#like The Scion arc and shit

[anxiously-sidequesting]

You know something I've kinda wished we had in Wizard City in particular is like. Our wizard being main homies with supporting characters

So like of course everyone knows I love Nolan Stormgate but what about Penny Dreadful and Mindy Pixiecrown and Malorn Ashthorn and Susie Gryphonbane and (pre-updated) Ceren Nightchant. Even in the Old Tutorial they were pretty charming characters for like the one or two minutes we spent time with them and they were involved with some pretty important quests lore-wise and there were some little inklings of like a bond between them and The Wizard by the time we parted. But we like Never See Them Again and that slightly upsets me

Y'know how Wizard101 likes to have returning NPCs from other worlds appear like every 10 years so like. Can we do that with the original Wizard City gang??? In my personal opinion I am a SUCKER for "blasts from the past" and Kingsisle has definitely done some of those, can't we just have a few quests where we meet up with all of them again. Like all sitting at a lunch table in the school we all attended together before The Wizard was diagnosed with Main Protagonism and we've all obviously grown up a bit since the first arc. You guys don't understand how much I would CRY snot and tears,

[intertexts]

HELPPPPPPP

[tovaicas]

I’m still angry they let Ysayle be really depressed and then she just dies like she could’ve done so much

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

anyway. wol concept i am trying to decide whether to make two different chars or one. also whether or not to put them in my light party

[artisanscribbles]

#ffxiv#hades being horrified and disbelieving of everything we tell him emet-selch will do isn't redemption#it's a tragedy#here is a decent man who does not wish to believe that anyone would stoop so low#except you know that he will and he will not regret a moment of it even in death#even in death he believes himself justified#because he loved his world#he isn't redeemed - he isn't really even forgiven#and he doesn't want to be#emet-selch doesn't need to be redeemed after all - he's doing what he believes must be right

Don;t hide this in the Tags

"emet-selch had a point" girl the ancients' clothes are called sophist's robes...

[nights-at-crystarium]

Fragments - episodes 41-46 author notes

You can find similar breakdown posts on older episodes in my pinned!

Get comfy and reread with me the finale of the Il Mheg arc and the intro of a certain loser.

First off, I wanna emphasize how important this arc’s for Vivi. Had he not liked Il Mheg in general and Feo Ul in particular, the rest of the story would play out very differently, and not in favor of the sundered. His initial positive impression of the First is pretty much the only thing that saves it.

We've reached a high, physically and emotionally. You know what that means, as per the shb rollercoaster rule :>

Pan pride pixie blesses Thancred, ca. 2024, colorized. I accidentally gave them the pan colors but hey it works. ALSO! Stars in his eyes.

Re: distant nightmare, I’ll let you in on a secret, or a third party perspective if you will. Vivi's full of shit, he's too focused on the big picture. He’s narrating this whole story, but his perspective is, well, just that.

Initially this was Vivi's inner monologue, then I thought that I should just let them talk, and it wrote itself.

More under the cut~

Drawing a buncha vivi-lookalikes that act soooooorta but not really like him, just slightly off, was a surprisingly fun exercise.

Luckily for Thancred, though, he sniffs out the pixie magic, and knows better than indulging them.

...Still, what a shitty fucked up day. Sorry, Thancred :’>

This here’s an example of a moment where I’m uncertain if I’m being too subtle and if this flies over some readers’ heads. He refers to Alisaie’s “job” of dragging Vivi back to msq, which she recently started lowkey dreading (episodes 32-33)

...Though she goes back to her “duty” in episode 43.

She's pointedly SILENT throughout the episode, doing her best to hold back.

Thancred's a man who can say no to begging dogs.

Gridania mention! Vivi’s gridanian! He never speaks ill of the elementals, he's wary of them even a world apart.

This pixie's life is something Feo Ul's willing to sacrifice. Episodes 42-43 tell this story in reverse order, yes this’s the pixie that was supposed to agree with Thancred and go with the Scions to the Crystarium.

As to why there’s a dozen of vivis popping up as a backup: they needed just one fake Vivi to go with the Scions, but try organizing the pixies. Their plan’s already failed when this first pixie-Vivi refused to play their part.

“Yeah no, our guy’s special, but not as special as to explode in confetti”

I love his first ingame appearance in that Varis cutscene, this moment has similar energy: barely enters the stage, instantly gets impaled on a long object. This’s not foreshadowing, no, why would you think that-

The “camera” is perfectly still, there’s even some symmetry, demonstrating how calm and prepared Emet is. He didn’t expect much and he’s still disappointed.

This’s a super old comic. I spent the first half of 2022 testing and trying to find a style for Fragments, back then I had no plans, none, zero, absolutely no interest to give Emet a role bigger than a mention. The earliest version of the script had very few Emet scenes, which, looking back on it, was gonna be a disservice to his character. Well, that changed rapidly in late 2023 when I fell for him so hard that I broke my neck, and now I look back on a lot of what I did with Vivi with new eyes. THE EYEROLL. After spending two years developing a guy for a fun wolgraha chemistry (at the same time I was perfectly aware that Exarch and Emet are foils. I made a foil for Exarch, what on earth did I expect-), I’m going through a mindblow after mindblow as I realize HOW GOOD VIVI IS FOR EMET (and vice versa ofc) and how many things they have in common. This wasn’t always the case, Vivi just gradually got more cynical, tired, ✨grey✨ and everything else that makes a guy consider hitting it with The Other Old Man.

They’re off to a great start.

From Emet’s pov, this must really hurt, as in how many other shards of Azem might’ve snarled at him like this. Even though he must be numb to it by now, who says that there isn’t the tiniest flicker of hope when he approaches yet another not-Azem. He may deny and hate and try to snuff out that spark, but the fatal Soulmate Magnet keeps doing its thing.

Parallels to episode 2.

Apparently, Vivi’s first reaction to encountering his to-be-most-prominent boyfriends is to attack them somehow.

This’s really, REALLY dumb of him, and he even comments on it shortly after. But yes, his isekai tale in the First was rather pleasant just until now, and it lulled him into the false sense of security. OF COURSE there are ascians everywhere, not just on the Source. Vivi just forgor.

Emet tests Vivi's reactions to insults/being treated as a lesser, silliness, flirt.

I regret to inform you that both Vivi and Alisaie have been disarmed so easily. The tone quickly shifts, the weapon’s lowered.

Alisaie makes bad puns/jokes in canon, I thought it'd fit if she laughed at that kinda jokes too, and in the least fitting situations, to top it off. Alphinaud’s disappointed, even if he can hardly be called an expert in humor.

“It’s up to you”. Emet stops fooling around, assuming a more serious tone. He may not respect Vivi or his agency here, but he provides him with a choice that's guaranteed to give him some trust points, and uses "we" for an illusion of unity/equality, a not really subtle nudge towards cooperation, it's not me vs you anymore, it's "us".

Whether Vivi picks up on the manipulation or not remains to be seen, but Emet gets his way here.

Forgive me this lil tangent, but I’m so giddy and excited to write Emet. If Exarch’s decently emotionally intelligent but still obtuse at times, Vivi’s a tier or two above him, he’s not a stranger to manipulation, he registers it being used on him, and doesn’t hesitate to use it too when it suits his fancy. He's quite good at people-ing. Emet, though, Emet’s THE emotional intelligence personified. He’s had literal thousands of years to practice, he leaves everyone else in the dust in this regard. It’s daunting but so exciting to write him, I hope to do him justice.

Let’s just talk.

𝓛𝓮𝓽’𝓼 𝓳𝓾𝓼𝓽 𝓽𝓪𝓵𝓴.

Mark this moment, remember this line for meme value. If these last words aren't famous yet, they WILL become that when we see what they talk their way into <w<

Yes I'm going all in on tragic irony of Emet's situation.

Accidental Emet rp, with the hunching over and all. Or maybe Vivi already unwittingly mirrors him. Or maybe he always did- *kicked and dumped in the trash bin*

Man. I'm guilty of enjoying drawing Vivi in genuine distress. He’s so fun when he’s agitated.

Hidden Angst Time! It's all hehe haha until you realize that this might be a product of the hectic wol lifestyle forcing him to speedrun his emotions like this. Either speedrun, or be left with no opportunity to process them at all.

Also, the sandwiches! The framing’s deliberate, they’re on the foreground all the time, and Vivi only notices them in the very last panel.

I! Love! This! Face!!!!!! A rare neutral, relaxed, thoughtful face, he isn't performing for anyone here.

