#wall of text to end all walls of text

[old-desert]

Inktobertale 2024 Day 6: Hyperspeed

How convenient that I just so happened to have a biker gang au lying around, huh.

[ganondoodle]

(Original art) Xaror, any pronouns, species (?), age (?)

short summary about them; they act as both an antagonist and an ally since they are only really interested in what they want or whats fun to them, they are immortal and call themselves 'death itself' since they have a special connection to souls (being the only one able to communicate with them) and the ability to seperate souls from their bodies in such a way that nothing can harm the soul afterwards their main goal is to .. bother and disturb the 'celestials'*, which they hate, as much as they can, breaking into their palace, freeing prisoners, destroying research, destroying the place, and most importantly, making as many souls unusable to them as possible-

they dont want to destroy the celestials though, they cant fight them anyway and this game of doing 'good' only with the goal of annoying them is their most treasured activity, so Xaror doesnt intend to stop them from killing or hurting anyone, only from harvesting what they are actually after (though Xaror doesnt actually care as little as they think they do about people, and has a soft spot for demons)

most of their appearance is later into the story; Zaphira (the empress) had been in coma and the medical facility she was treated in was destroyed by Shargon (orange eyed demon who acts as her bodyguard for the first part) in an attempt to save her from her estranged relatives taking over her country after they heard of her decline in health, she is believed dead but washes up on the shore of the mountain Xaror resides at years later (it has a reason, too much to write here) and they slowly nurse her back to health, the reason they give for it is that they found their first encounter very fun, thats all (is it?)

(more lore under the cut bc this is already so long .. im trying to keep it short q-q ......... this is stuff i have been working on since i was a kid so uh, some things might be cheesy but i cant change them anymore ..)

just to get some basics out of the way; theres three worlds, the celestials palace, human world and demon world, each are their own planet connected via different gateways

*celestials (possibly not final name, loosely based on angels) are the last remaining "survivors" of their planets demise, when their world died the most powerful among them cannibalized the weaker to sustain themselves until there were only less than 10 left, who each turned into different beings from it and dont resemble their own people much anymore, they built a palace from what was left on their world that protects them from space as its atmosphere collapsed shortly after- however they still needed something to live off; they discover the human world and are delighted to find rather short lived people with powerful souls, the best kind of sustenance for them (now), they aim to herd them like cattle, but a problem arose when it turned out another world has long been in contact with the human world; demons

demons are semi immortal creatures that act as protectors for their world, protection they extended, more or less secretely, to the human world ensuring them a long and secure life- the celestials need them to die at their whim though (demons are few in numbers, hard to kill and rarely have offspring, not an ideal target); as they worked out a plan on how to get rid of demons one of the celestials, Xanthriel (time) grew somewhat fond of people as they spent alot of time in the human world to observe and research them; in the end turning on their own completely, but losing the fight against Uriel (knowledge)

Xanthriel was supposed to be executed for their betrayal, but it doesnt work, instead they are splintered into many parts after a lot of struggle, most body, memory and most strength is one part (ending up as motionless forever bleeding corpse kept locked up in the palace), the rest is some time later gathered together and reforms as a seperate, weak mockery of them, they embody Xanthriels emotion- Xaror, without memory, strangely cut to pieces (hence all the missing limbs and broken halo) but driven by an unstoppable desire to disturb the celestials (they live seperate long enough to each become their own person, at some point Xaror discovers Xanthriels body after all and they merge back together, though as they are now two, Xanthriel only takes over once directly after merging, stays silent for a long time and lets Xaror be themselves, only later revealing that they are there at all .. hiding perhaps- i rarely have specific ideas for voices, but Xanthriels is like, like coarse rocks being violently rubbed against each other, less voice more noise)

(also, the celestials use Xanthriels blood from the day of their execution to create a plague that nearly wipes out all demons, only the youngest of them survived, effectively robbing them of everything, culture, history, knowledge etc- as demons rarely have children, like a complete restart of their society, they disappeared from the human world, and over time being largely forgotten as actually existing- the celestials wanted them all gone however, so they kept kidnapping them to try and find somethign that would work similarly against the young ones too (and then in general, bc the only usable blood of Xanthriel was from the day of their fall, and that has long since been used up) one of the young ones was Shargon, he was the only one still alive from his group

