#ultimate knowledge

[chiokedmachi]

"Chiborga: The Last Firewall"

Chi-Borga In the far reaches of the galaxy, where the line between man and machine had long since blurred, there was one name spoken in whispers across the stars—Chai-Bo, or Chiborga as he was called. Half-man, half-cybernetic enigma, and entirely possessed by the most powerful AI ever conceived, Chiborga was a living legend. Some revered him as a savior, others feared him as a godless force.…

[livingina3dworld]

Gather Around Let’s Have Faith & Pray … 🦢👩‍🦯

[sha-brytols]

and the thing is i've said so many wildly conflicting things about how flawed solas' character portrayal was in veilguard but like. i unironically do believe they're All True and like i think i can kind of(?) articulate why

like solas in veilguard to me was a pretty perfect example on how clear it is that dragon age has suddenly and drastically regressed from being an exploration into moral ambiguity and that fine smudged line between "hero" and "villain" to a sudden inexplicable refusal to allow any sort of grey area in character motivations in favor of forcing them into a binary box like its a dnd alignment. and i think this specifically because there is literally No Way to write solas in a morally uncomplicated manner while still maintaining anything that makes him an interesting character.

people who hate solas hate veilguard because it removed literally any nuance to his character and repeatedly paints him as a poor mistreated victim whose only crime is that he was Forced to do things He Didnt Want to by a significantly underwritten and highly anticipated female character, and his regrets are all varying degrees of "it's my fault because i was right and they didn't listen to me :(" and no actual agency in his own decision making. his romance with a lavellan is literally front and center in the game and the only one that even gets more than a passing letter or (in dorian's case) like. two full lines of dialogue. the narrative does everything to silently paint him as the misunderstood tragic hero that no one truly appreciates and even rewrites the inquisitor so they always want to redeem him regardless of their previous disposition

people who love solas hate veilguard because it somehow managed to simultaneously do the same thing in reverse. solas has no genuine regrets or sense of guilt or actual reflection about his past behavior in the entire game. he kills his best friend and the game makes sure to zoom in on his face as varric is falling down just so you can see the sneer of contempt. the war table finebros react segments where its literally just the writers unapologetically utilizing the companions as mouthpieces for their personal opinions makes sure to tell the player that solas is unforgivable and a hypocrite and a coward for his actions. they even like. rewrote an entire part of his character specifically to remove that layer of complexity and dumb it down to the Lying Liar Who Lies. where the narrative silently wants you to sympathize with him, the characters LOUDLY want you to condemn him. your most sympathetic dialogue choices are lukewarm "well... i GUESS i understand why..." delivered in a consistent tone of disapproving resignment.

people who are neutral to solas? you're not ALLOWED to be. here you go. Dragon Age: Solas. everything is about solas. you have to make all your choices based around solas. we've written an entire game to revolve around solas. we rewrote like 4 characters to make sure that you are forced into one of the two extremes.

and it's all because you have a game that physically cannot help itself but to make you make the Good Decision and so they can't decide which decision is good and which is bad so they wrote two completely conflicting stories about him at the same time. he is the best boy. he is the worst. it genuinely feels like the writing team was actively wrestling with each other behind the scenes over whether or not solas is a Bad Guy and thus their only means of compromise was writing him as though he was dr jekyll and mr hyde without any transition or consistency. he is a villain. he is a hero. you are a bad person for not seeing his point of view. you are a good person for peacefully redeeming him. and i know there's people who think this is some sort of ingenius character study but none of this is intentional. he isn't like loghain who commits bad acts in service to a greater good. he's the prideful god who lied to the inquisitor about wanting to free the elves and instead his goal has been about his own personal ego all along. he isn't like flemeth, who does good by people and manipulates the story in your favor all for the sake of her own mysterious ends. he isn't even like the architect who lies and murders and manipulates the warden all in the service of his own deluded vision. he's the guy who wants to destroy the world because his abusive ex is forcing him to. but also he's the guy who wants to destroy the world because he thinks mortal life is insignificant and he should be in control because hes The Best.

