#especially how this is ALSO a recontextualization of a memory

[bar-guest]

There is something about changing "Memory is a monster." to "Memory is the monster." that makes me incredibly sane*

*chewing the carpet, crying blood

[thumpypuppy]

hey can you talk about I WON’T LET YOU GO HOME from ISAT and how you went about making it? It is so good. me and friends really like it. thank you in advance if so! the game is so good and your soundtrack has played a key role in making it literally life changing.

Lindar here!

Thank you SO MUCH for the kind words.

Firstly, I have to give credit to InsertDisc5 who gave incredible direction and has been to date one of the best people I've worked with.

So let's start from the beginning: We establish a specific instrumental tone with the pseudo-chiptune synth we've heard a lot, especially in the title theme. This was created using NI Massive, which was one of the most heavily used synths in the OST. We're doing kind of a basic heavy metal riff here, but making it chiptune-y.

Next we fade in for the first and only time in the soundtrack a SNES strings pad to fill out the chord structure and provide additional melodic content.

Then of course for our more intense moments we roll out Toontrack Superior Drummer 2 + Metal Foundry, featuring the amazing drumming styles of the one and only Sandra Baker. I think she went absolutely ham to contrast with how simple the first section is.

So next we hit our stride and establish what the piece is really saying. The drums simplify a bit to leave room for the melody, and then we hit a "drop" of sorts into the next section.

Now we're rocking to a reprise of the title theme in a more major tone, but it's feeling less hopeful and more like a longing attachment to memories of the past.

In the second half of the title theme we run a reprise of the death/loss theme as a counter-melody while also introducing a new little motif stab underneath. We hear it in the strings as sort of the response to a call that hasn't actually been made, and then it's repeated in the bass, and finally the whole band states it all at once as we move into the next section.

Again we're stating the title theme, but this time in a different mode with a gliding, reverby, monophonic lead that feels like it's floating. Each phrase keeps rising in intensity, desperately reaching for that memory.

Finally after all of that wildly changing energy and anxiety ramping up we hit a breakdown featuring probably some of the best orchestral composition I've managed thus far (not to toot my own horn). I was really shooting for "pained" as the sound of this section. Half-time feel drums where we're so incredibly out of energy, but no! The drums pick up into double-time as we desperately reach out for comfort!

I gotta say Sandra went absolutely wild with the blastbeat snare while still doing a half-time feel. Like it feels like there's so much tension even while we're winding down to the end of the piece, floating in a place where we keep moving towards hope but always resolving on the minor. We have a lot of movement here through different keys and modes that continually give us a feeling of moving forward while always returning to the feeling of loss.

Finally, for the album version, we cap the ending with a slow restatement of the beginning of the piece for piano and violin (I don't remember the specific piano I used here but it wasn't the Spitfire Labs muted piano for once, and the violin is from Spitfire's Sacconi Quartet).

As far as an in-depth musical analysis goes, I'd have to open the session again to get really specific with what I did on a theory level because it's been like a year or more since I wrote it, and my computer's primary hard drive died (luckily I have all my sessions on a different drive), so I'm spending the weekend reinstalling everything.

I think the crux of this piece in particular is that, while there is new melodic content that explains the emotional context of the scene, we still rely on the recontextualization of leitmotifs for added effect. I'm not sure if it makes me lazy or a genius, but it's something I leaned into heavily.

It's like…

Step 1: Someone is crying. Their friend tries to cheer them up. Play something kinda sad and a little bittersweet.

Step 2: Play that same melody in a different situation but slightly different to be totally appropriate while also calling back to the original event.

Step 3: Make it into a major-key power metal song because you're winning with the power of your friends caring about your feelings.

Humans are pattern-recognition machines. It works with motifs, it works with specific instrumentation, it works with pretty much anything. Make an aesthetic choice about your instrumentation, utilize it, and punch people in the feels.

As soon as the studio is back up and running I'll see if I can't add on to this with an actual theory analysis, and meanwhile I'm gearing up to start doing classes on mixing and sound design, so look out for that as well!

Thank you again for your ask!

[bearloonz]

do u have any favorite family dynamics in the games, like the aquato sibs or the booles whole thing or bob and truman ect ect... i love all the emphasis on family connections and i want em all to hang out post game and mend old wounds or just be weird together :-)

i reallyyy like the Zanotto family, I think they’re really neat. Especially once you add Helmut to the mix post-canon, I just love the collection of characters that make up that family :—] I also like the subtle Unconventionalness of the makeup of the family. I like that Lili’s raised by a single dad and they don’t really make mention of her mom. I like that Bob is Truman’s great-uncle, when they really didn’t have any reason to not just make him an estranged grandfather. I like that Truman gets two gay great uncles. It’s just fun!! I want them to go on a roadtrip together.

and this one’s a pretty easy pick, I know I’m not the first to talk about it, but the implied bond between the psychic kids in the Aquato family- mostly the Raz and Frazie relationship- is just. Soooo much. I love weird sibling dynamics. I love how it’s clearly something they’ve talked abt before but it’s still such a weird topic for them. Everything about the Aquatos is just ripe for weird dynamics.

Also like, the recontextualizing of everything about Augustus’s relationship with Lucy post canon? Like holy shit I think we should talk more about how the woman who raised Augustus since he was a young preteen was. Not the woman he thought raised him as a young young kid. Can we talk about how ford implanted fake memories of what type of family Augustus and Lucy were to each other while also erasing Augustus’s mother and Lucy’s sister from the picture entirely. Like. That’s got to be a weird topic to broach post-canon right.

[thatringboy]

A Body Built for an Undeserving Soul, A Boothill Theory

My definitely sober thoughts while grinding for the eventual Ruan Mei rerun and writing some robinhill have led me to a startling train of thought. I’ll do my best to sound sane as I say this, but the 18 minute discord voice memo I originally made is definitely anything but. Spoilers for Boothill’s backstory, character stories, and other lore, and no I’m not really gonna be citing things because it’s 3 in the morning and I’m high. If at any point I say something that isn’t really supported by canon, please be nice i’m a little silly boy

Anyways

I don’t think Boothill is a Pathstrider.

Let me cook, please. Here’s my reasons why:

The way he talks about Aeons and Paths

The way his body is designed

And 3.

Enjoy the madness below the cut

So, there’s not really a proper way to word any of this without it being an ADHD word vomit. Bear with me. Please.