(also, the celestials use Xanthriels blood from the day of their execution to create a plague that nearly wipes out all demons, only the youngest of them survived, effectively robbing them of everything, culture, history, knowledge etc- as demons rarely have children, like a complete restart of their society, they disappeared from the human world, and over time being largely forgotten as actually existing- the celestials wanted them all gone however, so they kept kidnapping them to try and find somethign that would work similarly against the young ones too (and then in general, bc the only usable blood of Xanthriel was from the day of their fall, and that has long since been used up) one of the young ones was Shargon, he was the only one still alive from his group (he wasnt the strongest or special, he was jsut the last in the row and always got the lowest dosage) when Xaror found them in yet another break in into the palace and got him back to the demon world .. where he was promptly blamed for the others that were taken and treated like a pretender/fake/spy bc what he got put through changed his eye color (something that demons cannot change in any form) to one that does not exist among 'real' demons (orange ... notice the inner color of Xarors broken halo? :) ), some even suggesting killing him, but none of them were brave enough to do it (they were all kids still) .. except Eadrya (the big blue-ish one, largely regarded as the strongest demon alive) but Shargon managed to escape, and since then lived largely in isolation- this is part of why he is so hated, and why he starts to spend so much time in the human world after rediscovering the pathway there)

[flecks-of-stardust]

[ID in alt text]

hi sorry still obsessed with this gif i got. it's so funny to me. my baby's little feets sticking out. the pearl in their hands. the slime mold 'walking.' the neuron glow receding. earlier i laughed so hard it hurt and it's still just as funny now watching this help

[legionofpotatoes]

star wars outlaws

[rad-roche]

I just wanted to tell you that the Nick Valentine Cat’s Paw magazine cover art is soooo STUNNING!!!

You should work for Bethesda lol

thank you very much!! it's been months and i still can't believe it. i posted so hard that the death shroud picture i painted is gonna be printed onto canvas after it wraps up and is gonna hang on nick's va's wall, which is SURREAL. truly, never stop posting.

god, doing stuff for bethesda, that'd be really crazy. ideal pie in the sky dream would be getting to do a nick comic for them officially. that's unlikely to happen, so alas, i'll just need to do it on my own time ;3c

[gunstellations]

"お前は失ってばかりじゃねえ"

"you haven't only received loss"

[ruvviks]

Following the chilling conclusion of All That's Left's first season, Mac and Layla and their friends find themselves scattered across a divided Los Angeles a year after their successful return to town. Matrix Corp has taken control— "With humanity's best interest in mind"— but with our protagonists' knowledge of Opportunity's destruction and Houston's unexpected fall, they know better than to trust the corporation and its near military-sized security force. Closed district gates separate them from one another and a new threat lurks just outside the city's walls— but resistance is on the rise, and it is only a matter of time before truth comes out. [SEASON ONE HERE]

taglist (opt in/out)

@shellibisshe, @florbelles, @ncytiri, @roseeway, @stars-of-the-heart;

@lestatlioncunt, @katsigian, @radioactiveshitstorm, @estevnys, @adelaidedrubman;

@celticwoman, @rindemption, @carlosoliveiraa, @noirapocalypto, @dickytwister;

@killerspinal, @euryalex, @ri-a-rose, @velocitic, @thedeadthree;

@kanos, @swordcoasts, @ordinarymaine, @claudiawolf, @strafethesesinners

[sergle]

what was the leash training thing❔

Omg so a houseline isn't leash training Per Se, but the basic idea is that you keep a line on your pup at ALL times, for the early part of their training. For Hugo (and most dogs) that'd be a leash that you cut the handle off of, so it can't get caught on anything. For smaller breed dogs, I've seen people use very lightweight stuff, like macrame rope lol. It might sound like it's a strict thing, but dogs don't really give that much of a shit abt it, and you can correct behavior much much more easily. Puppy careens toward a pill dropped on the ground, you don't have to actually catch them, you can stomp on the line! You need them to come to you, you don't have to play a game of chase, you just reel them in. Someone opens the front door unexpectedly- stomp on the line. Puppy is jumping up on people, you can use the line to encourage them to stay on all four feet. Etc etc etc. Training tool, safety tool, convenience tool. I definitely think it saved me and Hugo from a lot of moments that could've been a lot worse. Another thing about the houseline is that it keeps you from fucking up the process of getting the dog used to being handled and touched. Without the line, there are a lot of situations where you need to GRAB the puppy all of a sudden, and maybe it's scary. A lot of dogs are Hand Weary. So there's no negative association attached to your touch, and you don't run into a situation where the puppy is reactive to being Reached towards. The leash that's always been attached to me forever and ever and is sometimes directed by, idk, god? Not scary. Big hands reaching towards me very suddenly? Scary! Anddd that's why Hugo has a raggedy leash on in every puppy photo!

