Chibi And Furious

My next analysis has to be about The Ravening War and its allegories to chess.

The dichotomy between dice and its superstitions and randomness with chess and strategy and wit has to be studied under a microscope.

Especially in a story like the Ravening War where the characters each have such a distinct style of movement to clutch power and gain momentum in the story. Not to mention that they make references to the game itself many times!!

Very very interesting.

Not me absolutely bawling my eyes out at 3am after a very unproductive day listening to the first 10 minutes of Worlds Beyond Number, The Wizard preview

Podcasts are my least favourite form of content cause purely auditory concentration is my weakest but this is so so good for me and my mental health

A right hand man. A trusty sword. A friend.

Deli finds comfort in his new acquaintance. Colin Provolone is a sturdy and simple man— quick and skilled in battle, a loyal and reliable in service, and also a good friend. Deli, with boyhood now smudged against the edges of his face, grows into his position of The Meat Lands.

Colin keeps the promise he made years ago to a disgruntled mother in the corner of an expansive hall in Comida. He listens and enacts the advises and discussions made for the benefit of this land far from home. He keeps guard and wrestles the yawns that strangle his throat and eyes as politics are discussed. All standing, never leaving, the right hand of Deli.

Colin watches Deli through the days, this leader guided with a willpower of steel, the love and dedication to the unification of his home watering his quick growth and maturation. Two years and Deli had become a fearsome, confident and ambitious young man.

Then Deli lies a gift upon his shoulders— Skald Colin Provolone, meaning poet (sing the songs of heroes, be my witness, carve my name into history, approve of my works).

And when Deli uses this title, Colin doesn’t question. He only grips his sword tighter, stands straighter, observes steadier. Deli’s sword and shield. His skald, his poet.

And at night he meets a softer, kinder Deli. They sit on the edge of Deli’s bed, talking and laughing about smaller matters. Sweeter things, like childhood and gossip that whisper down the hallways. He watched Deli’s expressions pour out, an innocence that splays across his face. He finds delight in those times, a remedy for a past he tries to forget. Light laughter, “simple is always how we’ve kept things”, and drunkenness fills the air between the two.

Two quiet years. Then comes blood.

And blood and blood pours from a carriage and drips, viscous, hot and real from hands and blades.

A quiet shatter in friendship. A trusty sword clanks at the feet of Deli and the familiar, light scent of cheese drifts far away from the house.

For the first time in two years, Deli is alone. A void renders behind him where his skald, his poet, would be standing.

And then five years pass and Colin sees Deli again. Scars rip at his face and he explains in whispers the ambush which landed him with it. Colin examines Deli’s face and finds little. A hardened and rough man. Colin thinks Deli resembles his mother.

Colin thinks about how he might’ve been able to prevent it, how he would’ve kept his promise, how he would have been able to protect him or die trying. Deli’s sword and shield, his skald, his poet.

There, Colin watches Karna die and the light leave Deli’s eyes. He watches the replaced Skald (and he thinks about the way Deli reached out to her with this title that fit her so effortlessly) shredded into a million pieces and he hears something in Deli die along with it.

This time Colin saves him. He nurses his old friend to stability and yet the “yeah, we’ll talk later” never comes as he watches Deli walk off into the sunset, now a man that would never be the boy, the friend Colin knew five years ago. A man with a cold and lifeless portrait, his soft edges ragged and a heart half rotten.

A sword. A shield. A skald, a poet. Colin keeps a promise to a mother and son made seven years ago. A protector, dedicated and loyal. He swings his sword quietly, precisely, dangerously against the ones who killed all his friends, dead or alive. Colin Provolone, sole survivor of the Saprophus, the poet of dead heroes.

The Rook’s exchange.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAA

It’s kinda crazy that the events at the last few episodes of FHSY were glossed over (this is a very badly written ramble about how The Bad Kids are probably incredibly traumatised after sophomore year and it isn’t addressed much, or kind of at all)

—

Thinking about how The Bad Kids walked into the Forest of The Nightmare King after weeks of travelling, the constant threat that came with sleeping, being vulnerable in foreign lands and people, and that one of their best friends was kidnapped and only just retrieved with her months-of-tortured and previously evil sister a day or two ago.