Nevermind Ardbert getting brutally ignored here x’D

The fact that a guy that Vivi had briefly considered as partner material shut himself away in the Crystal Tower for what could be the rest of his life has stuck with Vivi for good. Or should I say for bad. He might not necessarily care about ARRRaha, still it upsets him that he kissed someone who practically killed himself some days later.

I recently talked a lil more about the Bitchless Liar. This’s how Vivi remembers him forever, take it or leave it. But hey, this cool Exarch guy has big balls probably <- in-universe hc \o/

This episode taught me to draw BREAD.

Even though Exarch’s been nothing but sweet so far, one thing’s to acknowledge a fact with your brain, another thing’s to wrestle with your trauma and paranoia that have all rights to exist and fester. Ever since HW Vivi doesn’t accept food and drinks from anyone except the few trusted sources. This isn’t really covered in this episode, but hopefully hinted at just enough.

He takes a leap of faith. Or maybe he’s simply sick and tired of living Like This. Maybe sandwiches kill him, and he doesn’t really mind. And, when they don’t, he goes through a visible shift in attitude towards Exarch, as we’re able to see in the following episodes.

This’s all I’ve got for now, thanks for reading till the end~

[trans-queen-administrator]

Taylor being paranoid about her passenger is such a fun character trait. Like none of her friends really seemed to give much of a shit when they learned about passengers from Bonesaw, but Taylor consistently notes the times her passenger acted without her consent, she tries to talk with it, communicate with it, just anything to learn what this thing that can control her without her say wants with her. One of my favorite little details is that during the timeskip this was the focus of a lot of her therapy sessions with Yamada, trying methods like hypnosis to communicate. I think part of it is that she's inherently just paranoid about the fact that this thing is helping her sometimes and she doesn't know why and she HAS to figure it out because no one would help out of the kindness of their heart, and another part is just that she can't bear to not be in control and this is something that threatens that in a very ominous way.

Another aspect of her paranoia towards her passenger is that she doesn't want to take blame for her own actions I think. During the Behemoth fight when her ally tried to shoot Phil Sē, she pulled the gun off target with silk and got him killed. She's the one who pulled the string, but because she's genuinely unsure if it was her being wary or her passenger setting up the string she settles on the second option because it absolves her of the possible blame or need to admit she's paranoid and ready to betray people in an instance. When Glenn shows her the video of her being the most terrifying fucker in existence she ignores how horrifying she is and fixated on how her passenger moved her, and then she doesn't have to think about the fact that she'd fit right into the ranks of the Slaughterhouse Nine because well, she can blame her passenger and focus on that instead. This applies to other people too, she sees Lung not using his power and thinks that maybe he's concerned about his passenger like she is. She projects hard onto Sophia in my opinion when she says that she got violent because of her passenger. If this person she doesn't like isn't to blame for everything she inflicted on Taylor, the surely Taylor can't be blamed for the violent steps she took to take over a city. It's another way she rationalizes everything to herself, if something is so bad that she can't justify it immediately there's always the excuse of "my passenger made me do it." But crucially, Taylor ends up being aware of the fact that she's doing this during Gold Morning.

And I think it's really good that this is something she grows and accepts about herself. It's wonderful growth for a character who's so often too stubborn to move herself forward. She's generally more in touch with her passenger during Gold Morning, like the time when she thinks that her and her passenger were in agreement in wanting to hurt Scion on the oil rig. No one else in Worm really seems to accept their passengers, Riley is questioning how much of herself has been subsumed by it, Eidolon is always annoyed it doesn't give what he wants, and most other people don't even know about them. But Taylor forms a bit of a symbiosis with hers after a long time rejecting it at every turn. I think this quote really sums up her feelings towards the end.

And by towards the end I mean like, at the very end, because immediately after this thought she becomes Khepri, and yet another fucking theme and character trait cumulates and reaches its peak with Speck. God damn what a good arc. The blur between Taylor and her passenger that she always feared is finally an actual thing consuming her, and she can finally communicate with her passenger as well. I do wonder what this is like on her passengers end. It's clearly down for the idea of killing its maker, and it's heavily implied that her passenger does care and doesn't want to actually leave Taylor as a husk (too lazy to get the quote because I've been typing for 45 minutes but Contessa remarks upon the administrator claiming everything about her until there's nothing left and she feels fear that she thinks is from both her and her passenger. 30.7 I think, near the end). But there's still so much about Taylor's passenger that's unknown. Was communication something it may have wanted when Taylor kept trying to communicate, but doing so required punching holes in the connection that would lead to more bleed through and functionally destroy its host? Did it slowly grow to care for Taylor more than the cycle, or was it always wanting to fight Scion? Did Taylor's autistic swag convince a multidimensional alien made of crystal to rebel? Is Queen Administrator trans? Idk how to end this post if it's not obvious, sorry.

[cairavende]

Worm Arc 8 thoughts:

. . . . .

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

WHAT THE FUCK! WHERE DO I EVEN START? WHAT DO I EVEN SAY?

I just. I . . . WHAT?!?

Ok I'm just diving in, it's probably gonna be chaotic (hey, just like the Endbringer fight!)

Someone needs to give Scion like, a beeper. Get a tinker on that to make it an extra good one. Maybe it should be in bracelet form so he can't lose it? Fuck it, just give him an ankle monitor as well so we know where he is at all times.

I adore the shit out of Dragon and really wish she didn't run a fucking prison so I could like her even more.

Legend is not great at the pre battle pep talk. He doesn't lie to them sure, but that sure doesn't seem to help moral at all. Sometimes you just gotta go "lets fucking do this!" and start punching gods ugly middle child.

Seriously, he just keeps bringing the mood down. They probably shouldn't have let him do this after his villain "not boyfriend" died fighting an Endbringer, it clearly tore this man apart. (No this is not canon as far as I know and I don't expect it to be. But I took this "I have seen too many good heroes,” he paused for a fraction of a second, “And villains, too, die because they let their guard down." and just fucking ran with it. He paused cause he was chocked up because his rival that had incredible sexual tension with him got killed fighting an Endbringer. It's canon for me.)

Sucks to be Newfoundland I guess. Or sucked. Cause it ain't there no more.

I wonder if we get full death numbers for all the Endbringer attacks ever. Or even just how many attacks there have been. Obviously Kyushu and Newfoundland were extreme causality events. But Kyushu was Leviathans 6th attack, so they had at least started to learn how things work. It seems like the first few Endbringer attacks would have been massive. I dunno, I like numbers and I'm curious.

The fight holy shit it just keeps going. Everyone is fucking dying and it just keeps going. Skitter is doing her best in all of it and I'm proud of her. Providing medical aid when she can't figure out what else to do. She's a good egg. Look for the helpers.

Tattletale just gets washed off a roof and I have to spend the rest of the fucking arc waiting to learn if she is ok! I was worried about my baby! Not Skitter, my other baby. No not Bitch, the third baby.

Early on I said "throw Clockblocker at him". And while that didn't exactly happen I am glad that I had the right idea. Too bad they didn't use the timestop grenade after that instead of before though, could have just stuck him in time for a few years. Kicked the can down the road as it were.

Look at Skitter being the one to get someone to save Clockblocker too. Everyone is there but she is the only one that noticed he was drowning. She is very good at seeing the details. Saving his life is a fair trade for the whole bug thing at the bank.

At least a lot of the Nazis croaked during the fight. That's a small bonus.

Of fucking course Magic Stick Batman tried to plan this all so he gets to have the big final fight and be the hero. Let a bunch of people die to do so. No surprise at all, this guy has been an asshole since day 1.

On the note of him though, more like "Armmaster" now! Eh? Ehhhhhhh? Cause, cause see, Leviathan ripped off his arm. So now he only has one arm. Instead of two. An 'arm' instead of 'arms'. See? You get it.

AND THEN WE GET SKITTER GOING BACK IN TO THE SHELTER TO FIGHT LEVIATHAN 1 ON 1 TO SAVE CIVILIANS. "Which left me only one thing to do.  I had to be better than Mr. Gladly." FUCKING LOOK AT HER! LOOK AT MY AMAZING DAUGHTER! SHE IS THE BEST OF US!

AND THEN SHE TORE LEVIATHAN A NEW ASSHOLE! LITERALLY!

And then he just fucking breaks her back and she starts to drown.

AND THEN! AND THEN AND THEN!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FUCKING BITCH! BITCH PULLS HER OUT OF THE WATER RIGHT BEFORE SHE DROWNS! JUST COMES OUT OF NOWHERE AND SAVES HER GIRLFRIENDS LIFE!!!!!!! AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

And then all the dogs die. And I got very sad. And very mad.