[hotdrinks]

Reading house of leaves and being a tma fan is like *spider man pointing.jpg*

[longagoitwastuesday]

So so indebted to u for posting those lovely illustrations from Cyrano <333 & even more so for yr tags!! I'm completely in love w yr analysis, please feel free to ramble as long as u wish! Browsing through yr Cyrano de Bergerac tag has given me glimpses of so many adaptations & translations I'd never heard of before! I'll be watching the Solès version next, which I have only discovered today through u ^_^ As for translations, have u read many/all of them? I've only encountered the Renauld & Burgess translations in the wild, & I was curious to hear yr translation thoughts that they might guide my decision on which one I buy first (not necessarily Renauld or Burgess ofc). Have a splendid day & sorry for the likespam! 💙

Sorry for the delay. Don't mind the likespam, I'm glad you enjoyed my tags about Cyrano, and that they could contribute a bit to a further appreciation of the play. I loved it a lot, I got obsessed with it for months. It's always nice to know other people deeply love too that which is loved haha I hope you enjoy the Solès version, it may well be my favourite one!

About translations, I'm touched you're asking me, but I don't really know whether mine is the best opinion to ask. I have read... four or five English translations iirc, the ones I could find online, and I do (and especially did, back when I was reading them) have a lot of opinions about them. However, nor English nor French are my first languages (they are third and fourth respectively, so not even close). I just read and compare translations because that's one of my favourite things to do.

The fact is that no translation is perfect, of course. I barely remember Renauld's, but I think it was quite literal; that's good for understanding the basics of the text, concepts and characters, but form is subject, and there's always something that escapes too literal translations. Thomas and Guillemard's if I recall correctly is similar to Hooker's in cadence. It had some beautiful fragments, some I preferred over Hooker's, but overall I think to recall I liked Hooker's more. If memory serves, Hooker's was the most traditionally poetic and beautiful in my opinion. Burgess' is a whole different thing, with its perks and drawbacks.

Something noticeable in the other translations is that they are too... "epic". They do well the poetic, sorrowful, grief stricken, crushed by regrets aspects of Cyrano and the play in general, but they fall quite short in the funny and even pathetic aspects, and that too is key in Cyrano, both character and play. Given the characteristics of both languages, following the cadence of the French too literally, with those long verses, makes an English version sound far too solemn at times when the French text isn't. Thus Burgess changes the very cadence of the text, adapting it more to the English language. This translation is the one that best sets the different moods in the play, and as I said before form is subject, and that too is key: after all, the poetic aspect of Cyrano is as much true as his angry facet and his goofy one. If Cyrano isn't funny he isn't Cyrano, just as he wouldn't be Cyrano without his devotion to Roxane or his insecurities; Cyrano is who he is precisely because he has all these facets, because one side covers the other, because one trait is born from another, because one facet is used as weapon to protect the others, like a game of mirrors and smoke. We see them at different points through the play, often converging. Burgess' enhances that. He plays with the language itself in form and musicality, with words and absences, with truths masking other truths, with things stated but untold, much like Cyrano does. And the stage directions, poetic and with literary value in their own right in a way that reminded me of Valle Inclán and Oscar Wilde, interact with the text at times in an almost metatextual dimension that enhances that bond Cyrano has with words, giving them a sort of liminal air and strengthening that constant in the play: that words both conceal and unveil Cyrano, that in words he hides and words give him away.

But not all is good, at all. Unlike Hooker, Burgess reads to me as not entirely understanding every facet of the characters, and as if he didn't even like the play all that much, as if he had a bit of a disdainful attitude towards it, and found it too mushy. Which I can understand, but then why do you translate it? In my opinion the Burgess' translation does well bending English to transmit the different moods the French text does, and does pretty well understanding the more solemn, cool, funny, angry, poetic aspects of Cyrano, but less so his devotion, vulnerability, insecurities and his pathetism. It doesn't seem to get Roxane at all, how similar she is to Cyrano, nor why she has so many admirers. It does a very poor job at understanding Christian and his value, and writes him off as stupid imo. While I enjoyed the language aspect of the Burgess translation, I remember being quite angry at certain points reading it because of what it did to the characters and some changes he introduces. I think he did something very questionable with Le Bret and Castel-Jaloux, and I remember being incensed because of Roxane at times (for instance, she doesn't go to Arras in his version, which is a key scene to show just how much fire Roxane has, and that establishes several parallels with Cyrano, in attitude and words, but even in act since she does a bit what Cyrano later does with the nuns in the last act), and being very angry at several choices about Christian too. While not explicitly stated, I think the McAvoy production and the musical both follow this translation, because they too introduce these changes, and they make Christian as a character, and to an extent the entire play, not make sense.