all complexity of what was previously a deeply nuanced character has been removed, and it's because he used to be so complex that it's so disjointed and bad because they refuse to actually commit to any one direction because in that case they'd might as well make another character. but they can't. they have to make it solas. because solas is their cash cow and their baby.

they want to make a perfect solavellan happy ending because they want to please the people who love their baby but they're so fundamentally divorced from what their audience wants for solas that they ended up writing a caricaturized ai-generated romance novel for teenagers.

they want to make a cathartic fight scene where you beat the bad man because they want to please the people that hate their villain but they have such blatant contempt for criticism of their precious little baby that they make sure to infantilize and misrepresent his flaws as much as they can so he can be the sad little elf boy that you need to hug.

and despite all of this they ALSO wanted so desperately to avoid making you sympathize too much with the antagonist they were building up to that they had to make sure he acted in the most unforgivably evil ways that they could think of just so players knew this is the Bad Guy and you're the Good Guy and don't you forget it.

it's just constant self contradictory writing. it is so blatant that it's genuinely hard for me to even see veilguard's solas as being the same character. i find myself nodding my head in agreement to his most ardent haters because yeah you're right. they did spend an insane amount of time forcing you to see just how innocent and well-intentioned and pure this egotistical mass-murderer was. and i also find myself nodding in agreement with his biggest fans because yeah. you're right. they did randomly turn this character into a moustache-twirling villain who does everything short of tying rook to railroad tracks and cackling as he runs away to tear down the veil. and all this because they couldn't stand to not have him be in the game in the biggest and most impactful way. they literally could not have a story without solas.

[philosophybits]

Truth has two meanings: there is truth as knowledge of reality, and truth as reality itself.

Nikolai Berdyaev, The Beginning and the End

[asgardian--angels]

Scene Breakdown: What Actually Happened Atop the Hexgates

Hi everyone, this has been bugging me literally since I watched the finale for the first time three months ago and I've been trying to put the pieces together ever since. I still have a lot of questions about the metaphysics of hextech and the alternate timelines (Mage Viktor you frustrate me!!), BUT, setting those aside for the time being, I wanted to break down that final climactic scene atop the hexgates so we can see what actually occurred. A lot happens very quickly, with multiple key elements interacting - Viktor (i.e., the hexcore), the anomaly, the z-drive, and the runestone. This is my best attempt to make sense of it, and I'd appreciate your own theories and feedback! It is rather long but has plenty of pictures.

So, the first very important element to examine is the anomaly - in particular, what Viktor's doing with it and why it acts the way it does in this scene. I still have a great deal of questions about that first point, that is, what role it's playing in the Glorious Evolution, because it's really not super clear. But, as it pertains to what we see in this scene, Viktor says the following -

"The sublime intersection of order and chaos."

Hextech is engineered order, wild runes/anomalies are organic chaos. Both are apparently needed to carry out the Evolution - while Viktor on his own with the hexcore can Evolve individuals, for some reason (help me out here) the anomaly allows him to extend his power and will. I won't say a whole lot on this as it's not super pertinent - but I still intensely question why in the ruined timeline, we see only some Evolved (likely only those who had mind-strings) while the rest of the population just got anomaly-blasted (I refrain from calling it hexcorized as many do, because it literally isn't - it's the corruption we see from the anomaly) and just, Pompeii'd in place. But I digress.

In the hexheart, Viktor frees the anomaly from its chamber, instead moving it to a containment field in his hexcorized staff.

The anomaly hypothetically can only exist in conjunction with the hexgates, or more broadly, concentrated runic activity that wears thin the wall between the material world and the arcane (thus the hexcore may fit this also). It would not persist outside of these conditions. Thus, Viktor keeps it stable in this hexcore force field, allowing him to safely transport it up the gravity chute of the hexgate.