Penacony has been a fantastic update for those of us waiting for worldbuilding. We’ve learned a LOT about the many factions in the cosmos, the true nature of the IPC, the powers of the Aeons, and that the Paths are tangible things in the universe. The Luofu arc opened up a bit about this, but since it was so focused on The Hunt and The Abundance and The Permanence, we sort of fell back into the same story beats as the Herta Station arc. Either way, Penacony has been amazing for little lore bugs like me.

So what does this have to do with the wild claim that Boothill somehow isn’t a Pathstrider?

Let’s touch some grass for a minute and consider our places in the irl universe. Hi, I’m Perseus, a young transmasculine white adult guy from South Texas who grew up reading too many Rick Riordan books and now has a complicated relationship with both the christian god and the greek gods. It’s an autism special interest of mine to learn about the greek pantheon and while I don’t know everything about it, I’m a silly little guy and can recite fun facts about dozens of gods. I can also recite fun facts about the christian bible and christian mythology because I was forced to study christianity when I was younger. Nice to meet y’all. Now, when I, Perseus, talk to people about the various religions I know a thing or two about, I infodump. A lot. I think I once ranted about Dionysus for 20 minutes before my sister told me to shut up. It happens.

Now focus back in on the important topic: the fictional cyborg with jiggle physics. I’m working purely on memory, but I’m pretty sure when he first meets Dan Heng and Pom-Pom, he does go on a spiel about the Aeons and Paths as he tries to prove his identity as a Galaxy Ranger and Acheron’s identity as Not a Galaxy Ranger. The way he describes The Hunt, The Nihility, Emanators, and Paths, it all just sounded… i don’t know, canned? It came across as very emotionally disconnected, even as he talked about The Hunt, but he was saying all the right words. Like someone who studied a religion but isn’t actually a part of the religion. 

On its own, this means absolutely nothing besides just reminding us of his home planet’s hostile takeover by Qlipoth-worshiping IPC workers. If you haven’t seen the post yet, I really recommend reading the So, Honkai: Star Rail made a cyborg cowboy... an INDIGENOUS cyborg cowboy. post by @ahworm I’ll link it here, please check it out because it recontextualized a lot of how I viewed Boothill’s actions and mannerisms

So the way Boothill talks about the Path he should be a Pathstrider of sounds more like an encyclopedia than a follower. Now, maybe this can be explained by the fact that Galaxy Rangers aren’t the most zealous bunch, especially when standing next to the Xianzhou Alliance who worship Lan as a deity more than The Hunt itself. The Galaxy rangers are the opposite, they are hunters first and last regardless of what Lan in THEIR “greatness” does.

But if Boothill is just a normal Galaxy ranger (whatever that means), then how does he recognize the Jade Abacus of Allying Oath instantaneously? Dan Heng’s barely put the damn thing on the table and Boothill’s already jaw on the floor amazed. One could make the argument that, well, Boothill’s a well-traveled guy, of course he’d know the most valuable artifact to his Path. To that, I say: there’s more to it.

Boothill’s main accusation against Acheron in the beginning is, what? “An Emanator that shouldn’t exist.” He talks about The Nihility and Device IX the same way he talks about The Hunt; learned and detached in an agnostic way. He’s aware these are real concepts and beings, he’s crossed paths with an Emanator of Elation before so he can’t deny the existence of literal gods in the universe

We also know that it’s canon in the star rail universe that there are planets who haven’t heard of the Aeons before, like Sigonia - Aventurine’s planet. Instead of Aeons, we know the Avgins worshiped the goddess Giathra Triclops. I’ve seen the argument that Giathra is just another name for Xipe since THEY have three faces, but Aventurine’s flashbacks are very clear in showing that the worship of Giathra was very different from the worship of Aeons. We don’t know much about Aeragan-Epharshel, but from how the IPC described the indigenous people as needing civilization and other disgusting things (not to mention how they forced a synesthesia beacon into boothill when he was maybe like a teenager? And then his brain nearly broke from the influx of information?), I think it’s safe to say that the tribes of Aeragan-Epharshel also didn’t follow any specific Aeon.

But Aventurine is now a Pathstrider of Preservation, so why can’t Boothill be a Hunter Pathstrider too? Well, dear reader, allow me to bash my head against the wall trying to form words. Aventurine doesn’t believe anything about the sovereignty of The Preservation, just like the rest of the Stonehearts. He has his agenda, and if he has to play Preservation to do so, then he will. I think Boothill is the same, which is also why I can’t wait to see what happens in the upcoming quests with the two of them in the same room. That being said, Aventurine’s Preservation powers only come from his Cornerstone, crafted by an Emanator of Preservation. It’s how he and Topaz and Jade can all be such different people but all be classified as Pathstriders of Preservation, the sheer proximity to an Emanator’s powers canonically give them powers equivalent to actual Pathstriders.

So… what about Boothil? This leads me into my next point: Boothill’s cyborg body. By looking at his Character Story Part 3, we learn that Boothill VOLUNTARILY became a cyborg to become stronger. He literally shed the skin and name from an ancient, dead tongue to become a real loaded gun. His voice lines in combat talk about death a lot, his name literally is in reference to a graveyard - this man cannot wait to finally die in some sort of blaze of glory and vengeance. I say that with a little bit of sarcasm, but Boothill designed his body to be a weapon. 

In a lot of parts of the USA, it’s illegal to even insinuate that you have a firearm as that constitutes as the crime of  “armed robbery”, even if you don’t even have a gun. The threat alone is enough to warrant a higher penalty. But Boothill is already a great shot with a gun, why does he also need augmented teeth and crosshair eyes and hips that can fold his body into any sinful shape he needs? Because the threat alone is enough to give him power over his prey. Almost as if he’s compensating for a lack of magic godly powers. He needs to be able to keep up with even the strongest IPC goons, to pierce their Preservation shields with his bullets so that he can get closer and closer to Oswaldo Schneider.

But how can I prove that Boothill doesn’t have any Path magic? Well, let’s take a spin around his character model. What’s that thing sitting snugly against his exposed asscheek? His pistol? But that’s not weird, Perseus, most cowboys hold their guns there!

But what other playable character has their weapon on their actual model like him?

There are so many in-game cutscenes showing that, canonically, the Pathstriders summon their weapon from some sort of unseen storage or hammerspace. I like the term hammerspace, let’s use that. The playable Pathstriders all use hammerspace to easily summon their weapons. None of them actually carry their weapons on their model. Even Welt Yang has scenes of him summoning his herrscher cane (I’ve never played hi3 please forgive me for using incorrect terms) from his hammerspace. But not Boothill. He has his arm gun and he has his trusty 9 millimeter pistol on his little slutty hip. His idle animations involve reloading his weapons and putting them back on his person. No particle effects, no vanishing tricks, just a man sticking his tongue out to catch a bullet for a snack.