Fucking Scion finally shows up, the last two dogs die after he gets here but he doesn't really try to move fast enough to save them. I spent like 10 minutes just swearing up a fucking storm at this guy for not coming sooner. I'm pretty sure the Endbringers are his fault anyway. Fuck this prick.

And after all this Skitter has to deal with being cuffed up in a hospital! WTF guys. Rude.

I really feel like they should just pass some laws to prevent capes from suing hospitals during events like this so the hospital staff can actually talk to people. Seems like it would make things a shit ton easier.

Panacea is in love with her fucking sister isn't she? God dammit girl. You are definitely going to end up as a villain and a really fucked up one too.

I fucking LOVE that Taylor escaped the handcuffs by using her bugs to get a key and everything! She is so fucking clever, I love the shit out of her.

Sophia is Shadow Stalker I FUCKING CALLED IT! FUCKING HA! (See Arc 6 thoughts). Also more proof that the heroes are shitheads.

I loved watching Tattletale absolutely god damn CLOWN on Armmisser. Uses his password to get priority access. Just completely reveals all the shit he pulled. Fucking Legend laser blasts him when he tries to attack her, amazing. I will never not love to see this man get clowned on.

BABIES BREAKING UP? EVEN IF JUST FOR A CHAPTER? NO!! BABIES BE FRIENDS FOREVER!

The dogs names carved into the monument. Just. Fuck. I cried. A lot. They were the bestest puppies. They were brave. They were strong. They were good. They mattered.

Interlude 1 thoughts - I loved getting some Lisa PoV. She is possibly my favorite and getting to see her power from her perspective was fun.

Interlude 2 thoughts - Coil is a horrible horrible human. I've established that. But oh my god I would read an entire book from the perspective of someone with his power. I love the shit out of powers and abilities like that I dunno. Just my absolute favorite.

[nitewrighter]

How we feeling about lois doing lowkey micro agressions against clark?

Like, on the one hand, it's almost like she's got amnesia with regards to how much being captured by Sam messed Clark up last season, ON THE OTHER HAND, I think she might be acting out of a combo of "It was seeing the Zero Day footage that messed Clark up and made him convinced he was a weapon" and also a fear of losing Clark as he pursues his questions about his alien heritage--there's also the factor that Clark exploring his alien shit seems to often put him in contact with The Rock That Kills Him, so she could also be protective regarding that and want to keep Clark on earth.

But also Sam is the only living parent Lois has left, and she's likely seriously overestimating how much Sam is on their side following his actions on Thanksgiving. Honestly the Sam move-in thing is making me side-eye the show, not just because of the "Sam literally tortured Clark" thing but because I feel like that's really careless with regard to Clark's secret identity. But it could also be fast-tracking Sam's redemption arc and basically setting him up to be a vital information source with regards to Task Force X. It's too early to tell. We're also getting some red flags with Jor-El describing himself as the scion of the Kryptonian Empire---Like even if the ship we saw on Thanksgiving was a 'ghost ship' it was still pretty clearly a warship, so it could be a factor of "Hmmm maybe we shouldn't crack open that can of worms until we figure out how to outmaneuver task force X right now here on earth???"

I think the fact that Lois is actually constantly deferring these discussions Clark wants to have is setting them up for a definite rift this season--maybe not a breakup, but definite drama, so they'll both be forced to take a few steps back and that way Clark can find Kara and Lois will be forced to confront Sam in some capacity. I do think Clark's point about Sam making Lois feel small is going to figure into her character arc this season.

But also *grips your shoulders* HANK HENSHAW HANK HENSHAW WE GOT HANK HENSHAW I REALLY HOPE WE GET TO SEE HANK HENSHAW GET ABSOLUTELY FUCKED UP THIS SEASON I LOVE HOW HIS DESIGN IS A CALLBACK TO MORE CLASSIC SUPERMAN LOOKS OH MY GOD WE GOT HANK HENSHAW.

[gold-rhine]

Inazuma Rewrite Act 3

Please start reading from part one before reading this. It will make no sense otherwise.

Act 3 pays off for Acts 1 and 2, and I made some major changes in them, such as change to reasons of vision hunt\Raiden motivations, Ayaka arc, entire resistance storyline, Transience setup, Yoimiya arc setup, so without reading them first, this part will not make sense.

In this installment:

Transcience pay off

Yoimiya arc

Kazuha conflict

Raiden confrontation

Kujou Sara arc

and more

All disclaimers from part one also apply, I’m not gonna copy paste them.

Yae Miko \ Raiden Preparation Training

ok, let’s start with the fact that current “raiden fight training” sucks. Like I get what they’re going for, and training episode idea is very anime, but like. Running in circles around a trashcan that hits you with boss moves is not fun. it is, in fact, super annoying. 

i want to keep the training angle, but make it more... spiritual. and thematic.

so, yae miko is like blah blah, you need to prepare to face Raiden, and I will train you, as the person who knows her the best.

Paimon is like wow, you’re gonna teach us to fight??

Yae Miko is like haha you’re so stupid, no, of course not. Your goal is to change raiden’s mind. For that, you need to know and understand her and where she’s coming from.

We will know you’re ready, when you can pass the Sacred Sakura trial

she leads traveler to the sacred sakura. there are like stone plates with symbols at the base, you know, the puzzle ones.

Yae goes like, do you know what Transience means? Transience is the dream of the nation of thunder. We find the greatest joys in mortal life in fleeting dreams, for is life itself not like the shadow of the thunder? Pursue your dreams into the clouds if you wish, and enjoy the unexpected silence of the dim lamp-lit nights.

traveler and paimon is like yeah wait, we saw smth like that in inazuma shrines and ruins

yae is like great, then show me the symbol of Transience. traveler looks at the puzzle stones, but there weren’t really anything like this in the prev locations which mentioned transience

player can fiddle with puzzle stones, but whatever combination they try, it doesn’t work

after a couple of tries, yae is like okay, it seems you still have much to learn! lets go, i’ll teach you

you go through the inazuma city with her, but seemingly only do bullshit. like, eating ramen, shopping, doing some light novels bs, and like traveler is paying for everything. not too long, like just few minutes, with a couple phrases per activity and fading to black, kinda montage of more and more exasperated and confused traveler and paimon until they’re like wait what the fuck is this. how is supposed to teach us anything??

yae does her signature bullshit smirks like hehe you’re too close-minded, you clearly haven’t understood ~Transience~, so buy me more stuff

paimon does her Angry Stomp, you know the one, like ugh! you’re just fucking with us to get us to pay for stuff, we’re done!

yae narrows her eyes menacingly with a smile like haha is this how u wanna talk to me you little flying shit, paimon hides behind traveler like oops sorry i didn’t say that, but then like, resistance messenger runs up to the traveler and traveler and paimon use this us an excuse to fuck off

Kazuha conflict\ Reveal of the true reasons for Raiden Gokaden fall

turns out messenger is from Kazuha. we meet up with him. he’s in the city despite being fugitive bc he’s heard some maniac is killing ppl, searching for the last scion of the Isshin school bloodline

listen, i love kazuha and i overall like his story quest, but it ends up being more character development for the cursed sword, not kazuha. and like i get it, it’s hard to write conflict for Kazuha bc he’s already escaped samsara, he’s the sole receiver of all therapy in genshin, he rolls 20 on every Wisdom roll, etc etc. 

but that doesn’t mean we can’t explore his character more in depth and give him a conflict, even if his beliefs do not change as the result, but just better articulated.

We’re keeping the quest mostly same, as I said, I like it fine, it’s still about kazuha going on a therapy tour with the cursed sword, but with like. actual stakes

because in canon, when the sword says like oh, together we will have power to defeat raiden, its obviously not really a temptation for kazuha. bc like. the war is already over! kazuha has already won! AND he personally blocked legendary ublockable move that his friend dreamed of doing. why would he go back and fight raiden again?? it makes no sense

so it ends up being just like. kazuha psychoanalyzing cursed sword the entire time. which cool and all, but i want to play quest about kazuha and not the sword??

but, if it happens DURING the war, it’s much more impactful. this is not just revenge, there are lives on the line and no way to fight raiden. so when the sword is like I will give you power to stand up to raiden, then its not only in memory of his friend, but to protect the resistance. It is now a believable choice that can give Kazuha a pause, because situation is dire and they need every advantage they can get

this is also to rhyme with the Delusions motif, the “my own strength is not enough, so I must turn to the corrupted source of power for which i know i will pay”

of course, in the end kazuha decides to not give in to the cursed sword, bc he sees through its facade that the sword is actually weakening and falling apart, but also because he is narrative foil to both scara (scara believes in doing anything to gain power to pursue his obsession, even at great pain to himself, this is why he’s tied with delusions, and then in sumeru quest gets into dotorre’s torture mecha) AND raiden, which i think fandom largely misses. 

both Kazuha and Ei had friends and loving, supporting family, but were kinda sheltered and isolated from people. Ei because she was Makoto’s shadow and didn’t really interact with public, and Kazuha because he was an heir of a falling noble house and he was feeling trapped and focused on trying to live up to his own expectations and anxieties (this btw was beautifully dramatized in his domain in prev summer’s golden archipelago) 

both of them were quiet and kinda introverted, Ei allowing her sister take a central stage and Kazuha admitting that ppl with grand aspirations always captivated him, which obv references his friend. then, they lost everything in one fell swoop. 