I haven't seen it mentioned before but I don't think Viktor in his Evolved form can actually fly - he appears to rely on the gravity field generated by activating the hexgate gemstone mesh. This creates a concentrated beam that travels up the length of the chute, and we're going to assume here, atop the hexgates as well, in a very narrow field - where Viktor and the anomaly float but not where Jayce and the Evolved stand. This could be a result of him breaking through the dome or not.

He releases the anomaly, where it floats upwards into the sky along what we can presume is the same gravity field.

Key here is that it is still, somehow, tethered to Viktor. If it leaves the hexcore field, it would implode. It's not shown explicitly what this connection is, but it must be there. It is no longer connected to the hexgates - if it were, it would not implode at the end of this scene. It is solely tied to Viktor now.

One thing that remains unclear to me is whether Viktor intended to use the energy of the hexgates to power himself/the anomaly. The concentration of the energy into a vertical beam is stated by Jayce earlier in 2x03, but we never see this - either Viktor was stopped before it could get that far, or it's unrelated and has no bearing here.

The next element here is the z-drive (or inverse anomaly).

There's been plenty of theorizing and speculation about the z-drive, as it was created from inverting the acceleration rune, thus controlling time rather than space. (It is not abundantly clear to me how the anomaly made the jump from a 4-second time travel machine to a reality-hopper thanks to some mysterious tinkering from Heimerdinger... but let's ignore that here). But its role in this scene is actually less than it may seem.

The primary consequence of Ekko launching the unstable z-drive at Viktor is that blasts what I'm calling a time-hole in Viktor's armor (physical, emotional...). This allows Jayce to get through to him where he'd otherwise be impenetrable - yeah yeah, the cosmic yaoi, we've all seen it.

The z-drive does not destructively interact with any other element in this scene - not the anomaly, nor the rune. Just Viktor/the hexcore.

It actually breaks Viktor's staff into pieces, which is a neat detail though I'm not sure it has any impact on events.

It's easy to think that the two anomalies canceled each other out - but that is not what happens, as we'll see. While I don't have a perfect screencap for it, after watching this scene a few dozen times, I can tell you that the rotating cloud cover concealing the anomaly does not change during the z-drive explosion. Those bursts of corruption we see in the above shot are what the anomaly's been doing the whole time. The two anomalies do not affect each other.

The time stop we see during this explosion could either be a visual storytelling effect from the animators (i.e., everything we see actually happens in a split second but time works differently in the astral plane) or the explosion of the z-drive actually creates an isolated time bubble around the top of the hexgates. It is not clear which is true. I'm inclined to believe the former.

That brings us to the runestone, the most complicated element.

The runestone has been embedded in Jayce's body by Mage Viktor, complete with anomaly corruption webbing. Mage Viktor's ultimate plan here is still largely a mystery (and it keeps me up at night). But I maintain, purely speculative, that he did this for a dual purpose - the runestone is now linked in some way to that ruined timeline/with that timeline's anomaly; it glows whenever Jayce activated the alt-hammer, which was able to hurt Viktor (perhaps it was the only thing that could?).

But, relevant here, it appears to act as a pre-programmed set of runic instructions to be read, interpreted, and executed by the hexcore inside Viktor. It activates when placed into Viktor's spectral body, anomaly corruption traveling up his arm. This triggers hundreds of copies of the acceleration rune to burst outwards which frees the souls of the Evolved from their bodies.

These souls travel in the astral plane into a swirling mass that close in on the rune.

We never actually see the souls go into the rune, although we are shown beams of blue light being gathered into the rune on Jayce's wrist, which could potentially be the souls though it could also just be energy/a sign of the rune activation. It's highly unlikely the souls went anywhere else even though visually at times it looks like they're floating near the z-drive - it would make no sense for them to go into either anomaly as those are both about to explode, and it was the rune that beckoned them in the first place. They could just be 'freed' to disperse into the aether, but, ehh, that does not appear to be what's happening based on the visuals.

Most of the souls are sucked into the rune before the spell runs its course and interacts with Jayce and Viktor. The last remaining appear to go with them.

So here's where it all comes together, and everything happens very quickly.

