive, and that revival as a skill would require the death of Losa (light goddess and just general death lady), they can use that too. combine forces. violet uses her knowledge of the agreement, and the others use their acquired knowledge of the limits of magic. bam. maybe even some prior history, like ‘the stories say that Dalace went mad because everything died in her care. if she could revive the dead, surely this wouldnt have been an issue?’ ‘..... fuck youre right’. i mean they almost definitely have to fight her too because Alara’s a bit of a pain in the ass. people probably almost die. hardcore.

everyone chills out, they go convince ryaris to maybe chill. thats very easy because ryaris literally just wanted to settle down with her wife and two children before shit got messy (and i mean, Same). very easy to convince her off the mess train. but, of course, she’s already done a lot of the damage. the ransom for Akian and Chase has been active for like, at LEAST a week, possibly even more, she’s already reaped a solid chunk and started making good on her promise to Dalace. so the damage has been done. Dalace will get out soon. so they decide like, ok, lets fix it. time to go like, punch her in the face.

and then they beat dalace or reseal her or something. im not sure? dalace’s issues with the world are so deeply seated, her anger so much a part of her, that you cant really turn her good again. and to kill her would be nigh impossible and extremely disastrous. so really its like. do we trap her again but More this time, do we force the gods to actually intervene this time instead of acting through Champions? its rough. a godly intervention would only work if the group had been to each of the realms, because then they’d have met or affected each god in some way. but theyve only been to light and fire worlds. any more than that and it just gets like..... convoluted...... it was the original idea but idk. smaller main cast, makes even less sense. going to the worlds of each of their patrons makes SOME sense??? which then means id need to add a trip to the earth world (perhaps this is where they go from the southern isles. since they dont have a fire portal. and then they lose violet in earht world?). which then only leaves out the water and wind worlds. but the wind goddess is explicitly on Ryaris’ side, having freed Ryaris from her own constraints after a Whole Bunch of Shenanigans. so they dont actually need to convince the wind goddess, Xen i think, to support ryaris. Caliyo, the water goddess, is a little harder to finagle. she doesnt really agree with Ryaris for what i hope are Obvious reasons. in theory keeping Ash as a member of the party would potentially fix that, since he’s an active and practicing water magician prior to meeting the cast, and it’d be fair to guess that she might have a hand in that?in the community he’s from. sort of a mini water realm? Caliyo could also possibly be convincedby like, Losa and....Elra? earth lady. to just maybe think about just fucking talking to Dalace, for fucking once. its been fucking millenia,just talk to her and maybe youll convince her to stop being a shit. idk. Dalace is complicated? and a pain in the butt.

like, if Ash remains part of the squad (which does skew the cast 2:3 male, and 1:3 male when Violet leaves, which Pisses me Off) he can act as throughline to Caliyo. i dont see why not. his community is very much magical. buuuttt you could also potentially get around having him be in the party by having the same connection be present in the Southern Isles, which is a separate magical community that hides away from the continent. and if you think about it, how would you hide an island? other than straight up illusions.mist! caliyo is a perfect patron for the southern isles, thus removing Ash from the story as well in a clean 1 2. which also removes the dragons, which is.... a shame, definitely. big fan of them. but it also makes some sense to remove super overt magic stuff, if people are supposed to believe is superstition or extremely rare. a northern tribe that rely on dragons doesnt gel with that. they can still exist, i guess, but as a completely separate entity. though that does then raise the question of how the party of 4 get from Quartai to the southern isles. in SB, they flew there on the backs of some of Ash’ dragons, which also allowed them to cross the fucking sea between the isles and the coast. unless theres a secret way? like, hey, a secret bridge. use the portals to return back to the capital city, tie up some loose ends (employment and ‘WHERE THE /FUCK/ HAVE YOU BEEN?’ sorts of ends) before heading south to the coast and then trying to find the path across. Skye or will would be good for that, though Violet is also a stellar candidate due to the sheer magnitude of her magic. she’s basically a minor deity. its crazy. it depends on like, narrative usefulness? i guess? like, violet was the one who put them on the path to realise the kidnapper was Divine in some way, and put them in contact with Will. Will got them into fucking Heaven Light World, which got them to quartai, where they were able to get more info (or maybe even skip quartai altogether, tho thats smth else to deal with). so at this stage, crystal and skye’s sole contributions have been to kick the whole thing off. at best, skye mightve suggested they go to a smaller library than the Royal one, since, well, theyre already known to the royal one and the librarian likely tells them to stop bothering everyone and go back home (stay safe from kidnappers, etc). so Skye finding the path to the island, with all that light boy goodness, might work? crystals skillset can then come in handy when they travel to earth world, since she’s an earth mage. she can learn magic and possibly even learn about her heritage there. smth smth. depends how long theyre there.