For instance, once such change is that Christian is afraid that Roxane will be cultured (McAvoy's version has that infamous "shit"/"fuck" that I detest), when in the original French it's literally the opposite. He is not afraid she will be cultured, he is afraid she won't, because he does love and appreciate and admires those aspects of her, as he appreciates and admires them in Cyrano. That's key! Just as Cyrano longs to have what Christian has, Christian wants the same! That words escape him doesn't mean he doesn't understand or appreciate them. The dynamics make no sense without this aspect, and Burgess (and the productions that directly or indirectly follow him) constantly erases this core trait of Christian.

Another key moment of Christian Burgess butchers is the scene in Arras in which Christian discovers the truth. Burgess writes their discussion masterfully in form, it's both funny and poignant, but it falls short in concept: when Cyrano tells him the whole discussion about who does Roxane love and what will happen, what they'll do, is academic because they're both going to die, Christian states that dying is his role now. This destroys entirely the thing with Christian wanting Roxane to have the right to know, and the freedom to choose, or to refuse them both. As much as Cyrano proclaims his love for truth and not mincing words even in the face of authority, Cyrano is constantly drunk on lies and mirages, masks and metaphors. It's Christian who wants it all to end, the one who wants real things, the one who wants to risk his own happiness for the chance of his friend's, as well as for the woman he loves to stop living in a lie. That is a very interesting aspect of Christian, and another aspect in which he is written as both paralleling and contrasting Cyrano. It's interesting from a moral perspective and how that works with the characters, but it's also interesting from a conceptual point of view, both in text and metatextually: what they hold most dear, what they most want, what most fulfills them, what they most fear, their different approaches to life, but also metatextually another instance of that tears/blood motif and its ramifications constant through the whole text. Erasing that climatic decision and making him just simply suicidal erases those aspects of Christian and his place in the Christian/Cyrano/Roxane dynamic, all for plain superficial angst, that perhaps hits more in the moment, but holds less meaning.

Being more literal, and more solemn, Hooker's translation (or any of the others, but Hooker's seems to love the characters and understand them) doesn't make these conceptual mistakes. Now, would I not recommend reading Burgess' translation? I can't also say that. I had a lot of fun reading it, despite the occasional anger and indignation haha Would I recommend buying it? I recommend you give an eye to it first, if you're tempted and can initially only buy one.

You can read Burgess' translation entirely in archive.com. You can also find online the complete translations of Renauld, Hooker and Thomas and Guillemard. I also found a fifth one, iirc, but I can't recall it right now (I could give a look). You could read them before choosing, or read your favourite scenes and fragments in the different translations, and choose the one in which you like them better. That's often what I do.

Edit: I've checked to make sure and Roxane does appear in Arras in the translation. It's in the introduction in which it is stated that she doesn't appear in the production for which the translation was made. The conceptualisation of Roxane I criticise and that in my opinion is constant through the text does stay, though.

[mistbow]

Sorey, the Vigil-Keeper

I know there’s a popular theory that Sorey might be reborn as a seraph at the ending, but to this, I would like to propose an alternative that is not less convincing, with hints spread throughout both Zestiria and Berseria.

スレイ「……オレ、メーヴィンに教えて貰ったこと絶対忘れない。ずっと伝えていく！」 メーヴィン「……ふ。俺が看取られるなんて……考えた事も……なかった」

In this dialogue from the screenshots above, I want you to pay attention to the word “看取る” and its variations, as it is a word that keeps coming up in the story.

If you look up in dictionaries, you would find that the Japanese word “看取る” means “to attend someone’s deathbed; to care for someone who is close to death until their death.” It is, admittedly, a word that is hard to translate to English.

Here’s how the official English translation goes about, emphasis mine, to bring attention to how it’s localized:

SOREY:  I promise... I'll never forget what you've told me, Mayvin. And I'll teach it to others as well! MAYVIN:  Heh. Never did I imagine I would die with others... By my... Side...

But I think the word has significance in Zestiria lore, with Mayvin, being one himself, didn’t expect to have someone to watch over him as he died.

And how do I know that? It’s in the name, as explained in the sidequest revolving the poet Mayvin.

