#hk dreamnail

[kusigoose]

Day 35 of doodling Hollow Knight characters until Silksong comes out

Ghost with their Dreamnail! I wanted to draw a more dynamic pose than just a vessel standing around lol

[violetdawn001]

What is with the Dreamers' Houses?!?! Part 3.5 Lurien's Spire - Pillows & Patriotism

Yes, you read the title right! We're talking about the pillows in Lurien's Spire!

Basically, I ran across a few articles calling the Watcher gaudy and greedy, lumping him with Hallownestian nobles. The Watcher, however, is not gaudy like the nobles of Hallownest. Before we bring in the pillows, let us compare the pictures down below.

Vs. the Watcher's Spire.

While there is a lot of details going on in all three photos, it is far easier to filter out Lurien’s Spire than the nobles. The purple in the Watcher’s Spire calms the player versus the red constantly popping in the noble’s houses.

That, and it took me four years before I realized that Lurien had wallpaper while every detail of the noble's houses was screaming in my face.

Now, we can bring in the pillows. We shall point out the pillows, discuss their arrangement, and what both say of the characters of the nobles and the Watcher himself.

In the noble houses, all the pillows are in the center of the room.

Meanwhile, in the Watcher’s Spire, the pillows are by the windows.

All the pillows in the nobles’ houses are facing the center where the nobles can be the focal point of attention. Where the point could be is either the red couches or the pillows themselves, but any visitor would certainly be hyper-focused on the noble by the mere seating arrangement.

If this was not the City of Tears that we know, such an arrangement could show how everyone is focused on the people and community. Unfortunately, we know thanks to the Dream Nail how all the nobles were overprotective of their geo. The arrangement of the pillows and seating of the guests was only to show off a noble’s wealth, not foster familial ties.

The Watcher’s Spire, however, has the opposite arrangement of pillows. The seating arrangement looks outside of the Spire, not in. Lurien invites any visitor to his Spire to admire not his wealth, but the wealth and health of the City.

One could argue that Watcher’s arrangement of pillows show how he is always looking outwards instead of reflecting upon himself and his faults, but considering the noble’s thoughts and intentions, I believe that Lurien is not selfish in looking outwards as his pillow arrangement is completely opposite of the nobles. Luriem is always looking out to his community AND loves to admire the beauty resulting from the community.

Finally, Lurien still loves both practicality and beauty as seen in his window designs by the pillows. The nobles’ design for the window is pathetic in comparison, though one must be grateful for being to see out of said window.  

As for more comparisons of Lurien with other characters in Hollow Knight, let us marvel at how patriotic Lurien is.

All the little details.

I swear, Lurien is more patriotic than the Pale King. Compare the opening of Lurien's Spire to the White Palace.

VS.

Remember, Lurien's wallpaper still counts.

I wonder how Lurien being more patriotic than the Pale King speaks about his character?

As a Lurien fan, I am afraid that I must admit there is not enough evidence in the Spire alone to answer that question. Right now, these photos suggest that Lurien was Nationalistic while the Pale King was Patriotic.

Yet, once we look at both of their actions in-game, we can determine that Lurien is indeed Patriotic, not Nationalistic. Afterall, it is Lurien who makes the ultimate sacrifice for Hallownest not once but twice, even when he knew the Pale King wasn’t coming back. The Pale King, meanwhile, sacrificed everyone but himself, then fled from the Radiance when the Infection returned.

If both Lurien and the PK’s actions were foreshadowed by the amount of Hallownestian seals and crests, well…I do not feel as if I can make that judgement due to my basis on Lurien. I shall leave that to the community to decide.

If you wish to read more of the Essay, click one of these links below.

Part 1.0: Herrah's Den : Here

Part 2.0: Monomon's Archives: Here

Part 3.0: Lurien's Spire: Here

Part 3.25: Lurien's Spire: Windows and Colors: Here

Part 3.5: Even More of Lurien's Spire. (You are here)

Part 3.7 Lurien's Spire: What is wrong with Lurien's Office?! Here

Part 3.75: Even, even More of Lurien's Spire

Link to essay on Ao3: Here

If you have thoughts you wish to share, please feel free to comment or reblog! Especially with the above observation!

