#and so would the scions

[fisherrprince]

so important to me that Y’shtola is a rude little beast who grew up in a cave. she just happens to look like a beautiful socialite but she did grow up with one old woman in a cave learning mildly illegal magic

[aizel-kon]

LOOK WHAT HE GOT!!!!

"Scions of the New World" continuation 2

I saw yall asking for the jar scene lolol

[wildstar25]

MiqoMarch Day 25 - Fate

"It's almost funny; that my adventures would lead me right back to the isles I had thought to have left so far behind me. Is this all a coincidence or is this fate?"

[momijigari]

Grafting

[felonytaxevasion]

Also for the record if you put the Madoka girls in Worm Madoka would also find a way to solve the Scion problem. And she'd still wear a pretty pink dress and believe in the power of friendship while doing it also

[fatedroses]

I personally subscribe to the idea that Adventurer Zenos shows his affection and appreciation for his peers in very odd ways (like yoinking the Students' taxes and dealing with their expenses and maybe also paying for some of their expenses but shhh).

[randomnameless]

Why do the FEH devs insist on ignoring Nabatean lore so much?

I recently had a surprisingly cordial discussion on redshit with someone about the "nabateans = colonisers" take, and one of the main points raised was that the game was purposedly foggy around Nabateans/Sothis/their story because it would obviously favor a certain narrative (and thus make another narrative look, uh, not that marketable anymore).

To be honest, we still ended up with a product that had a lead go "this race and its blood* is the reason why the world sucks" and yet that lead is still marketable enough to have raunchy cipher cards and 5 FEH alts, so I actually wonder if, while pissing on that lore had that purpose, it was ultimately pointless since Supreme Leader can still sell goodies despite her incarnation in FE16.

And not only Supreme Leader - but the entirety of WC where we basically have 70% of the cast crying/complaining about their "mixed blood" or lack of and basically adding their 10 cents to the "this race and its blood is the reason why the world sucks".

I mean, can you imagine Sylvain selling any goodies and alts if Flayn replied to his "wah wah people only are kind to me and want to fuck me because I have Nabatean blood :(" by some uncharacteristic "good for you, I have to hide my ears, had to dye my hair, have to lie about my family because if the truth is found out about my identity, I will be hunted and vivisected like an animal and harvested for parts by people who call my kin abominations - just like what happens in the game where the same people who call my kin "abominations" ally with a classmate who calls me a creature and pretends I am incapable of human feelings based on my race".

FE Fodlan's main selling point is its cast of students, for various reasons, but even if I tried to kid myself, Nopes and FEH made it clears : students are the main selling point.

If you spare more time and attention to the Nabatean plot/lore, the students either grow from "likeable" to "despicable" or worse, you won't gaf about them because yeah sure, Hilda might be upset because people expect things from her due to her crust, but it would feel like a "peanut" compared to Seteth's irrational (granted, it's not so irrational since GW exists) fear that Flayn's newest friends would dissect her if they learnt she was a Nabatean, and being conflicted by finally letting her have human friends and form bonds she crave, or protect her due to the trauma from the genocide of their species.

Don't get me wrong, I love peanuts, I mean, not everyone can have a tragik of loaded backstory!

And yet, given how this verse's DNA is "can you fight against the red emperor who uwus about you", they had to add copious amounts of Earl Grey to their games so there's no clear-cut factions :

The "Your alien blood and its influence on the world corrupted it, so I want to reform it under my command" vs "I don't want to die and you oppose me due to my race and side with the people who genocided my kin"

is turned to :

"Your alien blood Crests and its your church's influence on the world corrupted it, so I want to reform it under my command"

"I don't want to die and you oppose me due to my race and side with the people who genocided my kin"

Sprinkle with the cast's hammering here and there that the "reforms" might be needed - but never develop on what they are - and add a few baseless and groundless takes as a toping (basically everything Claude says about tolerance and the general "isolationism/foreign policy" stuff) and you get FE Fodlan where the Red Emperor's war isn't seen as the catastrophe it is in the other entries from the series!

Now, for FEH...

FWIW, the F!F!Billy's trailer had them try to explain that Sothis was a bit pissed about her slaughtered/massacred children when Nopes never gave any reason about why she was pissed - maybe on Billy's behalf bcs Jerry's dead, but come on, she would indeed deserve the medal of the worst parent in the franchise if that was the case, since Billy can murder her daughter without Sothis taking over ! - but given that they cannot write/go against the source game those characters are from.