Here’s a bit of the dialogue as a refresher, with omissions here and there:

アカシャ「語り部は個の名を持たない一族。『メーヴィン』とは一族が代々受け継ぐ名なのです」 ミクリオ「つまり、詩人は何代前のメーヴィンか！」 ザビーダ「メーヴィン……『看取る者』って意味だっけか？」 アカシャ「彼らは、その名と共に契約を受け継ぎ、世界を傍観する宿命を負うのです」 ミクリオ「しかし、なぜそんな宿命を？」 ザビーダ「初代がなんかやらかしちまって、強制的に誓約が与えられた……とかなんとかだっけ？」 スレイ「応えなきゃな。メーヴィンが託してくれた想いに」

Here is how it goes in the official English localization (emphasis, again, mine):

AKSHA: Those in the clan of Storytellers have no names of their own. The name “Mayvin” is passed down through the generations. MIKLEO: So the poet Mayvin was his ancestor from centuries ago! ZAVEID: Doesn’t “Mayvin” mean “Caregiver” in the old tongue? AKSHA: Those born into that name and that oath must accept their fate to be observers of the world. MIKLEO: But I wonder... why is that their fate? ZAVEID: Wasn’t it, like, the first one did some damn fool thing and wound up forced to take the oath as punishment or something? SOREY: We need to work hard to live up to the hopes that Mayvin placed in us.

But if I were to translate it myself more closely to the original Japanese, it would be more like this:

AKSHA: Those in the clan of Storytellers have no names of their own. The name “Mayvin” is passed down through the generations. MIKLEO: So the poet Mayvin was from several generations ago! ZAVEID: Doesn’t “Mayvin” mean “Vigil-Keeper” in the old tongue? AKSHA: Those inheriting that name and that oath must accept their fate to be observers of the world. MIKLEO: But I wonder... why is that their fate? ZAVEID: Wasn’t it, like, the first one did some damn fool thing and wound up forced to take the oath as punishment or something? SOREY: We need to work hard to live up to the hopes that Mayvin placed in us.

What am I implying here? I think that the Storytellers of Time, as a clan, don’t have to be related by blood. The wording used here to me implies that the name is inherited, passed down. (Fits nicely with Zestiria’s theme that “Legend will someday become hope.” Legends or “伝承” are things that get passed down. That get inherited. That outlives its keepers, because it is the hope or will that will not die as long as there’s someone out there to accept it.)

It’s a name that means 看取る者, the one who attends someone on their deathbed. As for why I translated this as “Vigil-Keeper”, I will bring it up later.

(As a sidenote: Sorey gets his alternative costume from this sidequest. Makes you think.)

But first. Let’s talk about Mayvin more. After all, there’s also “Mayvin” in Berseria.

マギルゥ「メルキオル・メーヴィン、火山で待っておれ」 マギルゥ「案ずるな。お主の最期は儂が”看取る”」

MAGILOU: Melchior Mayvin, I’ll see you at the volcano. MAGILOU: Don’t you worry. I’ll be sure to be there as you breathe your last.

Hard, isn’t it, to get this point across in English? But they actually put the word in the quotes as ”看取る” as if trying to get your focus on that word. Part of why I think the name “Mayvin” (along with the oath that comes with it) gets inherited as you watch someone die before your eyes, and take on their name.

Now back to Zestiria. Sorey actually has a title series that corresponds to the turning points of his character development, namely:

Lad of Separation (別離の若者) (Bronze): Obtained when he left Elysia, as he learned the lesson of farewells.

Reunited Traveler (旅は道連れ) (Silver): Obtained when Rose joined the party, as he learned to be with a human companion that can understand him as a fellow human.

Vigil-Keeper (看取りし人) (Gold): Obtained as he watched Mayvin die in his arms. I will explain more on this below.

看取りし人 消えゆく命を見届け、その想いを胸に刻んだ者に託された称号。

Vigil-Keeper A title entrusted to one who sees off passing lives, and engraves the wishes of the fallen upon his heart.

(By the way, it’s also part of a series of titles belonging to the seraphim too.)

Yes, it’s the same word/characters you see in all of the previous ones shown above. He actually obtained a title that is basically the ancient tongue meaning for “Mayvin.”

刻遺の語り部 「メーヴィン」という名を代々受け継ぐ人間の一族がいる。彼らは「刻遺の語り部」と呼ばれる存在で、「人間・天族・導師・憑魔などの歴史に干渉しない」という誓約により、非常な長命を得ている。「刻（とき）に遺される」という名からわかるように、人間では考えられないような時間を生きなが���、人や天族が織りなす歴史を語り、後世に残すことを使命としている。これは初代メーヴィンに対して課せられた、一種の義務や罰ではないか、という説が伝わっている。歴史に干渉しないためその存在を知る者は少なく、天族のあいだでも語ることは禁忌とされているようだ。

Storytellers of Time There is a human clan which inherits the name “Mayvin” from generation to generation. They are known as the “Storytellers of Time” and have a very long life due to their oath not to interfere with the history of humans, seraphim, Shepherds, and hellions. As implied from the name “abandoned in time,” they have the duty to tell the history as woven by humans and seraphim while living for a long time unimaginable for humans, preserving for the future generations, left behind by the world and time. It has been theorized that this may have been some kind of obligation or punishment imposed on the first Mayvin. Since they do not interfere with history, few humans know of their existence, and it has become something of a taboo to talk about, even among the seraphim.

