#gadolt

[damidami669]

[emilianatsuki]

This scene between Shulk and Sharla in Colony 6 is done so well and also represents the themes of the Xenoblade series, and Xeno generally really well. Even if a loved one has passed away, they'll never truly die as long as there's someone around to remember them.

[carpetthecarp]

[theawezomeone]

Gadolts good friend Jade face on day 84!

[nemaliwrites]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Xenoblade Chronicles (Video Game) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Carna | Sharla/Reyn (Xenoblade Chronicles) Characters: Reyn (Xenoblade Chronicles), Carna | Sharla (Xenoblade Chronicles) Additional Tags: Past Carna | Sharla/Gadolt (Xenoblade Chronicles), Cuddling & Snuggling, Literal Sleeping Together, Grief/Mourning, Pre-Relationship Summary:

He feels like he’s sleepwalking, in a way — or at least, he would if everything around him didn’t feel so real. The wind in his face, the sound of the birds. The grave at his feet.

The dirt beneath him is soft, undisturbed. There wasn’t anything left of Gadolt to bury.

--

On the anniversary of Gadolt's death, Reyn visits his grave.

[olberic]

back from a quick skim thru the tags of my main and wow you people really dont like sharla huh? unfortunate bc its prompted me to share opinions

for me my faves are melia > sharla > reyn > riki > fiora > shulk > dunban

and most played are sharla > dunban > melia > reyn > shulk > fiora > riki

go-to party was sharla+reyn+fiora, or melia+dunban+riki. sorry shulk but i didnt really play u once u got dunban…

and as stated in my original post i cheered and clapped every time reyn and sharla interacted and the MOMENT i got that scene outside colony 6 with melia and fiora i had my whole perspective on the game changed. like idk. reyn’s really what sharla needs (SOOO MUCH BETTER FOR HER THAN HER STUPID DEAD FIANCÉ) and sharla’s opposing approach to things really helps to balance reyn out. meanwhile i am constantly thinking about melia’s admiration for fiora’s strength and fiora’s fondness for melia. forget about shulk. run away together.

i think the story was really great… i dont want to get into too many spoilers but i will say knowing NOTHING about the game going in was great. i didnt know any characters besides blond guy with an energy sword. didnt know anything about the game’s world bc the ppl i follow who post abt xenoblade just talk abt the xbc2 polycule or the catgirls or the nonbinary character and how good the xbc3 dlc was.

anyways i LOVED the shifting scope of antagonists. every plot twist felt rewarding, lightly foreshadowed, and thrilling. the soundtrack ruled. i <3 games with 200 achievements and 480 quests and i <3 putting 150 hours into a game. i will have more coherent thoughts on this once i sleep on it and check out the dlc.

only negatives as far as im concerned were the running around for HOURS trying to get rare collectables, ugly armour, vanea’s design below the neck, a handful of npcs, art manuals' low drop chance, and the goddamn impossible archsage challenges. i do think fiora's amount of character development was stunted by the desire to make her a romantic focus, and that sharla deserved better than having her lategame scenes glossed over without being addressed. otherwise im quite pleased with reyn, melia, riki, and shulk's development.

finished xenoblade 1 btw. amazing plot and character development imo. peak jrpg final fight, even if i was so overlevelled that it was laughably easy. meliora nation fucking lost 😞 but shareyn nation stayed strong 💪. im like idk 98% complete or smth bc i simply do not have it in me to grind for those remaining art books/burst affinities/trades. perhaps i shall finish those last 16 achievements later the week

[capsource]

Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition

Available for anyone who wants to use them, no credit needed but super appreciated. All these caps are 1920x1080. Most of the characters have sub folders to divvy up the caps into more manageable downloads, but if there are any issues, please feel free to let me know!

In this folder, you will find: Alvis | Dickson | Dunban | Egil | Fiora | Gadolt | Juju | Kallian | Linada | Lorithia | Melia | Meyneth | Miqol | Mumkhar | Otharon | Reyn | Riki | Sharla | Shulk | Sorean | Tyrea | Vanea | Yumea | Zanza

Folder can be found [ here ] Buy me a [ ko-fi ] if you’d like!

[motherofplatypus]

Snow White And The Genocidal Bitch

Hate Zegler all you want, but she is not a genocide supporting bitch like Gadolt is.

[alice-the-xenoblader]

“Gadolt…”

[name-esfandiar]

Fantasy writer presentation

I started posting about the tolkien persian translations, but why I'm really here is to talk about my writing. I'll try to keep it short, but if it tickles your interest I'd love if we could follow each other :)

I'm a young french writer that's working on a universe since 6 years.