They tried a bit, with B!Supreme Leader and Hegemongard's FB, but then it stopped (because she had no "new unit" released since then lol) and I can understand why : Hegemongard came out before the Supreme Emblem, and Hegemongard hates dragons who are seen/perceived as gods by some of their human followers. Come FE17, and now Supreme Emblem accepts Alear because they are "one of the good ones". We can come up with HCs and details and talk about what are emblems or if Hegemongard's views were only hers at the end of AM all day long... But imo, Doylist wise, it still feels it's a retcon because the devs from the main games tried to scrap and remove the most "controversial" traits she had.

For the other characters... Well, you see what Marianne is in FEH (but even in her base games), she's one of the few characters who reacts - in a way - to the partial history about relics and demonic beasts and all... only to give sad uwus to Maurice.

FE16 (and Nopes) refused to have any "student" character react to the Nabatean lore/reveal, about what are relics and all. There are no lines, Claude shared some knowledge in the explore section of VW's last chapter, but we don't have anyone muse or think or even talk about what are relics, what are crests, and what kind of fuckery their ancestors or the ancient humans of Fodlan did.

With that in mind, FEH can't do much : either they write Marianne in a retcon-y way like what happened for Hegemongard (and they're not afraid to piss on characterisation, look at Lyon!), or they flanderise her "character" and develop her around 3 lines she had in the game in her paralogue, and continue to give sad uwus about Momo when he was at best a guy who slaughtered and murdered so much that he abused the Nabatean turned into a relic to the point where he turned in a demonic beast even if he had a matching crest, or at worst, had been part of Nemesis's piñata party in Zanado and was something of a genocider.

Tldr :

Why FE Fodlan never gaf about Nabateans : earl grey + the marketable cast has to stay marketable and you can't sell peanuts at the same price you'd sell swordfish

Why FEH dgaf about Nabatean lore : they can't afford to retcon characters + they have to sell peanut alts with the same seasoning they had in their base game.

For what it's worth though, I think FEH is more daring than the base game(s) given how they gave more lines and screentime to Rhea - through her different alts - than GW. And they even designed her Halloween!alt's lines to piss on some of Claude's assertions, while the various FB involving members of the church also - indirectly - reply to some accusations thrown their way in FE16 when, FE16, never gave them an opportunity or lines to explain that those takes were full of dung.

*"but random, maybe she doesn't know that the crests she often decries is "dragon blood"!"

It's highly debatable, especially given what she and Hubert throw to Billy in CF - but even if she doesn't, Doylist wise we still have a character who, knowingly or not, says "this race and its blood* is the reason why the world sucks" and who is never called out on her prejudice. That's more of an issue regarding the general writing though, she has to be a red emperor and took pages from Ashnard's book, and yet, the player must still feel bad and want to romance her, so her mindest/goal cannot be looked at too closely, because, I guess, even the devs thought it would be difficult to romance her (thus sell goodies!) if more light was shed on the "blood from this race corrupts our people" schtick -> which in turn would also make characters whose backstory and gimmick rely on "crying about crests" be way less likeable, thus marketable and able to sell goodies.

[whetstonefires]

You know, I've been thinking about it, and it is absolutely essential to the narrative that Jiang Cheng is a dick and a trash fire. (Affectionate.)

Like, first of all, if he was a sainted little angel of a shidi the way Jiang Yanli is a shijie, Wei Wuxian's choices would become obvious, sort of impersonal, and boring.

Sure, lots of people wouldn't tear themselves apart for such a person in such a scenario, but they're not the protagonists of novels, are they; in a book you have to justify not doing that. So white lotus Jiang Cheng is off the table.

Jiang Cheng who isn't fragile-and-insecure but also stubborn-as-hell and violently reactive also won't wash.

If he wasn't the kind of person who sincerely tries to die under these circumstances, Wei Wuxian would have had the option of loyally supporting him in a less self-destructive way; if he was someone who could be trusted to handle the revelation without suffering a ruinous fracture of identity, Wei Wuxian wouldn't have been forced to distance himself after the war, because he could have come clean.

If Jiang Cheng wasn't the kind of person who centers on his own pride and hurt feelings and lashes out about it, it would be very hard to set up the lategame scenario where they're 'enemies' in a real, meaningful way, despite still loving each other and Wei Wuxian never wishing Jiang Cheng any ill. Even with Jiang Yanli's death.

And I mean, you could get most of the plot without doing this interesting thematic examination of the classic 'bond between martial brothers severed by one going to the dark side' trope, but I'd argue you'd lose an enormous chunk of the story.

And without Jiang Cheng's weaknesses, Wei Wuxian's motives don't cohere. His weaknesses form the foundation of at least two of the backstory's major turning points.

