#the ending of his quest is so.... lackluster
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do you guys ever think about how Wyll is introduced as an archetypal fantasy hero, but then it turns out he’s a warlock, who made a pact with a devil. Do you ever think about how Ansur is described as this fantastical dragon of myth, but then when you find him, he’s turned into an undead monstrosity. Do you think about how when Wyll does the right thing, he is punished to become more monstrous. Do you think about how as Wyll’s warlock powers grow, his spells get more horrific. Do you think about how Ansur was killed by his closest friend. Do think about how Wyll was cast out by the most important person in his life. do you guys ever think about Ansur and Wyll.
#tw mild gore#bg3#wyll ravengard#bg3 ansur#baldur's gate 3#bg3 spoilers#ask to tag#wahoo had a lot of fun with the colors in this#we could have had it alllllll wyll shouldve been able to bond with the dragon#like ough how do you think wyll feels about casting spells like eyebite and blight#the ending of his quest is so.... lackluster#i like the emperor i think hes really interesting but like... he does kinda swoop in and take over the end of wyll's personal quest...
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Watch and Be Amazed!
Lyney x Gn!Reader
Synopsis: As a simple person with a boring job, you set out to travel the nations. You attend a renowned magic show only to be suddenly placed in the shared spotlight with the magical duo.
GIF by @c6jpg
{ i'm still exploring Fontaine but quick heads up on mentioning new locations, dw its spoiler free about the archon quest}
General: SFW, fluffy, magic tricks, Lyney being extra and sneaky, feat Lynette
A/N: i love him. Cheeky little guy with his equally cheeky little grin mulkin cat- I didn’t think I’d like him this much but he easily sneaked himself into my heart already also because I recently got him- I just wanna squish him (endearingly)
“ Voila! And now in its place are our feathered friends taking flight!” The magician exclaimed as a small swarm of doves flew out of his hands. Just seconds ago, he held a gorgeous bouquet of arranged daisies and prisma like roses, complete with adorned white ribbons and lace. The small bush of green and flora had simply vanished and transformed into a mass of white feathers.
Your awes become a droplet in the sea of gasps and astonishment from the people around you . Pushing yourself to the end of your cushy seat, you stare ahead in amazement and curiosity.
Even though you sat some rows away from the front seats, you were mesmerized by the trick. You were certain the bouquet had practically melted and shifted into the cocoon of feathers. At least, that’s how it appeared to your eyes.
Trailing the doves as they flew above the audience, you unconsciously let out a small laugh of joy like that of an entertained child. The doves flew around freely, some reaching high atop the Opera House’s stretching ceiling and some flew closer to the audience barely grazing above their heads.
You had been traveling for weeks, as you were lacking some excitement in your mundane life as a simple shop clerk. It had a well off pay and the owner was kind. Yet every passing day became more boring than the last. Soon enough, the days would weld and mend together in your memory as a tapestry of a lackluster pattern. You were afraid it would overshadow a great portion of your lifetime.
As a shop clerk, you had seen many travelers coming and going, talking about the beautiful sceneries across the rest of Teyvat they have witnessed, varies dishes you’ve never tried before being described as mouthwatering, the wonderful cultures, festivities and traditions people from around this world took part in. It had always left you in a state of entrance and jealousy for them, as they would have the freedom and determination to see the worlds wonders with their own eyes.
Seeing your yearning gaze and saddened expression when the travelers or adventurers left through the front door, your employer had generously given you some vacation time. You were one of your boss’s most dedicated workers, often swooping in for a fellow coworker if they fell ill or couldn’t make it otherwise. You have done more than enough to earn yourself this time off.
And so, you took your life by the rings and were off into the road. Traveling from one nation to the other and to the now where you were. In the seat in one of the most impressive buildings you have ever seen.
From the moment you boarded off the Aquabus; the little guides being one of the cutest beings you’ve ever seen; you oogled and awed in the splendor around you. Fontaine had been one leap of a cultural shock for you. Sure, sometimes you moved boxes of bits and bobs of Fontaine imported trinkets onto shelves, but seeing this much advanced technology was a bit exhilarating as well as a bit imposing
However, something there was something that immediately caught your eye when walking about. On a bulletin board was an array of multicolored posters and newsletter, but the bright red one with a grinning cat in the hat caught your gaze immediately.
“ Come and behold A magical performance performed by renowned Magicians Lyney and Lynette! ”
The names struck a cord in your memory. Ah, that's right! You had heard a great deal about a very specific Magic show in Fontaine. You remembered it being brought up a good number of times back in the shop. The way people would sound excited and how they could barely contain themselves trying to describe a magic trick as best they could.
Since you were in the area you had managed to investigate it and wound up purchasing a ticket to go see.
“ Back to the stage my feathery entourage!! Being in the presence of such a wonderful audience is indeed riveting, but I’m going to need the spotlight back to preform the next trick, haha!” The magician Lyney said with a pleading laugh. The doves seem to have understood them as they all flew back onto the stage. From either side of the giant velvet curtain, the flew behind it disappearing into the shadow.
“ For this next trick, I’m going to need a hand!” He exclaimed while putting his hands on his hips. He then put a hand on his forehead and looked around the area while squinting his eyes. From the right side of the stage came another person. She had on a similar uniform to her twin brother, adorned with teals, blues and grays. It was a counterpart to the reds, pinks, and plum Lyney wore in his intricate performer’s outfit.
Yet they both had the motif of that same toothy grinning kitty you saw tagging the corner’s of the promotional posters.
Lynette had walked behind Lyney and tapped his shoulder twice with a stoic expression. Lyney had turned dramatically around on his heel, immediately stopping his dire search for help.
“Ah, It seems as though Lynette has come to the rescue!” He cheered and with a grateful hand gesture divided the audience's attention to Lynette. She stood there facing the crowd with a curt expression. Lynette seemed to be the polar opposite of her brother. While Lyney was loud, extravagant and energetic, his assistant and sister was quieter, docile and seemed unmoved with the theatrics. However, to you she was as equally impressive as the red Magician.
In an earlier trick where they’d pull objects directly out of flat cards, Lynette had elegantly swiped off a parasol, a tea cup with piping hot tea given the steam, and an adorable hat with that grinning black cat. All while keeping a calm disposition as if she knew everything and anything that was to come. It boggled you how she managed to slip the illustrations to real physical objects.
But then again, the Magicians never reveal their trade secrets.
Lyney tapped his cheek before he spoke again. “It seems as if we will need a little more help to perform this magic trick, wouldn’t you agree Lynette?”
Lynette simply nodded.
Lyney’s shoulders relaxed as he twirled around to face the audience. He held his hands behind his back as he paced back and forth. His eyes never leave the audience.
“ For this trick, It will require three people.”
There were very quiet, almost inaudible murmurs and whispers in the crowd. You paid them no mind and kept your eyes focused on the stage. In your mind, you were guessing how the next trick would go.
Lyney stopped center stage.
“ I can see your enthusiasm and excitement! In that case, I shall pick one person from the crowd who will help Lynette and I out!” He said with a jovial grin. His cat-like eyes scanned around the crowd. After this, many people kept their eyes on the Magician scoping out for an available assistant.
Seeing as you weren’t in the first row or a local, you have settled that your chance of being picked was slim. So instead of paying attention to the main stage and spotlight, you turned your head from side to side. Envisioning the lucky person who would be fished out of the ocean of filled seats. Perhaps it would be the beautiful woman with quite the attractive headpiece sitting a row down from you. Or maybe, it would be the little boy three five seats to your left practically bouncing in his seat chanting to let it be him.
The choice could be anyone but yourself.
“ You my dear! Could you help Lynette and I out with this trick?” Lyney’s voice resounded once more.
Your eyes squirted suddenly as a bright source of light was now trained above you. Sinking back onto your seat, you turn to face the stage.