[littlebittyhollowbugs]

Grimm/nightmare heart theory

It's the Halloween season, so I thought it would be a good time to share my take on Hallownest's very own vampire clown nightmare demon, Grimm!

~

The nightmare heart is all that remains of an ancient god. In order to keep itself from completely fading from existence it made a contract with it's worshipper, Grimm.

Grimm gave his body up as host for the dying God, to keep it alive.

Basically he is the vessel of the heart. (This is stated in canon.) And gained immortality through means of the nightmare hearts ritual.

The flames which I would guess represent nightmares/fears or death (Sort of like essence which represents hopes or wishes, for nightmares rather than dreams) Feed the heart, and keep Grimms body growing and immortal.

Grimm is reincarnated into Grimmchild everytime the lantern is lit. With outside aide. Bugs who aide in the hearts perpetuation (such as Brumm) are forced to serve the heart for eternity. I imagine this would have eventually happened to little Ghost. (Had the endings not played out as they did.)

Why is he a circus troupe master? Because Grimm and his servants, a large group of especially peculiar bugs who travel the world, fit in best under the guise of being travelling circus performers. Basically it's their cover.

And maybe even before giving up his body to the nightmare heart Grimm was some sort of performing type.

Anyway Brumm's dialogue here and here

Implies that it is truly the best outcome for Grimm for the ritual to end and for him to be separated from the heart. Not only for Brumm's sake but for his own.

(I did not do this in my game, because I love my Grimmchild too much but narratively this is the ultimately good ending for everyone.)

[silly-soup-drinker]

Lurien is a much stronger man than me because if i gave my whole life in service of my god because he told me the only way to protect my home was to fall into an eternal sleep and then said god ABANDONED ME I'd wake up from sheer rage

[flame-shadow]

item randomizers are so cruel sometimes

[malwarechips]

i need to stop getting attached to characters who Just Die .

[l33tsaber]

...oops.

[tnwnx]

guys dont worry ghost brought their longnail!!!

theyre both fine :)

ghost on a walk with their friend tiktik where nothing will go wrong

[vynnyal]

Y'all, how do I be normal about hollow knight.

Anyways, here's the unofficial 4th installment of that series I started a while ago where I throw together a bunch of random hk theories into one post... this time ordered to make mildly more sense!

So the context here is this:

My friend came up with a cool oc and I was immediately obsessed with the idea. I explained everything relevant... err-- mostly relevant, anyways-- but I extrapolated on a few points here.

It got kinda bloated because I tried to tie-in some of my random tangents. The rest... are just gonna be at the end, lmao.

...

Basically, there are Gods in Hallownest. They mostly fall under the category of "Higher Beings", though not all Higher Beings are gods.

All of these gods are Gods specifically because they use dreams as their life force, which is directly tied to how powerful their influence can be.

The mother of Greenpath, Unn, is the epitome of a good-ol' classic Hollowknight god.

She IS Greenpath. The plantlife came from her and is likely a direct conduit of her power (greenpath lore tablet). The Mosskin Tribe themselves are her dream-children-- they either literally spawned from her or were merely formed in her image.

And now remember, the entirety of greenpath and queen's gardens were her domain. That's like 1/6th of Hallownest.

She was The Shit. And then, for reasons untold, she went to sleep. Though it's hard to pin down when it started, it's implied her slumber predated the Dreamers; Quirrel's dreamnail dialogue mentions her, likely as a memory from the times he was Monomon's apprentice, and even then she was just "something revered" sleeping in the waters.

Which is to say, when Mr Columbus waltzed in to pave roads through their lands (and when his wife laid claim to a decent chunk to be her personal playground), they likely didn't meet much resistance. From Unn herself, anyways. Which makes it all the more shocking that they didn't smite her image completely when her domain was so throughly invaded and remolded to PK's satisfaction.