And then they get to a skeleton-scattered temple of a forgotten god, their friend is violently murdered by a unicorn in front of their eyes, they do a whole bunch of drugs and after, on top of all of that, are tortured by their worst fears come to life?

Then The Bad Kids go on to face a colossal king— no, a god, AFTER having to shake off and give into their deepest fears with their war torn friends and family by their side, all for a school project worth 60% of their grade.

If Kristen Applebees had not hit that Nat 20 (tbf it had to have happened exactly that way but still), the fight would have spun out a very different way

The finale of FHSY fails narratively to address just the insane amount of emotional, mental and physical torture these children went through and because of the amount of real life time between seasons sophomore and junior year, I think we skipped over addressing that these kids are probably very traumatised

Thinking about Evan Kelmp and Raphaniel

There are certain times of the day where the numbers align in perfect harmony and a familiar glow of magic illuminates the world for that singular minute.

It’s 7:21am and you’re running through the sweet spring fields, far away from home with the hand of your twin sister— your half soul held strong and confident in yours. Both of you dream of a life away from the responsibilities neither of you understand. You leave scarecrows in place of yourself in the classroom of your chocolate bunny teacher.

It’s 3:03pm and this is the first time you smell what you have only have heard stories of. The stink of bloodlust, of a tidal wave war, of screams and the clattering of iron, of a mother’s tears and the crackling fires of revenge. You and your people survive. An assassination attempt was made on your father. You feel rusted gears start cranking, slow and threatening, deep underneath the earth as the wails of the fallen fill your ears.

It’s 8:45am and forbidden confessions echo against the walls of the holy. Words you did not know were capable of escaping your father’s mouth, old and dusty secrets pouring out and you realise you do not know him. Your sister’s hand grip yours and your crowns spilt into two, simple metal clattering against god-forsaken grounds as everything you have known now lies at your feet. You narrowly escape the church. You witness the brutal murder of a friend. “The Bulb cares for no one.” You run.

It’s 10:05pm and you embrace your mother for the first time in weeks. You see the way she looks at your father. You see the way she scrambles to find some resemblance in him of an older lost one and fail to do so. Her soft and love swelled eyes that grace you and your sister does not land on your father and you wonder if she deserves the wordless losses she has dealt with. She demands that you and your friend go to rest but you, your father’s child, see too much, hear too much and you run away from the castle to explore as you did before all this.

It’s 12:01am and you draw your last breath. You feel yourself slip into the mist within the warm arms of your friend, your brother. “Tell Ruby that I love her, and tell her that she did the right thing.” You feel yourself loose the tight grip of your sister’s hand, your mother’s, your father’s.

Your dream of fighting for the world has been fulfilled. No longer princess, instead a warrior in war. And you remember the stories of the soldiers— you feel the warmth of your father’s arms around you, of your mother and sister’s tears soaking the earth above you and you sleep, knowing that you have protected what is most important to you and that they still have the breath to even mourn.

It’s 6:33am and you smile a little smile and sleep— a sister, a daughter, a princess and a warrior.

acofaf you absolute legend of a campaign

I am absolutely enthralled and if it wasn’t for an assignment I haven’t started and due in (checks non existent watch on my wrist) ahem, less than 6 hours, I would binge watch all the rest of it right now

You bury your child. Distant land, unfamiliar territory within your own homeland, and yet so far from home. You stand at the crown of this insignificant hill, unfit for a princess, your heir, your twin, your friend, your child. And the last time you saw her war-stricken face, you didn't even know it would be your last, and the determination lining the ferocity of revenge and exhaustion in the creases of her eyes, her brilliant intelligence and curiosity lighting a torch down the broad and dark path called Death.

You lay her down in the sickeningly sweet earth, your dwindling people by your side, your queen by your side, your now singular daughter by your side.

“You continue to teach me“ —and the Bulb’s light casts dancing shadows through the trees on a gravestone upon a hill too humble for a King and his family.

And then they sail away from that nameless place, their dearly loved one now lying still, and cold, and so so quiet beneath this land of churning blood and gore and the stink of war in which no tears or love can save her anymore.

Surely it has been talked about how Penelope Everpetal and Aelwyn Abernant were definitely, 1000% a thing before she was taken to jail+kidnapped to Fallinel and Penelope died