#it doesn't erase what happened.

[technically-human]

He did eventually sign it

[glowingplant]

I kept trying to add these as tags and wondering what went wrong! The issue is that I'm too rambly and it was too many tags, so I'm adding it (now edited for readability) as a readmore instead!

This is lore I've kind of kept close to my chest, but it's borne from the fact that for my lore and my commander, just saying Trahearne lived and doesn't die doesn't fit the understanding of my commander, that I'd had for literally years.

I did still hit a point where ultimately I did want him to be alive again though, so short version: necromancy and special circumstances regarding Caladbolg, that occur waaay later. like post-EOD-later.

The long version with lots of rambling about my commander and his relationship to Trahearne is down there. It is WAY too long and no one has to read it.

So as I said, Trahearne's death is very important to Rhydenach and the lore! I can't just extricate the fact Trahearne died- it's kind of EXTREMELY important to him as a character, and the grief of Trahearne's death can't just be like.. purged from his narrative.

For starters, yes they were in smoochies together, and hey this is a readmore now so I can add a picture:

So okay, I swear this is going somewhere but I have to set the scene for Rhydenach becoming a necromancer as it's all important to me, and his journey to actually reviving Trahearne. So Rhydenach is initially a berserker warrior he's big and strong and dumb? He's a hotheaded himbo, and doesn't really get necromancy, he admires Trahearne for being smart but that is not him!!! Rhydenach can a) pick heavy thing up b) smash heavy thing into enemies. He's actually a very skilled fighter and his strength and combat skills are admirable but he's certainly not booksmart.

After Trahearne dies, he for a long time, filters his grief into his anger, and his hotheadedness, it alll feels very fitting with his berserker-ness! He's angry and grieving and it's all resurfacing as rage. He's in a very bad place mentally. He does have Caladbolg, and reforges it, and he ends up keeping a lot of Trahearne's old books about all sorts of things, but some of those are necromancy books (and a lot are Trahearne's own necromancy research.) And he just stashes them all away somewhere safe where they can be pristine and untouched. I think he almost feels he doesn't deserve these things? Of course, Trahearne would want him to have them but as I said, Rhydenach is in a bad place mentally.

Aurene is a spot of light in a very grim time in his life, and being able to parent a dragon is something that alleviates his pain and stops him from completely falling apart, but for the most part, he's very sad. He's making no effort to do anything other than distract himself, from his grief and is sort of destroying himself in the process.

BUT! during LWS4 he finally sort of has a breakthrough? A few things contribute... part of it is having died in POF, and this new lease on life and the process of regaining his memories and all begins it. He's still quite sour and prickly but I think it opens him up to healing in a way. His friendships with Caithe and Braham, also help. He's friends with most NPCs you're 'meant' to be friends with but these two probably are the closest? And they definitely help him the most in this phase of his life, especially with Caithe's reemergence. That's his friend who he platonically co-raised a child with.

LWS4 is honestly pretty harrowing in its own way and I think all the terrible stuff happening and then how when you hit Dragonfall suddenly Aurene is back and everything is working out and it all seems fine!!! I think just kickstarts his brain into being in a better place. Additionally, in Jahai Bluffs there's the poem fragment that was Trahearne's favourite, and despite suppressing his grief all this time, he finally instead starts to take comfort in Trahearne's memory, and actually feel his grief instead of trying his hardest to push it away.

So now, despite not being booksmart, or getting it very well, he's reading Trahearne's old necromancy research (it's a lot), and he finally entertains the idea of using reforged Caladbolg, instead of keeping it all pristine and shut away. He's not using it as his actual weapon at that point, but he finally sort feels okay using it, as he starts to practice and try out necromancy things he's learning. He starts to sort of get necromancy? He's not as magically inclined so he more infuses it into his normal fighting style. In-game up to this point, he's a physical skill hammer/greatsword berserker, which is very very him and so he's infusing necromancy into this sort of fighting style.