He had, in his grasp, an entire tribe of people that followed *a different God than himself,* aka the worst thing you can be in the eyes of another God. People are dreams, and dreams are power. More worshippers= more power. If you're a God, you HAVE to actively be thought about by many people to survive. A forgotten God is a dead God. (This exact conflict was, in no small part, the beginning of the series of dominoes that led to Hallownest's downfall, albiet with a different God.)

That Unn herself was left relatively alone, despite this, is likely because Unn/the Mosskin Tribe gave juuust enough to avoid conflict while also keeping their "dream" distinct from PK's (meaning: continue to worship Unn and not PK). I can only imagine he allowed this because if he didn't, both Unn and her people would simply cease to be; the Mosskin needed Unn, and Unn needed them. That, and he was probably pretty busy dealing with the aforementioned other God that was... decidedly less submissive.

Either way, WL took Unn's land and pushed out her followers, inadvertently (or possibly purposefully) greatly diminishing Unn's power and influence. (It's possible this was the event that knocked her out, and she was merely too weak to oppose two entire Higher Beings to begin with.)

The other important character of note is Fierce Dryya. She was one of the Five Great Knights, and WL's personal guard.

After WL birthed and subsequently killed her children, she isolated herself in the depths of her Gardens, presumably "well-protected" from the fate the rest of the world faced.

There, Dryya held her last stand before a swarm of infected mantis Traitors who sought to remove WL from their territory. Sadly, WL doesn't even know she's dead, even though you have to step over her corpse to enter WL's cocoon.

It's hard to think about, but theres an equal chance that she fought off the Traitors for good... and that her death was entirely in vain. She is found next to the mound of Traitor corpses she undoubtly killed, but in the end, she died as well.

Implying that, before breathing her last, she managed to terrify them enough to never come back..

Or that she was just eventually worn down and killed, and the Traitors simply gave up when they couldn't get through WL's own protection.

....Which is to say the time between Dryya's death and events of the game is almost completely unknown!

...

Things I just couldn't fit in:

1, The name greenpath is just because PK put a bunch of roads in it, really. It likely had a different name before Mr Columbus came along.

2, Btw I wondered if there were any actual children in hk. Turns out, yeah, most bugs can propogate (lol), but the only ones referenced in the game that are not directly from a God are openly NOT worshiping ANY God. I'm talking the Mantis tribe, the Spider tribe, the Flukes, the mushroom clan, and weirdly enough, a specific spirit called Joni whose whole thing was being a heretic-- aka not only Not a worshiper of PK, but actively outcast and perhaps outlawed by PK's people.

*I'm disregarding Millybug. They're implied to be childish, but that's all we know.

Other notable characters that were at least a child at one point are Hornet, who was the child of Herrah and PK, and the Vessels, the product of the WL and PK. Grimmchild doesn't count as its not an actual bug, but a vessel created by the Nightmare Heart. The PK's Vessels are unique because they were originally independent, living creatures.

3, This talk about gods and such made me think about what happens after the game. Unn isn't dead, just actively dying because Miss Rad keeps stealing all her followers. She barely has enough energy to be like "hey kid, take this thing and remember me plz."

With both Miss Rad and PK gone, there's nothing stopping Unn's revival. Like, imagine Hallownest getting repopulated by the remaining tribes, returned to their natural glory. The only place left untouched being the city and the abyss-- forever monument to the horrors that nearly killed them all.

4, It just occurred to me that most of the real Godly gods in the game get cop-outs in the pantheons so you can't fight them. White lady just kinda peaced out, Unn's on the respirator, PK is fully snapped out of existence, the Lifeblood entity is chilling out in the basement, and... well I guess you are the void king by then so it's a bit of a moot point. NKG, THK, and Miss Rad are the only ones that're ready to throw down. Good for them!

5, The story of Isma is perplexing. It's implied the grove she died in is the source of the weird acid ravaging Hallownest, though it's unknown how or why. The wiki presumes this only affects the lower regions of the world, but I personally haven't found whatever supports this*. There's pipework lining the broken elevator pass between Ogrim and the Grove, of which is literally glowing with acid, so...

