#varic vallenar

[lyssq]

Stupid Willverse text posts… part one?

[nex-kyit]

yeah im not going to bother coloring this

[somerunner]

Gotta say I love Varic Vallenar's tendency to correct misconceptions about magic, except it's unclear how his explanation is meaningfully different from whatever he's correcting.

Clueless character: "Oh so water manifestation magic turns Aetheric energy into water?"

Varic, internally: you...this is why no one my age is a competent Archmage

Varic: "Water manifestation magic calls upon the Aether to bring water into reality. The more energy you can wrangle, the more water you can create, but it's funneling, not becoming, the water that you summon. That distinction is subtle but important."

Me, reading: ok I think I got it for this hypothetical example but not the other ones in the actual text of TLH

[captainsvscaptains]

I may not need this, but just in case...

[guyinasuit]

Read Will Wight's other books!

There's Traveler's Gate, a trilogy that can be summarized as "the Chosen One's best friend is dissatisfied and chooses to become powerful on his own", with a really cool magic system about travelling to essentially other planes (though not other Iterations, since all of Will's books take place in the same multiverse) in order to get power from them.

There's Elder Empire, a "dual trilogy" that follows the same events from two different characters' points of view. The Sea trilogy follows Calder Marten, a Navigator with a Deep One strapped to his ship who is hired to find the heart of an elder god. The Shadows trilogy follows Shera, an assassin from the ancient and secretive Consultant's Guild who is tasked with stopping Calder no matter what.

And finally, the ongoing series, The Last Horizon! Varic Vallenar prepares a ritual that would make him the most powerful Archmage in the galaxy by giving him the magical powers of six alternate selves. And it works... Except it also gives him their memories, and in all their lives, they died trying to stop different galaxy-spanning apocalypses, from galactic civil war to hordes of undead cyborgs and gigantic, sun-eating insect monsters. And so he sets out to find The Last Horizon, a legendary starship, and crew it with the galaxy's greatest heroes in order to put a stop to all these threats. It's a *very* fun mixture of sci-fi and fantasy, and the second book comes out in only a few weeks!

I'll never recover from this (finished reading Cradle) (what do I do with my life now)

[nex-kyit]

I've been having a lot of thoughts about Varic's and Omega's relationship in the life vs. Solstice.

An overview on what we know for sure:

Varic knows about Omega's assasination on that Galactic Union president, something that presumably very few or no one else knows about, considering how Omega was uncertain how Varic knew.

Varic knows more about Omega than the Vallenar Corporation's file on him.

The Vallenar Corporation hired Omega in every one of Varic's lifes, but he never knew Omega as well as Raion or Sola, or worked too closely with him in any of his lives*

Varic has never been targeted by him until his current one

Varic knows that Omega is, atleast partially, forcing on a chaotic persona, and that there is a person behind it.

Varic doesn't know much about Omega**

Varic has seen Omega fight to protect the helpless.

Though Varic distrusts Omega's character, he does trust his abilities and "his commitment to certain rules only he understood." Varic doesn't think Omega is an indiscriminate murderer.

The current Varic isn't scared of him.

Things we can put together:

*This could mean that the relationship between Varic and Omega could be anywhere from having only worked with or seen eachother very briefly (likely in most of his lives) to being coworkers. IIRC this line is in comparison to how he worked with Raion and Sola, both of whom Varic was practically living with and was very close too. So theoretically, his working relationship with Omega could be up to a few steps below Raion and Sola (but probably not lol).

**I want to point out that despite this, Varic seems to be the most knowledgeable on Omega, from his abilities to his past. The things Varic doesn't know about Omega, ex. the rules he follows and the person behind the mask, seem to be things the Omega would never let anyone know. Then again, its possible that theres characters we don't yet that do know these things.

Personally, I do think Varic worked, at least occasionally, with Omega, at least enough to get a good sense of his abilities.