Then, at the end of LWS4, after the delight of Aurene being alive again, and this insurmountable enemy being dealt with, Aurene ascends to being an elder dragon! At this point in my lore, Rhydenach in the same moment, gets Aurene-branded like Caithe did, but prismatic-style (rather than the original purple/blue Aurene). So at that point because it's sort of a symbolic new Rhydenach, but also because he changes colour and stuff, I made a second Rhydenach alt to represent his visual changes, because there was no way I was making over original Rhydenach. (He's called 'Commander Rhydenach' in game, rather than just Rhydenach, and now he's a necromancer!!! But I'm actually not done with his look so you can't see him I'm sorry.)

So now, officially, he's a Reaper in-game, which I feel is fitting fighting style-wise as an extension of rhydenach's previous berserker-ness, but filtered through a necromantic lens. So his berserker mode is like. reaper shroud, the slamming of the scythe is like his old fighting style of slamming the hammer. He still uses a greatsword but finally, he's actually picked up Caladbolg, and takes it as his main weapon, and is fighting with it and using necromancy regularly. He doesn't fully get the magic from a scholarly standpoint, and he does use it in a brute-force sort of way way but he's definitely getting it more!

Now the weird thing is, when he was Aurene-branded, she shared with him some of the Joko magic she absorbed, which manifests as weird inherent necromancy knowledge that he doesn't fully get, when he thinks too hard, but it is just there now. It sort of plants a seed and he comes to start to wonder if he could revive Trahearne. Holding Caladbolg and learning necromancy and having some inherent knowledge implanted in his brain sends him down this little path where he's secretly thinking about this, from post LWS4 onwards, as a secret background goal, whirring away behind the scenes in his mind.

Moving forward, Icebrood is very rough for him but he's feeling better now! He's stronger and he holds out against it despite losing Almora, who is admires and respects a lot. He also partly remains strong, as he does back to talk to his old Pact friends, Faeilaeth and Dionaeri (two other ocs of mine, they're gfs!) who he'd been neglecting and they sort of stopped reaching out because they'd been trying so hard to help and support him and he'd just been determined to destroy himself regardless, and was pushing them away. SO, they help and support him a bit in his flimsy moments, and are happy he's actually accepting their support again.

So! EOD is sort of his last rodeo as Commander! After it, he's like 'Nah. I'm good! The dragon cycle is done! I'm checking out!' This is something I knew I wanted for him before even deciding about Trahearne revival, but it also works with that. (Do not ask me who my new commander is this is STILL a problem I haven't solved in my lore for an entire year at this point.)

And now, it gets wishy-washy, as this is still quite new lore for me, but the general idea is that because Rhydenach is appropriately ushered out of the story so I don't have to deal with the lore ramifications, of reviving Trahearne, he, through the weird circumstances of his necro magic absorption and using Caladbolg all the time, and post-EOD, maybe some weirdness with the dragon magic (Mordremoth in particular), he finds a way!

I believe it's mostly that he needs to craft a new sylvari body through necromancy (both learned and the stuff he absorbed) and plant magic and stuff, and stick Trahearne's soul back in it, but this requires Caladbolg and all to do it, and maybe he has to do it in the Heart of Maguuma where he originally died? Either way, something about the process necessitates Caladbolg, as this is something he can only really do with Trahearne specifically (he'd be reviving many more people otherwise and I don't want that all over my lore, I like this as a very significant one-time thing.) Well two-time thing but that happens with two completely separate characters who aren't at all attached to any of this, I'm only allowing Rhydenach to do this one time.

I also want to add I just think it's very romantic to literally know your lover so well you can perfectly craft their body as it once was. And I like this as actually, Rhydenach DOES get to be happy! He doesn't have to sit with his grief, after all he's done, he gets the person he misses more than anything back. Even if it's many many years after the fact. Maybe that seems a bit silly, that he worked through his grief and his ending wasn't that he was content with it now, but that he gets his lover back after all? But I like it better this way actually.