*there is one spirit in the Spirit Glade that mentions acid as a biological defense mechanism, so acid does exist in some capacity outside of this weird angry stuff.

Besides that, her dreamnail dialogue is "there's no time." Seriously? That's the most cliffhanger-y quote of the bunch, I can so clearly imagine team cherry being like "have fun! No we will not elaborate lol" before they spike the ball into our court.

In any case, while down this rabbit hole I have come to terms with the fact that Ogrim is still the best character in the game. He's literally the "I lie to myself :)" guy. All his friends are dead or missing. His lover drowned in 10 feet of acid. His idol the King was sent to superhell. Everyone else is a shambling husk. But he's still out here like "hey again, I realized you're not dead! Sorry about that, everyone else is so I got confused. Oh you saw my gf after pulling the lever that lowers the 10 feet of acid in her grove? Yeah she's super cool. Yeah no I can't go see her even though she's literally right over there, I got my, uh... oath. Haha. Good luck!"

6, While reading about Essence, it occurred to me that when you dreamnail a spirit, you don't actually kill them. You merely collect them. When the seer speaks to you about how much essence you have, she mentions she sees memories peering back at her. (1200 essence dialogue)

Most clearly don't want to be collected. They are at their final resting place, and desire to stay there, whether they're aware of their current state or not.

...buuut technically, TECHNICALLY, you aren't actually harming the spirits you dreamnail and can totally collect em' all to chill with you instead of lingering, listlessly, forever. You're just kinda rude for it. Also, none of the other spirits can tell what happened to them, so just dreamnail Revek too! He'll be fiiiine. :D right?

7, What really messes with my understanding of the timeline is WL's whole physical situation with what the blindness and such. She's the Higher Being, but within such a relatively short span of time, she has aged to the point of her body breaking down? More importantly, she's not immortal?? There are no mentions of the queen ever having any physical ailments, publically or privately, until you see it for yourself. Meaning that the worst of it happened after the Vessels were born and THK began their training. Perhaps the matter with the Vessels took more of a physical toll than originally assumed?

If we're assuming the pair hooked up after PK turned tiny, then you have to wonder just how old she was at the time. Judging by the rate at which she's aging now, she was likely pretty young. Frankly, I doubt it'd change much either way. She'd have that matter-of-fact, gung-ho demeanor at any age.

This is also why I specified that not all Higher Beings are bona-fide Gods. WL doesn't need the dreams of others, and judging by the weaver's seal she uses to protect her mind, doesn't want others to dream of her. And yet the Godseeker recognizes her as... something. (Third encounter)

So at least she's not just a really old tree. But she's also not a God like PK. She's a weird, third thing.

8, but I'm not letting go of her weird orb cocoon thing. What's that about?? What is it made of? Was it constructed by others and she was sealed within? Or did she somehow create it herself? The architecture seems to imply it's inorganic, but how did she get in there, then?

To top off the weirdness, there's the conveniently ghost-sized hole in the center of her carved face. So I'm leaning more towards "exaggerated metaphor for entering WL's mind" or "easy-to-read entry point for players to go to visit WL that isn't literally there in canon" and not "there's a big glowing hole in this literal rock that inexplicably leads to a tunnel* that then leads to a room very obviously bigger than what's seen from the outside."

There's no way, dude.

I'm leaning more towards there being a large structure she could walk into, that was then barricaded to fully seal her within. The knight, being so small, managed to get their way in through some sort of tunnel.

But then something happened to the plan and the outside of the structure turned into whatever Ari thought that orb was supposed to be.

*Although, I do like the interpretation that the tunnel is actually Ghost slowly making their way through her roots to meet her.