So what have we learned?

Boothill doesn’t have an emotional connection to his Path, it most likely is just the Path he figured met his needs and decided the philosophy was good enough

Boothill’s body is designed to perform specifically to kill Pathstriders, especially sturdier Pathstriders of The Preservation

Boothill either can’t or won’t use the same hammerspace the other canonical Pathstriders use

Each point by themself means nothing, or can be chalked up to unique character designs. But together? My intoxicated mind theorizes that Boothill is not a Pathstrider, merely a broken man trying to play the game according to the rules of the oppressors that colonized his planet and bombed his tribe into reservations and the dirt. Thank you for your time.

[yanderefairyangel]

I feel like what's making Lumera, and the Divine & Fell Dragons work for me is that they're essentially Sothis, Rhea, and the Nabateans if the writing allowed them to TRULY haunt the narrative in terms of what they went through and lost.

Like, so much from Lumera feels like a realised Rhea & Sothis combo, which is wilder when you realise she's dead for most of Engage's story, but IS lets her (again) HAUNT THE NARRATIVE extensively.

Enough of her influence and death fleshes out Alear's existence and motivation in the story, and the people who surrounding them.

That even applies to how Rafal and Nel from the Fell Xenologue adds that extra love for Fell Dragons that Veyle already had beforehand.

plus there's just how Engage in general treats and explores its dragon and divine cast, kinda fills the void that both 3H titles just didn't commit to filling with the Nabateans outside of Heroes giving Rhea and Sothis more love than said 3H titles.

I genuinely can't stop thinking how much Engage really makes up for how little Fodlan's setting DEPENDED on not doing much with one of Fire Emblem's core aspects, its dragons.

Yep my thoughts exactly !

The issue with 3H is that it refuses to explore the Nabateans even though the whole Nabatean/Agarthans conflict is literaly at the heart of everything that happens in Foldan !

This weakens greatly the Nabateans, especially characters like Sothis who just straight up doesn't do anything in the mid game anymore even thought the early game gave you the impression there would be a greater role for her (but nope)

So while everyone complains that Lumera "dies too early so we don't have the time to get attached" what they misses is that : IT. IS. THE POINT. When Alear meets Lumera, they don't remember anything, the point is specfically that when you lost Lumera you don't realize the loss right away but with her haunting the narrative you grow to care about her only to discover WHY Alear cares about her, I have talked about it but

Ludo- narrative dissonance CAN be used to enhance the narrative and since Alear's amnesia is heavily implied to be dissociative in nature it makes sense that the player and the character are put in states where they aren't in harmony : because Alear themselves aren't in harmony when Lumera dies. They forgot everything when in comes to episodic memories but they still retain subsoncious memories, which is why they still fear the Corrupted at the begining of the game, but the player doesn't know why they dislike the corrupted yet, it's only later they do. This is the same reasoning here, Alear cries because they still love Lumera subconsiously, but at the same time they like episodic memory they don't have the full context, it's as I explained, their past selves manifesting when seeing the only person who cared for them dying, but we the audience, we don't know anything when this scene happens. But later moments allows us to look at this scene differently, and by the time we reach chapter 25, we have grown to care enough about Lumera to feel in harmony with Alear when she dies this time, meant to also reflect how by this point, Alear made the peace with their past, and when replaying the story this recontextuallization only makes it better !

Engage doesn't simply let Lumera haunt the narrative, it plays a game of sprinkling elements here and there which makes the re-experiencing the story even better, because every bit becomes recontextualized and shows the amount of care but into every of Lumera's lines. Each one of them reflect what happens to the story later on and set the outline for chapter 25.

Meanwhile 3H gives us dragons but does nothing with it. I know people complain about Alear and Veyle but I never thought they would argue that Seteth and Flayn conviniently losing their power to turn into dragons is somehow a better diegetic excuse than Veyle getting rid of her stone because of her trauma and complicated self acceptances issues and Alear losing theirs because they gave it to Veyle and then the stone breaking when it serves as yet another element liking Alear to the notion of hope (since Veyle search for them and that their stone being intact means they are still alive so she can still hope)

Flayn and Seteth's relationship is cute and all but is that all there is ? If the Nabateans weren't ... idk KINDA IMPORTANT DUE TO HOW THEIR HISTORY AND THE AGARTHANS WANT TO TAKE REVENAGE ON THEM CAUSED 99% OF THE CURRENT SITUATION IN FOLDAN that wouldn't be such a problem

This is very frustrating when you take into consideration how many games that have dragon as an important lore but actualy dont shy away from exploring everything about them, and for game where they are more minor like Sacred Stones, they still got their moment and it's at least justifiable

But the Nabateans are way to important to just be left like that yet 3H just doesn't want to use them

[the5n00k]

An observation about TGAMM The End

Big big spoilers ahead, click away if you aren't caught up

This is also my first NEGATIVE TGAMM analysis post! Wowie! So if you don't want to see me bitch, also click off now

The End and how Molly McGee's character was disrespected

The End is. An episode. I have many MANY thoughts about it but it would be far too long to put in one post so I'm going to explore one of my more reoccurring opinions. This episode recontextualized a lot of things but I'm going to talk about how it recontextualized Molly as a character. Most importantly as a MAIN character. A TITLE character. A character with her own past and personality and feelings. All of which this episode completely stomped all over, handed her the check, and said "figure it out"

I want to apologize to my friend who called this so SO much earlier into the series and that he had to listen to me watch this show on lethal amounts of copium. You were right but I knew neither of us wanted you to be.

Now let's get into the meat of it, shall we?

All throughout season 1, Molly's history and relationship with the concept of friends is always treated with complete sincerity and the emotional pause it needs to sink in with the audience that she's been through it. Moving away and leaving friends is why she put so much importance on the "forever home" in the first place because she's had to leave so many people she loved. She had a rocky beginning with Scratch during the early season but quickly became on equal footing with him as they began to understand each other and their boundaries. Because she genuinely cares about him. Similarly, season 2 explores the boundaries of their friendship and shows Scratch more willing to participate in whatever Molly is doing, even begging sometimes to be included. And Molly is very patient and kind with him all throughout trying to help him regain memories of his past. And Scratch actually reciprocated a few times like helping her learn Thai and working with Libby to set her up with Ollie. They're the closest they've ever been and something I can confidently call true best friends, possibly the closest and healthiest friendship I've seen portrayed in media. Season 2 showcases how far either of them are willing to go to help each other.