There's the tantalizing possibility that Wei Wuxian wouldn't have done it, if Jiang Cheng hadn't strangled him while blaming him for everything.

Probably he would have, all else being equal! But neither we nor Jiang Cheng can be sure.

Jiang Cheng sucking a lot, and knowing his own flaws perfectly well without that granting him the ability to do much about them, is heavily load-bearing. Which gives him such a fantastic implied point of view!

[idalenn]

Our Devouring of the Immaculate

[valeriannnn]

I know little of the Keepers and their cultural norms, but I suppose it should not come as a surprise that matters of grooming and personal maintenance should carry a more pragmatic connotation for those who live in such isolation - or perhaps our friend is simply strange, regardless of his context. I must admit: it was no small comfort to me, in those frigid days heralding the twilight of the Dragonsong War, to discover that our champion did not share our Sharlayan intuition toward personal space. Our more guarded companions don't always share my gratitude for the attention, but I believe that after our long estrangement, even the coldest of hearts could not fail to be warmed by such a gesture.

Wolcred Week 2024 Day 1: Warmth | Home

ok as mentioned in the tags i didnt have time to render a complete scene for this but i found this old mspaint sketch that demonstrates the Vibe. tyagoa just walked up behind him after cleaning up from their meal

[fugeoni666]

There was a hot take on the X app that Hanzo only special cuz he using a bow and no one would bat an eye if he use guns, my bro, he used to be a mafia boss what do you think !?!

[tovaicas]

↳ ꜰꜰxɪᴠ — ʀᴏᴜᴠᴀꜱᴛʀᴇ ᴅᴇ ʟᴇᴜᴠᴇᴄʜɪᴇʀ ⇄ ᴇꜱᴛᴇᴇᴍ

Today, tomorrow — forever on, from one war to the next. Have you ever wondered when our war ends? Does it even matter? Were we not meant to be nothing but weapons from the day we were born, our edges kept sharp and bloody when needed and hung up and set aside like good, obedient little soldiers when not?

(Steel Temper! Heavensbreaker! The Warrior of Light! Our Weapon of Light!)

Look in the mirror. Do you still feel him crawling up your spine, setting within your bone? Do you feel it gnawing at the edge of your soul? Feel the blood in your fingers again. Remember your purpose. Remember the grind of the bone beneath your fist. Remember. Remember. Remember. Stare into my eyes and REMEMBER.

(Even now, you continue to deny it. Well. Deny me all you want. You cannot deny what we have done.)

You feel it, don’t you? There’s no point to hiding it. I know you. Feel the furious pulse of hot blood in your head. Feel it in your teeth. Feel it in your throat. Feel it in your heart. Feel my hand on yours, cloak it in scale, and grind it deep into where it needs to be. Again, and then again. One broken shield exchanged for another. It’s never enough. It will never be enough.

(Or you could beat every single one of them to death with your bare hands. You would like that, wouldn’t you?)

But you know as well as we — that it was never the Eye.

(I knew you would.)

It was always just you.

[wildstar25]

The 3rd Sun of the 3rd Umbral Moon - or in other terms, June 3rd - marks the day a very special cat entered the world. Happy Birthday Arsay!

(Opening images in a new tab is recommended for best quality viewing, thank you!)

[sheyshen]

Had a thought that with how Koana and Wuk Lamat are that Luna would end up with the protective dad and fun auntie growing up and of course had to sketch the 'two types of dads' thing.

Raya receives a message 5 seconds later that says "Lamaty'i is no longer in charge of babysitting Luna"

[fooltofancy]

eastern thanalan - camp drybone

camp drybone lives up to its name: it's dry as a bone. rocky and arid despite its proximity to the twelveswood, the sparse trees offer little in the way of protection from the sun's rays. the fauna are hardy and mostly uninterested in wanderers, but one ought to be aware of amalj'aa presence in the area.

when it rains the water rushes down the gullies in a flood, earth too dry to absorb the excess - but with the dawn it's burned away, drifting in a haze anywhere the newly risen sun doesn't touch.

note for the future: can recommend the sunway for easy foot travel, but suggest sturdy, breathable shoes. perhaps an umbrella.

[fatedroses]

May I humbly request more Mateus+Zenos content/lore? Their silliness fascinates and captivates me.

Absolutely Anon! And I'm glad to hear it ^o^. I'm gonna slap this under a read more though cause this is probably gonna be pretty long lol

---

---

Mateus (I realize I don't think I ever specified that he's closer to the twins/fordola/arenvald in age, he's 19/20 by EW) was "studying" engineering before the death of his father and the subsequent fall of the empire. He excels in building advanced machina, and was primarily just coasting through the academy to build up both his reputation and his connections. Similar to Zenos he was fascinated by magic, and thusly dedicated a lot of time experimenting with ways to conduct and command aether.