Anyway the main point of this post is to theorize why Omega is a bit of an outlier compared to how close Varic's relationships were with the other crew members.

Theory A: The thing connecting Varic with the rest of the crew is how they trusted each other. Which means:

Varic *did* trust Omega in the Solstice life and is either in denial over it or his current perception has been tainted by Omega's actions in other lives. (There is some evidence for this if you squint and realize that either Varic was really impressed by Omega's abilities or that he on some level does think Omega was/could be a good person. Omega nearly killed Mariala and Varic has seemingly forgiven him. Seriously compare how Varic treats Omega vs someone Varic actually dislikes like Starhammer or Steel Avalanche or even Benri. Then again, Varic has explicitly mentioned that he does't trust really trust Omega's character, so this bit of theory is very unlikey)

It actually goes the opposite way, and the reason why crew was chosen was because of *their* trust in Varic rather than Varic's trust in them. In this case, Omega actually trusted MoS!Varic, and Varic never realized/reciprocated.

Theory B:

It has less to do with the relationship Varic has with the crew member, but rather how they inspired Varic. Mell hired Varic to fight the Advocates, Sola inspired him to join the fight against the Iron Legion, and Varic was apart of Shyrax's royal guard so he was kinda obligated to fight the Perfected. In this case, Omega had a key role in inspiring Varic to fight against Solstice. The only problem with this is in the Titan Knights life, where Raion wasn't really the reason why Varic was fighting D'niss and Varic didn't give up his life for the cause either. Which leads into my final theory:

Theory C:

Every crew member is an outlier in some way, this is just how Omega is unique. Raion for the aforementioned reasons and because he died before Varic did, Mell's request wasn't a galactic threat, Sola not having a request yet, and Shyrax for reasons we might not know yet. In this case, Omega isn't an outlier and all the characters were written like this intentionally. A win for Occam's razor! Ahah this one is probably the most likely.

[nex-kyit]

TLH doodles made during february. I was obsessed with Mell for a while, these are my favorite sketches I made during that time.

+1 happy Raion

[nex-kyit]

More TLH sketches. Varic becoming Spellbinder for the first time, + some Varic designs/redesigns. Titan Knight Varic based on the elbow of friendship sneak peak. Refraining from drawing Raion until his cover comes out.

Wanted to make my own version of Varic's design bc I have... thoughts on him in the cover. Didn't want to stray to far from canon. Stopping myself from going further with Titan Knight Varic's design until the cover for The Knight is released...

[somerunner]

These fics are getting me into Pale. For my willverse/Cradle mutuals, I highly recommend it. The main character is very similar to Varic Vallenar, complete with a patient/jaded/trained approach to every bit of combat or conversation.

In This Economy I Have To Fight Wizards To Become A Homeowner? | Part 6

Title: In This Economy I Have To Fight Wizards To Become A Homeowner?! Rating: Teen Major Warnings: None Location: San Francisco, California, USA Genre: Satire, dark comedy

Summary: The cost of housing in San Francisco is too damn high. That's why Ethan Kemmotsu, long-time commuter, first time resident, is taking his condo as his demesne.

Still, keeping hold of a place to live isn't easy. Ethan will have to face San Francisco's politics and history in order to claim a position in it as a Practitioner. Despite the city's reputation as a site of modern technological advancement, a deep divide runs between the haves and the have-nots. Who gets to control what land has always been deeply contested within California. Ethan's demesne won't come without a fight.