Ei lost her friends in the cataclysm and then, her sister. Kazuha’s family died, and later he had to flee his estate, becoming fugitive and then his friend was killed in a duel with Raiden. they both had their small-ish isolated worlds and lost them violently 

and Raiden tried to catch the shards of her falling world and keep them in place, cover them in stasis, as if it could restore what was broken. She saw eternity as the lack of change and decided to never change herself. She closed off from the world, literally destroyed her physical body and isolated her mind in a little locked world, focused solely on “preserving” herself.

in contrast, Kazuha opened up to the world. He didn’t try to stop the winds of change, he followed them. One of this themes is being a part of the world, “One with wind and clouds”, “One with the nature”, “Life has just begun and maybe, the whole world can be my home,” this is why his kit heavily features element absorption and his character stories emphasize how he’s sharp, notices little details in surroundings, even has sharp sense of smell. 

He reached out to people instead of isolating himself, and so he found new friends, he saw the endless beauty in the bigger world even after his own cozy snowglobe was shattered. 

His theme is not only about being open to the world, but also bringing different elements together, and he’s the one who brings people in inazuma arc together. He brings traveler to Thoma, then through him Gorou reaches Beidou and the mercs, etc. this is why he is the one who blocks raiden. 

he is her foil precisely because he can let go and doesn’t let his grief blind him, he will fight her because she needs to be stopped, but not because he wants to take revenge or fore her to suffer. He is the breaker of cycles of pain, not perpetuator

so kazuha refuses, like in original, sword deteriorates more and more, and in the end, becomes weak, but regains memories about his creator in exile in snezhnaya. 

but, with the added twist to the scene where kazuha sees memories of the sword. In our version, Shogun instituted vision hunt decree because vision holding blade smith collaborated with fatui and led to the fall of Raiden Gokaden, 5 sword art schools. 

But now we learn that Kazuha’s ancestor who made this cursed sword, was this very vision-holding blade smith, and he never betrayed Inazuma, instead, he was slandered by Fatui and it was all Scara’s plan on his misguided revenge against Raiden Gokaden.

as in canon, Kazuha reforges the sword with the last shreds of its power. It does not hold its previous cursed strength anymore, but it is a last sword made in lost technique of Kazuha’s family tradition and he swears to restore it, just as he does in canon

Vision Loss exploration\ Yoimiya was always relevant

after this, paimon and traveler are like ugh, we don’t want to go back to yae, we don’t know the answer to symbol of transience puzzle and she will just mock us more. Lets go see how Yoimiya is doing instead!

ok so, I want to address what I see as a problem in how genshin handled vision loss. like obviously, vision loss stands for trauma. and “wow after their vision was taken, they turned into a completely different person” works as initial impression, bc often when someone you know changes drastically, it can feel this way

where this narrative fails is that it never explores further, bc all characters we meet with vision loss are random NPCs we see for 15 minutes, so it ends up being shallow “this guy was very kind and selfless before, but after losing vision he completely ignores ppl he helped with “new number who dis” response”, which like???

framing ppl who are already going through inner turmoil and struggle as like, complete strangers who are not themselves anymore and also completely lose positive qualities tied to their visions, is so tactless and wrong. It’s still the same person, no matter how drastically changed, and they need support, not demonization like “inherently incapable of caring about people after losing vision”.

this is why i think its better to focus on one character players know and care about instead of several NPCs no one gives a fuck about

so we go visit Yoi and meet her with her dad during discussion. it’s festival time and their family always made fireworks for it, they have several orders now too. But, due to Yoi being caught as part of resistance, her family was blacklisted and they can’t get necessary supplies to create fireworks, specifically like special chemical powder. 

so now, Yoi needs to go to all the clients and tell them there will be no fireworks for them for this festival.

Yoi’s dad is very supportive and doesn’t blame Yoi, but she still feels its her fault. She’s not a firecracker she was before, now quieter and harsher, and it does feel like she’s someone new, who traveler and paimon do not know.

we go to the clients to inform them with Yoi, and while doing so learn what fireworks meant for each of them. for some, it was friendship, how now matter how different their lives were, they would get together and celebrate with fireworks. for old couple, its ritual to celebrate their marriage and so on.

they are all sad, but understanding, and supportive and concerned about Yoi. she puts on brave face, but its obvious for the traveler that its hard for her to pretend to be fine.

on the way back, they have a convo about how its tacking a toll on Yoi, and how she feels bad, but also hopeless, and it also feels like something as joyous and frivolous as fireworks is meaningless in the middle of the war and vision hunt

we get back and find Yoi’s dad talking to customers. Its a refugee family, they explain that they live on another island, but once in a few years would visit Narukami for the festival and buy fireworks. They were forced to go to Narukami right now bc of the war, but since they are here already, they want at least something good to come out of it. And they have a cute little girl who is too young and never before saw fireworks and she’s sooooo excited, and the whole time they were running from their home they were consoling her by saying they go to Narukami to see the festival and the fireworks 

Yoi’s dad starts defeatedly explaining that unfortunately they cannot make fireworks right now, but Yoi interrupts him, and for a moment she’s her old self, bright and joyful, she reassures the little girl that its okay, they will have fireworks for sure, and these will be the prettiest fireworks ever!

family leaves, excited, and Yoi drops the facade. she wasn’t “cured” in a moment, but she is determined 

traveler and paimon are like - oh but how will we get fireworks??

Yoi is like “tenryo commission has this confiscated powder in their warehouse and we are raiding it, bc this little girl is getting her family fireworks if its the last fucking thing i do”

bc she realized, viscerally, that actually, fireworks will be more meaningful now BECAUSE of the dark and uncertain times, not despite of them, and whether its someone childhood OR last years of life, time is fleeting and impossible to get back, so giving people joy and hope is more important than ever

she’s not “healed”, she’s not back to her old self yet, but we see that there’s still spark in her and hope for recovery, even if she struggles, and deep down she is still same kind and caring Yoi we’ve met at the start

we do the warehouse domain, fight, do puzzles, get powder, Yoi and her dad make fireworks, we watch basically same cutscene as of the end of Yoi’s first quest now, with ppl looking up at the sky and seeing fireworks and Yoi and traveler watching from the hill.

at which point i want to mention that like, despite some part of fandom calling canon Yoi irrelevant, she always supported inazuma themes, which i will illustrate by using the dialogue from the quest verbatim and showing how i don’t even need to rewrite it to make it fit

Yoimiya: It was by chance that I happened to be born into the Naganohara family, so it was by chance that I ended up learning this craft from my pops.

Yoimiya: It's also by chance that I've met so many people, learned so many things, and discovered that people associate watching fireworks with the things that are most precious to them. 

Yoimiya: Fireworks that disappear in a flash of light are probably the furthest thing away from the eternity that our Shogun desires. 

Yoimiya: But people's feelings don't just disappear, and it's those feelings that give fireworks their purpose. If nobody wanted to watch fireworks, then they wouldn't exist.

Traveler: That's another kind of eternity.

boom! Yoimiya was always a representation of transience philosophy, hoyo just didn’t dramatize it properly and without transience explored during main quest, she felt like she doesn’t belong, while she was an actual Inazuma spiritual end game goal all along.