Despite being the favored son Varis could not keep track of Mateus' whereabouts even when he had doubts, and Mateus has no qualms lying through his teeth even to his family and even to his mother. This meant that when he was out, he was often either out salvaging or using allowance to fund his projects, or doing his own martial training as a pastime.

What Mateus was doing was both fixing up an old decommissioned airship, and making "Heaven" and "Hell", two humanoid machines he was making for the purpose of conquest. He was often daydreaming of the day Zenos or Varis would ask him to join them, and is a bit of a sore spot for him after having to flee the collapse and finding Zenos with the scions later down the line.

Heaven is a large multi-armed siege machine that doubles as an autopilot for the airship. It stores aether to charge Mateus' staff, and primarily works to protect him. Hell is based visually off of Zenos' old armor, and is a hyper aggressive machine that Mateus can wear as a suit if he's feeling particularly destructive. The ship, Mateus, and the machina basically operate together like a bullet hell lmfao. Hell also starts getting Zenos into a shit ton of trouble especially with the alliance when Mateus starts wreaking havoc behind everyone's backs and Zenos starts getting blamed for it.

Post-EW Mateus is spending his time trying to salvage and aid (take over) Garlemald, often accompanied by the only two outside his family still around that really knows the truth of his existence: Julia and Annia. The Soranus sisters, especially after Zenos returned to the palace, were basically big sisters to Mateus, however he wasn't as attached to them as he was to his actual family, and sees them more as useful pawns than as mentors.

Mateus despises Alphinaud and Alisaie, and Estinien, the same way Asahi did to WoL. Meteor gets to dodge this purely by virtue that Mateus finds him useful (and in a way tries to treat him likes he treats Zenos in an attempt to win him over too). But he gets aggressively bitter whenever Zenos dotes on Alphinaud or Alisaie at all. Even despite him trying to cover his intentions they push his buttons unintentionally to either get him into arguments with the former, or fights with the latter (and starts snapping a bit when Zenos gives the twins advice/training and Mateus loses most footing he has on both fronts.)

Alphinaud especially is very wary of Mateus because he can tell there's something synthetic about his facade, and tries very hard to both glean his intentions and pick out where his lies are and why. Alisaie however is just ready to throw down with him tbh, especially when Zenos starts struggling with figuring out how to handle him, and even moreso whenever Mateus is trying to isolate Zenos.

Now... why Estinien? It's less the feeling of being replaced like it is for the twins, and moreso Mateus being an overbearing and bullheaded younger brother and thinking for some forsaken reason Zenos and Estinien are in a secret relationship. He is very adamant about this conspiracy and Zenos himself is unable to pry why Mateus gets so aggravated with Estinien, when the dragoon literally is just existing there and only intervenes with Zenos whenever Mateus is picking on the twins.

Why this came into existence is just because I write Zenos and Estinien as a really close duo (to the point tbh that it's kinda fair for Mateus to assume it despite the rest of the scions knowing this isn't the case).

The two bonded over hunting together, and Estinien and his /lean wall is just what Zenos naturally gravitates to if he isn't needed for something. They also argue like an old married couple with Zenos getting on Estinien's ass over finances or him blowing himself up doing dragon dragoon bullshit, and Estinien likewise is either grabbing this man by his golden locks for trying to be the last to get tended to for injuries, or prodding at him when he's trying to pry into why Zenos is either being moody or starts falling back into apathy.

Mateus also just gets aggravated with the fact that Zenos has the most physical "dependence" with Estinien, and being the spoiled baby brother meant that he wasn't a fan of whenever Zenos chooses to lean on or rest his head on Estinien (because post-ew zenos is very physically clingy and Mateus is not used to his brother seeking affection let alone reacting to it). Estinien in turn indulges it cause he's a bro like that and honestly Zenos is so genuine about it all that it's hard for him to find a reason not to, and he's so used to him protecting him, picking him up, and throwing him that the proximity is just second nature by now LOL.

So with all that, it is very unfortunate for Mateus when he tries to corner Estinien and threatens him to try and get him to go away. Because the intimidation fails miserably Estinien leans deeply into the conspiracy just to piss the spoiled little brat off (or, because I frankly dont mind people using the lore/concepts/characters I write for their own stuff and someone ships dork and dorkier over here he's deadass just more outwardly affectionate). Meanwhile Zenos is blissfully unaware for the most part, man's just happy to have the companionship lol.