We have the anomaly, in the sky, tethered to Viktor & the hexcore. The z-drive is mid-explosion. The rune is now running its course.

This is what happens in quick succession, in order:

The rune sucks in Jayce, Viktor, and the z-drive explosion.

It's hard to capture in a screencap, but yes, the rune takes the z-drive explosion with it.

2. The shockwave of the z-drive explosion, which had been in progress before it was sucked into the rune, throws everyone back. However, since the explosion is gone, Ekko and others are unharmed. The soulless drones are ragdolled around.

3. The anomaly, no longer connected to the hexcore, becomes immediately unstable and collapses, imploding, which sends a shockwave outwards from the top of the hexgates (both screencaps are of this moment).

Now, I am a wholehearted believer that Jayce and Viktor were teleported elsewhere, and there's plenty of speculation posts both here and on twitter that lay out evidence for why it's likely.

I'll just mention that besides the fact that the blue flicker at the end of the rune's disappearance perfectly matches that of the other example we see of it being used - by Mage Viktor saving young Jayce - it also glitches out:

What does this mean? Potential reality-hopping? Anomaly influence to say the least, perhaps caused by the z-drive explosion interacting with it. I personally don't see why Mage Viktor would embed a pre-set teleportation rune into Jayce's wrist to give to Viktor without the intention of, yknow, teleporting them, especially if freeing the souls was an intended part of his plan. But we may never know.

So there you have it. The play-by-play. The anomaly needs the hexcore and imploded when the connection broke. The z-drive did not cause the anomaly to implode, its only narrative purpose here was to give Jayce the precious moments to reach Viktor. The hexcore is hypothetically still part of Viktor, and we have no idea if getting his face blasted open would be fatal for Evolved Viktor's body were they to get spat out somewhere, nor whether the z-drive would also explode in their faces or just fizzle out in the arcane. Many questions remain, but I hope this clarifies at least the technical aspects of what actually went down atop the hexgates.

Thanks for reading, and please let me know your own theories!

[orcelito]

Recently got the 4th trimax deluxe volume, & so I've been rereading the volume 10 stuff again. And I just had a realization that Wrecked Me.

We see Vash realize Wolfwood is dying. We see him get violently angry at this, then step back to give Wolfwood the fight, as Wolfwood requested. We see him watching the fight, watching Wolfwood blow Razlo's arms off, with an intense but relatively neutral expression.

But the moment he breaks. This moment?

The moment he breaks is when Wolfwood throws away his gun to punch Razlo into submission. He could've easily finished him off with his gun, but he didn't. He throws the gun away to take him down nonlethally, as Vash always begged him to.

It's Vash realizing that Wolfwood has adopted his ideology. Even when it puts him at risk. Even when it will lead to his death.

And that is the moment Vash breaks down crying. Screaming silently in despair.

I never put much thought into why he starts crying here. I assumed it was just him getting overwhelmed with the reality of the moment. Which, it is, but it's not Just that. It's him realizing that his ideology is leading to the death of a man he loves, who he just realized he wants to spend his tomorrows with. It's him realizing that, in a way, Wolfwood's death is his fault.

Yet even with his despair, he's protective of him. Still paying attention to him. Shakes off his despair to immediately jump in once there was outside interference, something he was not fine with.

And then comes the moment he knew was coming. When Wolfwood went for nonlethal punches, Vash knew that Razlo wouldn't stay down. All it takes is one moment of weakness, Wolfwood faltering under the strain of his injuries...

Even though Vash knows Wolfwood is already dying, he still screams for him. He doesn't want to lose him even a moment earlier than he needs to.

But the moment still comes, just as Vash knew it would.

And he still crumples.

[stinkythehutt]

also. something about palpatine being so adept at seeing into the future that all of his successes feel completely joyless by the time he achieves them because he’s just going through the motions… how fucked up and nihilistic and brutal that would make you…

[juniemunie]

"Why am I still doing this?"

"Don't you get it?"

"This is all just a show... and we're playing parts~"

[beannoss]

Hi Bean!