I'm truly into high fantasy and dark fantasy, although I write less of the second kind. I've got a number of inspirations, some less obvious than other like George RR Martin, Tolkien, Sanderson, even Lovecraft or french writers like Camus or Céline.

What deeply compels me to write is my fascination for the human character and its limits, delving into it as much as in an introspective manner as with tangible actions (e. g. fights that act as much as talking than does dialogues).

If your interest is stricken, you can continue to read to see in more detail what i write

This post is peculiar, in the futur I will talk more about my process, what i like and dislike, my philosophy, my goals, my inspirations, some analysis even ! I can't thank you enough for reading :)

My books

The universe I was talking about was at the start a ttrpg for my friends, but since then its has became a fully wrote novel of a high fantasy saga, the following up book that has been started and a new one that I'm currently writing, with the utmost desire of being published.

The Mirrored Path

The Mirrored Path is a high fantasy saga set in this said universe, where Blades rules over all. The four Blades, each sealing one of the Goddesses, hold a power than should've never came into mortal hands.

Three storylines are deeply intertwined.

Fansislas, a farmer, goes into the capital to address to the king of the Ances Holy-Kingdom the problems his city encounters, when at the same time a member of bourgeoisie, Gadolt, reveals himself be a Blade's holder… without the Goddess with it. Unfortunate pair, they will have to cross the continent in order to keep the secret and not be condemned to die, with only one goal : finding the Goddess linked to it in order to use it side by side with the Blade of the king against the Eimin Empire.

The smart and esteemed impress of the Eimin Empire, Alba, finds one of those Blades, and the Goddess linked. As her soul and memories merge with those of the Goddess, she fights as much now against Ances the Holy-Kingdom than a past one against her new memories. Between betrayals and various political games, she raise a host and swear to put an end to the Ances Holy-Kingdom.

On the other of the ocean, Alíyei, a wandering princess, two brothers, Belor and Toga, and a wandering prince, Shirvim — perfect in the eyes of Alíyei, symbole of all her weaknesses, pushing her to betray him to get rid of the pain — stride through the desert. She tries to raise a sell word company in view of the rising tension between the Ances Holy-Kingdom and the Eimin Empire, to defend her country against the possible war.

All are linked in a terrible fate, that they glimpse between dreams and visions, ignoring that the world is entering a new era.

The War's Song

Set in the same universe, 53 years before The Mirrored Path, this is a standalone book.

The story follows Aderon, king and Blade holder of the Ances Holy-Kingdom and his First Counsellor, Notora. Meeting for the first time in history another Blade holder, new players will emerge, a new tension stirred ; for Aderon is not the sole bearer of the divine power, the very reason the Crown holds its dominion.

Notora, seeing changes appear in her king, is troubled. It's her mission to avoid a war that he seems too inclined to declare, for any conflict between such weapons would be the end of any who does not bear them.

History will know this event as the one that stained the world by an unquenchable mark.

I hope you will like it or at least be interested, I'd love to follow and get to know more writers, fantasy or no ! If you're french, bonus points :)

I'll post about things more deep in the future as my philosophy about writing, my reasons of doing it, what I like and dislike, some analysis maybe and translations !

[eaglefairy]

I have no liveblog to offer this weekend, so instead please take 2000 words of Meyneth analysis because I have opinions and I'm no longer afraid to share them. Summary: According to the canon of xenoblade 1, Meyneth is either an existentially less powerful god than Zanza, or her stated morals are in direct conflict with the actions she takes within the plot of the game. I walk through the reasons the former is at most implied by the game while being contradicted by the game's events and lore and what about Meyneth's characterization points towards the latter explanation. Huge thanks to @likestoimagine16 for chatting with me about this and looking this over before I posted it, it was super fun!

(Before we begin, a note: all of the following analysis is based solely on the canon of Xenoblade 1.  I will not be incorporating any potentially relevant information from 2, Future Connected, or Future Redeemed.  Anything from after the first game is just not true to who Meyneth is or to the characterizations of the people surrounding her in 1.)