Those cat-like lilac eyes stared directly into your own [E/C] ones. Alongside with the deep royal purple eyes belonging to his assistant Lynette. Looking around and behind, you noticed the two people beside you glance at you with slight surprise.
You pointed at yourself just to make sure. You didn’t know if you made a face with the sudden surprise of the spotlight, but Lyney chuckled in amusement.
His eyes crinkled slightly as he nodded, his hair bobbing along with his head and sturdy hat. His laughter made you feel a bit fuzzy in the chest. Maybe you were just starstruck.
“ Yes you. If it is alright, could you perhaps follow the staff by your row to escort you on stage?” He said, extending a hand to a person in a theater mask and green vest standing at the end of the row. His lilac eyes never left you.
It was hard to say, but you could assume he was silently communicating with you. His soft eyes were patient and still, unlike his theatrical energy he demonstrated earlier.
‘ Are you okay with this? ‘
He didn’t mind the sudden recess of silence, in fact it only added to the build up to the magic trick. It wasn’t long until you blinked, breaking yourself out of your star-stricken surprise.
You nodded at Lyney, to which he gripped the brim of his hat quietly tipping it to you with a satisfied grin.
“ Very well, please follow the staff down the aisle while we set up on stage!”
After squeezing down your row and next to the staff member with the mask, you followed them as they led you towards the stage. The staff member was kind enough to guide you through the dimly lit place, your eyes were examining the person. Their mask is what stuck with you, you’ve never seen anything like it. It was both beautifully crafted yet it gave you a small chill of danger and mystic. It was probably made for this purpose of the show.
No elemental magic of those who wielded visions, but instead a tightrope thinly strung between reality and fantasy.
The stage was elevated but after climbing up the stairs onto the polished stage. Lyney beckoned you to come up next to him. You shuffled closer, both your hands behind your back fidgeting in a nervous manner.
The spotlight was now back onto Lyney and Lynette and now you as well.
“ Might I know the name of the new assistant I’ll be working with temporarily?” He asked as he now faced you. Lynette came to his side, her violet eyes glazing over you with relaxed attentiveness.
You felt your mouth become a bit dry. “ I’m [Name].” You spoked normally.
Lyney bowed, taking off his tophat bringing it close to his chest.
“ It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, dear [Name]” He bounced back up, flipping his hat back onto his head.
You shifted on your foot and that seemed to have caught the attention of the magical duo.
“ Hmm, are you perhaps nervous?” He asked. “ It is quite alright. Whenever the light is trained on you, the feeling of stage fright comes at you like the onslaught of tidal waves.” He said, in a non projecting voice. He still sounded loud enough for the audience to hear, but his words weren’t exaggerated in a way to make you feel queasy. Instead, it sounded like he was cheering you on, a little push of confidence he would share with you.
Maybe you were overthinking it. He is a performer so its his job to turn up the charm towards the audience.
Lynette had subtly sent you a reassuring little smile. She walked up next to you and stood by you now.
“ Perhaps, you may just have some butterflies in your stomach. It happens to the best of us!” He spoke. His gloved hand came up to you.
“ May I have what’s in your side pocket?” His eyes shifted down to your right pocket. Confused, you reach down into your pocket and feel around. There was a smooth and flat object that you didn’t remember having there, so you slipped it out.
In your hand was a playing card. It wasn’t an ordinary playing card. It looked to be one of the card props that belonged to the two Magicians. Figuring he wanted it back; without you having the faintest Idea of how it got there in the first place; you handed it to him.
He grabbed the card and raised it up to his face to inspect it.
“Aha! Just as I thought. You had made a bundle of these pesky little butterflies.” He slipped the card back to his palm. He twirled back to face you with a triumphant smile as if he’d found a treasure chest. “ Fear not, for I will rid you of this troubling kaleidoscope!”
With that being said, he tossed the card over your head.
Or at least, a zipping card was what you were expecting.
Instead, a small little tornado of little butterflies escapes from Lyneys hand. They fluttered around you in a tunnel-like pattern.
Completely forgetting about the audience, you craned your hand up and stared in awe. Looking closely, some butterflies had little trails of violet shimmer. The butterflies themselves didn't seem to be real butterflies. On some you managed to see the wings to be made out of the back of playing cards.
The butterflies dispersed out onto the crowd, until each one vanished without a trace.
“Now then, are you feeling better?” Lyney asked, both hands on his hips.
You nodded with a smile on your face. The small pit of nervousness was now reduced to a grain.
“Wonderful! And, it seems as if you have magic in you yourself, what luck!” Lyney exclaimed. Lynette all the while silently side eyed her brother and his antics.
“Now then if you may follow Lynette, she will guide you to this next trick or a trio.” he smiled.
Lynette had raised a hand to you in order to take it. You complied and took her hand as she led you behind the curtain.
“ Are you okay? I know Lyney can be a bit over the top, but if at any point feeling bad, let us know.” Lynette spoke calmly to you.
“ I’m alright now. I just wasn't expecting to get picked.” You said honestly.
Lynette nodded. “ It's like that for most who get chosen.”
She guided you towards a little box which was decorated with a little four pointed gold star in the center. The box was relatively small, reaching from the ground to knee level
“ When they take the box you’ll have to stand on it. I’ll stand in my own box next to you. Just follow Lyney’s instructions.” She said,
“Also, brace your feet after the curtain falls.”
You listened closely and nodded.
“Alright. Got it.”
Lynette hummed.
Behind the big red curtain you heard the crowd laugh and clap.
“And now for the anticipated trick, shall I have my two assistants step back into the light?”
Lynette and you came back onto the stage. Again in the limelight, you noticed the two boxes parallel to each other.
“ For this next trick, both my assistants shall switch their places before your very eyes.” Lyney spoke calmly.
“But wait a moment. This is a simple trick one could accomplish by simply walking across the stage to the other boxes. This trick is sounding more like a runway show than magic.” Lyney sighed in defeat. In a quick one eighty mood switch, Lyney perked up and raised his chin high.
“ But no, dear spectators in the crowd. This trick shall be done with neither of my assistants leaving the confines of their one by one area!” Lyney exclaimed, flapping his little side cape in the process.
Lynette turned and gave you a look, a very specific look. You took it to get on the box and you walked over to the one closest to you.
“ Now then, a little tent shall fall on top of both of them. Switching places without jumping, walking or running is a lot more exhausting than it sounds.” As soon as he said that, above you began to descend a festive red tent.
It slowly descended until the dark velvet of the inside tent obscure your vision of the crowd and them of yourself. You could only hear the echoing voice of Lyney as the crowd was now fully silenced in anticipation.
The words of Lynette rang in your mind, as you looked down to your feet.
“ For you see, the most can happen within the blink of an eye.”
You felt the box underneath you dip slightly. Barely enough time to even gasp, you had fallen through the solid box beneath you. Quickly you bent your knees and positioned yourself to be able to absorb the momentum of your fall.
Once landing soundly, you looked up to see how you had fallen. In the ceiling was a rectangular indentation of a trapdoor.
You heard a ‘psst’ to your right. There you say Lynette making a quick hand gesture to switch places; motioning to you and the spot beneath her feet.
Speeding over to her, you took little but key notice in your new surroundings. The walls were barren, the air had slight dust, and light from the stage lights barely made it through the miniature nooks and crannies of the floorboards. You were underground.
Once getting to where lynette last stood, you waited. Looking around where you stood there was a small ladder behind you.
Suddenly a similar trap door like the one where you initially stood, swung open.
Taking this as a new signal, you climbed onto the ladder trying to make as little noise as you could. Once above ground, the trap door that was once open shut, making the ground below you stable enough to stand on.
“ As such, a walk across this stage could be reduced down to none!”
You heard a harsh step down onto the floor followed by a snap of a finger.
