#it basically goes in the order of

[berscrk]

I finally updated my griffguts playlist to a roughly accurate order of how i imagine the songs playing out to the story 🤭 i hope you like it if you check it out

[goomyloid]

Thoughts on the theory that ch4 has the soul implanting a bit of itself in Noelle with the ThornRing? Afaik the theory is supported by the animation (spiderwebbing out through Noelle’s body) and when Susie questions Kris later about what the two were talking about, the empty dialogue box is from Noelle’s perspective (no/muted rain because she is in her house, no response because she didn’t hear the question) and the soul is trying to balance two (one and a half?) vessels

(DELTARUNE CHAPTER 4 WEIRD ROUTE SPOILERS !!!!!!!)

i hope people dont throw tomatoes at me for this one but i think it's really far fetched for us to Literally be implanting part of our soul into her, finger, in the scene where all that's actually happening is we're forcing the thorn into her finger/hand/whatever and all the Red Stuff that shows up afterwards is like, purely symbolic or even just blood at most. in my opinion

even though its a complicated-ish theory i almost think it would be .... too easy???? to simplify it down to that? to say we're like Literally making her our vessel the way we've been controlling kris as one. idk i think keeping it more psychological would be most interesting ultimately. tapping into noelle's innermost desires -- wanting to stand up for herself, wanting the power to grasp what it is she truly craves, wanting to be close to kris again because she misses how things used to be -- all this being twisted and sullied and bent to our OWN desires to the point where originalnoelle is almost unrecognizable, all while we're not actually controlling her as a Fantastical Vessel... is far more interesting i think. we're forcibly digging deep into her psyche to pull out things she doesn't even realize about herself, since she's been drifting through life in a trance just trying to pretend everything's ok and she's happy. it might look like she has it all, but...

anyway. Dont kill me but i dont like the theory all that much lol. I just. Dont think souls can do that. or SHOULD do that even. although the bit later with susie is honestly really spooky and interesting but in the end i dont think it actually has anything to do with noelle herself. the screen turning reddish and the rain completely stopping (iirc) honestly feels like, if anything the soul is just???? growing more powerful or something(idk)?????? or its all just purely visual like with the palette shift in the couch scene. it could represent kris's and the player's growing conflict of interest -> all of the choices being completely blank because kris is just Not having it from us anymore

if this theory somehow is true and it did happen i think it would be really fucking funny for just 1 pixel to be missing from the soul for the entire rest of the game though LMAO

[turtleblogatlast]

I still think about how Leo’s ideal day out for the fam’s venture into the Hidden City was basically just an effort to get some rest and relaxation because boy does he never get that ever.

[prideprejudce]

AU Reds Poster: Alicent joins Rhaenrya as her advisor and wife after escaping her father's influence.

She escapes Kings Landing with Helaena and her grandchildren just in time. Unfortunately, her father has already sunk his teeth into her two sons who are ready to fight for their right to the iron throne. How will Alicent choose between her family and her beloved Rhaenyra when the time comes?

[lmokis]

[kadextra]

sniles sneetly. enjoy 👍

[quackity1999]

Do you ever think about New L'manburg? Of what it could have been?

of course i do. there— god, there were so many semi-good times. plus that one party.

then again; you can't have the good without . . .

[ X ] [ X ] [ X ] [ X ] [ X ] [ X ] [ X ] [ X ] [ X ] [ X ] [ X ]

. . the bad.

[sappi-papi]

happy jungle sunday everynyan treating myself for this one by sharing one of my fave headcanons for him ever . remember when i infodumped about him in that one post? yeah this was what i was implying in that first paragraph below the cut. anyway consider age regressor jungle ? smile?

[sylver-drawer]

Drinking game for rereaders—

Take a shot everytime Mochijun shows panels of Oz-Plushie or makes a direct reference and/or implication of Oz being a chain before the reveal.

[mobgabriel]

"hey mob how crazy you are over echo and silent"

well...

all things considered i'm extremely normal about them

[cctinsleybaxter]

Artists who admit to not knowing small details about their characters and worldbuilding have inadvertently given better advice than any character design post on social media tbh. as fun as it is to come up with what your guys would order from a restaurant or the contents of their backpack or their favorite color I've run into very few people who can leave that stuff in a story (or even leave it offscreen as paratext) without it being distracting and poorly written because it's rarely in service of the narrative. a lot of that is def just down to personal taste, but it feels more like designing characters for a TTRPG

[youkaigakkou-tl]

(sorry in advance for the long ask) i feel silly for not noticing earlier but i realized that "Sano Mikoto" follows the same "__ no mikoto" name pattern that several japanese gods have. but that also made me wonder: if the 佐 from sano's name means "help" then his whole name sounds like "the god of help/assistance". but based on how that doesn't align with his yakubyougami nature and how ebisu reacts to hearing the name in ch 53 (his reaction is a bit more clear in the jpn raws) (1/2)

佐 doesn't really mean "help" on its own, it only somewhat means that when it's part of the word 補佐 "hosa" , which means "assistant" (in an organizational structure to a chief or leader) rather than like "helping people". Most of the time 佐 is just used as a kanji to represent the sound "sa", which is somewhat frequently the case for the on-readings (similar to chinese pronunciation) of kanji.

This is particularly prevalent when it comes to ancient literature like the creation myths and stories around gods, where the stories originally only existed in verbal form, and when japan adopted the chinese writing system some 1500 years ago, they applied certain chinese characters to the sounds that existed in japanese (the 50 or so hiragana that exist now) in order to put the stories into writing.