idk. you can probably remove quartai from the mix altogether??? and have them go straight from Light World to heading south of the capital. does sorta remove the quartai buildup though? with the whole ‘youre the descendant of a runaway prince’ thing. since it justified crystal being removed from the group and likely the first person to find out about violet being a god, which can then feed to like. Shit. theres no other reason to separate out crystal and not, say, Skye. crystal and skye hold identical levels of relevance to thespecific kingdom theyre from. theyre commoners. crystal is in slightly higher regard because akian is practically a princess and even before that her family were good friends with the royals (because, yknow, Finley is a runaway prince who sought refuge in a neighbouring kingdom, lol). skye is just like, some guy, even though he lives in the palace too. theyre just commoners in high esteem of the king. so like, if you were going to separate Crystal out from the group for that, you should also take out Skye, which means in practice youre just chucking Will in a dungeon on his own. which just seems rude. the boy has suffered enough.

the idea was that bringing Crystal into Quartai, a place she has never been but that her father had once promised to take her to (which i can set up). and that by placing her in that environment, maybe even engineering a scenario where she is taken to the royal library (which i guess is like, a public library run by the royals? i dont know) and is spotted by Alara, who has been living in Quartai for the last year or so to gather intel. and, by the nature of how it is, theres royal paintings on the wall showing the late queen, Crystal’s grandmother, and theres an immediate visual connection. Crystal looks just like her dad. someone else (or alara, if it works) might even comment on her being new to quartai with a sort of ‘are you sure youve never been to quartai before? you look like you’d fit right in’ and it couldbe assumed as a personality thing. especially if in terms of personality, crystal doesnt appear to mesh with quartaian society at all. and if the line is by a character with no humour. which means Alara would actually be a perfect fit. it would be a genuine question and observation - Crystal looks Quartaian, whatever that means. while in quartai, they find out its connected to the earth goddess Elra, which helps convince them that they should maybe ask Elra for advice, since she seems like a goddess who has a lot of input and would know about goings on. crystal is then revealed to be an earth mage later (either southern isles or in the earth realm itself) which is like an Ooh boy. you could possibly hammer it further home by, if they DO meet Elra, her confusing Crystal for quartaian royalty. either by assuming she’s a specific Queen (her grandmother) or just a general ‘oh, youre a princess of quartai, then?’ ‘w- no?’ ‘oh? my apologies’. though if elra is going to notice any lineage she’s going to recognize the tall white haired youngster with piercing eyes and an overwhelming magical aura is the daughter of the goddess of fire. so. might distract her?i think it would be too on the nose for Elra to straight up call her out. 

though i could definitely make Crystal not looking local a thing? because she’s not. culturally she is, but both of her parents are full blooded quartaians who fled across the border because Keiran (correctly) anticipated that him marrying a commoner wouldnt go down well. Akian and Crystal both look quartaian. but they also look nothing like Will, who is from another demographic also not native to the kingdom. but his demographic is more prevalent, like there are far larger communities of them. Akian and Crystal just look out of place. Skye technically has a sort of otherworldly quality, but thats partly because his dad fucked a ghost. i cant get over that. but he still looks local enough, because he looks like his mum! and aside from being a ghost of sorts, she was from that kingdom, just 200 years in the past. so theres been drift, and he does look slightly off relative to everyone else, but to an extent you can assume thats just an individual thing. especially since his family is unknown. Akian and Crystal’s parents are known. their apperance is familiar. and that appearance is distinctly foreign. theres no real PROBLEM with that, because theyre good friends with the royal family and have been living in or near them for their whole lives, but its notably. their specific complexion, hair colour, and eye colour? not common ‘round these parts. that sorta thing? could work??? especially if relations with quartai are sorta weird. like..... we’re cool....... but also dont move here? with the exception of Kieran, because the implication is that he’d been a lot friendlier than his mother (and his cousin) and when he comes knocking on the door going ‘listen man i just fled the country can i crash on your couch with my girlfriend for a few days’ the kings like ‘yea dude go ahead. you can explain tomorrow at breakfast. just us’ ‘thanks dude i really appreciate it’. maybe its a quartaian thing. not big fans on these guys. so they just stay in their place and dont leave much. people from this kingdom can come to quartai, sure....... you cant STAY for that long, but you can come visit.......... sure.