The tent around you was pulled back up at lighting speed leaving you stunned in place. The crowd ahead was looking back and forth between the place where you once were and to where you are now. A roar of whistles and claps was heard.
Looking to where you once were, stood Lynette waving at the crowd. The same stoic expression on her face.
Lyney came skipping up to your side.
“ How are you feeling dear [Name]? I hope you aren't too disoriented by the little trip you took.”
You looked at him, he had a proud grin on his face. The light shown down was overshadowed by the brim of his top hat. And yet, his eyes and distinguishable teardrop mark on his right cheek made you feel all sorts of flustered all over again.
Then again you noticed just how packed the Opera is. You had forgotten momentarily that there was an audience. The showers of cheers came down like a bolt of lightning striking the still water.
“I’m fine, just a bit perplexed.” You shook your head trying to process what had just happened in what felt like a fraction of a minute.
“ Oh my, it seems you may have been slightly shaken when vanishing from one spot to the other.” He hummed.
“ That's it! I shall make it up to you! But I’ll have to get you back to your original box.” He said tapping his curled up hand onto his open palm.
He stood up onto the tips of his toes, as from your height atop the box managed to put you at a larger distance from him. Figuring he might tell you something , you leaned down slightly.
“ When the tent drops on you once more, close your eyes. Don’t open them until you hear me say, Hat. Trust me, I’m sure this trick will put a blinding smile on your face.” He said quietly, a hand placed by his mouth blocking it from the audience ahead.
You weren’t sure what he meant or what would happen but somehow, you trusted him. Maybe it was his pretty face, charming personality, or simply because a famous and professional performer.
A little breathy chuckle escaped him before he leaned away and waltzed back to the front and center. Something about him smiling and laughing made your heart almost pop.
You internally battled these pestering thoughts; You were just starstruck! A celebrity crush, don’t let it get to you. Especially in front of a massive crowd watching your every move!
You took some short breaths in and faced ahead onto the wall behind the audience. You didn’t want to let this confusing feeling consume you.
“And now, one final trick before our amazing temporary assistant bids adieu.” He sighed. From his chest he pulled out a white handkerchief he blew into. The crowd laughed at his little mopping gag.
“ It was a pleasure to have you on stage with us, [Name].” He said before swiping the used hanky away. It disappeared into red and white sparks into the air.
The tent above you descended once again, and the moment you found yourself in the shaded confines you closed your eyes. You could only listen to what was happening around you.
“Now then, why don’t we send our new friend off with a grand finale?”
The surrounding noise of the crowd murmuring came through as buzzing. You felt the ground once more give out underneath you. Holding in your breath you prepared for what may have come next.
Something, or someone caught you. You felt the sudden mass underneath you, and suddenly there was a small breeze passing into your face. Your eyes squeezed shut the entire time.
Suddenly, you felt your feet touch a solid floor. You stood up, the person letting you go as you stabilized yourself.
“ And so, they shall appear where they once were at the drop of a hat!”
You heard it. Cracking open one eye you see once again a velvet curtain of a tent. Blinking, adjusting to the light, the tent was pulled up.
This time there was some cheer for a few seconds. The sudden Huhs? And murmurs slowly began to take a hold of the audience. Curious as to the mood shift you look around you.
Lyney, no longer wearing his signature tophat that had been left sitting on the floor.
Where Lynette was supposed to be, she was no more. Instead, there was a small top hat lying top down on the box.
Lyney, surprised, went over to the hat.
“Lynette? Oh Lyneeette? Where did you vanish off to?” He took the hat and looked inside of it, as if his sister were inside the hat.
You were slightly puzzled at first. Where on Teyvat could she have gone? Your doubts were suddenly clouded by an obvious truth.
This had to be part of the show.
So you kept your eyes on the male twin, anticipating what he will do next.
Giving up in calling out to his sister, still holding onto the small hat in his hands, he walked over to where you stood.
“ It seems that she won’t show herself unless we make her appear out of this hat. [Name], if you would.” He then extended the small hat in my direction.
You delicately grabbed the brim area closest to you. Lyney let go, and you looked inside the empty hat. The material felt slightly heavy but the intricate seamless pattern woven into the pitch black fabric made you closely look at it.
You heard a small tapping noise, you looked back to the magician as he tapped the back of his hand. Putting two and two together, you quickly flip the hat upright.
You mimicked Lyney’s motion on the hat’s top about three times.
The first tap, colorful feathers floated to the ground.
The second tap, petals of flowers twirled on their way down.
The final tap, a deck of prop cards spilt out and crashing against the stage floor with clicks and claps.
“Looks like she isn’t in there.” Lyney quipped. You were once again thrown into utter confusion. The comedic way the crowd gasped after one object came after another object from the empty hat. At some point the reactions of surprise slowly turned into snickers and giggles of amusement.
Lyney placed a hand on his hip and scratched his chin. “ Try doing it again with the hat upside down. Maybe, a different approach will convince her to come out.”
So, you turn the hat over. Sneakily taking a small peak inside, and as you suspected it was empty.
How does he pull these things off? Seriously! How?!?
Replicating your previous action, you tapped the brim.
A small puff of smoke and confetti made you step back. Out of the hat a cat sprung!
Or was it a cat?
It was a big cat face attached to a coiled spring.
It was cute! It had the signature toothy grin the show’s mascot had, yet it had it turned upside down in a frowny face. One eye has a teal star and the other has a teal teardrop. It even had a little bowtie making it a very fashionable cat creature.
It turned to face you as its ears twitched. You’re eyes locked with its own strange one and you found yourself in a staring contest….with the giant cat head on a spring of all things.
“ Oh dear, it looks like Bogglecat seemed to have answered instead of Lynette” Lyney laughed.
Tip Tap Tip Tap
You and Lyney turned to face Lyney’s hat that had just shook slightly on the floor.
Poof!
The hat had blasted up into the air and below the hat there was Lynette. Slightly obscured by the turquoise colored fog.
“ Here I am.” Lynette spoked up.
Grabbing the brim of Lyney’s hat she tipped it and bowed before the audience. The audience clapped and some people even stood up from their seats.
The Bogglecat in the hat leaped from your hands and jumped over towards the spotlight where Lynette was. Lyney came running over to you and carefully grabbed your now free hand.
“ C’mon, the audience is waiting for the final bows.” He hushed at you with that permanently charming smile of his. His pale blonde hair bounced along as he urged you to join him and his sister. With no reason to refuse, you ran along with him. You felt the corner of your mouth curl up in a giddy smile. Now unafraid of the public you stood in the bright lights with your chest held high.
Lynette tossed Lyney’s hat into the air, landing it perfectly on Lyney’s head. The cat in the hat jumped right into Lynette's hand. Once she caught it, she twirled it around in her hand like a skilled juggler. The cat suddenly vanished inside the hat, and the small hat now was held against her head.
“ This has been Lyney and Lynette’s Magic show! Thank You all for watching!” The three of you held hands; Lyney at the center, Lynette to his right, and you to his left. Lifting your hands up, you three did a dramatic bow. This audience applauded one final time for the performance. It was the loudest applause you had heard during your time in the Opera Epiclese.
Slowly people had started to leave the theater, with the front entrance reopened many people had started to trickle out into the lobby. This left fewer and fewer people in the main room, the Opera house becoming
You were preparing to step down the stage staircase until you heard someone call out to you.
“ Wait, [Name]! If you could spare a moment?” It was a voice you had quickly grown familiar with.
The top hat with the plum colored ribbon, the pale blonde tuffet that covered just above his right eye, and that teardrop marking beneath the same right eye. Lyney came speedily towards you, his sister Lynette following a bit behind. Unlike him, she calmly walked over and that stoic expression on her face felt a bit more done than what you had seen.