(and then over time 50 or so kanji got simplified into hiragana for normal use but thats neither here nor there. but names got to keep their kanji, which is why creation myth gods often have stupid long names that are 1 kanji per syllable, and the kanji used dont mean much of anything by themselves)

(theres also that often the kanji chosen will have been positive words, stuff like "fast" or "wise" or "powerful", in addition to the chinese word sounding like the japanese syllable (which was the more important part). Its unclear whether all these attributes were all applicable to the god named, its just as possible people afterwards applied those attributes to them in future retellings of the stories because the kanji was in the name. sort of a chicken and egg problem. and anyway, does it really matter what the one "true" interpretation of a story is, if one exists at all? it's a very modern sensibility to demand one, when for much of history stories only existed in the air between a storyteller and a listener. im getting off track here)

this is a lot of words to say, what is significant about the 佐 in "sano", is that it's the same one as in susanoo-no-mikoto. susanoo, notable for being associated with storms and disaster, for being exiled from heaven after causing some sort of destruction, and for being a child of izanagi and izanami and born after their first child hiruko (or rather, ebisu).

the thing about the yakubyougami thing, as with every other youkai and everything about folklore, is that at the end of the day, it's a story. youkai are just a set of attributes and circumstances that are wrapped up as a story, and in turn given a name and a face. a kamaitachi is just the occurrence of "wind whipping up suddenly and dust and leaves cutting someone" wrapped up as a story of "what if an imperceptibly fast weasel with knives did it?!"

it's why there can be so many different versions of stories for the same youkai, with behaviors and appearance differing from place to place, or the same "story" being given a different "name" in different places

(relevant to the latest chapter, i sort of suspect this is why theres like 10 different monkey youkai whose lore is just "this monkey is a FREAK")

what im getting at is, this isnt really like scientific taxonomy classifications, where theres genes you can sequence or criteria you can check to see if something is the right species. (and even then, there's birds stranded on isolated islands, fish sealed in caves, microorganisms in general, etc etc) there's not like a "youkai auditor" that goes around auditing if you're Really the youkai you say you are.

nor is it like you intrinsically know what youkai you are and all the lore about it and what behaviors youre supposed to have and what powers you have etc. you're told that by your parents, and in cases where that isnt possible, you figure it out somehow. like with beniko (popped out of a house and raised by humans), they looked it up and people have come up with a name for the phenomenon, which was called "zashiki warashi". or in cases like odawara where you really do just come to life alone, i imagine you either make a name for yourself, or humans who come across you will make a name for you.

which is a lot of words to say, sano can call himself whatever the hell he wants to make his life easier and not have to explain his backstory or have classmates make guesses at his backstory, as long as his traits somewhat fit. especially since recently he's often in the same scenes as kurahashi, who is now confirmed to straight up not be who or what he says he is.

[irradiatedpiratebooty]

I will never understand anybody who cares so deeply about what other people identify as

"But aren't therians weird??? I mean come ON"

Will hating on someone just doing what makes them happy pay my rent? Will it help me get a job? Will it bring me joy? No? Then who caressssss

[bijoumikhawal]

the discussion of Garak’s childishness and malleablity has given me the funny mental image from an AU I play around with but probably will never right of like

Garakh, from a timeline where either Cardassians didn't completely conquer Hebitians or the Union crumbled during a crisis a few centuries back, his uncle had custody and raised him to be openly mixed race and follower of Oralius, probably has a chill job as a teacher and a side gig as a minor clergy member/low key counseler, looking at the other version of himself who hates himself and is neurotic like a beaten police dog on top of denying the most basic facts about himself. And realizing this bitch has the emotional maturity of one of his students

[sha-brytols]

honestly i think duncan reminds varric more of cole than literally anyone else

[phoenixcatch7]

Okay but why haven't we had a time travel/fix it fic where after some shenanigans everyone decides to take down shinra, they split up to take out the important figures, sephiroth obviously takes hojo for any and all of a dozen good reasons.

And then hojo pulls a winter soldier sleeper code on him.

And then everyone is suddenly dealing with a brainwashed sephiroth.

-

Hojo has to have some way to control sephiroth as he grew into his monstrous strength and power, yes? And learned helplessness isn't enough of a reassurance your prized military leader powerhouse isn't going to wake up one day and realise just how easily he could paint the labs walls red with chunks of you. And because hojo is obsessed with total power and control, dealing with a murder machine with huge mental issues, it'd only be fitting he create his own emergency shutdown.

In the most needlessly traumatic and mentally violating way, of course. Would sephiroth even know, if he couldn't remember? Would he have long stretches of emptiness in his memories that never get explained to him, or would he wake up where he'd blacked out, just another day in the labs?

Imagine, his allies watching on the cameras, as sephiroth stalks into the labs, a predator sighting its prey, exchanging a few cold words with hojo, raising masamune... And then hojos mouth opening, sephiroth going stiff like an animatronic, rearranging himself on the floor where he stood, face hidden behind his hair. Hojo leaves the room and he doesn't move, doesn't respond to any comms or passing scientists accidentally rolling a cart over his coat and hair.

Hojo ordering sephiroth to reveal their plans, their allies, their resources. Sephiroth doing it. Hojo deciding to punish sephiroth for the rebellion with lab procedures, or hojo ordering him to hunt down his co conspirators and end the takeover. Sephiroth doing so, heavy in his steps, crashing through walls and doors, heedless now of morals or civilians, silent, unresponsive. So completely unlike the jenova malice they'd been prepared to fight, that sephiroth had been bracing against. No arrogance, no mocking, no dramatic battlefield or hungry glowing eyes.

The puppeteer becomes the puppet, and with it, every trace of holding back. The perfect soldier.

I imagine the first trigger word would be lucrecia.