Then The End happened.

Molly is the same understanding and supportive friend as she had been all season, almost to a fault. She encourages scratch to go back to his life, knowing the risks that come with it. Why did there need to be the risk of forgetting her when his spirit didn't immediately forget his living life? Don't know. Something to do with an unreleased episode although I doubt the rest of season 3 would have sweetened my opinion of this episode. Only she knew he was about to do this, she didn't talk to any of his other friends or family before he went out to Todd's house. They only found out after the fact and the next morning is when he left. None of them had any time to process that they just lost a family member, especially not Molly.

The scene where he's talking to her on the bench breaks my heart. Knowing your friend is no longer there and is replaced with this stranger. So much of this episode would have been fixed to just let him keep his memories. Considering how hard it was to pull his living memories out of his spirit, it's very likely that even the small fragments of her he remembers will slowly fade away. She had to do the one thing she never wanted to do again and repeat the same pain that's plagued her for the entire series. And it sucks! Why doesn't she get a happy ending? Hell, I'm not even convinced this was a "happy ending" for scratch since he can't remember any of the people he just spent the last two years with.

The biggest slap to the face is when Libby, Geoff, and the McGees come up behind Molly and just act like all of this is fine? They're treating scratch like this wild animal that deserved to be released into the wild because he could never fit in with society when he was PERFECTLY HAPPY with the McGees. He proudly displayed to the entire ghost world that he was an "honorary McGee" and told a ghost hunter to his face that him and Molly would do anything for each other despite their differences. Was all of that completely pointless? Because it sure feels that way. He had this entire new "life" he just completely abandoned because oh I guess I'm not really dead. Guess I better go reconnect with my childhood friend I haven't seen in person or had any meaningful conversations with in decades!!! See ya, chumps, hope you weren't attached to me or anything!

It's so disrespectful to the audience's investment in Molly and Scratch's friendship, the themes of friendship overcoming all odds and lasting forever, and Molly as a character. And to a lesser degree, it's even disrespectful to Scratch since most of the season he spent brooding over the fact that he didn't remember his past! Now he's forgotten a large portion of his "life" all over again. Now he's going to have to live with this nagging itch at the back of his mind that he's forgetting something until he manages to completely repress it too. And to rub salt in the wound, the credits don't have near sight nor mention of Molly McGee outside of a painted portrait of her and (spirit) scratch. All this does is tell me a LONG time has passed and neither of them have managed to successfully contact each other. The dream team is gone, this is a story about a girl and a ghost and none of it meant anything.

"he'll remember when he dies again!" Where does it say that

"he didn't forget, he said Moll! That means something!" The longer he spends away from the McGees and Brighton, the more likely he is to completely forget them altogether. The vague memories will eventually fade away and every "forever memory" will be worthless.

"it doesn't matter, this is Scratch's story" then why isn't it called 'scratch and the human girl'? Or 'the scratch show'? Why is Molly a title character if she's nothing but a plot device for his character development.

"Molly had to learn how to say goodbye." No she didn't. She's been doing that her entire life. She's pretty well aware of how to say goodbye. Making her relive 13 years of trauma from the other side of the vehicle doors is not a useful life skill. Pain is not necessary to grow up.

I don't care what the excuse is. This was a terrible ending for both characters and no amount of "he's happy now!" coping from both the fans and the writers is going to get me to see this any other way. If you enjoy the episode, great! I'm happy for you, there's a lot to love in the music and voice acting and breathtaking animation. But none of that could save me from this abysmal attempt at a series finale. I was so viscerally disgusting by this as a finale that I spent a good two days completely nauseous thinking about it. What a disaster. The sad part is I like the story potential! Him reuniting with Adia is what I've wanted for him all season so he could get closure. Molly and Scratch having to say goodbye is heartbreaking but understandable, a lot of shows nowadays end that way and I half expected it. But him completely forgetting the girl he owes his new lease on life to? My gosh it's just a deal breaker. It is such a cruel end for these characters and I cannot wrap my head around why they thought it was a good idea outside of cheap angst.

I wanted to like this episode and I still do. But they just did so much wrong when one thing could change and it would have completely flipped my opinion on the episode and series in general. But what do I know, I'm just a negative nancy.

Anyway idk how to end this off, justice for Molly McGee, Scratch deserved to be called Scratch McGee, kill Todd Mortenson, peace out

[uchanuku]

tags from @itissadbutitsmy-life on my islands post

My response. I have sooooo much to say on Martin oh boy. Islands recontextualizes everything we knew about him (but especially The Visitor). He goes from just a ‘bad dad’ to someone with a huge amount of depth. Uncivilized Elk made that one really great video about this.

It fucks me up so bad how raw Finn’s talk with Martin is in The Visitor. Martin is so used to lying it genuinely shocks him to hear himself tell the truth about how much he cared in that moment. In his retelling he refuses to see himself as a hero, he downplays the whole thing. This event changed the course of his life and gave him horrible trauma. When telling the story he tries to emotionally detach himself from it. He refuses to bring up too many memories. Adventure Times uses silence really well and those small awkward moments or the repeated phrase “Thats… true?” are really the things that stick and leave me so distraught (the aftermath of which you are seeing here)

Minerva and Finn are left thinking he abandoned them, and he is so scared of confronting his past that he actually does end up doing that. He burns all his bridges. Being a good person never worked out for him so he keeps on running, keeps on looking for his next big con. If you keep on looking forward you never look back. HE NEVER TELLS THEM. HE DIES (or gets “given a new mode of existence”, but functionally he is dead) BEFORE ISLANDS EVEN AIRED. WTF MAN. I love this show so bad except I also hate it because now it never leaves my brain.

I really wish we had more on Martin’s space adventures, during the show earth is just beginning to establish contact with other planets. And by just I mean JUST, as in- we see rocket ships being reinvented. (with the exception of Mo Co, they had rockets but also Moe predates the Mushroom War and is super secretive so Moe having space tech isn’t really representative of Ooo as a whole) HOW DID MARTIN GET TO SPACE BEFORE ROCKETS WERE AROUND?? (magic? mo co?) WHAT DID HE DO TO GET SENT TO SPACE JAIL? (obviously a con that got too big, but I want details)

Don’t have a way to end this, I am just rambling. Fin

[eriisaam]

what kinda blorbo/oc thoughts you thinkin lately? if you want to share :)

Short answer: LOTS. 😭But especially about the summoner OCs in general. It's like taking them out back and just going

Except it's been what felt like ages, so between toying with how to redesign them, and walking back on some crusty bits and pieces to them, the dust cloud lately has been more like

Re-revisiting old memories of FEH playthrough's/summoning's past on what inspired parts of them and their support choices, walking back on some crossover elements, recontextualizing older things I left hanging with some new ideas to glue them back in better place, lately I had the chance to sort of fart out a bunch of ideas in scattered contexts and put them together a bit more.