“Hm? What is it Mister Lyney?” You stopped and asked politely. Looking over the male twin you glanced at his sister “Miss Lynette?”
“That was a splendid performance you made on stage! You went along just swimmingly with our act.” Lyney gushed.
Once again you felt flustered. Out of all things, a professional magician complimenting you on a magic trick? You scratched your cheek.
“ I was just following you guys. Really, if anyone should be taking compliments it is you two!” You spoke with enthusiasm. “ The way Miss Lynette pulled out the items right off the cards, or when you made my ‘ stomach butterflies ‘ disappear. It really was a treat to see!” You felt your face getting a bit warmer as you continued to spill your excitement into words.
“ This will definitely be a nice memory I won't be forgetting any time soon!”
Lyney chuckled and even Lynette’s eyes grew slightly larger with interest.
“ You’re too kind!” Lyney chuckled, his pale face getting the slightest bit pink in the cheeks. “ I don’t believe I’ve seen your face in our crowd before. Are you maybe a tourist coming from a distance to see our show?”
You nodded. “ I am as a matter of fact. I don’t get out much to say the least.” You confessed.
“ I’ve heard about your magic show for some time now, traveling groups have brought it up time and time again. Fontaine was my next destination so I took the opportunity to come see it myself.”
You smiled gently. “ This was my first legitimate magical performance I had the fortune of attending. Not to mention getting randomly selected to participate! Thank you for the fun time, Mister Lyney and Miss Lynette.”
Lyney and Lynette listened with great interest.
“ I see. Thus, making this show a memorable experience for you was all the more rewarding then.” Lyney took off his hat and brought it to his chest.
“We are both happy to have put a beautiful smile on your lovely face!~” Lyney very gently lifted your hand. Bringing it close to his face, he placed a small almost ghostly peck.
Okay. Now you definitely felt your face may have caught on fire.
Lyney might have noticed your sudden flustered face. The sneaky magician sent a very brief wink with a smile. Not just any smile. This smile had a more feline nature to it; as if he enjoyed seeing such a reaction from you.
He lowered your hand back down, and flipped his hat back onto his head. That cat-like smirk was nowhere to be seen anymore. Innocently smiling at you, he laughed. It sounded slightly nervous.
“ Well, if you will be around Fonaine for a while longer, find us by the Aquabus station. We might just have spare time to show you around!”
Slipping your hand behind your back, you tried to reply to his friendly invitation.
“ Mhm! Aquabus station. Go it!” you spoke in broken segments.
Oh dear, maybe it's time you’d step outside for some fresh air.
“ I think I should get going now. Who knows how long the people traffic is in the lobby now. It was great meeting you. Your cat mascots are cute and now I shall leave” You had begun to word vomit as you were shuffling away.
“ Bye bye!”
Facing away from the magic duo, you speed walk down onto the carpeted floor. Not daring to look back, you heard the sound of an amused giggle and an exasperated sigh.
“ Are you proud of yourself? You almost made them faint with your antics.” Lynette tipped the back of Lyney’s hat. It fell forward and off but he had quickly caught it before it hit the ground.
“ Hey, I just wanted to make evening a little more magical is all. It was the most I can do from withholding them back from leaving"
"Right. And you had to tease them until they were red in the face."
Lyney stared at his sister for a moment, until he thought.
He felt a small hitch of embarrassment in his chest realizing something.
"I- Uh, didn't go to far with the card letter, right?" He nervously asked.
Lynette sighed and shook her head.
"Brother, most of the time you don't even need the spotlight to be over dramatic."
Once you were outside and looking up at the sky. The skies were different in every spot you had been. Here in Fontaine, you could barely see the twinkling stars.
As you sighed contently, you made your way over to the hotel you had planned to stay in for the time. As you shifted you felt something shift alongside you in your sleeve. It was cold and smooth.
Surprised, you dug into your sleeve.
It was a playing card. A prop playing card.
“ I hope you had a magical Evening, [Name]. Meet me by the bench near the potted flowers by the station at noon tomorrow. If you show up, best prepare for I still have tricks up my sleeve that will leave you dazzled! “
There was a little doodle of a toothy grinning cat.
A/N: Should I make a part two? Idk maybe. EDIT: PART TWO HERE
#i wrote fanfiction because I can nothing is stopping me from expressing my sheer love and happiness for this little magic man#genshin impact#genshin impact x reader#genshin lyney#genshin lyney x reader#fontaine#lyney and lynette#lyney x reader#lyney genshin#genshin imagines#genshin oneshots#genshin fluff#fluff#genshin fanfic#fontaine siblings#lynette#lyney
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By far one of my favorite things about the way Disco Elysium handles politics is that Libertarianism is treated as an absolute joke. Like the game is obviously sympathetic towards communists, but there are elements of sympathy towards the moralists and fascists as well. Not sympathy in the sense of “oh can’t we all just get along, we’re all human” BS, but sympathy in the sense that you are able to understand a persons thought process that would lead them to embrace moralism or fascism. Even if that thought process is deeply flawed, and leads to horribly off kilter conclusions, going through the centrist and fash quests gives you meaningful insight into the appeal of those ideologies.
But Ultraliberalism? The game just laughs at you, repeatedly and mercilessly. As it should, you’re a cop so poor a guy you’ve known for one day has to pawn some fancy hubcaps so you can afford rent, yet all you talk about is your grindset. Your hustle, how you’re gonna disrupt the market and groove your way into the lap of luxury. It’s delusion, utter stark raving madness, and characters treat you as such.
Kim is at a loss for words whenever you crank on your libertarian spiel, Evrart calls you a retard, you have to *trick* the mega-rich light bending guy into giving you mercury mining stocks because he’s simply too perplexed by you. Joyce, last of the self identified Ultras, doesn’t take you seriously. Sileng just goes along with it the same way he goes along with any of the other nonsense you can spout, because he’s on his own hustle, and there is no loyalty among charlatans. The only character who is wholeheartedly onboard with the money engineering and the visionary wave making lifestyle is literally named IDIOT DOOM SPIRAL.
But you see, all these things are just incidental, where the game makes it most potent jab at libertarians is when the vision quest stops. Notice I said *stop* not *end*. The communist quest line ends with a Rhetoric check in order to ask The Most Important Question about Communism. The fascist quest has you look yourself in the eye with an Endurance check to see if you can stomach the truth about yourself and your Vöws. The moralist quest ends with a heart wrenching Empathy check as you beg the iron grey and soulless enforcers of the status quo to please god help this district before war breaks out in the streets. There’s real personal stakes for Harry in all these disparate paths he can walk, what does Ultraliberalism get?
You and Kim look at a statue covered in tinsel and disco balls, Kim asks you why you went through with all this, and no matter what response you pick he’s like “Right, yeah, okay. Anyway, let’s finish the case.”
That’s it, no grand moment of pathos, no red Savoir Faire skill check to see if you really are the baddest hustler in the neoliberal hood after all. It’s completely limp, flaccid, lackluster. The game treats all the effort you put into this as exactly what it is: sad, cringe fantasies of a poor old man who’s huffing copium over the embarrassed millionaire mythos.
Disco Elysium doesn’t give libertarianism a poignant, profound conclusion because it’s an ideology undeserving of such treatment. It’s a hyper-capitalist cult mentality of toxic positivity and confirmation bias, a way for desperate people to trick themselves and other chumps into thinking they can bootstrap their way into wealth and prestige. It goes past wishful thinking into pure delirium, the game doesn’t engage with it seriously because it doesn’t have to, the only people who sincerely believe any of its tenants are morons and the clowns who sucker them.