As I said, I haven't fully firmed up the details of the revival, like it's ??? still, but it's going to happen., just offscreen while my new commander who I do not know yet is running around. When I finally figure them out, it will be that they've been learning from by Rhydenach's side for a little while, and were inducted into their order via one of the orders Rhydenach didn't join through (Rhydenach is Vigil), and still lost their mentor at Claw Island, just, they did some other stuff for a while before ending up in the midst of Dragon's Watch, so they can still fit with the newer stuff that's happening, since Rhydenach quit lol.

I think Trahearne's revival will sort of be a half-secret? Like close friends will know, and maybe it's a rumour throughout Tyria, but they're not making an announcement to the world, and most people probably scoff and think it's ridiculous. I think the two of them will prefer that.

If you did read all of this I give you a medal and my many many thanks lol.

Hey question for the Trahearne lovers here

For those of you that have a Trahearne lives AU, how do you go about it? How does he not die? Feel free to ramble about it :)

[pigidin]

UMM?? GUYS??

Alt coz ik the quality is bad::

[The mind Bill knows best. Pure ego. Putty in Bill's hands. Bill will also reveal that, while he was possessing Ford in the 80's, he ripped out a number of pages from Ford's journal and erased his memory of them. Bill will show the LOST PAGES from JOURNAL 3 that have never before been seen]

DOES ANYONE WANNA TALK ABOUT THE MEMORY ERASE THINGY COZ IM GOING PRETTY MUCH INSANE OVER THIS INFO. WHAT.

[asmodeusamaryllis]

Hearing hoping nothing she does impacts her later/those drugs don't fuck her system up too bad

[dootznbootz]

I think some folks MAY have gotten the wrong idea about how I feel about Circe with some of my posts. So, to clear the air...

Homies, I love that fucked up sorceress.

I love how we're never given a reason why she turns people into animals. That's so funny and so awful. And another potion-making magic gal?!?! I love that she's just basically vibing on an island doing whatever she wants. I even love the fact that she scares Odysseus shitless! She's morally gray and that's why she's FUN.

I just sincerely hate when people try to girlboss her or have her be a victim of SA when she never was Looking at you, Miller. Especially when she was actually the one who coerced Odysseus in exchange for his men being transformed back into humans. And even then, while he was clearly afraid of her, (it's in the language of the Odyssey) she likely meant him no harm after a certain point. He just didn't know that.

Why does she need a reason to do awful things? Why can't she just be a goddess who does whatever she wants? That's the reason why I love her!!! She's fucked up!!! :D

I hate what the Telegony did to her as well! >:( You're telling me, this sorceress goddess, who makes potions (!!!) wouldn't have magic contraceptives??? Would WANT CHILDREN?!?! WITH THE PATHETIC WIFEMAN?! No. Fuck no. Eugammon of Cyrene, I have beef with you 🤬

Anyways!!! Understand all the "#anti circe" I have is simply Anti "Girlboss Circe" or the book. I genuinely think she's neat af as her morally gray, fucked up sorceress self and just get frustrated with...everything :'D

[quatregats]

Had a conversation about being perceived as South Asian with my cousin and her kids and I'm still rotating it around in my head because like. Did everyone suddenly forget that I am also half white. Like did you forget that I do not have two South Asian parents

[spiritcc]

at this point I don't even know if tag fragmentation in the general russian holmes space is worth addressing. a few years ago I successfully kept the ancient customs intact because I wrote a post so deranged and pretentious it displeased people into doing what I wanted but nowadays what's the point in making a grand return of being terminally online if yall kinda right

[laugtherhyena]

CHERRY🍒🍒🍒🍒🍒🍒🍒🍒🍒🍒🍒🍒🍒🍒🍒

[randomnameless]

15 days ago :

...

Two weeks is "long" enough not to be called soon, right??

So in that run, Alain repaired a bridge and crossed it, under his advisor's stern and despaired glare, and we saw a horrible cutscene with evil!Scarlett now going on by the name of Norbelle.

But since I couldn't be assed to grind to, well, play the final map, I just unlocked the cutscene and then went on my way to rescue Scarlett before she turns "evil".