which, if quartai is kinda.... i guess just straight up racist??? xenophobic? one or both. if quartai is straight up racist, than crystal’s appearance as a fullblooded quartaian would be quite notable! because its like, oh, youre a local! wait, y- youre NOT a local????? what the fuck do you mean youre not a local????? from - from sp- ok. sure. alright whatever you say lady. move the fuck along then. people see this ragtag group with this one quartaian lady and assume, oh, a local with some friends from out of town. well, if thats the company they want to keep, sure. cause it looks almost correct. it almost makes sense. but then you hear her speak, in a distinctly non-quartaian accent, and its like ‘hold on a sec’ but then she’ll say some words with a quartaian twang, relating to adventure, and you have No idea how to process that. what. its wild. doesnt come across in raw text but, you know.

im sure i can roughly justify going o quartai. theyre a generally more spiritual kingdom, with prominent reverence in a specific goddess who is tied in with the geography and economy (Elra), and the royal family are supposedly her descendants on some level. theyd have more specific information about the gods, the history of their involvement in the world, some shit about Dalace (not in depth, tho, just that she took over at one point and it was a Bad time). it depends how much info they can get from light realm? i mean, they arent REALLY supposed to say much. they arent even really supposed to interact with the living. which does make you go 0>0 at Alexa. hot damn. willing to break big rules for some living dick. legendary.

i mean i feel like its better if they DO go to quartai, because it allows them to encounter Alara, who has basically bribed and conned her way into a position of power through some whack shit and has integrated into the community to get some of the Juicy Information. they can meet her in a safe environment and find that she’s weird, they can learn a bit about shit, crystal being quartaian can be emphasised in a sort of coy way (im a shit writer sooo it probably wouldnt read very coy lol) and there can even be some foreshadowing for Violet’s position as minor fire deity. since thats almost definitely what catches alara’s attention. a tall, light haired individual with burning green eyes and an implaceable aura? fascinating. but when Violet doesn’t catch any of Alara’s references (to like, the gods and shit), Alara assumes she’s mistaken and perhaps she’s just sensing a strange combined aura. its not till later in the earth realm, when they meet as protagonist vs antagonist, that she realizes no, she was right on the money the first time. because at this point in the story, the main cast have actually started using magic, and theyve already found that Violet’s use of magic is effortless. and with their magic unlocked, so to speak, violet’s aura is fucking incredible. none of the others can see it, with the possibly exception of either Will or Skye, depending which way dark/light fall re: seeing shit. but Alara is an incredibly well practiced mage and demigoddess, and she knows how to see it, and violet’s is intense. its unmistakeable. alara isnt 100% sure what if she recognizes the aura, for the simply fact that violet disappeared when they were 9 and alara hadnt learnt to see/feel aura at the time. but she thinks she knows what it means. shes confident that violet is some demigod. which god? unclear. until Violet throws a fireball at her and tells her to fuck off.

the only other possible ways for violet to be a fire demigod and NOT being the daughter of Ryaris, are for her to be the daughter of Xen (goddess of wind) OR be a distant descendant of Ryaris via her mortal parent, who is also her mother, and which might overrule the godly disciple of the godly parent. the latter is nigh impossible because Ryaris has only had two children to her knowledge, unless she blacked out during 200 years exile and accidentally boned down. she’s pretty sure she didnt, though. not that thats a topic that comes up, exactly. but ryaris only has two kids. Alara has no children, and Violet is not the right age to be the daughter of Alara’s sister. she is, however, the approximate age to BE Alara’s sister. so is sheactually, or is it cosmic coincidence that two demigods (the fire/wind twins and someone else) were born around the same time? who knows! alara has no idea. violet doesnt have a damn clue either. ita rough.