#disco elysium#politics#this one is a tad more mean spirited than the last#I just really hate libertarians they’re so nauseatingly obnoxious#it’s a shame disco came out before NFTs were the latest trend those mooks glommed onto#imagine the kind of jokes we could’ve gotten out of Harry trying to send monkey jpegs over the radiocomputer
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The Self-Aware Player of Harry Du Bois
It's fascinating to me to think about how satire is used as the 'touch grass' or 'be fucking for real' genre. Oftentimes it's making fun of tropes/conventions by humorously contrasting them with reality, which is exactly what Disco Elysium is doing with the RPG!
It goes hand in hand with the idea of RPGs as escapist power fantasy. RPGs are often thought of as the ultimate self-insert fantasy by its detractors or worst players, ahem looking at all those DND horror stories about entitled mangsty murderhobos.
One of the most infamous criticisms of Disco Elysium is its lackluster combat.
ID A screenshot of a random forum discussion post by dungeon master Zed Duke of Banville. It reads: "Disco Elysium has neither combat nor exploration, and therefore is missing two of the three fundamental components (or sets of components) that define the RPG genre." End ID
The game has essentially bordered off your ability to make Harry into a power fantasy murderhobo because you just are physically unable to equip an longsword or cuisse to murder your average citizen on the street of Martinaise.
But even on a less mangsty level, it subverts a lot of the basic expectations of RPGs.
Like the encounter with the racist lorry driver! You never get the ability or quest to change his mind, you only choose how you react to him.
Where other RPGs might let you act as the white savior or the white knight of chivalric romance, no questions asked, you're changing the minds of everybody who's wrong so we can all get along, Disco Elysium really makes you confront your ability to whiteknight, makes you confront if whiteknighting is even helpful, and why you wanted to whiteknight in the first place.
It’s part of the fun/humor experience of Disco Elysium that you at first expect to solve the world’s problems with a couple quests and lines of ‘good’ dialogue and then get socked in the faced with the fact that yeah, you can’t do much, you’re one person, what did you expect, asshole? Cuno doesn't fucking care!
By subverting our RPG expectations, it forces us to become more aware that these expectations even exist and how they fall short of reality. Yet, despite this subversion, the world of Disco Elysium feels so much realer to us.
ID a screenshot of Disco Elysium dialogue YOU - "Don't call it a dump, you've made it nice and cosy here." NOVELTY DICEMAKER - "Yeah." She stares out of the window, not really hearing your words. "Or maybe it's the entire world that's cursed? It's such a precarious place. Nothing ever works out the way you wanted." "That's why people like role-playing games. You can be whoever you want to be. You can try again. Still, there's something inherently violent even about dice rolls." "It's like every time you cast a die, something disappears. Some alternative ending, or an entirely different world...." She picks up a pair of dice from the table and examines them under the light. End ID
Like, Neha is highlighting this little meta element of how you can stack your Harry in any RPG to pursue a certain ending or situation, but the actual outcome is still influenced by a dice roll out of your control.
A lot of the satirical humor in Disco Elysium comes from the absurdity that you can do everything right or everything wrong, and the dice can still fuck it up or save it for you—not just for things like high-fantasy attacks, but mundane things like remembering your name.
The dice are, at their core, about how RPGs aren't just for the control fantasy, of winning high-fantasy battles, but also can represent life as it is, mundane and uncontrollable.
Similarly, Harry is clearly written—complete with all the 'lore' that this would entail—to couch his RPG protagonist nature in the real.
If RPG characters are blank slates? Let's give ours amnesia! Need fast travel?! Kim teases the 41st Precinct for constantly running everywhere by calling it the Jamrock Shuffle. He needs to have deep and intimate conversations with everyone, even when they're strangers? Yeah, that's so weird we gave him the name 'Human Can-Opener,' and everybody remarks on his uncanny manipulation skills.
It's commenting on difference between controlling an RPG avatar and navigating in a human body.
As Kurvits said: “In reality we do not have control, or complete control, of our minds. Just like our body, it is something that we give-not even commands wishes to, and we hope it's gonna do it. We hope it's not gonna break down, we hope it's not gonna rebel against us.”
In one type of RPG fantasy, we don't even question our total control and even assume the joy is from the control.
But in Disco Elysium, we lack control and find joy in it anyway. That is the fun of the game making us, the players, 'self-aware' about its RPG elements, and it especially resonates with anybody not able-bodied, anybody neurodivergent.
#disco elysium#metas#My thoughts#harry du bois#harrier du bois#human can-opener#jamrock shuffle#yeah so im reposting my meta because i worked really hard but i feel like it was too long for anybody to appreciate :')
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Hello. I've been binge reading your meta post an I loves all of it. I have one question, though I don't know if you had the same question or not. If you had I'm sorry feel free to ignore this but if you hadn't, this is my question. Many people said Adrien as sentimonster is a good plot and the other said it's also good metaphor for abuse children. But what do you think about the senti plot? Is it necessary? And what do you think the writer is trying to achieve with the plot if Adrien doesn't even allowed to know about what he is?
Thank you! I'm glad that you've been enjoying my rambles! I don't think I've touched on those aspects of the sentiplot, so here goes!
Is it Necessary/What's The Goal?
I don't think that the sentiplot is even remotely necessary. My two cents is that it reads like something that was added relatively last-minute in order to add some cheap drama to draw the plot out because they didn't have enough content to organically fill seven seasons. Part of the reason that I'm comfortable saying that is because we've seen the writers do this type of move many times before. I don't wanna get too into the weeds on this, but a good example is the love triangles with Luka and Kagami.
Luka and Kagami are never treated as real alternate love interests. They're just road blocks on the love square highway that allow for seasons three to end on a cliff hanger. The fact that season four opens on two episodes meant to reassure the audience that Lukanette and Adrigami are doomed to fail is proof of this. No one is actually supposed to ship those ships. There's no Team Luka vs Team Adrien. It's just cheap drama.
The other reason that I feel comfortable calling the sentiplot cheap shoehorned drama is because the sentiplot has no teeth. A big reason why I refused to believe that it was going to be a thing was because it's an extremely serious plot that has no place in a Y-7 show. The wielder of raw destruction can have his free will overwritten at any time! The show has made jewelry theft a common teenage past time! This is bad!
And yet, once it's introduced, it goes nowhere. Gabe gives the most lackluster commands humanly possible and Nathalie undoes every one of them before they have a chance to meaningfully impact the plot. The biggest fallout of the sentiplot was that the Adrienette kiss got delayed a bit. How terrifying.
If the sentiplot had the weight it deserved, then it would have destroyed Adrientte in a big, dramatic fashion. Gabriel would have commanded Adrien to date Kagami and Tomoe would have done the same for Kagami re Adrien. But that's too serious, so we don't even get Gabe telling Adrien to break up with Marinette. He just tells Adrien to not see her and Marinette never has any clue that something went wrong there because Nathalie undoes the command two minutes later.
The Sentiplot's and Emilie
You may have read the previous section and thought, "But wait, doesn't the sentiplot give an explanation for why Emilie used the peacock? Didn't we need that?"
No, we didn't. Felix's little play and Gabe's memory of the night they used the peacock both heavily imply that no one knew that the peacock would kill you. It's why Felix exists! His father did not willingly give his life to have a kid and neither did Emilie. It was an unknown side effect.
Imo, it would have actually been better if Emilie hadn't used the peacock for such obviously selfish reasons. I mean, is anyone really saying, "Oh no, the rich lady used forbidden magic (and possibly killed some people?) to get a designer baby, then faced unexpected consequences! How awful for her! She didn't deserve that!"
Wouldn't it have been a far more interesting and complex story if Emilie used the peacock because she wanted to help someone else? If she was an unambiguously good person who suffered for doing the right thing or even just a morally gray thing? Wouldn't that make Gabriel's quest feel more righteous and less like a temper tantrum by a rich, entitled white guy who used his wealth in a morally dubious manner and paid for it?
