Btw I'm Calling It Now That Those Eye Markings That Melina And Ranni Have Are Actually Marks Of Empyreans.

Soooo that DLC announcement huh? Pretty cool. Very excited but oh my god that promotional image has so many implications.

Mainly, if that person riding torrent is in fact Miquella, which seems to be the running theory at the moment then it suggests that Miquella himself was very likely torrent's former master, which in turn implies a lot about certain character relations we didn’t know about until now.

The big one being that on top of Malenia, he was possibly also working closely with Melina and Ranni as well considering the two of them both have ties to torrents former master. Melina travelling with his old steed and Ranni being tasked with finding the steed’s new master and giving them the spirit calling bell.

It makes sense for Melina since she’s very very likely the secret, missing third child of Marika and Radagon, which could be a post all on its own, so her working with her two siblings isn’t that strange. (though I still wonder to what extent they’re related and possibly working together).

But the craziest thing to me is that this also implies that not only could Miquella and Ranni have been on good terms at some point in the past but also that they are still currently on good terms (even after what she did in the night of the black knives). At least good enough terms to trust her with the spirit calling bell.

Melina's possible connections to the black knives also makes this theory even stronger. If she was a part of the assassin squad then that means that Ranni stole the rune and Melina would have been one of the assassins that used it to kill Godwyn (and possibly other Demigods since he was only said to be the first to fall during that night). 

Hell if you wanna get real crazy we could say that Miquella helped to forge the black knife weapons, since he’d already done a lot of research into “anti god tools” with stuff like the golden needles. Who’s to say he couldn’t figure out a way to do it? But why would he do that? He’s about the only demigod who wouldn’t be ok with killing Godwyn but it’d explain why he was still on good terms with Ranni after the assassination. Could have been St. Trina for all I know.

This is an idea I've been thinking about for a while now. I find it really suspect that despite the fact Godwyn is presumably the only demigod who has canonically reproduced the "usual way", meaning that he must have had a partner at some point there's absolutely zero details about any sort of consort to Godwyn anywhere in the game. It's as if there's been a conscious effort by the Golden order to cover up any sort of information on that part of his life.

Take that and combine it with Godwyn and Fortissax's very close yet very vague companionship and Godrick's thing with the dragon and I think there's a real case to be made for those two having been together at some point.

Like who else could realistically have been the secret companion to Godwyn which has seemingly been entirely erased from history if not a past enemy of the golden order, Fortissax themselves.

Godrick is 100% Godwyn’s son with Fortissax. And his frail body is due to the dragon blood attempting to change him like it does when you do dragon communion, but his demigod blood prevents a natural evolution. It is also why he can easily graft the young dragon onto him and make full command of it.

I was talking to my friend a while back and he mentioned how it's possible that Miquella/St. Trina got into sleep magic to help Malenia because her condition would have made it near impossible for her to sleep properly and I think it makes so much sense. She almost definitely suffers from chronic pain and I can't even begin to imagine how difficult sleep would have been for her (especially since the scarlet rot seems to have mental influence as well). I can totally see Miquella studying sleep aid spells/recourses to help their sister.

Been thinking about HTTYD 3 recently (mainly about how much I dislike it) and man, it really is just the antithesis of the rest of the series isn’t it?

The whole franchise of HTTYD from the movies, to the specials, to the 2 TV shows is all about building the relationship between humans and dragons. It’s about them learning how to coexist and how to support each other.

1 was learning that coexistence was possible.

The first TV series was getting a deeper understanding on how to make coexistence work, and where it might not be possible in certain cases.

The second TV series largely built on this and also involved deeper conflicts with other human civilisations.

And 2 is basically the apex of everything they’ve learned. Where they’ve fully developed a symbiotic society for both people and dragons on berk and the only threats they really face at this point are from other, more aggressive and exploitative dragon users.

It ends with Hiccup becoming the chief of Berk and Toothless becoming the Alpha for the dragons.

That is until 3 comes along and basically says “coexistence is too hard, let's send every dragon in the world to a secret underground cave, sometimes the fight to exist is just not worth it and it’s better to roll over and give the oppressors and the extremists what they want”.

Which is a horrible message for the end of a series that largely revolves around how humans and dragons deserve to share the same space and that it’s possible for them to live harmoniously with one another.

Easy fix that I haven’t seen anyone try but I have seen brought up a lot:

Make the rival/best friend also the love interest.

No honestly, it’s really that simple. The love interest lack the same sort of passion and energy that the best friend/rival typically has? Just combine the characters. This way you have less characters you have to worry about writing material for and fleshing out and you also get a stupid simple fix for romances coming off as stale and forgettable. Hell, you don’t even need to get rid of the best friend characterTM because you could just as easily give the love interest a similarly compelling dynamic and still keep both characters.

Anime/Manga Writers: Why don’t the fans like the canon straight couple instead of the non-canon gay ships?