The only hard part is whether or not to dump them here and how to go about it. I've seen people just have at it and even shared some, but it's still been this weird disconnect between seeing others do it and go "Fuck yeah! Lore! :D", but then when I do it (and especially without art locked and loaded) I still have that cold feet all "would it throw people off if it's just business as usual and then suddenly, 'look at my guys, look at these stinky little bastards' word dumps?". and whether or not to just dump them here, or in a more dedicated side blog. (Or daisy-chain both together like I do with my art.)

The other half of the answer is also being reminded more of Alfonse's thighs-*bricked*

[batbeato]

I accidentally sent the previous ask early, but just - Ikuko put Tohya in her car, and he had to have been covered in both blood and dirt, and all of that would have been on the inside of her car. She would have needed to have her car cleaned - and why not have her car cleaned and repaired at the same time? After all, she has to take care of Tohya, so she can't leave for some time. There's also the morbid fact that Tohya mentions he thinks he is 18, which means he's a minor, Ikuko is aware of this, and rather than bring him to a hospital as the doctor who examined him suggested - or contacting the police about an amnesiac minor, so they can go and find dental records that match his own - she. doesn't.

Though we get mentions of Tohya eventually going to a hospital, we don't know when he went (and moving around with a broken leg isn't exactly an easy feat), and I doubt it was in 1986 - Ikuko lives on an island near Rokkenjima, which is probably how Battler washed up and reached the road in the first place. Even before the message bottles made the incident renowned at least in occult circles, the island would have been airing news about the explosion - the sole survivor and victim would, at least for a week or two, be on the television, the newspaper, magazines. Hospitals would have recognized Tohya as Battler, just the same as it's extremely probably that Ikuko did.

Which is so...fucked up, because if Ikuko really did know who Tohya had been - it puts an entirely new spin on watching how hard he tried and wanted to remember who he was, before gradually letting the matter go due to his migraines (and then her unintentionally triggering his memories). If she had told Tohya, things could have been so different - especially with his struggles over denying and accepting Battler.

The amount of effort Ikuko put into everything (bribing the doctor, cleaning her car of blood/dirt, potentially repairing it to cover up a hit and kidnapping) is... kind of staggering and terrifying when you think about it.

18 is also so, so young. Not even at the age of 'adulthood', potentially still even in high school... A doctor told her to take him to the hospital to assess the damage to his brain and she covers it up and he's only taken later on. And, given the timing that you mention, it is... probably a well known possibility to her that he's related to the very very recent Rokkenjima Incident. Funny that when she's explaining it to him excitedly, she doesn't bring up that, around the same time as when it happened, she found him...

Another aspect of it is that, whether Ikuko did or did not have good intentions, it's still such a huge violation of someone's right to consent. There's no indication that Ikuko ever told him that she knew/suspected his identity, that it might be traumatic to remember, and then gave him the choice to learn about it: if she did know, it was kept from him entirely, and if she didn't, she still denied him - a completely amnesiac teenager, one that potentially had a loving family and/or friends who missed him dearly - the ability to learn about his past.

I think that a big part of Tohya's difficulty with accepting Battler is the time he lived solely as Tohya: not just that he's lived with this entirely different identity for so long, but also the guilt of having abandoned his family, the survivor's guilt of feeling responsible for their deaths, and also facing the fact that Ikuko's treatment of him was, in various ways, unacceptable. Because while Tohya has very little or no frame of reference for acceptable behavior, Battler does. Battler has had loving, caring guardians and understands that if someone is injured on the side of the road, a normal person would take them to the hospital. But Ikuko is the only person Tohya has been close with for years now; how difficult is it to recontextualize all of your relationship with someone and realize that they have wronged you, especially when it's someone you care so much about?

[ouppyjamie]

mentioned this in my royjamie fic but i love learning about the relationship between trauma and BDSM. first important to acknowledge that enjoyment of BDSM is not conditional on trauma and trauma does not cause an interest in BDSM but there has been research into how trauma relates to BDSM

this article in particular was really interesting in looking at how survivors of childhood trauma use BDSM to “heal from, cope with, and transform childhood abuse or adolescent maltreatment”

some of the themes they found were cultural context of healing (using bdsm and therapy to reframe kink and trauma), restructuring self-concept (self-image), liberation through relationship (learning to be valued by intimate others), reclaiming power (setting and maintaining boundaries), and redefining pain (transcending painful memories through masochism)

*this is getting long so jamie / royjamie interpretation under the break*

i think this is super fascinating when looking at jamie since he canonically was abused by his father and seems to engage in kink on-screen (puppy play with keeley, EVERYTHING he has going on with roy)

i know others have probably said this before but i think BDSM and kink would genuinely be very healing for jamie! like kink itself is not a substitute for therapy but it can be helpful in the aforementioned themes

just pulling some more stuff from the article, having safewords is a prime example of having control and it is such an important aspect of safe kink that when someone wants to stop, their wish will be honoured. and we can see with jamie how this is not something he gets with his dad (repeated “don’t speak to me like that” yet his dad doesn’t stop)

also looking at restructuring self-concept, we have jamie specifically acknowledge how much he hated his dad calling him soft and we see his dad calling him a bitch when he tries to set boundaries. i think if jamie were to engage in a BDSM relationship with roy, name calling and degradation would be something they would have to be very careful with but it could also help jamie change his perception of those words and thus himself (like ideal scenario for me is roy calling him soft but in a super fond voice or just praising him in general) i also think feminization would be fun for them and a nice way for jamie to reshape what it means to be soft or girly or “weak”

since BDSM requires a lot of trust, it can allow a person to let go if they feel safe in their partner’s hands. we see jamie really listen to roy when they start their personal training since he knows roy is doing what is best for him (besides almost getting his dick ripped off lol) so i think this would translate well into a kink relationship with jamie as the submissive partner since he trusts roy to take care of him

being able to set boundaries that are respected is also really important, something he doesn’t get from his dad (“i’d rather them not” repeated). being able to set limits that roy respects would let him reclaim a sense of power

repurposing behaviours i think would play into the physical abuse jamie experienced, so being able to “re-enact” that in a sense with someone he trusts could help recontextualize that, especially since these experiences are about centering pleasure which can actually help survivors “salvage their bodies” and view that as a vehicle for pleasure, thus redefining pain

plus, aftercare would definitely fulfill jamie’s desire to be taken care of and pampered

i think engaging in kink and bdsm (specifically masochism, praise, power exchange, bondage, puppy play, and more) with roy would be very therapeutic and also a lot of fun for both of them!!