The Sentiplot as an Abuse Metephor
I don't think that the writers meant for the sentiplot to be an abuse metaphor. In fact, I sincerely hope they didn't because it's a terrible one! Or, at least, a depressing one.
Abuse - especially childhood abuse - is something that sticks with us. A lot of victims will be forever scared by what they went through. But just because they bare scares doesn't mean that they're trapped by their abuse and can never break free. This is true even if the abuse caused mental health issues like PTSD or CPTSD, conditions that can never be cured because you know what they can be? Controlled and mitigated to the point where the victim is no longer ruled by their condition.
There's also the fact that abuse victims - especially child abuse victims - can and often do reach a point where their abusers no longer have any power over them. I have personally seen a child abuse victim go thought the process of realizing that their parent is just another adult now. All the power that the parent once held is gone. The child doesn't depend on them for food and shelter anymore. If the abuse starts up again, then the child can just get up and walk away.
That's not true for a sentimonster. Sentimonsters don't grow up and get more agency/power. At any point, their abuser can get ahold of their amok and override their free will, taking away the sentimonster's freedom even if the sentimonster is on another continent! There is no means of true escape.
No abuse victim will ever be that powerless. Abuse victims can escape abuse and they do have true free will. Sentimonsters will always be sentimonsters.
Is the Sentiplot Good?
No. It's too serious for a kids show. In fact, now that it's canon, here's my two cents: all of the sentikids are massive liabilities to the team who need to give up their miraculouses immediately because they can never be truly trusted. Felix has shown us time and time again how easy it is to steal an amok and replace it with a fake, so we must always assume that the sentikids are compromised because to assume otherwise is to invite the miraculouses to fall into the wrong hands. It's just not worth the risk to trust a senti.
Along the same lines, the love square should never be canon unless Marinette gives up Guardianship because Adrien is a liability to the safety of the miraculouses even if he didn't wield on himself. The only way to get around this issue is to use the wish to make the sentikids human, but Gabe failed to even do that one kindness for his son, so here we are. Season six will either drive this point home by having Lila use the amoks to mess with Adrien or it will drop the sentiplot forever, proving just how cheap and poorly thought out it was.
Other issues I think I've already addressed in other posts, but that are still a problem that make the plot bad:
a sentimonster's creator defines the sentimonster's worth, thus there being no issue with Felix making sentimonsters and then killing them or the heroes destroying them, but it would somehow be wrong if we did the same thing to any of the sentikids
any command you give a sentimonster can be overwritten and sentimonsters can't resist even if they know they're being controlled, so there's truly no hope to free them
giving your leading lady anxiety issues and a boyfriend whose free will is constantly in jeopardy is cruel and unusual punishment
an insane number of lore issues like why is it impossible to destroy other sentimonsters, but Adrien can be destroyed in akuma fights? Cataclysms are pure destruction! It makes no sense that akumas can do what a cataclysm can't. And is Adrien able to die a natural death? What happens to his amok when he does? Will his children be able to be controlled by his amok too since they're part of him?
the lore around Gabe & Emilie finding the miraculous makes no sense and should not be possible. That's another rant, though.
#senti salt#ml writing salt#ml writing critical#ml season 5 salt#adrien deserves better#this plot is only suited to an angsty or bittersweet ending#I don't know how you can hope for a happy ending when Adrien is forever a slave
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Once again trying to talk about Themes™ and probably just saying the obvious again BUT
Baldur's Gate 3 is a game about freedom of choice, both mechanically and thematically
Not in the "Your choices matter! (not really)" way most game market themselves on
But in a "The fact you can choose matters" way that is much spicier.
Like that's literally the core driving point of the plot. You shouldn't be able to choose, you shouldn't be free, but you are and now it's up to you to fight to maintain that freedom, and decide for yourself what to do with it
(funnily enough this is also why this game doesn't hit my trigger, because all the mind control is completely opt in)
And every single companion reinforces that in one way or another.
Gale freeing himself from his past and choosing who he wants to be now, without Mystra.
Astarion killing Cazador and stopping generations of abuse in their vampiric line
Karlach escaping Zariel and choosing to make the most of the life she still has
Wyll breaking his contract with Mizora so he can choose for himself what he fights for
Lae'zel and Shadowheart both unlearning years of indoctrination at the hands of their messed up cults
And if you're playing Dark Urge you get to reinforce this again with your conflict about trying to determine for yourself who you want to be, when every fiber of your being demands that you be a monster
It's not even just the main characters. Like how often do you get sent on quests to free people who have been imprisoned or enslaved.
Volo, Halsin, the deep gnomes, the tieflings, Aylin, Volo again, Minsc, Orpheus, even Hope itself
Hell, one of the main bad guys is the chosen champion of the God of Tyranny and is using a magical mind control mcguffin to control a giant magical mind control GIGA BRAIN!
I guess that's why it feels so obvious. Every last bit of this game is used to forward this theme of freedom vs control, but it's this consistent reinforcement that makes it so good for me
And then of course this all comes to a grand conclusion towards the ending. My own feelings about the ending's execution and the parts I felt were a bit... lackluster, can wait for a different day
But thematically speaking they managed to end with a real bang, and it's all thanks to the narration
Because whatever decision you make, that woman sells it. No matter what you want your ending to be, she will fucking deliver it in just as triumphant a way as any other
BG3 doesn't want you to leave the game thinking "did I make the right choice?" it wants you to feel like whatever you choose WAS the right choice for you
I literally had my character turn into a squid and them kill themself and she still managed to make that a glorious moment to finalize my story on.
"After so many deaths in the name of your father, this one is just for you"
(god so many lines from the durge playthrough have my brain in a vice grip)
And speaking of daddy dearest, the only endings that come across as being bad, are the ones where you surrender your freedom.
When you surrender to the Absolute, when you do as Bhaal commands you, when you give the crown to Raphael
The entire game is one giant conflict between your freedom to self determine vs more powerful beings and their drive to take absolute control
And so the only way for your story to end "badly" is if you surrender to those powers and give up
...so yeah... that's all I got
Baldur's Gate 3 is a good game
Could use some work here and there, and my nitpicks could make their own needlessly long post, but it's still really good
Go play it
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We know Dragons Rising is gonna be split into two parts, and I think it's safe to assume that part 1 is mainly gonna focus on World building and introducing Arin and Sora properly into the team, alongside Lloyd and Kai and Nya of course.
And I think it's also safe to assume that Zane, Jay and Cole (and probably Wu and PIXAL) are gonna show up in part 2 or at the very end of part 1.
So that got me thinking, did Quest For the Lost Powers have a hand in this?
Canon wise of course it did, 4 OG ninja get their powers back and all hooray ig
But did it influence the decision of the producers and writers? Mainly in the decion of not including Jay and Cole and Zane (and Wu and Pix) in part 1?
Heck, you could potentially as far as back as crystalized and ask if it also affected that decision?
Because like think about it:
Quest For the Lost Powers gave Zane, Cole, and Jay all small but satisfying stories, Zane Jay especially benefited from this considering how lack luster they were in the wildbrain era compared to Nya, Cole, and Lloyd (Kai is also extremely lackluster but I'm touching on that in a bit)
Nya had an awesome arc in Seabound, Cole had an absolutely fantastic story in MotM, and Lloyd had multiple small but great arcs across the all the wildbrain seasons, well until crystalized at least...
You see, crystalized sorta... Damaged Lloyd's and Nya's arcs, Cole was spared thankfully.
Lloyd's apprehension to accept his father's change and his anger towards his father, while great ideas, were done poorly at best, not to mention the ending where he forgives Harumi (which might I add absolutely Anhiliated his character)
And Nya's status was reduced to a slightly worse Samurai-X that kept being thrown around by all villians and mocked, especially with how they say she's nothing without her powers.
And worse yet the show sorta reinforces this by having her defeat the mechanic using her powers, and calling for backup from marlopia via her powers as well.