uhhh this got very lost VERY fast. uhhh tl;dr return the story to its original full fantasy setting (not urban/modern fantasy). akian is the girlfriend to the prince of a kingdom, with crystal being her sister. skye being in a weird state of being commoner but living with royalty, just like crystal. akian and the prince are kidnapped by Ryaris in order to force the kingdom into an awful ransom agreement whereby they will do a bunch of suspicious shit. crystal and skye believe they saw part of the kidnapping take place, and attempt to get information. after a bunch of the royal staff tell them to stop worrying and go home, they go find a non-royal library run by Dawn and her ‘niece’ Violet, who help them find some info. Violet, being very much in the know, hooks them up with Will, an adventurer and cartographer who is planning a visit to a portal he located north of the city. after a lot of negotiating/arguing, Will agrees to let the three of them come along, and off they go. a whole bunch of shit happens, involving a trip to neighbouring kingdom Quartai, where Crystal is treated strangely in relation to the party and they first meet Alara, posing as a foreign noble who takes an immediate interest in Violet.

more shit, they end up in some hidden magic isles south of the continent, which then leads them to the earth realm, where they seek an audience with the goddess of earth Elra, on how they can get an audience with Ryaris, goddess of fire, and most likely the kidnapper. more shit. alara appears again and they have a brief confrontation. that night, violet disappears. after failing to find her, they resolve to press onwards (leaving fucking missing persons signs all over this foreign land and even informing Elra about it). go to fire realm, get captured by Alara, who separates out Crystal in order to interrogate her about her lineage to confirm a suspicion she has that Crystal is long lost quartaian royalty (si). violet is brought in to help, much to their mutual distress, and then alara kicks violet out for just doing an awful job of forcing crystal to talk.violet then breaks everyone else out of jail, sends Akian and the prince home with some guards she trusts to take them back safely, and then they go rescue Crystal. final showdown with Alara. convince alara that Dalace, goddess of darkness, has been lying out her fucking ass the entire time and cant do anything she promised. alara reluctantly agrees to confront Ryaris about it. Ryaris admits thats all true and that she knew from the start Dalace was a lying piece of shit, but, i mean...... yknow....... your wife dies and you havent seen your daughter in over a decade........ white lies are nice. also alara was the one who got sucked in. its complicated.

then they go ‘aight time to fuck with dalace’ and then i have no idea. probably all the goddesses (who theyve met throughout the story) come and tell dalace to stop being a cunt? roll credits.

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

Eden-6!!

I am. so fucking tired. but I’m also late asf for Eden-6 stuff to the point it got its video release, so here I am playing catch up.

tl;dr: swamp planet!! we get some cool shots of Alitair and Aurelia, i, surprise surprise, still do not trust mr. wainwright, i tried to form an argument that these ruins we see across the planet are abandoned Atlas facilities/ships, but ~who knows~. also i would (and probably will) die for the saurians. i love them so much. one of them has a funky bone hat. it’s great. also also “stop the CoV before they gain control” [looks at trailers and behind closed doors intro] ... uh oh gamers...

“A backwater swampland of a planet, and family home of the Jakobs clan. Eden-6 is covered by lush greenery and stagnant waters, dotted with occasional settlements and the rusted hulks of crashed spaceships. Civilization has never fully taken hold here, and indigenous dangers including ravenous Saurians and semi-sentient Jabbers effectively rule the planet. As if you didn't already have enough to worry about, the Children of the Vault have a presence here as well.”

im excited for the abandoned spaceships, those things look fucking bad. ass.

Ambermire I am guessing is one of the more swampy areas? Jakob’s Manor is obvious, and Fort Sunshine I’m guessing is that abandoned facility we’ve been seeing around the trailers. unfortunately we don’t get too good of a look at the fortress (shakes fist at gearbox) but we do get some other stuff!

im gonna go over the instagram video first because the pics are a treat so we’re saving them for last.

sorry for the progress bars btw lol

i fucking love that gas giant. so much.

swamps are one of my least favorite biomes, but i know gearbox is going to make me love it.

also a look at one of the crashed ships! (i assume) looks like Atlas to me. Or old Hyperion, but tbh idk why Hyperion would be on Eden-6. so Atlas it is.

a look at one of the settlements. i really love the contrast between this planet and Promethea and Athenas.

those gross pod things on the right? idk if they’re egg sacs or plants or what but i both hate them and love them. also whatever that is glowing on the bottom left. i wanna touchy

Jakobs manor!! honestly a lot less extravagant in the front than i was expecting. also now we know this one shot

is definitely not in front of Jakobs Manor. could be the back entrance or smth tho. looks like it leads into a garden-y area.

my question is, is it a Jakobs thing to enjoy hunting? because it seems like it’s a Jakobs thing to enjoy hunting. also i don’t trust Jakobs. I know I’ve said that, like, a bajillion times, but i don’t. and those metal cowboy-lookin’ robots are totally theirs.