[goodmode]

random hc ask: some ppl think of some of the enemies like pets. ex., hollow getting a pet tiktik (which i happen 2 love). got any sort of bug pet hk headcanon?

my thoughts go to god tamer first! she's like the only example of anyone canonically having a pet that i can think of so i'd springboard off there and say Alright Let's Talk Sapience First

[feel free to skip to the readmore if you already have a solid idea of what's sapient and what's not. i doubt i'm saying anything other people haven't already picked up on]

we know the dream nail picks up thoughts of things like tiktiks and they display as words even if they're not obviously an upright walking talking bug, so i'm voting anything with god tamer's beast's dream nail dialogue set:

is probably petworthy. as in, not Some Guy. animal tier intelligence i guess.

according to the wiki this exact dialogue set applies to:

Tiktiks, Vengeflies, Crawlids, Gruzzers, Goam, all Aspids, Mosscreeps, Mossflies, Moss Chargers, Squits, Obbles, Durandoo/Duranda, Aluba, Ambloom, Fungling, Fungoon, Pilflips, Belflies, certain Flukes, Crystal Crawlers/Hunters, Glimbacks, Dirtcarvers, Dirtcarver Hatchlings, Garpedes, Corpse Creepers, Deeplings, Deephunters, Lesser Mawleks, Mawlurks, Infected Balloons, Booflies, Primal Aspids, [...]

i can't continue this list it's going to take me all day. you get the gist. there are a Lot of enemies that share the "probably not a sapient person" dreamnail pool. will be leaning heavily on that for What Can Safely Be Written As A Pet Without It Getting Too Weird

we probably can't include Flukes even though they also share the dialogue pool, because they're implied to grow into Flukemon which have separate dialogue and an obviously-sapient NPC (Fluke Hermit) so disregard those. there are also likely other exceptions i haven't covered so please use your head and apply a liberal pinch of salt.

we CAN probably include Vengefly King, Gruz Mother, and Brooding Mawlek since while their DN dialogue is different to their children it still doesn't seem to imply any higher-functioning thought than basic instinct, just a Big Parent Of The Same Thing

ok so individual character/pet ideas behind the cut bc i think this is a rly funny and charming thing to look at

zote. sorry he's first he's the funniest

zote is not one of those guys who would get a Big Dog thinking it makes him look cool and intimidating. he is the guy who puts a collar on a fucking coyote and thinks it makes him look cool and intimidating until it bites him in the dick.

it doesn't happen often, but sometimes he drags something back to Dirtmouth that is foaming at the jaws and insists it's his new faithful pet/steed that obeys his every command and will tear his enemies to pieces. it starts with a vengefly that he boasts about while it is actively chewing on his arm. it escalates from there.

the one thing preventing these beasts from tearing him to pieces is hornet coming in to truss up/confiscate the damn things before they can do any damage to the town

myla.

myla is familiar with glimbacks! she's a miner by trade even if she didn't come from hallownest originally, and i think these things are used as pit ponies in a lot of places. they're big sturdy beasts of burden that can be made to drag carts and carry heavy tools and they're described as "docile and slow" - no sudden movements and take well to handling.

she's never owned one but a living post-infection myla could adopt one of the surviving glimbacks from crystal peak and just kind of keep it like one keeps a rescue horse. horsegirl novel starring myla

cornifer & iselda.

they're married and do not currently have any kids for whatever reason - totally valid, this says nothing about them. however i do think it would be cute they get a dog instead and that's their placeholder baby. they get a mossfly and iselda spoils it with treats and it keeps her company while cornifer is gone. cornifer sometimes takes it for LONG WALKS (doesn't come back for 3 days).

sometimes they have that awkward moment where they're walking it in dirtmouth and it pees on something and they just have to smile and wave like "what can you do haha" while elderbug looks in in supreme disapproval because he has never owned a pet in his life and can't they just stop it from peeing there :/

millibelle.

owner of a yappy dog type crawlid, full-on grandma style. it has a solid shell like she does isn't that cute! she babytalks it and calls it sugarplum or whatever and insists it could never do a thing wrong in its life. it will savage your hand if anyone else tries to pet it.

emilitia.