6. This is a perfectly normal way to eat pancakes

DW | Ao3

[nex-kyit]

They are making friendship bracelets :D. Well Raion is, Varic only went along relunctantly until he realised that he could stitch aetheric symbols onto his. Just a little silly thing before The Knight emotionally devastates me.

adjbgfose no background again. Originally this was just going to be a sketch, but I wanted to draw Raion after seeing his design and I got a bit carried away. I had ideas for a background, but I think I messed up by rendering and then trying to design a background around them. I tried, but I couldn't make it look natural. Endless white void for them then. The whole process of creating this was a mess, I think I redrew Varic like 5ish times and I still don't like how he came out. His proportions and anatomy seem off, specifically his shoulders/torso. I do like how his hair came out, I think I will use it again if I ever decide to draw Titan Knight Varic in the future, as long as the Knight doesn't completely debunks my headcanons. Originally this was going to be fully rendered and lineless too, but mmm I think I just hate rendering. Not only do I find it really boring, it always seems to diminish the character's expressions and poses. I ended up relining them again, and next time, I think I'm going to explore what I can do with line art and cell shading.

mmhm the more I look at this the more I don't like it. The idea is funny, and I think I'd like to explore it again with more planning in the future, but the only part that I rlly like is Raion. Look at him he's so happy! :D

[nex-kyit]

Ehehe 100% self indulgent alt Varic x Mell art.

I really have to write down all my ship headcannons at some point, I keep thinking about them constantly <3

Art Rambles below

I actually finished 90% of this a week ago but I couldn't decide if I wanted to add Novabots or not. I'm glad I did, they added the extra details that this piece needed.

I tried a new shading technique, not only was much quicker than my usual method, it m think it doesn't look half bad! I used two gradient maps, one set to multiply and the other to color dodge. I think I'll try to practice this technique during the Art fight, see if I can get used to it.

[nex-kyit]

Ok I was going through the merch section for TLH to find the Vallenar logo but I found this???

WHOS SAYING THIS D: It sounds like a Varic narration line, maybe in his Titan Knight life? It sounds rather depressing whos idea was to put this on a t-shirt.

[lyssq]

A family can be a man with six lifetimes’ worth of PTSD, a red power ranger, an actual video game character, a guy who’s also a pile of goop, a deposed queen who’s better than you at everything, a girl grown in a lab to be the world’s best engineer and your spaceship’s AI who you’re pretty sure is gaslighting you and I think that’s beautiful

[lyssq]

Let Varic Vallenar say fuck

[nex-kyit]

Fits with Varic/Raion and Varic/Sola too, if you choose to interpret them that way. Even if you see them as platonic, I'd imagine their friendship is impacted in a similar way. Varic and Raion, forgoing many friendship dates to fight off monsters and save lives. Same with Varic and Sola, except worse because neither of them are going to push to have a relationship as Raion and Mell probably would. Man, I can totally imagine Varic and Mell putting their entire relationship on hold when Starhammer snaps, no time for a relationship when your entire galaxy is in danger. And yet, yet!! Their only comfort is that they will fight it and face it together.

Kaleshwi and Varic/Mell are my two favorite “never quite develops into an established romantic relationship” ships. Frankly they might be the only two I even know of but I like them strongly.

Man. If it only weren’t for frequent life-threatening danger and even more frequent quests/responsibilities, these ships could have been together. But that’s what brought them this close to each other in the first place. Augh the very nature of what brought them together denies them from getting closer.

Basically this:

[Image ID from alt text: A graph of potential energy vs distance. The curve reaches the minimum of potential energy at a non-zero distance.]

Longer ID below. [Image ID: A graph of potential energy of a two-atom system versus inter-nuclear distance. There is a minimum of potential energy at a non-zero distance; to either side of the minimum, the energy rises. As distance approaches zero, energy approaches infinity asymptotically; as distance approaches infinity, energy approaches zero asymptotically.

There are several other labels: “repulsion” for the positive energy quadrant, “attraction” for the negative energy quadrant, “equilibrium bond length” for the distance at which energy is a minimum, and “bond energy” for the energy at its minimum. The axes are labeled, and the graph is labeled BYJU’s, the website that displayed the graph.

/End ID]

Image source: BYJU’s, from this webpage specifically: https://byjus.com/chemistry/potential-energy-curve/

[captainsvscaptains]

Prelims

Poll A