As a note, the “Time” part of the title is “刻遺” and I believe I had already talked about the word “time” being written as “刻” before. It also implies “abandoned in time” (“刻に遺される”).

ミクリオ「マオテラスと繋がり、刻にとり残され、何年……いや、何百年待つのか……」

MIKLEO: By bonding with Maotelus, you’ll be abandoned in time. It could take years… It could take centuries.

Interesting wording, is it not?

By the way, another interesting but easy-to-miss detail:

If you squint closely, both Magilou and Zestiria!Mayvin have bird motifs (on her notebook for Magilou, where presumably she wrote the stories to tell to the next generations, and on both his pipe and book for Z!Mayvin). You know who else has bird motifs?

空に飛び立って 幼い頃からいつも身に着けている羽の耳飾り。穢れを知らない鳥は故郷を飛び立ち広い世界を目指す。

Flying into the sky A feather earring that he has always worn since he was a child. The bird, knowing nothing of malevolence, takes a flight off from its homeland to the vast world.

(I mean, a lot of Zestiria and Berseria characters have bird motifs, but hey. And I will someday talk about this too, but we’ll save this for the future.)

スレイ「『人が育てたら、飛べない鳥になってしまう。巣に戻せ』って……」 スレイ「あいつ……無事に巣立てたんだな」

SOREY: “A kept bird will never learn to fly,” he said. “Put it back.” SOREY: Guess you made it out of the nest on your own, huh?

And I love it. I love this because at its core, Zestiria is about humans and seraphim, and Sorey and Mikleo are intended by the creators to symbolize that. Being a storyteller and explorer fits him as his defining character trait is that he is passionate about history, passionate about finding ways on how to unite humans and seraphim. Sure, he was still the Shepherd up until before he brought out that second strike to Heldalf, and ended his suffering of Eternal Solitude, but right after that? Right after all this is done? I’m inclined to believe he might take the oath, take the name “Mayvin” after the one human he learned from the most. 

But I don’t think he is going to see it as a burden, an obligation, a punishment... after all, the essence of adventure lies in exploration, in the words of Mayvin, the Explorer. 

And, in the words of Mayvin, the Storyteller, you can’t fathom the true meaning of legends until you’ve seen their history with your own eyes...

(He might not be able to interfere with the world history after this, sure, but in a way, that also frees him from the shackles that used to bind him as the Shepherd. He had done what he needed to. Now is the time to entrust it to the next generations.)

ところで『探検家』であるために一番大切なことはなんだと思う？ 好奇心や勇気も重要だが、一番じゃないな 答えは『探検から無事に帰ること』だ

By the way, what would you say is the most important quality of an explorer? Curiosity and courage are definitely key, but they are not the most vital. The answer is the wherewithal to come back from your exploration safely.

And he did come home safely. At the end.

[t4tvglow]

it happened so early in the morning and i am STILL frothing with rage over this text my boss sent me

[narwhalandchill]

ok not to randomly go off on a somewhat negative ramble But. (general genshin story direction worries basically)

while there are a bunch of stunts i fear the genshin story slash lore could end up pulling that would serve as not only disappointments but to varying degrees also just retroactively ruin a lot of games writing for me. i dont think theres anything that im as genuinely concerned about as the possibility of like. completely losing their narrative marbles to an overdone time travel/temporal manipulation in one way or another like just the thought of that shit haunts me

bc like. while i dont find them particularly compelling as an argument for that to be the case regarding Everything in the narrative in current lore/theory circles (like. makoto n ei teaming up w istaroth once doesnt automatically establish universal time travel). it is unfortunately true that in canon lore there are many of the kind of lore pieces present that you could use to set that kind of reveal and complete restructuring of the story up. istaroth and the sacred sakura and some shady things said by various characters and how you could argue Any time loop or travel adjacent is just hidden by the irminsul 5head (another piece of writing whose potential misuse seriously alarms me, mind you). and so on.

and i am just. Not about any of that shit. like. for me absolutely any plot device or element that has the risk of fundamentally fucking up a storys continuity and coherence sideways to the degree BOTH the