Introduction For all of her stated importance in-game as the Mechonis's soul, Meyneth really does not do a lot during the game. The sum total of her actions are as follows:

Speaks to Zanza at Prison Island, begging him to cease their war and let the living be at peace

Saves the party from Egil at Galahad Fortress

Briefly acts from within Fiora to guard the party from Gadolt after his boss fight, but does not speak

Reveals herself properly for the first time in Agniratha and exposits the history of the Machina to the party

Saves the party from the explosion and holds them in the air long enough for Miqol to catch them

Battles Zanza at Mechonis Core and dies

At first glance, this doesn't seem too terrible. Zanza also doesn't actively do a ton over the course of the game; in fact, he probably does fewer discrete actions as himself than Meyneth does. There is one big difference between them, though: Zanza is inactive because he has a plan. He's controlling the narrative via the passage of fate, making him extremely active even if the party and player don't know he's there. Meyneth, on the other hand, is almost entirely reactive to what Zanza is doing and gives us no indication that she has any sort of plan to fight him. The most she does directly as a means of fighting him is ask to talk to him at Prison Island (which Zanza immediately rebuffs) and then debate him on philosophy before dying at Mechonis Core.

Option 1: Weaker God I can see two potential explanations for this inaction.  Option one: she’s just less powerful than him, and so any attempt by her to fight him is immediately doomed to fail.  There are some things in-game that support this.  Most strikingly to me, she and Alvis never directly interact.  For a while I was concerned that they never directly acknowledge each other’s existence at all, leaving open the possibility that Meyneth doesn’t know Alvis exists*.  Alvis does have a single line of thought immediately pre-Mechonis Core where he acknowledges that it’s Meyneth residing within Fiora.  However, Meyneth herself never acknowledges Alvis.  If only Zanza has direct access to Alvis’s power in Providence, that would in fact make Meyneth significantly less powerful and extremely disadvantaged against him.

*To be clear, I don’t actually think this is the case.  Based on everything else in the game, it would be absurd if Meyneth didn’t know about Alvis.  Where else could she possibly get her divine power from?  However, I do think it’s notable that the writers didn’t consider it necessary or narratively valuable to show Alvis and Meyneth interacting as an overall indicator of her status in the narrative, so I’m pointing it out here.

However, very little else in the game supports this.  Both Zanza and Meyneth have titan bodies, they seem to be about evenly matched within those bodies given that the battle at the beginning of the game ended in a standstill draw and not Zanza winning right then and there, and both Zanza and Meyneth seem to have created successful civilizations of people on their titan bodies.  

If anything, Meyneth might have been “better” at it, as the Machina worship her directly while neither the Homs nor the High Entia know of Zanza.  The Homs do hold the Monado in reverence as the fabled sword of the Bionis that can cut through Mechon and they have their funerary rites centered on the Bionis, but neither of those require a direct knowledge of Zanza of the kind we see the Machina have of Meyneth.  The High Entia I find even more interesting; while it would make sense for them to have intentionally erased the cultural knowledge of Zanza after the first battle of the titans when they sealed Arglas and the Monado away, there’s no evidence of that cultural knowledge ever existing, considering there are multiple side quests concerning High Entian history and not a hint of Zanza’s presence as an object of worship.  (Would the Valak Mountain War God count as an aspect of Zanza in this sense?  Interesting idea to think about…)  

Additionally, Zanza says “Now that I have both Monados, I should be at one with the passage of fate,” during one of the cutscenes before the final boss fight.  That implies that Meyneth’s presence in this world as the bearer of a Monado interfered with his control over the passage of fate (which is corroborated by Shulk interfering with Zanza’s sight during the final battle).  That in turn suggests that Meyneth had some amount of power over fate as a god, if we believe control over fate to be something that can be divided as Zanza alludes to in his dialogue.  All of this leads me to believe that if Meyneth is a weaker god than Zanza, it doesn’t affect any of her actions in the backstory or during the events of the game.

Option 2: Weaker Writing That leaves the other option: a writing flaw in which Meyneth’s stated character does not align with her actions and morals within the game.  We’ve been through her actions, but what are her stated morals?  She believes in the right of life to self-determination.  She sees Zanza’s actions specifically as directly in conflict with said stated right, and potentially the existence of gods as a whole.  Most of all, she believes in peace to the exclusion of things such as revenge or justice.  She (and the other Machina) want Egil to give up his plan of revenge and live in peace with them to heal from what Zanza has done.  When she’s speaking to Zanza telepathically on Prison Island, she asks him how many more he’ll kill and then tells him she’s there to talk.  Even when they’re battling in Mechonis Core, Meyneth is more focused on arguing against his philosophy and telling him that gods should not interfere with the lives of their people.

This is the heart of the problem.  Meyneth is portrayed as an unconditionally good character, Zanza’s rival in every way who wants mortal lives to be lived in peace, not under the tyranny of gods.  However, her actions and apparent values within the game make her near criminally passive against a god who fundamentally does not care about any of that.  Zanza creates and destroys all life in order to sustain his own existence (and I have to assume also Meyneth’s?  If she’s figured out the secret to divine immortality and hasn’t shared it with Zanza to make him stop that just makes her even worse, so…).  Narrative choices are narrative choices, but that Meyneth would still be at the “I can fix him” stage after who knows how many cycles of this is a narrative choice that strains my disbelief.  