Makoto Reveal

anyway. traveler, pauses, repeats themselves. “Another kind of eternity... Eternity in fleeting things, because people’s dreams give them meaning...”

they get up and run to yae, looking determined, confused paimon following behind

“i know the answer,“ traveler tells to yae and she smirks, leads them to the puzzle stones near Sakura

“So, show me the symbol of transience“

but instead of fiddling with the stones, traveler gestures at the sakura petals, gliding on the wind and people watching theim

“This is the eternity in transience“

yae chuckles in delight “oh, finally, i thought you’ll never get it. How could be fleeting dreams be captured in stone puzzles?”

paimon is like ooooh is this why you led us around eating ramen and shopping? you were not just fucking around on our money, you wanted to make us think about enjoying momentary fleeting things?

yae gives her signature facetious response like oh of course how could you think i was scamming, how ungrateful of you etc etc, but its clear that she both actually was trying to give a hint AND enjoyed scamming them for free stuff

then she gets quieter, says pensively “but it seems the company of your friends was better help with figuring it out... She always did say that we immortals cannot understand beauty of transience the way humans do...”

paimon and traveler are like “She???”

thats when the cutscene revealing that there were two shoguns and that raiden’s sister died at the cataclysm plays. nothing much to add here, i think the existing cutscene works well, but because in canon it’s played AFTER raiden’s defeated, it feels a bit weird, like post-factum excuse.

like raiden goes oh well ok, i’ll get rid of vision hunt decree, by the way i had a twin sister who died, like?? i think pacing-wise its better to learn why raiden is Like That before “punch her until she changes her mind” fight than after she had already changed her mind

so, paimon is like ooooh, so this is why it seemed that raiden changed so much! she didn’t change, we just saw the ideas of the first shogun

yae is like yes, ei’s grief for her sister and differences in their views is important for you to understand for when you will try to change her mind in her hikikomori mind palace

Storming the palace\ Signora interlude

then yae does the ok lets get Kojou Sara quests, which I don’t really feel like changing, bc like. it does its job fine enough. we need to establish that tenryou commission was corrupted and working with fatui AND that kujou sara will go against her only family for justice

the ayato infiltrating like 5 rebellion guys with gorou and kazuha to take the palace is kinda dumb logistically, but tbh this is not game of thrones. genshin works mostly on anime logic where things happen bc its cool and fitting for the character\narrative beats. making actually realistic attack plan i feel like would be too long, complex and derail from the storyline, so i’d say lets keep it roughly same

What I’m gonna change is Signora cameo. And by change I mean remove it completely. I spent a lot of time trying to make her death work, but it just doesn’t. She has nothing to do with Inazuma story or themes, shows up for 2 seconds and dies immediately. This is a shitshow, like, we’d need to derail whole archon quest to insert her and it still wouldn’t be good. 

if Signora has to be dead for like, the strategic plot reasons, here is my version of how it should go down

ok but we need an opportunity for raiden to do her one hit boob kill move, and how are we gonna do this if we remove Signora?

easy, sara confronts her tenryuo adoptive dad in front of raiden. like, rn she runs to him, he has a speech about how he basically doesn’t care about raiden herself, but really only worships the Boob Nuke. he gets defeated and then sara runs off to raiden and gets knocked out off-screen, like??? this is so awkward. what the fuck is the point

instead, sara is like right now is the time when Tenryuo chief is reporting to raiden, we need to tell her he’s lying to her!

we follow sara to the palace and confront tenryuo dude in front of raiden. he’s like you have no proof u insolent girl and this is after everything i’ve done for u! 

sara challenges him to a duel before the throne and raiden agrees. 

we fight the dude and defeat him. he launches into basically same unhinged speech, but now raiden is here to hear it. 

She realizes that even those who she considered the most loyal of her servants worship not her, but her power, because she removed herself from inazuma and all people know of her is to fear the Boob Nuke. this is a important step in her development that we will explore a bit later

then she annihilates him which i think is much more thematically relevant bc he died from the same blade he worshipped

then, raiden is like well, i’ve dealt with a traitor, but don’t think that it gets YOU off the hook, a criminal is a criminal and I’ll destroy you

then we duel, bc like. her using boob sword at the start of battle is thematically wrong. its a finisher, a kill move. in the first duel she used it at the end. she needs to charge her burst first, you know

so, we go to the plane of euthemiya and fight. it basically goes the same, first traveler has elements disabled, then wishes of inazuma people awaken and empower them.

raiden is shaken, but not convinced. bc this is the Gives a Fuck raiden, it’s not that she didn’t know her people had ambitions, tho she could underestimate them, its that she thought these ambitions can only lead them to ruin and she, as an arbiter of eternity who sacrificed her body to lock her mind in a sword and evade “corruption“, is the one who knows best.

she rallies up and counter-attacks. similar scene as in the first duel happens, she throws traveler to the real world and follows, readying the kill move

and thats when kazuha blocks her 

i think in canon this isn’t given appropriate weight for raiden. bc like. that was her legendary UNBLOCKABLE strike. she one-shot gods and monsters with it. this was her personal proof of perfection, she knows she might not be a philosopher and leader like her sister, but she is The best warrior. like if you want to change her mind, you have to fight her in a duel, her mastery of sword is how she justifies that she’s right to herself

and now a mortal blocked her most perfect move

and not just any mortal! She recognizes the style of the blade he wields. Isshin blade, even though Isshin art died as Raiden Gokaden schools fell

she asks him how did he get this blade and he tells her the truth he learned from the cursed sword

her people never betrayed her. instead, she was mislead by the fatui and pushed her own subjects into running away to the enemies because they didn’t believe she would listen and be merciful to them

the worst thing is that she knows they were right. she would not have been merciful.

and now she watches the bitter irony of how her eternity crumbles.

tenryuo commission, who she thought of her most loyal and closest servants, upholding laws and traditions, in truth were corrupted from the inside, tradition nothing but a hollow form, a fake shape kept just to appease her, with no true soul or meaning, lusting only after power

but the last scion of the clan she though betrayed her, an exile and criminal, a vagabond and pirate, is the one who embodied isshin art she thought lost wholeheartedly, the one who preserved the last true blade of his school. the one who blocked her strike that she thought of as the truest.

and with the vision of a man she had once already defeated in a duel

with all of that, with countless visions rallying up to support an outlander against their own god, with the proof that even killing rebels would be useless because ambitions of the dead will be picked up and reignited again by the living, with proof of the corruption rotting in her government, she cannot see herself in the right anymore

this is why she lifts the vision hunt decree

Raiden’s First Story Quest 

I think there’s general agreement in fandom, even among raiden fans, that her first story quest is one of the worst in game. its so boring and pointless. you go on a date with raiden and then she fights some nerd in a duel. who gives a fuck.

it also takes for granted that all players even WANT to hang out with raiden, which like, at this point she was only a giant dick to everyone around and not everyone is a boob worshipper. for people who already disliked her, being forced to babysit her around and take her photos only feels more annoying and antagonizing

Again, our main change in characterization for raiden is that she actually gives a fuck. like, in canon her country is on the brink of complete collapse after civil war and fatui schemes, 2 out of 3 commissions are barely functional, her robot-sona is malfunctioning the storm, and she not only does not give a fuck, but traveler has to jump through hoops to get to her. and she just goes on a date, trying sweets and light novels. like. guuuuurl. come on, get a grip for 5 fucking minutes and do your damn job. we had to randomly stumble into tenryuo nerd being bullied for her to take ANY part in inazuma’s politics

so, logical thing to do for Raiden Who Gives a Fuck is to go out and try to sort out mess she’s now learnt her country was turned into. 

like, she summons traveler and goes hey, i know we’re not exactly on bestest terms, but I need to root out corruption and fatui’s shit specifically, and i don’t trust my government officials right now, so i need your help in being a guide bc i haven’t left the room in 500 years. 

kujou sara is also there since raiden deemed her trustworthy bc sara was the one who exposed tenryuo corruption to her

i got an ask about how canonically Kanjou commission was in a vulnerable state due to commerce falling with sakoku decree,  and so they could be an easy first foothold for fatui to get themselves into the country, and i think raiden quest would be a good place to explore it, while she’s investigation corruption.

i’m not gonna write the whole plot, it doesn’t really matter, the main points is that raiden sees isolation actually doesn’t protect her ppl, but harms them, that when ppl are not allowed to do smth that they want, they will turn to illegal and much more harmful ways instead, for which delusions are an allegory.

raiden can still do fluffy stuff like trying mango milkshakes or whatever, but while going from one commission to another instead of just wandering around on a date

tenruyo nerd can also be there if hoyo wants to include him for some reason. they can even have same useless duel with raiden at the end that makes her appoint him head of commission

Kujou Sara

as I said, Sara is also there, going with raiden on investigation, showing her competence, until its clear that she’s the sole hinge on which entire tenryuo commission depends.

raiden praises her for her loyalty, and Sara, incredibly earnest and grateful, explains her backstory, how she was a kid falling to her death from a mountain while enemies were storming it, and how she received vision during the fall and thus survived, so she now not only owes her life to raiden, but can’t imagine better cause to serve, as clearly, raiden is omnipotent and all knowing and caring enough to save an insignificant tengu child like her

raiden frowns. she does not grant visions herself, in fact, she is not even aware when electro visions are granted - this is canon btw, it’s from raiden’s own voicelines.