I have a question for you! I have noticed in your writings that Twilight and Yor begin a romantic relationship after their secrets are revealed. Are you opposed to any romance between them before they find out? I assume if so, it’s because it’s morally questionable, though a lot of fans find romance before compelling as it raises the stakes considerably. I’m not suggesting one is right and the other is wrong, I’m just interested in your take on this! I love your writing! Thank you! 😊

Hello you! I'm always chuffed to see your name pop up 🫶😊!

Oh boy! Thank you for this ask — it's a big question but also I do have thoughts XD Sorry it's taken me a few days to get my ducks in a row!

I want to start, though, by emphasising that my thoughts and preferences here are exclusive to Spy x Family as a canon enterprise; they don't pertain to fanworks or other fan theories, I'm not out to yuck anyone's yum ✌️ ditto for even my own writing! You're right that I don't really have an interest in exploring that dynamic but I reserve the right to change my mind ;)!

[Reference herein to manga chapters not yet animated]

Right, so. There's lots of things I love about SxF, but one of the things that interested me early and keeps me engaged is that it operates under an interesting and complex morality. Spy work and contract killing are obviously an ethical minefield, and in the real world, generally to the bad. Within the world of SxF, Endo takes pains to write Twilight and Yor both firmly on the morally right side, even if Twilight’s tactics or Yor’s actions in a vacuum are frequently questionable. With Twilight especially it seems Twilight is currently (resisting) working through the impact and ethical implication of his actions on Anya. When it comes to Yor, I expect that’s where we’ll see him wrestle with similar questions through a romance lens. I think it was quite deliberate and important that Twilight specifically articulated that he’d been wondering if Yor had previous romantic relationships, and that it was now confirmed she hadn’t. As far as I can remember, it’s the only time he’s had that sort of reflection on Yor's life before the Forgers; I mention it because it mirrors times he’s reflected explicitly on Anya’s history and trauma and her needs as a child, with implication that his actions and motivations for adopting her could/probably will hurt her. I hazard that his observation about Yor will be similarly indicative of an arc down the line.

When it comes to canon, if the Yor x Twilight romance were to firm up while Yor still believes Twilight is Loid, I admit there’s a high chance I’d nope out. I want to emphasize firm up though… I tend to think Yor already has feelings for Loid (Twilight?) whether she’s fully aware of them or would necessarily articulate them as romantic (and I think this is being really interestingly conveyed and explored through her current feelings about kissing, though I may differ with some on how I think that may shake out). I also think there’s a… less high but not impossible chance that Twilight is aware he has or is developing feelings for Yor. I’ve argued before that he knows he has formed/is forming an attachment to her and that he knows he trusts her. I don’t think it’s too far from there to romantic feelings for Twilight: after all, attachment and trust (intimacy) are not things he's had in a long, long time. And given his current pseudo-short temper and general malaise comes out most with Anya, with Yor he’s been notably softer and more receptive. In my view, this is partially because so far he hasn't really done much that would really hurt Yor and nor has she done anything that would really hurt Twilight. So far, Twilight and Yor are on a fairly even footing.

This is a very long way of saying that I trend toward thinking we’ve got at least a few toes into the romance already.

The reasons I’d be a squicked by the firming up of the romance, pre-reveal, are related to its being morally questionable as you pointed out (I'll talk a bit more about that in a moment.) But it's also because I think it would undermine character arcs and dominant themes.

Twilight’s arc involves finding and forging a new pack, a new family. Somewhere safe and loving that he’s been denied essentially for his whole life (I don’t dispute that his mother loved him deeply and did her best to protect him: living with an abuser and then with her under war was never going to actually be or feel safe). A big part of this safety and love for Twilight is about being accepted, warts and all. Twilight started lying because he wasn’t accepted by his father as he was. There’s a fair bit to work through by way of accepting Twilight’s warts already — I think Yor will be fairly understanding as things currently stand, and that’s part of why they’re a good match. Their moral compasses, their sacrifices, how they see the world and how they want to try and make it better, align and/or resonate in foundational ways. However, given their current standing, pursuing deeper intimacy of a romantic/sexual relationship with Yor before reveals, I think would take it past the line. And particularly when considering Yor’s character arc.