she does not give a shit about anything that she thinks she'll outlast. Which Is Everything. however, millibelle has a crawlid, and boasts about it, and emilitia can't have that. she gets a tiktik in retaliation and it is exactly like a handbag chihuahua. hornet may or may not have to confiscate this one for the tiktik's sake

hornet.

everything still alive in the kingdom is under her protection, even if it bites. she is ambivalent to their responses to her. (they like her. when she comes back from pharloom playing silk music they like her even more)

lemm.

anti-pet person. i'm so fucking sorry. you bring a single thing into his shop that could pee or chew or scratch or leave tracks and he is going to kick up such a fuss. that said: he would have liked to feed maskflies in the park like your typical old man feeds pigeons

[salthien]

something I don't understand from watching many, many hk streams/challenges/etc at this point: why do people seem to get so frantically upset at the idea of dreamnailing Marissa? It's not a NaiIsmith situation - she's trapped in such a sad way, cursed to sing for no audience in the ruins of HalIownest forever. Sitting with her to listen to her performance and then dreamnailing her seems like the kindest mercy you can offer her :(

[firedjinni]

you mention vespa as someone hornet was close to in your Ghost's name post.. is that fanon, or implied somewhere within the game? (it's been FOREVER since i played hk)

It's complicated! Hornet having connections to the Hive is an early concept/piece of lore that never really made it into the game - Team Cherry originally had this idea of Hornet being a "child of three queens" (Herrah, WL, and Vespa), and that she specifically got her name from Vespa, which they talked about in a Reddit AMA (which you can read here) where they also said that they could not confirm whether or not it still applied to canon. (It definitely would have made more sense with the early versions of Hallownest's map, where Deepnest and the Hive were directly adjacent to each other...)

Because of this, Hornet having connections to the Hive and Vespa is a very common concept in fandom/fanon, even though it's not technically in the game. But it's also not something the fans came up with whole cloth, either - it's something that obviously influenced at least some of how Hornet exists in canon, and it's not explicitly not canon. And Hollow Knight has a lot of lore that's based in potentially scrapped or inaccessible material (see also: Hollow Knight and Pure Vessel dreamnail dialogue, cut Dreamer monologues, lore from developer's notes, etc.)

tl;dr it's not in the game, it might be canon or it might not be, but team cherry has been sorta cagey about it? for the sake of listing sad things happening to hornet, i'll count it lol

[candor-creator]

hk timeline is a fuck. thk not being a pure vessel is why pk disappeared and died and his cut dreamnail dialogue says “false one, you cannot reach me here,” clearly referring to radi because of the whole “no blazing kin” dealio, but according to some npc dialogue and team cherry comments it was only recently that thk broke and the infection started waking corpses up and junk, which, combined with the fuckiness of the kingdom being in “stasis” and time being defied by void and shit, i have come to the conclusion:

the sealing did not cure the infection. it just stopped it from spreading. may have killed everyone who was infected on the spot. the few survivors had to try and pull the kingdom back together. that’s why it was such a last-ditch effort. they just needed her to Stop. thk only broke just a bit before the events of the game, which turned the dead kingdom into a zombie kingdom and got ghost’s attention. thank you for coming to my ted talk

[hollypies]

promise?

What's your thoughts on like... idk how gods work from what we've seen/have been told?

👁👁

Good question!

I'm only going to be including the main gods in this answer, like Unn, PK and Radiance. The bosses in the Godmaster dlc are mostly just for game play stuff/ unrelated lore to this question.

gods are strange creatures. They're incredibly powerful, making their own species. Unn, for example! She created greenpath/Queens Garden from her own essence!

Each god seems to have their own essence as well. Unn's is green, Radiance has yellow, Grimm has red, and PK and WL's are probably white. Lifeblood is blue, obviously.

I think essence is what gives them their ability/drive to create. And not just create, but spread. WL for example! She had to create a restraint so that her seed wouldn't spread. Her roots are all over Hallownest, and she took over Queens Garden from Unn. Most likely cuz Pale beings are more powerful than gods in hk, and Unn seems more peaceful than most.