[goattypegirl]

Hokay so I have reached the final boss of the dlc, I think. I say reached because I have not yet beaten it; I got to phase 2 once. This is going to be a doozy I can already tell. Super spoilers below.

First, the fight technically. First phase is like a schmixed Radahn; muscle memory is kind of helping but it might be placebo. It's probably placebo. Phase 2 reminds me of the twin princes, I can't say more than that because I got got approximately 2.3 seconds into phase 2. I think some people are going to be mad about the twin princes similarities, but I like how Fromsoft tends to iterate on ideas from previous games. I don't mean like overt stuff like patches or the moonlight greatsword, but like the guardian ape and the bloodletting beast, the lamenter and pinwheel, or leda and crew and gideon. Assuming I get to phase two sometime this calendar year, it'll be cool to see how they've built on the twin princes concept.

Story and lore wise, like I said in my other post, I knew the dlc was going to fill gaps but boy howdy I was not expecting them to be filled this way. So grain of salt, I'm not actually done with the damn game yet. My initial reaction was confusion, and I'll need to sit on it more, but I like it.

From what Ive gathered, ascending to godhood apparently requires a consort, a Warrior to the Thinker, the Red King to the White Queen, and so Miquella did something to Mohg's body to make it a suitable vessel for Radhan. (Maybe it's cause I'm a freak but I think it would have been cool to see that process. Who knows, maybe there's a cutscene into phase 3 where the body deteriorates back into Mohg.) Radahn 2 has a move where he casts bloodflame, and you can see horns peaking out of his cuffs and boots. Actually, whenever I've died he's spun around to face away from the camera. I wonder if that's intentional? In universe it's Radhan hiding his face because he knows something's wrong, out of universe the devs wanted you to notice the horns.

I know people are wondering why it isn't Malenia or Godwyn, and I think I can come up with some in and out of universe reasons why.

For in universe reasons why Godwyn isn't the final boss, maybe the night of the black knives killed his soul so badly it was unable to be retrieved, or because his body couldn't be killed. Maybe that's what castle sol and the eclipse thing was for, if it worked and Godwyn died a true death, he could be used as Miquella's consort. Honestly I didn't expect the dlc to feature Godwyn at all, the whole 'oh the scadutree is being choked by deathblight' thing felt like a reach, but there's something going on with Godwyn here. Don't think I didn't notice the two death knight fights have the Stormveil face in the back of the arena, or that their weapons reference a "surrogate corpse."

Out of universe Godwyn, the only thing I can think of is that Godwyns simultaneously an obscure character but also relevant to two game-spanning, ending-determining questlines, fia's and ranni's. Radhan meanwhile is a shardbearer in an area right next to the starting area. If you asked the average player who didnt really talk to NPCs or read item descriptions, they'll probably recognize Radhan and not Godwyn.

For in universe reasons why Malenia wasn't the final boss, it depends on how you view Miquella's character, but I think it's because he knew making a consort would require killing his sister, and he didn't want to do that. That's just my hunch right now working on incomplete information, and you could probably come up with a lot more uncharitable reasons why he didn't pick Malenia. (Side note. If Radhan was chosen as his consort early on, and therefore needed to die, thats yet another potential reason why Malenia battled Radhan.)

Out of universe, the devs probably didn't want to lock the dlc behind the base game's super boss, and they were probably wary of making Miquella's consort his literal twin sister.

The dlc recontextualizes a lot of stuff especially about Miquella's character, and I'll need more time to think on it, but I think if Miquella could have ever been called a "good guy", it was long before the events of the story. He probably had good intentions going in, but the dlc as a whole is showing how power necessitates corruption and compromise. One literally cannot become a god until you discard more and more of yourself, your doubts, your fears, and your love. The Miquella at the end of the game wouldn't have had qualms over killing his sister.

Something worth examining is that Miquella's an Empyrean. We still don't really know what that means* besides that they're candidates chosen by the Greater Will to replace Marika. And like. Isn't that what Miquella is doing? Like was the transition from Marika to Miquella supposed to require such chaos and bloodshed? Is Miquella following along the Greater Will's plan? Mohg's body had to be modified into something unrecognizable in order to be a proper host, a proper puppet. Is Miquella doing the same? If so, what exactly makes him any different than Marika?

*the watchful spirit item description vexes me. I think about it every night. What the hell do you mean Empyrean grandam.

As a final, very petty note. The 'Miquella is pure evil, he's literally Griffith!' and heccin wholesome chungus gigachad Radhan bros are going to be fucking insufferable.

[awakenedsalamander]

I really need to go through all the Dark Eras supplements sometime, because I was reading the Sundered World again and damn, what a cool way of recontextualizing the setting.

I especially love the Awakening content, because of course I do— the notion that even Sleepers in the Neolithic Era have some vague, instinctive memory of the Time Before is fascinating— but I also find the Forsaken stuff quite cool.

To see the Uratha in their prime and see that they were kind of horrifying at the time, and also potentially play out how the patricide of Father Wolf created the Forsaken as we know them, even through tragedy…

Man, it’s good stuff for a nerd like me.