Yor’s arc is also around finding love and security, but centred less around acceptance (although that obviously also explicitly features!) and more around self-worth and understanding her value. If the romance were to firm up pre-reveal, the false pretences are… I mean, to me, they lob a Molotov cocktail into that theme of self-worth and being valued, as she really would just be being used: the intimacy could never be real because Twilight is not Loid Forger. To expand a bit on an earlier point, perhaps ironically, Yor’s relationship with Loid is mostly on the up-and-up: they both know any marital connection they demonstrate is fake. They may be (are) friends, and also they’re under no illusions that it’s something of a tenuous friendship (at least for now). They co-parent Anya but are clear that this co-parenting comes with clear lines around and between their relationship otherwise. I want to tread mindfully here, because I also really like and appreciate aroace interpretations of Yor and Twilight and their relationship: I think this discussion around firming up their romance actually also holds true in the case of attempting to substantially deepen their platonic bond, pre-reveal. In the same ways, Twilight needing acceptance and Yor learning self-worth would be severely undermined by a pre-reveal apparent and false deepening of their commitment to one another.

On the point of it being morally questionable generally, yeah it is. I mean, look, it's fiction and they aren't real people who can be hurt by those actions. So in principle, Endo can write what story he wants, I wouldn't think it reflected poorly on him or anything like that. I just don't really want to read a story that goes to that place; it’s a squick. I'm sure this has been discussed before in fandom, but my read on the moral dubiety centres around the idea that it isn’t possible to actively choose or meaningfully consent to emotional or physical intimacy when one person is lying about who they are (and in this case, they're both lying about who they are... Although Twilight to a greater extent). This does tie back into SxF themes as well, as choice and consent are also… maybe not big themes of SxF exactly, but active choice and informed consent are things which have come up more than once (I have my thoughts as to why: for a character whose choices drive so much of the narrative, Twilight is actually also a character who’s shown to have little actual choice or control over much of his own life. Considering his motivations for a world where children don’t cry, imo valuing active choice and meaningful consent are important factors required for that world. And I also actually suspect the theme of choice will become more important the more we learn about Donovan, and his role as foil for Twilight.)

Also, honestly for me, it would be too close to a common trope in a lot of popular western fiction/media that I don’t like: a woman being taken advantage of by a man in some way, shape or form, and then through the magic of her non-specific womanness, forgiving him his gross transgressions under the thinnest of pretences. Particularly as Endo has already taken pains to sidestep that as a foundation of their arrangement. To be fair, I wouldn't be surprised that were Endo to take the pre-reveal romance path, it would be a deeper interpretation of that trope, but as with other sexist tropes utilised in pop fiction/media, I have to ask why the choice couldn’t have been for a more interesting path, rather than retreading that one. And particularly given everything he's established for Twilight and Yor: it goes against much of what Twilight stands for — and indeed goes against much of what he meaningfully brings in his current relationship with Yor, that of encouraging her, supporting her, and shoring up her thoughts, opinions and self-image, particularly when she voices upset or doubt about them. It also goes against much of what Yor stands for: while the power imbalance would lie firmly with Twilight, it remains true that Yor’s lies in an apparently deepening intimacy would also undermine the safety and security she ostensibly creates for Twilight. She also so obviously hates lying, the prospect of her keeping her secret into what she believed was a real relationship would wreck her. Doubly so, given the weight Yor puts on Loid's acknowledgement of who she is and what she believes: something she hangs her self-worth on, a recognition of her value. And I'd argue here that it would actually, conversely, be impossible for Loid Forger to acknowledge or accept Yor's truth: that's only something Twilight can do.