"genshins gonna turn out to be ALL time travel/time loop/simulation to make [sudden endgame twist X heavily at odds with what was established in the central lore prior] appear sensible"

and

"celestia just irminsuls away all evidence for [that twist X again] so achsually it was always genius and compatible with lore"

tier of nightmare scenarios will have. is just. Not fucking worth it. this shit has ruined countless stories with vastly better writing and way more competent authors because its just. not the kind of stuff you can just insert in a massive fucking story willy nilly to explain away the mystery box you didnt bother to set up together so it ultimately comes together in a cohesive way that Doesnt need to be broken on multiple levels to scrape together some conclusion. and its just hhhhhhhhhhhhhh

and like ive never expected some massive masterpiece out of genshin like at best its gonna be one of those stories that once finished gets some really fucking banger fanwork as its community expands upon and explores a solid but flawed canon groundwork. theres fundamental flaws and limitations to its storytelling and format and that cant be helped. so im expecting no miracles on that front.

but the one fucking thing i dont want them to fall for is that misguided at best and outright pretentious and disrespectful at worst allure of. SEE! we outsmarted the audience! the theories! we broke our own story continuity to force a twist because our established worldbuilding technically makes it an option! isnt this smart!

like just please. no. no clue how unpopular this is but im already quite conflicted on the established use of irminsul in sumeru and how it arguably voided a lot of important characterization (nahidas inferiority complex) and narrative potential (scara literally becoming a non factor in the grander story more or less) for good but like. for now. fine. it hasnt become overused yet. i dont think its inherently bad as a factor of worldbuilding. i like how it recontextualizes fact and fiction and the significance of stories that appear mere fables in the world of teyvat. but as it stands the irminsul is still a deus ex machina. and thats a dangerous tool for any writer to have in careless use. and when combined with the sprinkles of lore involving the possibility of time manipulation and such to be further explored. its like powder and keg. two tools that can absolutely gut a story of its narrative cohesion and the weight of its stakes in an instant. its really fucking worrisome.

genshins writing is flawed but the one thing this game has going for it that i REALLY hope the writers will understand to respect is its world. how much the marriage between this massive and beautifully crafted immersive open world and the intricacies of lore and history afforded to all corners of it truly do in tandem to establish the world of genshin as more Real. as weightier. as a place you grow and remain attached to even when the main storys writing stumbles. the world is so important and to let it remain feeling real is just. i hope they understand how fragile of a gem that is.

featuring an artificial world order established by fraudulent divinity and that involving some degree of cosmic fuck-uppery of the natural order and all-encompassing illusion to maintain it is fine. this is a story heavily referencing gnosticism that theme is literally a given. but it needs to be an artificial world order imposed on a real world that remains feeling real the entire time through. and for that to be preserved it needs to remain grounded.

but the problem is that once a story truly commits to the "anything could be altered and fundamentally reversed with the right mcguffin at play with seeming impunity" there is no going back. it becomes very fucking difficult to keep the figurative feet of a narrative even touching the ground for even the most skilled of writers afforded absolute creative freedom to work with (which genshin does not have). and just that much more easier for the stakes to be lost completely. and i dont want to see that scenario become reality

[seafoam-taide]

Weird having an actual favorite band and knowing it. I don't really have many favorites it is hard to understand my feelings and even harder to pinpoint a 'better and more' feeling about one specific thing. But I know all of their songs, I listen to them all in a big playlist and never get bored, I am always happy to hear any song by them, I have every song's lyrics memorized, like ... they are my unequivocal favorite. There is nothing like it. Yes, I can get really into other songs, there are probably singular songs I can say I like more than any one song by this band. But I guess having a favorite is like what people say about getting married. I'm not explaining myself on that one actually I do have a point there that's an actual metaphor but I've decided explaining it is a bad use of my time. It's one of those artists that are popular enough and artsy enough that they can crop up as fic titles occasionally and no matter the lyric or song it comes from I can always tell immediately. I don't remember what the point of this post was I'm deep in my panic phase and it's 4 am and I was just sitting there singing I Have Made Mistakes to myself bc I can just do that, the whole song, and because it is very funny to go I have made mistakes I have made mistakes and I will continue to make them while in the middle of freaking the fuck out about existing or something. Bc you know yeah im one spoon away from setting the ends of my hair in fire because if I'm kindling for a little while at least I'll feel of use ????????? Yeah this post for sure had a point and it's devolved.

[captainseamech]

             “There we go... This time, I suppose.” High Tide might’ve thought that would be a bad idea with a weird sense of dejavu at that, but he decided to still go ahead and plant his own tree in a safer area! Now he’ll only come check it on Christmas.