MC looking at their canon love interest: So pretty and fights good.

MC looking at their rival/best friend/partner: They’re like the sun, brilliantly blinding and all-consumingly powerful. There’s a deadly beauty and grace to every action they take. They’re the other half of me that I never thought could exist, the one person who pushes me to be my best self, and life without them would not be worth living. There’s nothing in this world that they could not accomplish and I am but a fool chasing after them in hopes of reaching their level. Even then, having them in front of me/by my side has pushed me to heights I never thought imaginable.

I've had a bit of a mixed opinion on the newest doctor who stuff for a while now, and for most of that time I've really struggled to pin point what exactly it is that's been missing. The writing isn't bad (for the most part), the actors are great, the settings are interesting and overall its felt like a very needed breath of fresh air for the show... but there is something missing, and I think I've finally figured out what it is.

The aliens are gone.

No seriously, look back on all of 15's episodes from both the current season and the last and count how many of them include some sort of alien civilisation or society. Not just a singular monstrous alien that acts as an antagonist but an actual collective. There are very few. And no, aliens that are visually indistinguishable from regular humans do not count.

from what I can tell, there are three. Just three. Three alien species across an entire season and a half of doctor who.

There's the slugs from dot and bubble, the birdmen in Rouge and the singular Silurian in joy to the world.

And from those three all of them act as antagonistic forces.

Just as a quick comparison, the first season of new who, which came out in 2005 and had a significantly smaller budget had at least 6.

Sorry, wait, did I say first season? My mistake what I meant was first two episodes.

Where have they all gone? The universe of Doctor Who used to be teeming with so many different reoccurring and one off alien races that all interacted and coexisted. They weren't just throwaway villains, they were living, breathing creatures.

It used to be so rich with so much diverse life. The living plastic, The Slitheen, Daleks, Adipose, Sontaran's, The Catkind, The Ood, Silurians, The Silence, The Atraxi, The Racnoss, The family of blood, The mighty Jagrafess, The Reapers, The Judoon, The Hath, The Ice warriors, The vashta nerada, The Sycorax, The tree people, The Zygon.

But now the best they can do is regular humans and sometimes the odd robot or two. It's kind of depressing when you really look at it. The universe of doctor who has lost its magic, the life that was once abundant wherever the doctor landed is now sparse and non-existent. We don't visit alien civilisations anymore, we don't even encounter aliens anymore.

I think shits going to hit the fan hard in the next chapter. Something tells me that if the knight is a lightner, which they almost certainly are, they're going to follow us into the Dreemurr house dark world.

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Pure speculation here, but since deltarune has a lot of metanarrative stuff going on, what if the knight also follows this?

Ralsei seems determined to keep Kris (and by extension us) on the path of the hero who's going to save the world by sealing the fountains. Throughout the game he railroads the party down this narrative constantly and gets rather agitated when things go in a way that they're "not supposed to." (see his reaction to susie in chapter 1, the spamton fight aftermath or most scenes with him on the weird route). He knows what direction the plot needs to go in and it trying to guide us in that direction.

The story has a hero who is trying to save the world (Kris) by sealing the dark fountains and an antagonist that is trying to end it (the knight) by creating the dark fountains. Seems simple enough.

but Kris has now gone against that narrative by making their own fountain before the knight makes their next move. By playing the role of the knight themselves they've brought the world one step closer to damnation for seemingly no reason. You'd assume the knight would be happy with this since it makes their presumed plan of "destroy the world" easier.

But what if they're not.

What if the knight, the antagonist of this story gets angry that their role is being overtaken by the hero. That the way their story is supposed to go has been derailed by the protagonist fighting their own fate.

What if the knight ends up being a dark parallel of Ralsei. Knowing how the story is supposed to go and becoming confused and angry when things suddenly divert from that story.

In a battle of light vs dark like deltarune, what happens when the hero starts to fight using darkness as well?

Well the knight would only have two options.

Tip the scales and end the world.

Or seal Kris' fountain themselves.

What if we're not the ones to seal chapter 3's fountain?

honestly SAO:A has always been capable of being increadibly heartfelt and genuine. To this day that final conversation between Asuna and Kirito in the end of season one, as SAO crumbles around them and they're unsure as to whether they're going to make it out or not is one of my favorite scenes in anime as a whole. It just feels so real.

I don't even know how they manage it but something witty has been able to write a show that's not only one of the funniest things I've ever seen but also one of the most uniquely heartfelt and genuine ones aswell. They really are fantastic writers.

To SAOA:

What the fuck. what the everliving fuck. I am literally sobbing I cannot stop this - this was the funny series! You can't do this to me!