Radiance has a drive for spreading her influence as well! That's part of her essence, the infection. There's a lot more to the infection than that, but a part of it is her desire to be known, to spread her light. Her moths carried on weapons of her as well, like the dreamsheild and dreamnail. Those are tied directly to her essence, especially the dreamnail.

Unn is a bit more of an oddball. She's asleep most of the game. I think she's a lot older than the other gods, and probably weaker. That's why she sleeps, she's trying to build her strength and call the mosskin out of the infection. But in the past, I think she also would've kept growing plantlife if it hadn't been for the arrival of PK, who then made a peace treaty with her.

Grimm is another oddball. He travels, seeking out the grimmfire for his ritual. Like Radiance's essence, his is also all over the place. The Grimmkin are sent out to gather it from different kingdoms. He's obviously tied to his ritual, but im not sure why. I think his drive is that of survival instead of spreading his essence. He is apart of the nightmare heart, and when he 'dies' his essence is given to Grimmchild. Basically allowing him to keep living.

PK is the most obvious example of the essence drive im talking about tho. He MADE Hallownest! His desire for a kingdom and spreading his influence was so strong he tried to deny time itself so it'd last eternal! The White Palace is specifically hidden in his own essence, and can only be found with the Awoken Dreamnail. Something he knows the Radiance doesn't have while she's sealed in the Black Egg Temple.

Lifeblood is a bit strange. Mostly because we know less about that than the Abyss. But it's also spreading. You can find it in many many places around Hallownest. I think eating the Lifeblood seeds is apart of its spread. The seeds give health benefits, which make the bugs want to eat them. After eating the seeds they'd eventually shit them out, or die with the seeds inside them. This woukd make the seeds sprout in different areas, create the Lifeblood butterflies, and then the Lifeblood cocoon! It's more subtle than what the other gods do, but its still happening. The Abyss Creature is tied directly to Lifeblood, which is. In the Abyss. There's still a lot we dont know about the Abyss, but I think Lifeblood is apart of it in some way.

Tldr, gods have the drive to exert their influence, essence, on the world around them more literally. Whether through creating greenpath or hallownest, or just spreading throughout all of it. Weeee!

[malwarechips]

i think the grimmsteeds are underrated !! i haven't seen a single drawing of them but theyre so cool

[mothfishing]

radi our friend radi

miss radiance...

favorite thing about them

i just think the most about characters and factions who existed on hallownest's fringes, and the radiance is the ultimate example of that. and she's just a character who we see very little of, and not for no reason! so you have to piece together a lot of shreds of information to get an idea of the kind of person she was...

like for one i think the fact the moths are peaceful as a rule is something that would make sense if it reflected on her? ive seen people refer to her as a war god and that's like. okay then explain to me why a war god would create people who aren't known for carrying weapons...and i spoke about it in the seer ask, but her being associated with death and funerals and ghosts is also something that makes sense to me. basically i think it's interesting that she's a character who exists almost entirely by implication, who you have to go to a decent amount of effort to figure out anything about her

least favorite thing about them

no one in the world has ever been normal about her (SAD)

trying to figure out how to put this...are you really gonna tell me there's nothing at all fishy about the pale king coming to hallownest, sealing the radiance away so he could rule without equal (this is stated explicitly in a dev note...), having the goal of ruling over the entirety of hallownest unopposed, and having bad relationships with every single other faction that didn't bow to hallownest rule...? like there's nothing weird going on there at all? the mantis tribe's treaty explicitly stated that it was something they agreed to to protect their village from hallownest expansion. like are you telling me he's not a colonizer and imperialist,

idk it gives me a weird bad vibe. like very genuinely the impression i had after doing dream no more (& again, i played hk totally blind save for knowing ghost & hornet were siblings) was like. "huh? so the radiance and the moths got subjugated by some dude But Actually taking revenge for that is so much worse and we have to put her down now you guys:((((((("

and i literally thought that was unfair and i was probably misunderstanding, which i note to say i really am not approaching this in bad faith and this isn't a square reading i'm trying to force into a round hole. the reason i stopped doubting it was because i spoke to multiple friends who saw the same thing without my input =/

it makes it so i just can't dislike her. and it's pretty disappointing how fan reaction to her is primarily to either demonize her and attribute bad things to her that we either don't have evidence for or we have evidence that contradicts it, or they bring in real world struggle in a way i find wildly disrespectful & fetishistic. we are in a nightmare world basically

favorite line

she isn't really a character with dialogue, so instead i'll talk about a piece of the seer's dialogue which gives me Thoughts about the radiance. even though i already talked about it in the seer ask. which is months ago at this point so whatever i guess