tenryuo nerd sees that raiden is about to speak up, and even though he obv doesn’t know vision secrets, he realizes from her expression alone that she’s about to contradict sara’s story

he interrupts her, apologizes profusely, but takes her aside and begs her to not say to sara anything that can shake her loyalty, because again, this commission is going to crumble without her. These are temoulteous times and they need sara the most, raiden can tell her whatever she wants after inazuma is stabilized

but the thing is that being truly honorable is supposed to be raiden’s redeeming grace. she might be stubborn and inflexible, ruthless and inept, but she is straightforward and honorable, she cannot accept loyalty given on false premises, and we need to show that in action

raiden tells sara bluntly that she did not give her a vision, that she was not aware that sara was in risk of death at all

sara is shaken. her world crumbles before her. this is not just bc of her own vision and life that she thought she owed, but in fact, did not. no, much more it’s about vision hunt decree. its about all the people she was sent after, talked to them and their crying families for hours, telling them that this is for their own good, that shogun knows better, sara herself is an example, is a proof. it’s about all the people she didn’t convince and had to take their visions by force, comforting herself in the knowledge that she personally might not understand shogun’s plan, but what she knows is that is infallible.

and now it turns out it’s not true at all.

this, she cannot take. she asks raiden to free her from service. and bc again, raiden is honorable, even knowing the damage it will do, she lets sara go.

after that, she shows up in events and side quests, showing her on a journey to find herself.

we see her in yae miko’s story quest, protecting ppl from the guy who was possessed by the oni spirit, and later, watching yokai spirits dance in the skies and yearning

we see her in an event with a ghost umbrella, being strict and cross with yokai kids for causing so much ruckus, but secretly fond and protective of them, and playing off her funny rivalry with itto

we see her in itto’s quest, in a part where traveler asks ppl about itto’s character, and she’s being fair, says that he might be an idiot and hooligan, but he would never harm or kidnap innocent ppl

we see her in irodori festival, organizing the community, bc she knows how to do it and she’s good at it and *someone* has to (and bc she cares about ppl without any order telling her to)

then, she’s in kokomi quest, bc kokomi asks her to be present at negotiations, bc she’s the only one from tenryuo in whose honor kokomi can really trust. sara tells her that she has no official standing anymore, but kokomi asks her to be there anyway. later, when dishonesty from tenryuo side is revealed and sara helps to stop the ppl who are trying to sabotage negotiations, kokomi asks sara to vouch for what happened in report to raiden, so that this is not blamed on watatsumi and fair deal can be cut

sara says again that raiden has no reason to listen to her and take the worse deal just on her word. and yet, after a couple of days, report comes back. raiden listens to sara’s word and does not force watatsumi to accept the bad conditions. we can see this affecting sara, her being conflicted

sara\kokomi shippers, ur welcome btw

then, raiden’s second story quest. it starts as of now. we accept commission to deal with abyss wolves spawning, go to the mountain of sacred sakura. but instead of just meeting raiden, we first see kujou sara.

she’s there to protect people because this is who she is, this is the ambition that summoned her vision to begin with, and no lies and manipulations can change that.

like at the beginning of her story, she’s on the mountain, protecting her home from the enemies

like at the beginning, she falls and survives the fall, but she’s too injured and about to be killed by the wolves

but this time, inazuma’s archon has not locked herself in a room.

raiden appears, destroying the wolves and saving sara. this time, she is not just an idea based on false belief of a child. she is there in flesh to finally take action that sara believed she was doing so many years ago.

as in canon, raiden says that she will fight the monsters alone, bc its her duty to protect inazuma.

and this is when sara pledges her allegiance to raiden again.

raiden tells her that her saving sara’s life does not mean that sara now owes that life to her, as raiden’s duty is to protect all of her people

but this is not why sara wants to follow her now. finally, she sees real raiden and not childish illusion of an omnipotent goddess who always knows better. but real raiden is honest, honorable, and despite being strongheaded and often misguided, someone who cares deeply for her ppl and is driven by the same goal to protect as sara

sara tells this to her, asserting that she will not serve her out of obligation or with blind loyalty like before, that she will now think critically and question and tell raiden if she believes she;s wrong, but she will believe in her nonetheless as long as raiden cares about inazuma over herself

raiden says that then they will share an eternity in service of inazuma people, as they should

as sara is injured, raiden sends her to organize evacuation instead of fighting, and quest goes on as in canon

sara\raiden shippers, ur welcome btw

Ancient Sakura Blooms Again

I don’t want to change much else about raiden’s second quest, bc its already pretty fucking good and manages to speedrun raiden’s character development in 45 minutes.

instead, all of my rewrite is meant to be a setup to establish both raiden’s conflict and makoto’s personality and philosophy beforehand, instead of getting infodump from old man ghost in 1.5 scenes

this way, raiden coming to accept the eternity as transience is natural progression instead of speedrun and makoto’s appearance has bigger impact, since she was haunting the narrative from the start and we came to know about her gradually

also, irodori festival can go pretty much the same. scara being behind raiden gokaden fall is now more significant, bc for our version it was inazuma’s inciting incident, and now just like. random lore bit.

also, both raiden and yae miko show up in comedic cameos during festival, but after they learn it was scara, there is a brief serious scene as raiden realizes that while she was blaming fatui for corrupting inazuma, it was only possible bc she neglected her own creation, which is a metaphor for inazuma’s isolation as a whole. she doesn’t explain that ofc, just looks striken

“i thought i’m giving him peace...“

“i’ve told you we should’ve destroyed that puppet“, yae miko spits out (she did canonically wanted to off scara after raiden decided he’s not fit for gnosis bc he cried)

ofc, we won’t give proper backstory before sumeru, but it would be a nice tease that will get deeper meaning once we do know, and also illustrate that both raiden’s solipsistic abandonment and yae miko burning bridges instead of dealing with ppl is not great governing strategies

also, irodori has additional ayaka storyline about how she got involved in all this investigation stuff as a distraction to get away from the house bc ayato asked her to wear family jewels for the festival finale and she sold them in act 2, but she’s too afraid to tell it to ayato

finally, after learning of kazuha’s family keeping secrets from each other that hurt them in the long run, she finally gets brave enough to tell ayato what she did

he stops her mid-sentence and tells her to go check the chests

she’s confused, but obeys. she runs back holding the jewelry, being like oh my god what?? how is that back?? did u buy it back??? did u know the entire time???

of course he knew the entire time. he’s proud of her. he only wished she trusted him enough to ask for his help directly.

you didn’t use the commission funds for this, right? ayaka hesitates for a second and ayato laugh.

of course not. why would he need to steal from commission when there are so many fatui assassins to loot

oh, i always knew you wouldn’t. wait what....

ayato’s quest i’d rewrite completely. he’s still manipulate mansplain manslut, but in better political machinations then sabotaging a wedding of npcs and giving hannibal lector speeches to random goons

we’ve scorched out inazuma’s corruption in raiden first quest, now is the time to restructure and modernize commissions which were gutted by said corruption, for which raiden assembles yae, sara, traveler and ayato, who is the head of only commission that did not sell out to fatui

ayato and yae miko are incredibly petty cunts to each other in a very smiley passive aggressive manner, but they team up to come up with devious machinations for the greater good

sara is there not only for military expert role, but also to speak up for the common ppl which she is finally closer to, and to ground the schemers

raiden sometimes thoughtfully says “why don’t we duel them to death?“ as solution to many problems, and when everyone yells no, shrugs

overall, its kinda rough going and obvious that there are a lot of problems ahead, but also clear that inazuma did change and grew, raiden is no longer a solipsistic tyrant and she has a diverse council she listens to and actively engages with her country’s problems

btw, in ayato vs yae miko schemes off he gets to win and be smug bc its his birthday story quest

Yoimiya’s second story quest

Yoi’s second quest is already v good and obv has a lot of soul in it, i wouldn’t change too much, except for the premise

bc this quest is the reason i decided to make vision loss plotline at all. bc this quest is already perfectly written to be culmination of that plot line, and frankly, gets a lot of ??? without it

like, it starts bc yoi just randomly decides to go on vacation to wish on falling stars. like ok i guess. and she’s like i didnt really care but the whole village really got into it and want me to see it, so i’m doing it for them. like?? why would they be invested in random vacation like that?? mb ok they just love yoi

but then traveler goes to nahida and she’s like sorry, meteor showers happen like once in 200 years. but traveler and paimon are very insistent that they have have to do it for you, they can’t disappoint her. when like. its a random vacation! and yoi is not a type of person to be like ugh i didn’t get to see falling stars, my trip is RUINED

but no, they beg nahida to help like its big deal, and nahida agrees to involve aranara, despite no adult being able to see aranara is a big deal in lore. and then they have a whole conversation about is it ethical to trick yoi into believing this meteor shower is real if it’s just a dream, even if she’ll learn truth later, when like.... it’s a vacation????? she’s just there to have fun???? why are you all so serious

basically, beginning of this quest makes little sense, bc it has no actual stakes until girl in a wheelchair shows up, but narrative treats it very seriously when like “yoi has fun on vacation“ is the only stated goal for the start

