#alt route

[shrimpricebowl]

oh thank god

[thethirdromana]

More travels with Jonathan Harker, in pictures

Here's the route that Jonathan travels by the public coach today:

I've tried to find copyright-free photos from the actual route, but I've not had much success. So this tour is going to be a lot more vibes-based than reflective of the actual sights out of the stagecoach window. Think of it like Jonathan's Transylvanian Pinterest board.

(Scenery photos are all of Transylvania, assuming I can trust the sites where I found them, but not necessarily the right time of year or the right bit of Transylvania. It's a big place.)

"Before us lay a green sloping land full of forests and woods, with here and there steep hills, crowned with clumps of trees or with farmhouses, the blank gable end to the road."

"There was everywhere a bewildering mass of fruit blossom—apple, plum, pear, cherry; and as we drove by I could see the green grass under the trees spangled with the fallen petals."

"In and out amongst these green hills of what they call here the "Mittel Land" ran the road, losing itself as it swept round the grassy curve, or was shut out by the straggling ends of pine woods, which here and there ran down the hillsides like tongues of flame."

"Beyond the green swelling hills of the Mittel Land rose mighty slopes of forest up to the lofty steeps of the Carpathians themselves. Right and left of us they towered, with the afternoon sun falling full upon them and bringing out all the glorious colours of this beautiful range, deep blue and purple in the shadows of the peaks, green and brown where grass and rock mingled, and an endless perspective of jagged rock and pointed crags, till these were themselves lost in the distance, where the snowy peaks rose grandly."

"As we wound on our endless way, and the sun sank lower and lower behind us, the shadows of the evening began to creep round us. This was emphasised by the fact that the snowy mountain-top still held the sunset, and seemed to glow out with a delicate cool pink."

"By the roadside were many crosses, and as we swept by, my companions all crossed themselves."

"Sometimes, as the road was cut through the pine woods that seemed in the darkness to be closing down upon us, great masses of greyness, which here and there bestrewed the trees, produced a peculiarly weird and solemn effect, which carried on the thoughts and grim fancies engendered earlier in the evening, when the falling sunset threw into strange relief the ghost-like clouds which amongst the Carpathians seem to wind ceaselessly through the valleys."

And a bonus: Bran Castle is marked as 'Dracula's Castle' despite being even further away from the locations in the book than most of my vibes-based photography choices. It also doesn't resemble Bram Stoker's descriptions of the castle.

But more importantly, it looks really cool. So here it is:

[soni-dragon]

aftermath

[ssecond-hand-faith]

¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

[sandraharissa]

I can't believe they character assassinated silco posthumously

[j0celynh0rr0r]

You’re not alone. Never ever.

[kallumity]

Bruh. First of all, awesome, they look amazing, I'll have to check the credits for who made this background, but, like most of them, represent each characters life/personality. And then there is the defeating bill via erasing Stan's mind in the arch (and top of Stan's window)

But then there is Ford's

Yeah, OK Bill, the journals and the portal were very big parts of his life, and I guess the journals could also represent part of his personality because he loves researching, but that's only one part of his personality? And if you look at Stan's, there are a few along with the life events.

Also, what's with the 6? (Sixer? Maybe? But that seems a little, eh. Y'know?)

The last thing is it me, or is his quite a bit darker than the other character windows?

[draw-ren-draw]

Finally getting ‘Bodacious-T’ some sweet ‘drip’

[ministarfruit]

I also did mock CGs of them for fun!!

(doppelgänger magni and vesper concepts)

[shitpostingfromthebarricade]

Jean Valjean and Thénardier's fates are connected in some way that I cannot exactly put into words but that certainly exists.

[wysteriaisapenguin]

Just thought it would be nice to put Contrarian in different outfits.

He is a silly little clown so he's gotta look the part!

[echo-nt]

Lucina -> Severa <- Camilla love triangle, but Severa is completely oblivious to the major beef happening between the princesses

[omegalomania]

we didn't start it!!!!!!!!

[kosmicsandshoes]

I know about your TerrorNoss shipping account mechanicalowls. it's very easy to put two and two together (and how about some DeliRiser, delirious and terroriser, just for fun/to experiment) you can't hide from the truth

i mean, i don’t really try to hide it

[non4ry]

you believe me like a god (i’ll betray you like a man)

[serpentface]

Since Couya is starting to believe she’s the one chosen to become the new Odomache, would this leads eventually to conflict with Faiza? Also, does the crowning of a new god-emperor (and fall of the current monarchy) stabilize the Wardi empire in the near-future?

Yeag so I will just say it Faiza does Not survive this story. A lot of Couya and Faiza's arc is them increasingly becoming at odds with each other in both viewpoint and direct conflict- Faiza is a personal friend of the Usoma and strong believer in a balance of power between the axis of the faith and state as a source of stability, Couya sees the society she's in and its royal family as irreversibly degraded and godless and everything she sees on the pilgrimage strengthens this notion, Faiza privately ascribes to an agnostic philosophy and does not believe there is a material reality to most of their rites (instead valuing them as a unifying force), Couya is Extremely a believer and is personally experiencing encounters with God telling her what needs to be done. Both of them basically want the same thing- an end to the instability, for their people to be saved, the preservation of their imperial state, but the ways they want to accomplish this increasingly come to a head and yeah Couya ultimately kills and replaces her. This is Not just like an overnight thing or something she would have ever dreamed of doing prior to the pilgrimage. Couya and Faiza's relationship is complicated but Couya does actually love her, and she's going to be haunted by this for the rest of her life.

Also yeah the crowning of a god-emperor actually does play a strong hand in internal stabilization. As mentioned before this is actually a very popular move in the public opinion- the royal family became extremely unpopular in response to the failed suppression of Finnerich's rebellion and their handling of the drought, and Imperial Wardin only already an 'empire' in a very loose sense of the word (more of an alliance between several city states and their occupied tributaries conditionally deferring to a monarch) with its strongest unifying factor being the Wardi faith, which was often regarded as inappropriately unrepresented by its former leadership.

The coup and resulting restructuring shifted the balance of power to be fully centralized (full merging of religious and political leadership, decreasing individual power of city-states) in a way that was also highly popular among the public and allowed for very aggressive and effective rebuilding efforts post-famine. The biggest issue is that the city-state of Lobera secedes and places adjacent former imperial tributaries under its protection, which effectively cut out almost a quarter of former claimed Imperial Wardi territory and ends in war a few years down the line (which Lobera loses, but this still has long-lasting consequences for the Imperial Wardi side). But like overall this political takeover goes shockingly well and sees the state becoming more powerful and unified than it ever has been and beginning an expansionist campaign, much to the detriment of everyone else.

The longterm stability of this situation is much less certain though.