What a terrible fate they've visited upon you.

To cast you away into this space between body and soul.

Will you accept their judgement and fade slowly away?

Or will you take the weapon before you, and cut your way out of this sad, forgotten dream?

i just think it's so interesting! it's difficult for me to think the seer isn't drawing a parallel between ghost's situation and what happened to the radiance...this is not the first time ghost has been judged unworthy of life; if they were a good child, they would have died all that time ago, another body lining the abyss

the dreamers have condemned them to the same fate. there's no way to escape the dream; without the seer's aid, all they can do is, as she puts it, fade slowly away. and what for? yet another sacrifice extracted from them for the sake of this dead kingdom. by this point it isn't possible to do anything the dreamers fear - they need the dreamnail for that. they are condemned because they are inconvenient

and, well, the radiance was also put in that position...a lot of the game is about death and accepting that things will end, and the core arrogance of hallownest is repeatedly framed as the pale king declaring it would last forever. it's what vespa says the bees will have no part in, and there's ozymandius signs all over the damn place. so at least personally i find it significant that the radiance is repeatedly associated with the dead and the remembrance of the dead, her sacred place being a graveyard and her last follower being its groundskeeper, and she's also the one who pk needed to get rid of in order to make his eternal kingdom possible.

but accepting that things end is not the same as lying down and dying just because someone wants you out of the way for their own gain...which is exactly what the pale king wanted for both of them

brOTP

for a literal "bro" i actually see grimm as her brother who she's on fairly good terms with. idk, just never thought there was any particular reason for them to be at odds, and my own read of grimm's actions and the ritual was that he's enacting some kind of belated vengeance against hallownest for what happened to the radiance. by his nature, he could never have arrived "on time", but desecrating a corpse is well within his abilities.

nOTP

all of them. my god

random headcanon

the whole "erasing her memory" thing was referred to as a seal in a developer's note. it's even referred to as a prior attempt before the hollow knight plan - "Thus the first attempt to seal Radiance failed, and the King had to try another method - the Vessel."

i really can't think of her as not being a death god; it's just the impression i get from both her explicit connection to dreams, and how the dreaming and the dead are so tightly linked. the dream nail shows you both, after all, and the ghosts you fight are dream warriors. also, a place important to the moths, and presumably to her as well, is a literal graveyard. and that adds another dimension - it is specifically important to her that the dead be remembered and honored.

she has no physical form, which is funny because every other god we know of does. the pale king, the white lady, unn, grimm, even the lifeblood creature...grimm and unn both have some connection to dreams as well, so it isn't like that precludes you from possessing a physical form.

so...well...i keep thinking about that first seal, and that attempt to erase her memory. did it involve killing her? is there a corpse somewhere, long forgotten in an unmarked grave? to one such as her, what greater insult could there be?

unpopular opinion

man. i have so many.

first is that i think it's honestly kinda gross to say that the pale king and the radiance were equally at fault for what happened - one of them's a fuckin colonizer who goes around trying to absorb every group in the area into his kingdom, and the other is the god of one of those groups. they are not on equal terms here...

i also think it's gross to make her worse for the purpose of making whoever your fave is - often grimm or the pale king - Better. like she needs to be the worst most evil sister so grimm can get some pathos, she needs to be the most violent beast so the pale king can get some pathos, etc.

i could go on but i would literally never stop.

song i associate with them

toothsmile by bent knee is such a radiance song to me...

favorite picture of them

this art