[truebluewhocanoe]

I saw someone in the comments of my Tales of the TARDIS uploads bitching about how every companion ends up in a position of authority so here's me going through every televised companion, what occupation they ended up with after leaving the Doctor, and then analyzing whether there is an uncalled for number of authority positions in the list. As this is televised companions only I will be prioritizing the canon of televised stories. Here we go:

Ian Chesterton: Professor at the University of Cambridge (Death of the Doctor)

Barbara Wright: Professor at the University of Cambridge (Death of the Doctor)

Susan Foreman: Member of the Earth Council world government (Audio: An Earthly Child), though this is contradicted by some other stories

Vicki Pallister: Farmer (Tales of the TARDIS)

Steven Taylor: King (Tales of the TARDIS)

Katarina: N/A

Sara Kingdom: N/A

Polly Wright: Co-running an orphanage (Death of the Doctor)

Ben Jackson: Co-running an orphanage (Death of the Doctor)

Jamie McCrimmon: There are way too many sources for him and none of them definitive; the Tales of the TARDIS episode he appears in does not confirm what he got up to, but does decanonize certain other sources such as The World Shapers

Victoria Waterfield: Head of New World University (Some home video called Downtime?)

Zoe Heriot: President, presumably of Earth (Tales of the TARDIS)

Liz Shaw: Multiple contradicting sources: includes but not limited to doing scientific research, teaching as a professor, or running P.R.o.B.e. (don't ask me what that is, I'm not deep enough down the rabbit hole yet)

Jo Grant: Climate activist (Death of the Doctor, multiple other sources)

Sarah Jane Smith: Reporter, defender of Earth (School Reunion, all of The Sarah Jane Adventures)

Harry Sullivan: This man's EU canon is a mess but we know at the very least that he stayed with UNIT for a while as a scientist (The Zygon Invasion)

Leela: Bodyguard (Gallifrey audios)

Romana: President of Gallifrey (Gallifrey audios)

Adric: N/A

Nyssa: Scientist/medical researcher on Termius (Terminus, multiple other audios), but she eventually returned to Earth, occupation unknown (Tales of the TARDIS)

Tegan: Airline attendant (multiple EU sources), later activist (Power of the Doctor)

Turlough: Astrophysicist (Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma)

Kamelion: N/A

Peri: Canonically multiple endings including brain death, talk show host, botanist, Queen of Krontep, married to Yrcanos in multiple different arrangements ranging from happily to unhappily (Mindwarp, Peri and the Piscon Paradox, Tales of the TARDIS, lots of other audios and books too, sheesh)

Mel: Unknown (multiple EU endings have been decanonized by Power of the Doctor)

Ace: CEO of A Charitable Earth (Death of the Doctor, At Childhood's End, Power of the Doctor)

Grace: Copyright hell

Chang Lee: Copyright hell

Rose Tyler: Marital bliss (Journey's End)

Mickey Smith: UNIT Agent (End of Time)

Martha Jones: UNIT Agent (End of Time)

Donna Noble: I'm posting this a week before the first of the 60th Anniversary Specials, so... TBD?

Amy Pond: Novelist (Angels Take Manhattan, The Bells of Saint John)

Rory Pond Williams: Not 100% determined but presumably nurse (Angels Take Manhattan, misc. EU sources)

Clara Oswald: Traveling the universe with her immortal girlfriend, also technically N/A (Hell Bent, Twice Upon A Time)

Bill Potts: See prior entry, crazy how that happened twice, huh (Twice Upon A Time)

Nardole: Implied to have ended up a farmer (The Doctor Falls, Twice Upon A Time)

Yasmin Khan: Presumably still a cop, unfortunately (Power of the Doctor)

Ryan Sinclair: Unknown, too recent, implied to have been studying to be a mechanic (Revolution of the Daleks)

Graham O'Brien: Presumably still a bus driver, also head of the companions group that never got an official name but we all agreed to call it Companions Anonymous (Power of the Doctor)

Dan Lewis: Presumably still unemployed and volunteering (Power of the Doctor)

Okay. Phew. That's all of them.

So, that's 41, not including K9 (there's too many K9s running around, sorry, also he's a robot dog.) Let's cut Katarina and Sara Kingdom, who I only really included to flex. That's 39. Okay, now let's cut Adric and Kamelion, who died before they could have a post-TARDIS career, as well as Grace and Chang Lee because c'mon, you need to actually travel in the TARDIS before you can have a post-TARDIS career. Now we're down to 35 companions.

Companions in a position of high authority, not just an expert in their field or whatever but with governmental authority are: Susan (choosing the specific EU canon where she's on the Earth Council), Steven, Zoe, Romana, Peri, and... oh wait, that's it! Just those five! And three of them are from sources that aren't the main show episodes! Considering that fiction usually follows interesting people rather than the average person, and both the Doctor and the TARDIS are picky about who they let on board, I'd say that 5/35 is a perfectly reasonable figure. Some people just want to complain.