im just surprised the Hammerlocks are living in the Manor. I assumed they were like... visiting. now im pretty convinced mr. wainwright down here is evil because only Alistair is on Sanc-III and we’re all assuming that the Sanc-III demo (not the more recent one) takes place after Athenas, right? 

and OMG YES lilith’s tattoos aren’t visible in the newest video on sanc-iii!! im hoping that means she gets her powers back!! im giddy to look over it 30 times i cannot wait. but one post at a time.

evil. evil man.

he either dies or he’s evil i don’t trust him and hammerlocks eye shouldn’t be red in the We Are Mayhem trailer i just... im so suspicious of this man.

AURELIA i love her so much. she was great in TPS, one of my mains. her new outfit is popping, i love the boots.

also she has 2 ice diadem shards now and im terrified yet oddly happy for her.

ALISTAIR. i legitimately thought he was on Promethea at first, then i realized this is probably part of the abandoned facility/fortress. shame we don’t get a closer look at it.

also look who’s eye is back to being not-red again!

also the writing on the back there makes me even more convinced this is Atlas facility. on Promethea, the parts of the Meridian city are labeled with these unique symbols (so far i’ve seen blue and red) and this red one looks like it fits the mark perfectly.

these look like the same canisters from the mine on Pandora. whatcha pumpin eden-6?

more red plants. i like how different this can look from athenas, yet still have very similar foliage. outstanding move, gearbox.

is that another crashed ship in the background??? yes pls. also this dude’s face paint is giving me huge Mask of Mayhem vibes, I love it.

the inside of Jakobs Manor

i hate to tell you this mr. gearbox sir but im pretty sure they do

yeesh. 

also that one scene of troy in the manor as well

dis one

is that the globe in the background? anyone know? im trying to remember where the fuck ive seen that shot of the library/globe. hmmmmmmmmmm

it is not the globe whump whump. i am excited to explore this library tho. 

what looks like fishing net on the right? wild

also car!!

no wings/fins like in the Mask of Mayhem trailer tho, that sucks.

i like this dude. especially his face paint.

i like this glowing crystals even more tho

purple crystals that mimic troy’s red ones? me likey.

eridium? maybe! slag to chug when u need more power? maybe! i don’t know!

j̷̧̭͙̹̭̀̽͆̕͘u̸̦͌̃͛̕̕s̴̡̰͙̣͊̂̔t̴͇̪͐ͅ ̸̭̐́w̵̧̯̲͊̀̃̄̕a̵̢͓̎́̏̓t̷̪̓̑̎͜c̶̢̢͔̀h̴̥̬̪̫̫̿ ̶̪̬̞̼͐̾̉͐̒ơ̵̼̋̍̓̕u̵̻̪̞̞̺̐̾̀̚͠t̶͉̠̟͉̪̋̈̿ ̶̢̗̗͑f̵̰̫͇̈̾ọ̴͑r̶̢͕̺͈͎̃̌͘ ̸̩͆̏̅a̸͈̙̪̋̏ǹ̷̮͚͍̽͜ģ̵̠̀̍̋̔r̴̪̦̾̇̕͠y̷̘͖̜̿͑̅̀ͅ ̷̬̱͉̗͌̇j̵̹͇̽͗̕ā̸̳͇͈̠̺b̴̰̏͜b̴̘͗̔e̷͖̓͊r̸͍̫̻̊͆̊s̸̛̙̳͔̗̋̓͝ 

also check that glowy light in the background. totally Atlas.

also also i like they have little hanging nest/house things. those are really cute.

this motherfucker is coming at us with a sledgehammer ffs

i like their tiger stripe designs. they blend in with the leaves, which i guess is an evolutionary advantage all things considered.

I LOVE THESE FUNKY LITTLE MOTHERFUCKERS

LOOK AT THIS DUDE!!! HE’S GOT A BONE HAT! I LOVE HIM!!!

AND THEY FUCKING BREATHE FIRE??

GLOWING YELLOW EYES!!!