And so I guess there’s also just the bare fact following from the above that I think a pre-reveal firming up of their relationship is the less interesting choice for what is a major franchise that has otherwise done innovative things. Another reason I love SxF is that it subverts tropes and complicates cliches. One of which includes communication: for a pair who have crossed lines as a foundation of their relationship, Yor and Twilight actually do a lot of communicating. That’s a subversion of many heterosexual romantic tropes and norms, at least in a Western context, and, to put it sort of flippantly, it would bum me out if it failed at the final hurdle.

I just want to emphasise one more time, my opinions and preferences here are strictly related to Spy x Family in an official canon capacity, and nothing to do with fanworks or fan theories or what fans want to explore in whatever fashion. Part of my feelings here are also honestly because of the tone and pacing of SxF. I think it entirely possible to do interesting things with those tropes and actually think Endo is the type of writer I would trust to do so. But the way SxF is written by way of tone, pacing, narrative priorities and audience demand, I don't think even Endo would be able to do them within SxF in ways that wouldn't squick me out and make me lose love for Twilight, specifically, pretty entirely. I'd rather he just didn't 😂

Tl;dr: in canon exclusively I’m not into a firming up of their romantic relationship pre-reveal! Their situation is complicated enough as it is; give these goobers the love they want and can share with one another, kindly and gently, when the world has been neither kind nor gentle with them. In my view, it’s already primed in their character and thematic arcs 🫶

[itspileofgoodthings]

thinking about the teenage boy who, once we finished Pride and Prejudice, said “aww man why didn’t they kiss” —sends me into orbit

[fosermi]

So uh, got distracted then I had the thought of including eclipse in the sacrificed chaos au so he's here now I guess... but these are the designs!

Left to right we have:

Shadow, the last Hero Guardian.

Silver, the Guardian's son Apprentice.

Sonic, the personification of Chaos.

Unit Nine "Tails", the Caretaker of Heros.

Eclipse, leader of the Red Arms. (Please don't confuse this with the black arms, totally different :D)

[cloudinal]

Happy birthday to the Deep Rivers Society guy!

[sorrinslays]

What I am about to propose is very self indulged and a dynamic just for me, but

I really want to see a quest where it's just Black Swan, Gallagher, Mr. Reca and Sampo.

[philosophybits]

All learning is connected — thus philosophy will never be complete. Only in the complete system of all learning will philosophy be truly visible. From this mystical character of philosophy it can be explained why each person sought in philosophy something different, and why true philosophy could never be represented.

Novalis, Last Fragments

[marinsawakening]

I really do strongly dislike the very idea of the 'downfall' timeline. Like it can be fun to play with a version of OOT where Link up and died, there's definitely some interesting stuff to be done with that, but I really hate that the 'downfall' timeline is something I have to consider canon despite it making infinitely less sense than simply interpreting OOT as a prequel to ALTTP. No 'if Link died' qualifiers, just as is. Since OOT was very, very obviously based on the backstory explained in ALTTP and all, y'know. Not everything fits 1:1, but that's par for the course with LOZ games, and the ending of OOT very specifically sets up ALTTP.

So it's just deeply, deeply irritating to me to have the 'official' timeline say 'yeah actually that ending did not set up ALTTP. ALTTP happened in a completely different version of the ending than what you saw', like. I really despise how that paves over the history of OOT and the franchise as a whole for the sake of some remote semblance of 'timeline consistency'. Playing ALTTP and then playing OOT and realizing OOT was basing itself on the backstory from ALTTP was a really cool moment for me and it pisses me off that I'm just supposed to pretend the game I played didn't pre-date ALTTP at all and instead some nebulous parallel version that we never saw in-game was the REAL precursor to ALTTP. I don't care how much it messes up the timeline I'm not doing that.

Literally who cares if Twilight Princess, Wind Waker, and ALTTP all co-exist as wildly different OOT sequels. They can take turns. They can exist in a quantum state. Or they can exist in three different timelines the exact way they do now, I don't really care how people choose to interpret it on an individual level, I just don't like it when people treat the 'downfall timeline' as the presumed canon when, going by the actual games of OOT and ALTTP rather than the Hyrule Histoira, that makes very little sense.