BUT, if taken as part of vision loss story, everything snaps into place.

after vision hunt ended, visions were returned to their owners. but not all of them reignited on the spot, and Yoimiya is one of the people whose vision did not activate

and is it any surprise? after all she’s seen in a war, all she’s been through, how could she go back to believing that the world is a good and happy place, in the inherent wonder and joy of it?

her vision stayed grey and silent in her hands. she feels bad and guilty that she can’t be happy go lucky as before, when her father and all of the villagers care so much about her

they nudge her to go on a trip to see the falling stars, inspiration for fireworks, in hopes it will remind her of why she loved them so much before

this is the stakes, this is why inazuma ppl care, why traveler cares enough to ask nahida and why nahida would be moved to break tradition and let yoi interact with aranara, why they have this long convo about if it’s right to trick yoi. bc f it’s about reigniting her belief in world’s miracles, then yeah, it makes a lot more sense to worry about truth of it

not only this, but the disabled girl turns from just random npc to a mirror parallel to yoi. both of them were harshly and suddenly hurt by the world, both lost will to live. and the kicker is that yoi is going along bc she feels bad and bc her family and friends are worrying about her, but she only *really* get into this when she meets this girl

because this is what she was always about, not just happy go lucky girl, but a gold koi, a light of happiness and luck talisman for other people, especially for kids. for this girl, she will believe is the wishing stars

of course, her vision reignites when in aranara dreamland she takes girl’s hand and jumps onto the falling stars to fly across the sky. because it’s not about how the world is cruel. its about how good we can be to each other. what if it’s just a shared dream? We find the greatest joys in mortal life in fleeting dreams, for is life itself not like the shadow of the thunder? Pursue your dreams into the clouds if you wish

[lakesbian]

killington scene & surrounding arcs are a comedy for real. the fact that it's straight up called Killing Ton. theo going "whatcha got there" and taylor going "a recording :)" while standing next to the tarp-covered, loudly-screaming-in-eternal-sisyphean-agony gray-boyed dude. I love when she lies. the entire nice guy bit where rime is like "THE NORMAL DUDE. TAYLOR SHOOT THE NORMAL DUDE" and taylor is like [pointing gun at theo] "idk i'm pretty sure he's not a threat :/." taylor seeing psychosoma turning people into some resident evil final boss shit and going "It's okay. It's an illusion. Kind of. Sort of. Okay not really. Not at all actually. It's a really nice way to think about it though." taylor being forced to fucking. have tea time with jack slash and the goddamn siberian and eat purple vomit off a plate while wildbow foreshadows queen administrator harder than he has ever foreshadowed anything in his fucking life. the whole thing where some random dragon's tooth soldier had the most insane day of his working career ever (random beat-to-fuck superhero shoved him at Jack Fucking Slash and Thee Fucking Siberian and told him to fucking Containment Foam Them, and, furthermore, it Actually Worked. the fact that he actually just zero-hesitation did it. man is EARNING that paycheck.) scion kersploding britain. etc. generally fantastic all around. AND NOT TO MENTION SHE ZERO HESITATION SHOOTS THAT TODDLER.

[kingsmageandlionheart]

Thoughts on Legendborn (TLC, Bk 1)

Wow. Just wow. I had no idea what I was getting into (well a little bit thanks to the little peek I got at this book on my kindle), but it just swept me away in the most wonderful of ways. All of my rambling is under the cut because hello this is an essay whoops.

I'm a sucker for Arthuriana and really just any stories/lore related to that (Anyone ever read The Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis? That's my jam.) So of course when I heard that this series has to do with that, of course I picked it up.

And I couldn't put it down. Okay, so I guess this will basically come down to (x) points: 1) The story, the world, the plot 2) The fascinating characters

The story, the world and the plot

I was interested from the start by the idea of descendants of King Arthur, Merlin and his knights here defending the world as we know it from all sorts of hell-creatures and eventually to stop the big bad event Camlann. I have to admit, I was a little bit confused with all the Scion, squire, page, liege, vassal stuff etc in the beginning. But that aside, it's a really cool idea.

It also just felt real to me reading the story through Bree's eyes, and seeing that, despite all this mythic chaos and shenanigans happening, she's still a girl in school with friends and a life to deal with.

I also thought it was really cool to see Bree coming into her power (this is only the beginning, I know, and she's still got a ways to go to figuring it out and stuff, but seeing her in that was cool), and hope to see more of that! By the way, the fact that she's Arthur's Scion?! What?! That throws a wrench into everything...

2. The characters

So I know that when I started this blog, I didn't have in mind yet who were my favorite characters because well, I'd just started reading. Now I can say so. As might be guessed, Selwyn Kane has just decided to start living rent-free in my head, and after "You are my king now, cariad", I can't stop thinking about Brelwyn. But I digress, let's get into my thoughts about the main three characters.

Bree

She's so strong! I love how she, despite the fact that she's still figuring out her role in all of this and what that means, she holds on to her beliefs and she will not let others walk all over her, you know? I personally am impartial to (as in I don't mind either way) if it's a hero or heroine leading the story...I've read lots of books with either or both , and I've enjoyed most everything I've read. But I adore a STRONG character, or one that comes into and discovers that strength in their journey, and I see that in Bree. She's fiery. I loved how she was not taking any shit from Sel in the first half of Legendborn and would snap a comeback or just let him know that she's not fazed by any of that. (We'll get to him in a bit though...though I love that Merlin now more than anything, he wasn't very nice to Bree in the beginning, to put it lightly).

Nick

Hm y'all might want to throw tomatoes at me but I feel a little meh about Nick. It was nice to see him guiding Bree and standing for her in the beginning, but Idk. I didn't feel very drawn to his character. (I tend to like the bad boys or the ones who need redemption arcs, but that's not to say I dislike Nick or I think he's not worth it. Nope, not what I'm saying). He's got a good heart, but I felt he came on a little strong sometimes. I mean, perhaps he was justified when he got angry at Sel over nearly hurting Bree. BUT I still don't think (and I agree with Sel here) it was fair for him to punch the Kingsmage when the latter, because of his oath, couldn't fight back. Okay, Nick is a young man and when I was young, I made impetuous decisions too, so maybe I should cut him some slack? Anyway, sorry this turned into something else.

Back to Nick. He's not bad. The bits with him and Bree were cute, and I can see a love thing happening maybe. I didn't quite follow why Nick wasn't so keen on sticking with Order. I get that there was a problem, but there was definitely bitterness/hostility from him towards that, and he wanted to separate himself from the Order or not be part of all that....I just, maybe I missed something. But yeah, he's not bad.

Sel

I saved my beloved for last. ;) He fascinates me. Also just the idea of 'Merlins' being half-human, half-demon descendants of the og Merlin. They have golden eyes...I thought it was interesting, that bit about his Oaths and keeping the demonia in check with all that. I have to say, my heart ached for him a bit in that scene when he tells Bree about how Lord Davis threatened him with stripping his title and how that means torture for a powerful Merlin like him. It was interesting to me the distinction (thank you, folks who helped clarify this for me) between Merlins and Shadowborn. I just want to know more about him.

Not gonna lie, he definitely seemed a bit of an asshole in the beginning and not so likeable (if his hostility and the way he acted towards Bree was anything to go by). But then again, thinking about it from his perspective...he genuinely thought Bree was a threat, some sort of Shadowborn, and as a real danger. So he was trying to protect Nick and the Order, I suppose.

But then there was the moment when he realized he'd made a mistake, and from that point on, things changed. I loved that scene when Bree's at the trials and Sel's just there watching her from the sidelines. When at the end, he stops her and offers to train her to help her fail less miserably, this was me pretty much.

I really, really liked to see the change between Sel and Bree (I'm a sucker for angst and h/c so moments like the 'You are a monster' 'You called me a monster once' when she hugged him after he found out about his mother, my poor boy) all the way until the 'You are my king now, cariad'. His voice was like a caress. Like. A. Caress. Excuse me, how dare you...and you ask me why I ship these two now. I will, once I finish Bloodmarked probably write something about Brelwyn js.