A SPLIT JAW! WHO DOESN’T LOVE THESE LITTLE DUDES???

i fucking love Saurians holy shit

okay okay okay okay

picture time 😎

i love the skybox on Eden-6, holy shit it’s beautiful. also, those sacs/plants/fungi or whatever are definitely volatile.

look at that one glowing red one. that’s totally going to deal some fuckin fire damage to whatever touches it and i for one am ready

also.

can we get an F in chat for Eden-6? lmao i remember being like ‘oh look a gas giant’ in my analysis of every museum of mayhem piece and COMPLETELY FORGETTING that eden-6 has a gas giant directly beside it. big brain fart there.

holy shit i love the color schemes for these things. i know there are blue ones as well, but these orange/yellow/red ones are FANTASTIC. i especially love the shiny yellow ones. they’re so pretty!!

we also get a mostly obscured window in the back there

possibly part of the abandoned facility? but more than likely just part of a crashed ship.

like (im assuming) this one!

the doors match up to Sanctuary-III quite well. also the bones on the ground. i love the regrowth aesthetic they’ve got going on here.

also apparently ratches have made their home here. these things are fuckin everywhere. they’re like the new rakk holy shit

MY BEAUTIFUL BOYS

look at the one on the bottom right! those blue markings are fuckin stunning and i love the little fins on the sides of his head

and that giant skeleton in the background? that’s some good shit right there! im hoping those are fireflies/some sort of glowing insect around the front there. so we can have pockets of glowing orbs dancing around the map as we explore.

oooo

i really like the hulls of the ships, the one on the far left and the one in the back right.

im mostly interested in this tree. i wonder if it just regrew around some debris or if this is making the stuff on this planet grow wildly out of control. I’m always down for science gone wrong! and with atlas, pretty much anything could go horribly wrong. that’s just their way of doing things.

anyway it is 4 in the am and i am tired, so im gonna pass tf out now and hopefully do Fl4k’s trailer, and a few other posts i gotta catch up on, tomorrow! so hyped for fl4k info!!

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

holy shit okay i was working on my Angel post and I got sucked into the mythology as you do when doing stuff like this, I’ve made 4 separate drafts since then but I can’t keep my mouth shut because guys, I know we’re all focused on the Calypsos, and how Calypso is the child of Atlas, and all that fun stuff

BUT

What if, in the grand scheme of things, Tyreen is Demeter, Troy is Demophon, and Persephone the mystery girl. please, I have wikipedia quotes for all of this. I personally am not an actual believer of this theory, but it was really fun to write, so here you go.

OKAY

Let’s start with Tyreen and Demeter. Yeah, she’s shown us that her power is like... Phasesuck or whatever, where she drains the life force out of people (and Siren powers, apparently), we also see in the art on the wall of the HBC that her and Troy are bringing food (in boxes) to the cultists.

So Demeter is “the goddess of the grain, agriculture, harvest, growth, and nourishment, who presided over grains and the fertility of the earth. Her cult titles include Sito (Σιτώ), "she of the Grain", as the giver of food or grain”. It seems like Demeter is the exact opposite of what we know Tyreen as- right now she steals the life force and strength from people, meanwhile Demeter would nurture them and help them grow and get stronger. In addition: “Though Demeter is often described simply as the goddess of the harvest, she presided also over the sacred law, and the cycle of life and death.” yeah. yeah yeah yeah yeah.

Bonus, I did a lot of research on Cybele a while ago while I was batshit crazy, and GUESS WHAT

“Demeter was often considered to be the same figure as the Anatolian goddess Cybele”

For Cybele: “Her cults most often were funded privately, rather than by the polis. Her ‘vivid and forceful character’ and association with the wild set her apart from the Olympian gods”. Now I don’t know exactly what the Olympian gods are in the borderlands verse. My first instinct was the corporations? But two of those are named after titans and the rest clearly aren’t greek. So I got nothing.

In addition, Demeter created a cult called “the Mysteries which give the initiates higher hopes in this life and the afterlife”. Sound familiar? Yeah, the Great Vault in BL3 that’s referenced by the Cultists while they’re dying. their exact words are “The Great Vault beckons”. To add to that, the Calypsos are stated as giving their cultists something to believe in so they can believe in themselves. They give them ‘higher hopes in this life’. Quote straight from the Danny Homan interview: “People need something to believe in and they need people to believe in them and that’s kind of what the Calypsos have provided. They’ve kind of gone ‘oh bandits, everyone calls you animals, everyone calls you trash... but we see there’s something, there’s something in you, there’s something we can elevate your murder to. Murder in our name’.”

So why do I think this matches up with Ty? Because I don’t think her power is solely taking power from others. I think she can turn around and distribute it to other things.

Moving on.