Like just ughhhhhhhh - Suguha and Kazuto becoming unaligned for just a moment, just a second of him going faster, farther than her - and her sticking in out! Trying so hard to reach out! And him not doing the same because he doesn't even notice, and that abandonment twisting under years and years and years, of feeling unwanted and unloved, and feeling safer when she's unbearable, because she cannot afford that vulnerability again. And then Kirito coming back, older and wiser and more willing to spend time on the people he loves because of SAO where he got so close to losing them, and her not being able to fix these two versions of him together because they aren't! They aren't the same person! But he can't tell her, can't show her how he's changed because she cannot let either one of them be soft around one another.

And from Kirito's side, all he sees is his relationship with his baby sister grow strained under the weight of years, of her slowly turning into something awful that he thinks hates him, because what else could there be? Literally what else?

And her still dragging him to the kendo mat years later, despite the fact that he hates it. That being literally the first scene of them together.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Words cannot actually describe how much I am interested in this whole scene of Marika doing....something important.

Is she ascending to godhood? Sealing the Land of Shadow? Creating the Golden Order? Fucking summoning the Elden Beast? I don't know, but it seems like a greatly significant moment.

The way she walks through that massive pile of bodies, and then stands there looking all gold and holy and powerful in front of that portal of flesh and blood. Her divinity being born of such vileness, created in a scene that Rykard would find appalling.

Also how the trailer says that the war happened after this. It feels like whatever she is doing here is so horrible that a war was bound to start from it. Is that why this war was completely hidden? Because there is no angle where Marika is not 100% at fault?

As far as I've seen recently, I've noticed a pretty big shift in public opinion regarding the DLC's final boss. I can't speak for everyone, but I think it's starting to make more sense to people after being given a bit more time to think it over.

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Interestingly enough, I think Messmer is the only one of her children that we know her interactions with. No one else has any mention of times spent with her. Most demigods don't seem to have anything to say about her at all. The only outlier being Melina who also doesn't seem to really know much either.

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Kind of, but it's not a very clear picture. We know he upheld the golden order's ideals but we also know that he was not as battle hungry as his father or as dedicated to the horrors of the order as his mother, due to his diplomatic approach to ending the war with the dragons. Instead of forcing them into the order (or out of existence) they managed to come to an understanding and live harmoniously alongside each other, in stark contrast to the outcomes of every other war the order has waged. (despite the fact that they still kept Lansaxx's corpse in their city as a war trophy)

Unfortunately most of Godwyn's past, even including the golden order's proper gander has been lost to time, but from what we know, he seemed to have been a pretty upstanding guy.

While this is more headcannon territory, it's known that Godwyn at some point did have children of his own (due to the golden lineage going all the way down to Godrick, who is a distant ancestor to the rest of the royal family) and I believe that his consort was actually the dragon "Fortisaxx" who he met during the war against the dragons and became good friends and "companions" with, which directly led to the end of the war and peaceful integration of the dragons into the golden order. I have a whole post going over the topic if you're interested in seeing they deeper thought process behind this.

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unfortunately I don't know much about the albinuriac woman, but she seems to be an incredibly important figure in the albinuriac society.

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Sadly, where the land of shadow fits into the timeline is a little bit muddy. All we know is that it used to be a part of the lands between, being the centre that is missing in modern day, but was at some point separated and isolated from the rest of the world, probably in order to hide Marika and the Golden Order's deepest darkest secrets.

I don’t think I ‘hate’ a single Elden Ring character. Each and every one is designed so compellingly, their stories are so varied, their interactions while sparse are the type to carry magnitudes of meaning.

Example:

For the longest time I did not realize that the scene we stroll into at Castle Morne is a slave rebellion. The misbegotten are treated as chattel. My first go around I assumed “ah yes, monster attack castle, understand”

It wasn’t until I watched a random lore video that only referenced it that I got it. I went back and read the descriptions of stuff and I’ll be damned.

There’s a lot of little tidbits hidden here and there that flip entire perspectives on their heads. Preaching to the choir on this point.

Even the characters that I generally dislike/disregard (dung-eater, (hot take) Varre, selvus) I still find fascinating. One of the cool parts about the game is you can just kill the character you don’t like. If you’re doing a run and you want to get a little roleplay in, sometimes murder freak be murdering.

Personally, I’m not on twitter, instagram (used to be), deviant art (do people still use that), or anywhere else ((I Do have a blue sky but I think I’m too dim to use it just yet)) . I’d love to be in a space where people talk more about lore or art things! I haven’t the foggiest clue where to go though. When I hear people say “everyone hates on xyz character” or “this fandom is so nuts” or whatever I am genuinely confused. I’m only seeing a portion of the stuff here, and so far it’s been more than pleasant! Big ups to the people on here, so far you’ve all been very kind 😊

So I guess, could I ask anybody to fill me in? Or where to go to get filled in?

In the meantime I want you to know I’ve started working on a pair of drawings centered around Malenia and Miquella - ooooo be so tragic oooooo