@megafan1993 : iirc you theorised in a comment that maybe angel people can't be Zenoira'd like the bestrals because we don't see any zenoira'd angel in Albion? Given how Scarlett's line is basically an "angel experiment" that went right (like she got magic mc guffin powers instead of sprouting wings) Norbelle's here to tell us that she could be hijacked... even if I checked on YT videos and apparently it's bit more weird, like Norbelle says she was channeled in this body when Scarlett's soul left, but when we defeat Norbelle Scarlett's still here somehow asking Alain to live?

Anyways, wanting to continue on my "get cutscenes I didn't get in the first round", but being too much of a chicken to execute then Cornian recruits (:'( ) I decided to have Alain talk to Gilbert from the South in the final Drakengard map - and now instead of having them talk, Gilbert apparently remembers having talked to us?

Virginia being all "maybe you should talk to Aramis and ask him to reassure his brother about his role and status as the King", well, nope. Just like she told Alain, when we first met Berengaria, that their family matter was something between them and not for us to intervene, Alain went with something like "it's not for us to intervene in Drakengard's royal affairs" or something.

Which had her be a bit pissed, but she ultimately gives up because that's Alain's decision, and he is the leader of the army. So instead of talking to his brother, Gilbert faces his father's throne with doubts and his armored adviser (Hermann) tells him not to worry, and how everyone supports him even if his brother - who hasn't been confirmed to be dead yet - has a better claim to the throne.

However, given how he still has doubts and voices them to the Cornians - after Virginia asked him to "speak his mind" or something - and says he would rather join the Liberation Army, but defuses the situation by pretending it's a joke... well, let's say this plot point is left in the air.

(but it could make for a nice plotbunny in a fic : what if Gilbert later learns that his brother is still with the LA and how Alain and Virginia both kept that info for him? Marriage or not, I doubt he's going to be chummy with the Cornian royals, especially if he believes they kept that info from him to have some sort of leverage against his crown/rule by threatening him to reveal Ludwig's existence to the world and thus directly challenge his legitimacy... - what a clusterfuck this decision of "letting them deal with their family matters on their own" would create lol)

But he swore he will be assisting us in the last battle!

I don't think there are any other "meaningful choices" after Drakengard, maybe I'll kill Bertrand (:'() in Bastorias to get that entry on the archive ?

[pochapal]

So, putting aside any feelings about the work itself or potential direction changes, what is your opinion on the idea of Homestuck^2 being back, with a new team, and nothing from the old team, when the idea was that the old team was still working on it behind the scenes?

given the way things ended in 2020 i was under no illusion that anyone was still working on hs^2 - the "we're still working behind the scenes" thing was basically a lie since by that time literally nearly all of the team had either jumped ship or was pushed out by a hostile fandom - so it is sincerely a surprise that a) people are working on it again and b) we're actually getting new content for it. i would have put hard money on homestuck^2 being forever dead and even said as much several times this year alone (i still stand by a lot of what i wrote in this post on the matter) so i was completely and totally unprepared for a version of this thing to crop up from the grave.

the fact that it's a wholly new unconnected team is absolutely the only reason that hs^2 is back. everything that happened with/to the old team was a bridge that can't be unburned. i worked through my feelings about what happened to the original hs^2 crew some time ago so i'll be brief: i was absolutely in love with the new, interesting, and challenging direction that team was taking not only hs^2, but homestuck canon in its entirety, and i will always be deeply saddened that their vision was killed before its time and will never be able to be visualised.

the story we will be getting both is and isn't homestuck^2. it will naturally be building off the same frameworks and ideas of the epilogues and what came before it, but it will not end up in the same place. this new team is working under a different outline towards a different goal and i will try to appreciate this new hs^2 for what it is (albeit with a very very veeeery cautious optimism) but the hs^2 i fell in love with died in 2020. the story i am writing about and responding to died in 2020. i am sure this will be a fun ride but i can't help but be wistful about what could have been, and i am unable to ignore the specter of the cruelty done towards its predecessor that hangs over this project. i wish them the best and i am looking forward to it but it isn't the same and it won't be the same and i wouldn't want it to be the same anyway. that moment in time and that creative vision is in the ground and to pretend otherwise would be playing with ghosts. i am interested in seeing something alive.

i really and truly hope things work out better for this new team and they learned from what killed the last attempt at this. more than anything else i would hate for history to repeat.