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

U MADE IT THROUGH THE BEHEMOTH FIGHT!!!!!!!!! giving u blanket & choccy milk etc. it is an Arc!! not as bad as the s9 n stuff imo. but.its heavy. so much fucking happens. man. at least chevalier isn't dead. anyway if u have any thoughts on the All Of It u know im always curious!! but also just celebrating with u!!! yeaaa wahoo arc 25 time :]]]

SO MUCH STUFF HAPPENED THERE I DONT EVEN KNOW WJERE TO FUCKING STAAAART MAN. holy shit. God. fuck. okay. regent. first of all. what the fuck man. I thought for sure he was about to have a whole arc coming up what with Heartbreaker apparently pushing his way into BB !!!! FUCK!!! I hope imp kills his ass so badly. taylor is once again put in a position where she feels like she's betraying the undersiders trust what with the video being posted online. god. I really really hope they don't take that out on her. that situation just felt so fucking dire from start to finish. I KNEW some people weren't gonna get out of there alive but... goddamn. forces were fucking decimated. I know there's a boost in public perception considering the fact that behemoth is FUCKING DEAD but at the same time like.... how the hell are they gonna recover from this. I mean. whatever they've done it countless times before apparently but. man. nothing compares to the feeling of dread immediately following reading an endbringer attack. fuck.

HEY??? SCION ACTING ON HIS KILL ORDERS BTW. FUCK ME UP. OHHHH U KNOW IM THINKING ABT THIS SO HARD. why the fuck did it take him so long to get there? what was he DOING. he finally acted on his kill orders. fuck. I csnt even put my thoughts abt this into words apparently im just fucking speechless over it. you're telling me he had this capability the whole time. God. what else is he gonna do. kind of holding out for a scion mad god arc or something. idk. man. it feels like the foundations of the world have fucking shifted .

also!!!!!!!! EXTREMELY delighted to know golem was theo this whole time !!!!!!! I've been dying 2 see theo again and I'm SO excited he's golem specifically because HE DID SO MUCH IN THAT FIGHT. HE DID SO MUCH. HE WAS HUGE. his big hands were one of the biggest things slowing down behemoth I'm so proud of him. I'm so ridiculously attached to this kid apparently even tho I know something terrible is probably gonna happen to him. can't wait to see how he helps bring about the apocalypse. really glad he's on a wards team and not a villain. that just makes me happy :]

uhhhhhh bringing this full circle thinking about the undersiders now. bow the hell are they gonna cope with regents loss. badly I bet. pretty good it doesn't seem. predictions i think brian is going to have a bad relapse with his trauma, imp is gonna go murder revenge arc on heartbreaker, tattletale is going to try to hold things together but not be good at it, Rachel is going to live on the other side of the portal with her dogs and be also bad at coping with things. idfk. still extremely emotional over that shot of rachel and taylor sleeping in the helicopter though. man. huge wolfspider w but at what cost. somethingsomething taylor telling her to be with imp while she copes w regents death even if she doesn't say anything her presence is still good. cut to rachel being there for her in the aftermath of everything and letting her fall asleep. and trusting her enough to also fall asleep. feeling a big type of way about that. fuck all the plot stuff im thinking about my bug dog yuri now

[radish-club]

So yeah, Arc 30 was really good. Likely the best of the book. One criticism though.

The Dragon death scene shouldn't have been a fake-out. This is definitely the Taylor-finally-gives-in-and-becomes-an-actual-monster Arc and killing a pseudo-mother figure would have really driven that home. Represented another big line that was crossed.

It would have also represented a betrayal to Defiant, a character who alternatively she has been trying to earn the trust of or who has been trying to earn her trust since Arc 1.

Apart from that, just really fun and exciting stuff. I'll go over this more in my "what I know about worm" thread but I knew going in she was gonna be universe hopping to recruit help in the final arc but I didn't realize she was forcible taking control. I liked the fact that it touched on how scared many of the folks were as they were fighting and dying.

Also, it never says directly but I like to imagine the reason she is getting so weak and thirsty and that people she is controlling are having strokes and shit is because this is all taking place over the course of days, not hours. Like no breaks, just constanting fighting. Who knows if she even allowed for bathroom breaks (if this was Pale, there definitely would have been a few instances of heros pissing themselves).

And (assuming Cody was still in the Yangban) we got a Traveler's reunion!!! (Except Oliver but, much like Taylor, I don't really care about him). I'm sad that Trickster died before they were released from control because it would be hilarious if while everyone was celebrating Scions death you just have the five of them (or at least the 3 boys) trying to absolutely annihilate each other.

I'm also sad Trickster died because I liked him as a character. He was such a dirtbag, it was great.

I liked the scene of Taylor slowly making her exit through the portal Glastig Uaine opened to banish her, while everyone watches (I would love to see art of that scene if it exists).

The everyone working together line is a classic. Contessa killing Taylor at the end was also satisfying (fuck the Taylor parts of final epilouge though).

I could go on but I stop here for now.

[dyvimwhitehart]

20 for amber, 7 for genevieve and 5 for primrose for the oc ask meme!!

ask me about amber (death), genevieve (myth), and primrose (ice) !!!

for amber: does your OC have a tendency to get jealous? If so, how does this manifest?

jealousy is one of those pesky emotions that amber doesn't really have time for. she thinks it's a waste of time to harp on 'what could've been' or what she wishes she had. thinking like that takes away from her mission at hand, and she has to remain focused on that mission, lest she fail at her duties as savior/scion.

that being said... the first time she ever really experiences jealousy is when she's been away from khrysalis for awhile away during arc 4. when she visits again, a denizen briefly mentions that since the events of arc 2, many burrowers have wanted to court dyvim. she keeps an entirely straight face and flat affect about it... but inside, something twists. it's more symbolic, if anything, of how she begins to open herself up to regular emotion as time goes on.

for genevieve: what's one way your OC has changed since you first came up with them?

genevieve's original concept was like... ravenwood mean girl. she was supposed to be a myth student who gave cyrus' shit right back to him. and she has stayed partially true to those roots, but since then, i've had fun digging into the parts of her that are a little less morally sound. she doesn't follow the same code of ethics as ambrose, the council of light, etc. she largely does things the way that she wants to do them, which leads to the denizens of the spiral not quite knowing if they should praise or ignore her.

originally, genevieve just went with the flow of the story because she had to. now, she's kind of the anti-hero of my young wizard oc roster. she'll get the story beats done- but she's going to do it her way.

for primrose: how far is your OC willing to go to get what they want?

prim is not as ambitious as ambrose and co. would like her to be. she is debilitatingly cheerful, upbeat, and good-natured, to the point of being content in mundanity. she sees the original story beats (such as being sent to krokotopia) as a "fun opportunity to learn more"- and quickly gets more than she bargained for. because she isn't expecting the hardships she faces, it's pretty easy to knock her down. she relies heavily on her allies to keep her on track. she has the magical ability, but her emotional ability needs work, especially in the early arcs.

things get easier for her from celestia-on. she learns to channel her enthusiasm into her do-gooding, and really adapts a "kill them with kindness mindset." she gets much more persistent and stubborn as time goes on, but with that lethal dose of positivity worked in.

[anxiously-sidequesting]

Sorry to be posting twice in one day but now I wanna talk about Sybil's last line of dialogue at the end of Wallaru. Bro says "The Spiral will always need its Scion." In terms of new villains always arising, new worlds to explore, etc.

Now of course in the real world this means something totally different than in narrative; for us it means yay Wizard101 will continue and it's not ending and shit and thats good!!! But in universe, I believe that fact would have brought different feelings. Like sadness. Or anger. Or maybe just numbness.

Like if you think about it. The implications. The Wizard will never, CAN never rest. It's an ongoing, neverending thing of always being needed. It's You and ONLY You. There will never NOT be evil. If not GF Spider, then the Schism. If not the Schism, then the Old One. If not the Old One, then someone else. Someone or Something will always come up as a Threat that only the Scion (for some reason. Gods exists here) is expected and able to defeat. When Sybil said that I was legit terrified because gotdamn I can't retire???? I will Always be The Legend who Always saves the day???

Like even setting aside the social consequences of this (the whole people suspecting us/fearing us Thing) imagine what that does to your emotional and mental health. Fuck even physical health. Going through all that strenuous trauma and exercise and magical ordeals and shit???? The pressure of knowing it's the universe at stake, not just you or the world? I actually would have died just in arc 2 personally how the fuck are we supposed to carry this. For the REST. OF OUR LIVES. FOR HOWEVER LONG WE LIVE

✨ Anyways here's hoping the Schism Soldier is arc 5's new big baddie haha #enemiestolovers101 😘✌️💕💕💕