[entryn17]

heyy can I know your thoughts on in stars and time? I like your thoughts on things

ahh, yes, of course!!! spoilers ahead for anyone else that might be reading :3

genuinely saying this - i think it's one of the best games i've had the pleasure of playing recently! it really does the idea of "character stuck in a time loop" justice. one of the things i'm particularly glad about is the pacing especially considering this all technically takes place in like, two locations for (technically) two days for the entire 20-30h of playtime. the dev did phenomenal writing it! the characters are all solid, the worldbuilding is good, the red herrings it pulls also, with the wish/time craft thing. i'm also really, REALLY glad it left some things unanswered at the end.

to elaborate on the pacing, it DOES feel like siffrin is slowly, surely losing their mind throughout all this. i don't think it happens neither too quick nor too slowly and i was immersed throughout! i like how different items have different dialogue and usage depending on when you interact with them at certain points throughout the story, and i thought all of the horror segments were truly unsettling!!

siffrin was a really compelling character and both them and odile really spoke to me because of the way the dev handled their relationships with their respective heritage. i burst into tears when i was playing odile's friendship quest; i hadn't really seen all of those particular thoughts and fears expressed for a while before playing ISAT, and so seeing them written out like this just felt like.. reopening a wound you thought had healed but was actually still pretty raw? and siffrin's desperation to connect, to learn more about where they came from, the hurt that is left unaddressed for so long that it blooms into resentment was just so poignant. odile and siffrin are really, really important to me because of this.

i really love the different small things that get recontextualized when you learn more. like the king asking if siffrin remembers, which i had assumed was about the loops in the beginning! and loop's "you may refer to us with the royal We" and such!! and the missing island too! reached the part where it had been mentioned for the first time in the library and then the game went on for a while to the point i was starting to think "isn't anyone gonna bring up the island that got erased from everyone's memories" and then THEY BROUGHT IT UP. AND IT WAS SO PAINFUL!!! the segment where siffrin tries to say the name got to me so bad!!!

also the little details i'll always die for the little details. the changes in flavor text, menu portraits, inner monologue. it's tiny thing after tiny thing until you pause, look back and realize that you don't even recognize siffrin anymore! like god!!!!!!!!!!!! i'm genuinely really curious how the dev managed to keep track of everything! how many switches and variables they must've used, how many event pages there are, etc.

ANOTHER THING. i think it's so fun how it does a subversion on RPGs as a whole. it's still that at it's core, of course! i'll always enjoy turn-based combat and it freshens it up with the rock/paper/scissors crafts system, and it's incredibly story rich and character driven but it's like.. i guess the RPG conventions that it plays with that i really, really enjoyed. like the whole "mysterious protagonist gathers a party and then goes on a journey to fight the big bad boss" (the big bad is even called The King!!!) except the majority of the journey leading up to that boss already IS over when we start, characters are leveled up and have gathered plenty of usable skills, and they've already have formed dynamics between each other! but we get to learn more about them through the loops! and at some point the king isn't even a threat anymore!!! i REALLY loved that when i realized how unimportant he'd become in the grand scheme of things!!! it was so good!!!!!!!!!!!!!

but yeah in conclusion i feel only moderately strongly about this game. LOL

[hanszoe]

I don’t know if you have or not, but can you describe Hans’ physical appearance and personality? Or like how they seemed to be more disinterested in their passions throughout the show? I hope that makes sense.

hello, thank you for the ask!

i have some links in my pinned post talking about things such as their muscle composition and eye injury.

as far as their physical appearance goes, it seems like there are actually multiple official appearances for them, the one isayama illustrated and their anime appearance. isayama seems to make a clear distinction between the two based on this interview (cw transmisogyny). that translation translates 性別 as "gender" but it should be "sex", and i believe isayama actually wanted an androgynous appearance for them. most fans seem to draw them how they're depicted in the anime, and i don't mind either, but i will base my own work off of their manga depiction.

the manga style isn't detailed enough for us to know about most features of their body, so there's a lot of room for fan interpretation. things such as skin tone, blemish patterns, wrinkles, muscle tone, etc. are all mostly up to interpretation. i'll have to make decisions like this for how i want to depict them in detail at some point, i'll probably look for some athletes with similar builds to them. i've also thought some recently about their exact eye color and think i'm going to go with a dull light brown color like this one.

as for their changing in personality, i'm not confident enough to state definitively since i haven't taken exhaustive notes on the manga, but i think that hansi was actually depicted quite consistently in this way. there are very early pulls for hansi not wanting to be forced into a role and it's the core of their narrative arc, becoming unable to see beyond what sannes said to them in the cell. i've seen some complaints about their death scene and do believe it was an insert myself, but in my opinion it at least does a good job of concluding this theme, as erwin's dialogue finally relieves them of their role, one which they had to give their life to be free from. i don't believe that hansi was exactly right in being unable to see a life for them outside of it, but any attempts they made to connect with people in a way that might help them resolve it we see all shot down. ultimately they became a victim of the narrative's same persistent commitment to helplessness.

i also read a theory from tsuki no ura about eren potentially erasing something from their memory. i have yet to take detailed notes on the manga so i'm not sure what he would have erased or why, but this could be another explanation for their total lack of hope and losing interest in titan science, which suspiciously some mentions of marley's titan research association also seem to go nowhere, especially considering pieck's comment "you seem to know even more about titans than marley" to hansi. i have some theories on this, but nothing definitive yet.

even if that's not the case, i think there is sufficient textual explanation for hansi losing their passion for titans either way, as after finding out the walls are made of them they confess to moblit that it was terrifying, the same way the first time they left the walls on an expedition felt. being confronted with another huge unknown truth of the world was similar, and i believe by the time they're called to paths hansi just has nothing but terror left. there are only so many totally unforeseen recontextualizations of ones' understanding of reality that one can take before everything starts to seem meaningless.

[trevanent]

I think one thing I will say about the finale was that the most problematic aspect of the concept of the show was how it feels like they had to use the Fionna and Cake plot to Trojan horse a resolution to a swathe of loose ends Simon and Betty's arcs had. They pulled it off even better than I ever wanted to let myself hope for for the most part but I would say my main issue if anything was how cramped the finale felt when I think they could have left a lot more up to season 2 speculations (especially with the resolutions for the alt universes, they didn't really feel necessary when they basically just had to egg Scarab).

I feel I liked the understated melancholies of seeing Simon recontextualized and kinda infantilized in that temporary form hosting his mind, and some people have said the Casper and Nova thing felt hamfisted but I thought the vibes were too cute to care that it wasn't particularly "efficient" as far as metaphors go, but that does slow down the pace which probably crunched the ending a little harder :'). But it also worked in further showing the sad side-effect of the crown on Simon's relationships, including that of stunting his ability to have ever matured in his understandings of love and his relationship with Betty. I also think their last scene in the memory worked because it was Simon reconsidering how he viewed their relationship for the first time, even if his attempt to do for Betty what she did for him would have just been an inversion of their original flaw, the scene rests on them understanding it's unchangeable anyway, so that decision doesn't matter so much and it's not something for Simon to dwell on.