Characters choosing to adhere to their morals even when it puts them at a disadvantage against their enemies is not a bad thing; however, having her hold to pacificism to this extent just makes her seem selfish and callous.  It is simply incompatible with her stated goal of opposing Zanza when Zanza’s actions are so extreme.  And to be clear, her choice to continue to try and talk Zanza down wouldn’t be so bad if the narrative didn’t absolutely stonewall her for it.  It’s very clear that Zanza is not open to negotiation, and Shulk doesn’t win by convincing him that living beings have inherent value outside of the resource they are to him.  It just makes Meyneth look silly to keep trying to talk the genocidal maniac down from doing genocide.

Objections Before I conclude, I want to take a moment to address some objections I could see to what I’ve laid out here so far.  First, as far as her actions go, Meyneth does have Vanea place her into Fiora with the stated intent to get closer to Shulk, but it’s still unclear what the end goal was there.  Was it to counterbalance Zanza’s influence on Shulk as the wielder of the Monado?  If so, Meyneth does remarkably little towards that goal.  The party isn’t ascending the Mechonis because of anything Meyneth said to them, they’re going up to fight Egil.  They don’t even know Meyneth is there until Agniratha, and the exposition there is mostly delivered by hologram.  Meyneth never directly interacts with Shulk about anything, let alone the cycle of war, which I feel is the bare minimum action if her goal is to erode Zanza’s influence on Shulk.

Notably, there are some suggestions in-game that imply peace with Zanza could be possible.  While I wouldn’t believe Zanza’s definition of “friendship” that he says he longed for at the end of the game to be reliable or at all similar to what friendship actually is, Alvis does repeat that Zanza wanted friendship and I’m much more inclined to take him at his word.  After the final battle, Alvis says that Zanza’s future and the desires of the party (and by extension Meyneth) could have coexisted, “but that time has passed”.  However, the game doesn’t indicate exactly when the time passed; the timing certainly implies that it was Zanza’s death that ended the possibility, but there’s no reason it couldn’t have been earlier.  

In addition, we’re given no indication of how likely that event was.  Given that nothing else in the game supports Zanza’s world being compatible with the freedom of mortal lives, I find it likely that the chance was infinitesimally small, something never quite impossible but extremely unlikely nonetheless.  While this does open up the possibility that Meyneth was justified in continuing to try to talk to him, the way it’s tossed in at the last second and is only told to us, never shown in any way throughout the game (through, say, High Entian legends or any kind of relationships between Zanza and his disciples) make me more inclined to believe it’s a last-second effort to add false depth to Zanza’s character.

Conclusion Overall, Meyneth suffers from a lack of focus that is sadly common to many of the female characters in xenoblade 1.  A lack of insight as to her inner thoughts combined with her extreme pacificism make for a narratively weak character who seems to be either fundamentally weaker in-story than her sworn nemesis or so committed to talking to him and making him realize the error of his ways that it literally gets her killed.  I find it most likely that the writers simply intended for her to be weaker than Zanza for unspecified reasons: disappointing, but not surprising.

What gets to me the most is that it didn’t have to be this way.  Even if she were just as strong as Zanza and/or more willing to fight against him, she would still have a significant disadvantage against him that sets the ground for the conflict seen in the game: her care for the lives and wills of mortals.  Her care to minimize collateral damage in the form of mortal lives will always give Zanza the upper hand in battle, whether directly in the form of attacking mortals being another way to hurt Meyneth or indirectly in the fact that Zanza has no qualms about manipulating mortals to do his will, while Meyneth likely would consider such a thing to be immoral and avoid it.  That, to me, would be a far more interesting setup than what we got in-game.

If you made it all the way to the end, thanks for reading! Please drop a comment or leave some tags, I'd love to keep discussing this.

[damidami669]

October drawing!

[carpetthecarp]

mmmmmmmmmmmmmm busted mmmmm

[theawezomeone]

Vanea and Gadolt!!

[fangirl39]

Shulk: I don't have any reason to kill you, Egil.

Me: *stares at Fiora stuck a robot body because he had Mumkhar injure her badly*

Me: *Stares at my beloved Melia, whose father is dead because Mumkhar murdered him in the faced Mechon Egil gave him*

Me: *Stares at Sharla, whose beloved Gadolt is dead because of him*

Egil: Even if you do not, I still do!

Me: *glaring at Egil because the people he has a reason to hate aren't the people he's hurt so much*