So yeah, Crystalized really damaged these 2.
Now, where does Kai fall into this?
Well... Unfortunately for Kai, he's been lackluster since... Season 7? Somewhere around there.
His arc in Season 11 was honestly just sorta sad with how small it was, what we got was great but it also left a lot to be desired.
And his character was only made worse when they made his entire arc within the book another retelling of his S11 arc, this time featuring Skylor.
It didn't help either that the arc itself wasn't great like the S11 one, and it only served to make his character less intertsing.
So you've got 3 characters now, 2 heavily damaged by Crystalized and 1 becoming even less intertsing.
But if you look at the other side, you've also got 3 characters, 2 of them benefiting massively from the book, setting then up for potentially great stories in the future, and 1 of them already being good enough from the start.
And as a writer, you want to improve those 3 previous characters so they're on par with the other 3.
But that suddenly become more difficult when the thing plaguing your show is the lack of change in the status quo, and certain demands having to be met, as orders from the higher ups.
What I'm trying to say is, you have to change stuff up, while also fixing up older messes, and while also working on meeting certain goals set by a higher authority, Lego in this case.
So where do the ninja fall into this?
Personally (only my opinion) I think that the reason the producers and writers behind ninjago chose to not include Jay and Cole and Zane and Wu and PIXAL in part 1 of Dragons Rising, is to give Kai and Nya and Lloyd emergency character development, to try and at the very least fix some of old problems and issues left by Crystalized, in what limited run time you have.
Because aside from fixing up old characters, you also have to set up new ones, and also explain this new world and it's many inhabitants and many areas, and you have to do all of that while also making Lego's set ideas work with the show, or basically make a fancy advertisement for their products work within the universe of the show.
So it's a lot to do.
Technically, you can do all of this while also making Zane and Cole and Jay stick with the team, but it's only gonna make things harder for you and your fellow writers.
And those characters are already great enough, they've got the development they need just for now at least, so it's better to just remove them from the picture for a while, until you've got a stable work frame at least, than you can introduce them later again.
As long as you give a logical in universe explanation as to why they're weren't there in the first place, while also shedding light on what they were doing before being reintroduced.
Kai, Lloyd and Nya need this character development because of how Crystalized and QFTLP left them, otherwise people are gonna be upset with how they're progressing.
But Jay, Cole and Zane?
Not really, QFTLP (and MotM for Cole) has already done wonders for them, they can wait for now in favour of saving other characters from bad writing fates.
Ultimately, do I think this is all exactly what happened?
No, absolutely not.
But in my eyes, to a certain extant in some areas, it serves as a logical explanation as to why the writers and producers of the show made the decision they made.
And you know what?
Even if all of this is wrong, even if all of this is just random rambling and bad theorising, I'm still happy with the decions they've made.
It's a nice change of pace.
Could have it been communicated better?probably.
It didn't help either that in the trailers none of the characters state what happens to Jay, Cole and Zane, or even Wu and PIXAL.
But that was most definitely an intentional move, and you can't really be mad at it in that case, plus this is the first time the team has been this open of us, so let's cut them and Lego some slack.
#ninjago#lloyd garmadon#kai smith#nya smith#cole brookstone#jay walker#zane julien#master wu#pixal borg#This turned into quite the ramble huh...#Well thanks for reading if you did#LGuy rambles
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Reworking Noob
Inspired by this post by @crossyyt. Saying what we're all thinking, Number One Fan was a lackluster episode despite the fact that it furthered what little overarching plot we managed to get out of the end of Season 2.
And it's because of this guy.
Gifs from this post by @atmosiacyclonia
Yeah, Noob. "The fan", and the writers' way of making jabs at both the fanbase and the industry as a whole apparently. Kind of entertaining on a first watch, especially over a decade after the show has ended, but looking at it critically...
He's just kind of a nothing character overall. We didn't need him to get involved in the quest for Warp crystals, he doesn't add anything to the story, he doesn't leave any meaningful impact on the story and yet he gets frozen in the prison crystal in Cyclonia Rising. Anyone could've been in his place and not much would've changed overall.
But I'm a believer that all characters have a use, you just need to find one for them. Noob didn't have much potential, but the potential that he did have feels wasted.
So let's see how he could've been put to better use.
TL;DR: I put him on the reserve team that was mentioned in Talon Academy and then never brought up again. Alternatively he could be a relative of Dark Ace.
Edit: I hit post on this too soon, added more thoughts as soon as I realised this wasn't in my drafts anymore.
First off: remove the meta commentary aspect. Poking fun at fans is bad form and commentary on real-life merch production in a fantasy setting like this is, in my opinion, nonsensical and makes my worldbuilding brain itch.
Second: Let's take a look at this kid's design.
When did y'all notice that Noob has black hair
and red eyes?
I only noticed a year ago.
Remind you of someone?
Allow me to freak out a bit, because
This can't have been an accident, right? What was the intent behind it? As far as I've noticed, these are the only two characters with this specific colouring. What was Nerd Corps trying to tell us??
Ok, freakout over. What are our options?
Noob and Dark Ace are related, and Noob's obsession with the Storm Hawks comes from knowing that he had a relative who was part of the old team.
Possible, but considering how quickly Noob bounced from being a Storm Hawks fan to an Absolute Zeroes fan, I don't think it's likely. If that is the case, then a rewrite of the episode would be needed to show a little bit more loyalty from Noob. I don't know about everyone else, but the jump from one fanbase to another feels like a pattern of behaviour in my opinion. He rotates through special interests on the regular. Nothing against that in a real-life context, but it feels like another mean-spirited jab at fans.
Meta commentary aside, Noob could be rewritten to be a fan of the original Storm Hawks because of this potential relation to them. It'd give us something close to a "real" origins episode if Noob was given a chance to infodump about his old idols. Maybe he dislikes the new team for being "inauthentic", or he doesn't care all that much about them, he's just interested in the Condor; a crucial piece of Storm Hawks history.
As for Dark Ace? Noob could either be unaware that the copilot he might be related to was a traitor (possibly indicating that the Sky Knights tried to cover up the traitor aspect), or he rejects the copilot out of disgust. He's just a traitorous Cyclonian after all and fodder for an identity crisis in Noob if he was anything close to a main character.
In short: Noob could've been used as an exposition device.
Option 2, and my personal take on how Noob can be made useful:
Rewrite him in full and give him a touch more screen time. Put him in Talon Academy for a scene or two, and then have him beg to join the reserve team that Aerrow suggested to Lynn. "Number One Fan" makes good on this suggestion and is about the whole reserve team, not just Noob.
I see this as a two birds, one stone solution. Noob gets to be useful, keeps his character trait as a mega-fan of the Storm Hawks, and that loose end from Talon Academy gets tied up somewhat. As much as I love the show, its episodic writing lead to quite a bit of disappointment. But it just means we get to play with all the elements like dolls.
Let him be an exposition piece for the world in regards to sky knight merchandise, but have it make sense in the context of Atmos. If he really is the only Storm Hawks fan out there (which I find doubtful), why are action figures of the team being made without the Hawks knowing? Either all his figures be handmade, or repurposed from existing figures of more popular teams like the Rex Guardians. Or hell, keep the joke that there aren't any Piper dolls in production, but have it be due to resource scarcity brought in by the war. Or Cyclonis bought every single Piper doll to use as target practise for whatever machine or weapon she's working on.
As I said above, let him be from the Talon Academy. Have him be so enamoured with the Hawks' takedown of this Cyclonian institution that he latched onto them as heroes and then got wrapped up in war propaganda in his efforts to become their number one fan. He's obviously a good few years younger than the team, so have his understanding of the war be incredibly shallow, and maybe give him an arc where he learns from that.