[wallyslinda]

i'm anti several popular (fanon mostly) ships that my favorites are part of... this is just me keeping track

[midnanoire]

all non participating countries have their flags banned at eurovision

I'm well aware. I wrote that in the translation.

[hyacinthsdiamonds]

I wasn't sure if I was going to write anything about this or not, and the fact that it even has to be said is so sickening, but anyway:

Fuck anyone who is sharing those images of Liam. Fuck the people who took those photos, and sold them. May you also burn in hell alongside those who are sharing them.

Fuck TMZ but let's be real it's not new behaviour from them. Just the lastest in a long list of sins (leaking Cameron Boyce's death certificate, everything in the aftermath of both Matthew Perry and Naya Rivera's passing, & many more i have no way to describe other than evil actions), may they rot in the deepest pits of hell.

Leave his family and the boys alone. Full stop.

Leave Maya Henry the fuck alone. Full stop. After my initial shock wore off, my immediate thought was that that poor woman was never going to know peace again, and so many of you proved me immediately right. She is not to blame for what happened.

The boys are not to blame for what happened. Niall is not to blame for what happened simply because he was the last of the lads to see him. I get wanting someone to blame because it makes it easier to make sense of, but there's no sense in death. It simply is, and it's shit. It that doesn't fucking mean you get to harass, write vile things, or blame people who ACTUALLY knew him. You do not get to tell them what they should be feeling right now.

Like many people, I have complicated feelings regarding Liam. I'm not going to get on my soapbox and preach because I don't have any answers. I wish we were able to have more nuanced conversations. That multiple things can be true at once because they usually are. Are we going to have those conversations? Probably not, but I think we should. I'm not going to write much more than that. Enough people have already said what I've tried to far more eloquently that I could ever manage to.

One thing I do want to say is that no one should have things like this done to them after their death. No one. His son is seven. Fucking seven. No child should ever see that. No child should ever have to live with the knowledge that those photos are out there or that someone used and exploited their parent to make a quick buck MINUTES after their passing or that people gleefully shared it online. That's who we should be remembering through all of this, that seven year old boy.

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

A post in honor of General Jarod Fire Emblem my precious.

[homeless202]

I hate you. for hitting me and breaking my trust

I love you. for giving me yummy food the next morning

[childofaura]

So as I’ve been playing Engage with the Japanese voices, I’ve noticed very clearly that voice lines absolutely don’t match up to what is being spoken a good chunk of the time. I know FE translation is notorious for censoring (as apparently the only closest official translation of a FE game we’ve had is Echoes), but playing a FE game with Japanese audio for the first time is really driving it home. I can’t speak a lick of Japanese but I know some basic words, and I’ll notice small things like where a character clearly apologizes or thanks someone and it doesn’t show up at all.

So then today, this pops up in my recommendations:

And honestly I’m actually pretty peeved. We’re going back into Fates levels of censorship and I really don’t like that. Yes, I know I was concerned about being able to support characters like Clanne and Framme, but I thought that was addressed as an overall part of the game, not as a move of censorship. It would creep me out, sure, but I’d rather it be put in the English version of the game as-is, especially because it’s not like I have any interest in supporting them so it doesn’t concern me anyways. I’m really not happy that our localization practices still think that it’s okay to censor anything problematic. I want to play the game as it is, and if there’s one thing I absolutely hate, it’s being lied to. That’s what censorship is. Keep the weird personality traits. Keep the lines about being afraid of gaining weight. Keep the support options. I’m an adult who understands what fiction is, not some dainty little Southern belle who will faint at the slightest offense to my frail sensibilities.