This coming bit is mainly why I think Demophon is Troy. Let’s take a looksie:

Weird beginning, but things start to make sense soon, I promise: “While Demeter was searching for her daughter Persephone, having taken the form of an old woman called Doso, she received a hospitable welcome from Celeus, the King of Eleusis in Attica. He asked her to nurse Demophon his son by Metanira.”

“As a gift to Celeus, because of his hospitality, Demeter planned to make Demophon a god, by anointing and coating him with ambrosia... making him immortal by burning his mortal spirit away in the family hearth every night.”

Sadly, she doesn’t succeed in making him immortal and Demophon dies because she was interrupted in her ritual. 

Why do I think this is tied to Troy? Because we know Typhon Deleon found something important. We know De Leon is the name of the legendary dude in our world who found the Fountain of Youth - the key to immortality. It’s also been confirmed that Troy can’t survive without Tyreen helping him (tending to him like Demeter does Demophon). It would make sense that they are trying to figure out a way to immortalize Troy (and, yeah, he probably does end up dying. There’s no other reason to mention he’s sick...) We also are all guessing that Troy’s tattoos have appeared by Ty giving him Lilith’s powers. and what is Lilith’s main element? Fire. 

Since we’re on the topic, let’s talk about Demophon’s brother, Triptolemus. He was considered one of the first priests of the Mysteries and one of his rules was “Honor your Parents”. Sound familiar? Yeah, “Honor the Father” that’s on some of the CoV propaganda posters. To explain: “He flew across the land on a chariot drawn by dragons... his mission of educating the whole of Greece in the art of agriculture. Triptolemus was equally associated with the bestowal of hope for the afterlife associated with the expansion of the Eleusinian Mysteries”. We know now that the ‘art of agriculture’ is Demeter’s domain, and we have likened this to Tyreen’s powers. So, likely, Triptolemus is the priest we see on the cover art. Walking around, chosen by Tyreen, teaching people about the Twin Gods and the cult ‘Children of the Vault’.

Now this is where I get a little stretchy. Because we know nothing of Mystery Girl on the cover.

Persephone. “Plutarch identifies Persephone with the season of spring, and Cicero calls her the seed of the fruits of the fields. In the Eleusinian Mysteries, her return from the underworld each spring is a symbol of immortality”. 

Now I talk about Zeus a bunch in my mythology masterpost that i have yet to post cause i'm always adding to it, and basically I think he’s a representative of the Eridians themselves. Some sort of leader or smth? idk

“Zeus, it is said, permitted Hades to abduct her... Demeter searched for her all over the earth with Hecate's torches. In most versions, [Demeter] forbids the earth to produce, or she neglects the earth and in the depth of her despair she causes nothing to grow. Helios, the sun, who sees everything, eventually told Demeter what had happened and at length she discovered the place of her abode. Finally, Zeus, pressed by the cries of the hungry people and by the other deities who also heard their anguish, forced Hades to return Persephone. Hades indeed complied with the request, but first he tricked her, giving her some pomegranate seeds to eat. Persephone was released by Hermes, who had been sent to retrieve her, but because she had tasted food in the underworld, she was obliged to spend a third of each year there”.

now this is 100% unfounded bullshit im spewing here, but maybe this is why we have yet to actually see Mystery Girl, like, AT ALL. 

We know Tyreen wants to get stronger, she wants to absorb the powers of the Vault Monsters. but why? Just to rule over the galaxy? I mean, sure, why not, but she’s pretty much already getting there just with her cult.

Instead, you know what’d be cool? If she needed all those powers to fight whatever/whoever fucked with mystery girl. If she knew that opening all those Vaults was going to lead to something terrible and didn’t care because it was bad for the Eridians, or whatever that took her sister (?). Like, what if they actually were triplets (Tyreen being the first sister), but the reason Mystery Girl looks so young on the MoM is because she’s been missing since that age? Because they tried to make her immortal like they’re doing for Troy? If they’re all siblings, it’s possible they all have the same sickness. Tyreen can always heal herself because of her Siren powers, but what about Troy? The mystery girl? They’d need someone/something else to heal them. I’m sure Ty can do it for one of them, but both? They’d probably gone looking for a way to heal her, maybe they opened a Vault at some point? (maybe the red vault shown in all the wall art?) And Mystery Girl went missing because of it or smth. idk, im just rambling. i was gonna post my Angel post today but I got toooooootally sidetracked. might still do it if i have the energy. 

This is what my tabs are looking like right now btw lmao