I also feel I liked the scene a lot in spite of how scarce it felt in the finale was because of what was most conspicuously unaddressed, which was just the sheer logistical impossibility of any different choices they made having possibly been any "better." It sticks out because Betty says they could have made better choices, which kinda seems to situate their relationship in a vacuum as if there wasn't a very high likelihood had they done anything different at that crossroads, they would have just been literally nuked into orbit regardless. Sure, it seems like enough time had passed for them to have worked out their relationship better at least and then died, but that kinda seems better by an arbitrarily less tragic amount, and really it seems the least tragic possibilities ever were either that they conceive their relationship more healthily, Simon finds the crown and protects Betty from exploding somehow and also doesn't warp her to the future, and they live some terrible survival life but at least they get a chance to live something kinda fulfilling and Betty probably would have taken care of Ice King decently for the remainder of her life once Simon was gone while also having a better understanding of what had happened to him. The only other hand would be that she also was still warped to the future he finds the crown but Simon had not enabled her self-sacrificial tendencies and so she becomes less undividedly obsessed with saving him and instead integrates into Ooo more properly and also accepts what had become of him (I find it hard to think she would have just let him die either way though lmao).

That all said, they had been around a long time to have reflected over everything. I think it is a bit of an issue that they don't really allude to that, but I find it easy to believe that they did recognize how thwarted a happy ending would ever be for them by all angles of their reality, yet they still had that tender ache of that simple and small tragedy just between them two that still exists within the torrent of catastrophe that engulfed them and the breadth of their fate. So much horror in their lives but they reconnect and find themselves primarily concerned with that last regret of not having been able to make the ideal relationship they quite thought they had.

[justhereforqsmp]

The French have arrived on the island. The Binary code situation is getting dire. There’s an adorable new egg named Pomme. And now it’s time for me to um. Spout some nonsense about what might be next. > u o it’s what I do best!!

Ok. Given the arrival of Pomme, of Richarlyson, of the binary attacks getting more and more overwhelming, dangerous, and unfair— I feel like at this point the eggs are more than just a one off arc or event, especially if new groups will come with more eggs. I don’t think that the egg arc will end in the way we think: with all the eggs just dying and then just being gone forever.🤔 maybe I’m wrong, but I think there’s another option here. And even if it does happen this way the eggs are pretty much immortalized in the streamers’ memory and in our hearts—like how Maxo has dedicated his search to find answers to his huevo, so even if they are gone their absence will still be felt in the story— unless some in roleplay memory altering thing happens I very much doubt everyone will just… move on.

(Of course, while I love the egg shenanigans, I completely understand that some streamers don’t prefer it, and I also recognize that the streamers without eggs/who dislike the eggs may feel a little left out by the collective server going-ons. I really hope that the server reaches a point where not everything is eggs and other players not as involved with the eggs feel comfortable returning to play regularly … but I also hope that the eggs stick around and still influence the story, yeah? They just seem real important, and the admins who play them bring wonderful life to their characters, and it’d be a shame to lose that. Also it provides in-roleplay translation and someone to talk to in their own language if other streamers aren’t on, which are both really practical things.)

I think they’re going to have to uncover the secrets of the island to “move past” the egg arc, and probably whatever shift happens will change things irreparably going forward, like HUGE HUGE reveals, recontextualizing a lot of stuff we were confused about earlier and clearing up some of the confusing things about the island. I think we’re going to have to get that keypad to the spooky hallway.

(Disclaimer: this 100% might be copium from me lol bc I really want a happy ending… but right here I’m placing my trust in the QSMP admins and team to create a good story and balance the stakes. I believe even if the extreme attachments to the eggs were said to be unintentional there must be SOME change in the plan to accommodate them because they’ve become so beloved and so ingrained into the gameplay)

-> I believe in them because clearly there’s a lot hidden underneath the surface, how deep and well-planned and well thought out the QSMP ARG is

-> clearly they see and recognize the reactions to the eggs from the fanbase and the players, especially the admins who play them.

-> although the players don’t get much information about the events or their situation, there is still communication between the players and the admins through tickets, dms, etc etc. i think if the mental strain of losing eggs is too potent the streamers will speak up, and they will definitely accommodate.

I think that as the true, artificial/experiment nature of the island reveals itself, I think things will get a whole lot more violent, and a lot of eggs will lose their last life. It’s gonna be the darkest hour. My heart will hurt. In between we will probably have breaks to let the French establish themselves, but underlying the fluff will be a potent sense of dread and possibly grief. At the same time, with SOFIA and the mysterious man, the parabolic satellite, the QSMP and the players will pool together all their resources to figure out this island as quick as they can and escape with the eggs still living.

BUT ALSO I think the all the eggs aren’t truly dead and gone, and we’ll we will get to see tilin and trump and juanaflippa again— after all they got the 5 minutes in the SLIDING DOOR ROOM felps was put in somehow, and I don’t think felps is dead, or that room functions like a true heaven. It’s literally in a basement and has been shown to be abandoned once before, and is connected to the hallway systems underneath the island. And juanaflippa was revived through the trial, so clearly the Federation has some sort of control over the “aliveness” or “deadness” of the eggs. Basically what I’m hoping for is that there’s still hope XD

I think the eggs are as artificial as the island (they are so real in emotion and personality and bonds with their parental units though) but that also means that their deaths could be artificial too!! (the letters with the Faberge eggs?? Idk if anyone else saw that but there were a series of lore letters related to the QSMP that people translated online and they’re very interesting) If they’re not like humans, perhaps they can be REPAIRED through special means, or maybe deaths from the binary code CORRUPTS instead of kills them and they can be uncorrupted??

I think very cool stuff is going to happen, not sure what happens in the middle here but I’m excited for it. I think the experiment/simulation will break apart as more people are added/ the main rebellers rebel and find out more of the secrets. Quackity has hinted at a hard future and many things still in store.

I am SO SO curious as to what is going in, but i think there’s an opportunity for the dragon eggs to survive/come back/be revived/finally hatch and just become regular NPCs instead of ones with limited lives, since that is the source of most of the stress. That way they can still be around while not being as stressful. In my perfect world they become little dragon hybrid players that have a dragon form and still speak in signs and everyone can still hang out. 🥺

and then way way wayyyy in the future, end of the server kind of thing, while the eggs don’t really get to leave QSMP as they are admins, i think the true goodbye when the vacation ends and the players finally escape the island and the dragons grow up and fly away maybe and it’ll be super duper sad and bittersweet.

This has been a long post LOL, but basically the gist of it is i think there’s still hope, and I am SUPER DUPER curious as to what’s happening behind the scenes, and the secrets we have yet to find.