I was going to add more to this a lot more but a misclick or some kind of tumblr goof caused this to he published half-finished instead of saving it to my drafts, so eventually I'll make another post elaborating on these ideas. For now though I'm curious to see what everyone thinks, and their own takes on Noob. Is he a waste of screen time? Did you guys scrap him in your AUs? Did yall forget about him? Let me know.
#op#storm hawks#Add more tags later#storm hawks headcanons#storm hawks lore#sunny's headcanons#sunnyverse headcanons#sunnyverse lore#sunny's storm hawks headcanons#storm hawks headcanon
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as I'm slowly tying up loose ends in my first playthrough (to FINALLY get to play the endgame already lol), I'm growing just a tiny bit sad here that Halsin doesn't really have an act 3 quest. like at all. not even nominally.
sure, his is a central quest of act 2, and pretty much the entirety of his romance is smushed into act 3, so I get how from a gameplay perspective it would probably have felt a bit oversaturated by him if there had also been a personal quest there. especially on top of him being a potential victim for Orin. but still, the way it all is now, the whole arc, it does feel to me a touch... lackluster, emotionally (which I'm sure the Halsin girlies have been saying for months).
Act 3 completes so many great emotional arcs. The reason it's taking me so bloody long to complete everything is because each big quest is... kind of emotionally exhausting. Practically everything you do, it fundamentally rocks someone's whole world, and after each quest, I need a nap to cope.
meanwhile Halsin is just.... chilling. He's there. He's... good. Wants to go to the forest, but otherwise, he's fine.
...... I'm afraid there's no way around it. I'm gonna have to get him kidnapped.
if you can't get organically grown emotional climax, homemade is fine I guess.
#squirrel plays bg3#he can have SOME more emotional trauma. as a treat#and it'll have to be in the sewers to keep Scratch safe too...#sigh for a no-cheesing playthrough? i'll have to metagame a LOT for story purposes#that's one part where i'm probably gonna cheese the roll to intimidate Orin for story purposes#i mean. my boy is gonna be PISSED.#like scary-pissed.#oh it'll be fun#Arvid and Iona were/are worried for Lae'zel; sure; but not blinded by the pure visceral rage of the wild#that game is gonna be different for sure
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I am trying unlock more Minthara dialogues, but I don't know what things she approves.
Hi anon, I'm still early in Act 3. So far I notice she tends to approve things like *spoiler coming*
if the option is take the power for yourself or something similar, take it because she's a conqueror
help the refugees by donating things (really, that got me an inspiration for her) in Act 3
for the dryad thing: the 3 answers are she misses the food, she admires Tav, and let herself be captured
if there is an option to fight or surrender/go to jail (when persuasion isn't available), she prefers fight. If persuasion is there, then go for that first. Basically noble honor system
kill Viconia
she likes it when you impress her (like with the grove)
talk to her after every cutscene of a quest just in case, she usually has a line or two
multiclass her as a bard she has some lines
I'd say Minthara approval is like a mix between Shadowheart and Lae'zel. Another way but may introduce bug is literally edit the approval rating level with mods/ct, but I don't think it will unlock any more dialogue if you're already in a relationship with her tbh.
The game recognizes that you're in a relationship with Minthara after the "I belong only to you" line (don't expect a romance scene there's none which is very lackluster to say the least, she pours her heart out there and not even a hug wth). After that the dryad and the drow twin should recognize you two as a couple, which is how you know. Now if you're already dating someone before (for me it's Shadowheart, my Tav can kiss her anytime), once you agree to be with Minthara, the game will break that relationship and you won't get a chance to talk to that partner (which is very weird because I chose the option that I'd let SH know asdadsas). So when I go talk to Shadowheart, she just went something like "seems your heart has drifted elsewhere, curious." and convo ended, not even a basic "hey I chose Minthara, sorry." So I'm not sure if this is another bug.
#minthara baenre#bg3 spoilers#anon#answered#my girl really got barely any crumbs here#doesn't even have magic/spell chants like a random NPC asdasd#time to go to the kitchen and cook more Minthara x Tav content for myself
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Okay, here are my thoughts on episode six of Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Fair warning, a lot of it is a rant. I love the show, I loved certain scenes, but I have my complaints, like any fan:
Wow, my thoughts are kind of all over the place on this one, so I'll start from beginning to end here.
I'm sorry to all Percabeth shippers, but that "Why do you guys sound like an old married couple" was so cringey and forced. To me, Percy and Annabeth in that moment were mostly having a funny conversation ("no, you died on monday," I mean, come on), and then they're a married couple? Guys, they're twelve. Can we chill on the insistent shipping all the time?
Really? Clarisse? I mean, it's a good fake-out, but the problem is that this deduction truly does make Grover completely useless in this show so far! It'd be fine if they had let him unmask Medusa or save Percy and Annabeth from the Water Park like in the books, but because they gave those roles to Annabeth (who didn't even need to do that stuff to be a valuable character), this now makes Grover completely pointless! There was a part in the episode when Percy says that they can't do this quest without him, and I swear, I just went, Really? That was true in the book, but here, he hasn't contributed a single thing!
The Lotus Hotel? sigh. What a bunch of nothing. In the book AND the movie, they show Percy and the others spending time there, losing focus, until Percy wakes up and goes and warns the others. I don't care how people whine about the movies, they kept the fear-factor up. The Lotus Hotel was a legitimately frightening place, especially when Percy started to realize what was going on. Here? They already know the dangers before even going in, and even then the threat's treated like nothing! The movie actually has the Hotel staff chasing Percy and his friends down to stop them, in this they chase after a guy who we'd never seen before (was he even mentioned at all before that point when Grover goes after him like we're supposed to have known who he was?), and who had run off for no reason. Why had he been trying to escape anyway? It makes no sense!
The moment with Hermes was also, I'm sorry, very lackluster. I still remember Nathan Fillion's hilarious portrayal of Hermes, I still remember his lines and it felt like the Hermes from the books, but this was just... dramatic and serious and edgy and teary-eyed, and it's like... why is everything so serious and dark all the time? The books were fun and funny, you had Lin-Manuel Miranda as Hermes and you didn't take advantage of having him at all. I didn't want him to start singing or anything, that's not what I mean, but LMM's very funny when he wants to be, and you just had him miserable and depressed the whole time, how's that fun?
Also, someone else brought this up, but in the books, they clarify that the reason the gods don't interfere in the lives of their kids is because they're not allowed to because of their own laws. In my opinion, this creates a compromise later for Percy and the gods. It teaches Percy that while he does want his father to be like a normal, mortal dad, that's not who Poseidon is, and the gods recognize the human side of their children and that they do need attention and help every now and then. Not everyone has that picture-perfect relationship with their parents, and it was a good lesson for both child and parent, that these relationships are more complicated than they would initially think and sometimes, you have to find that compromise to make things work and keep your family. Percy eventually recognized this, just as the gods recognized that they do have to be better with certain things.
Now the gods don't interfere because... they just don't know how to be parents. Awesome.
I saw some people talking like, Finally! Pan is mentioned! But I honestly felt like it came out of the blue. Searcher's license? When was that a thing, Grover? This stuff was Grover's entire storyline since the beginning, and here, they finally mention it when there's only two episodes left? Really? Do the writers even care about him, or are they too busy trying to make Annabeth look flawless that they've just completely dismissed his role?
We didn’t need to know about Luke’s mother yet. We really, really didn’t need to about Luke’s mother yet. How much more powerful was it when we EXPERIENCED time with her in the fifth book? At least SHOW her? What impact did they imagine more exposition would do?
That cab ride? Funniest thing I've ever seen, easily the funniest scene of the series so far.
THE SUMMER SOLSTICE IS JUST OVER???? WHAT????? FIRST OF ALL, THAT UNDERWATER SCENE WAS RIDICULOUS, I COULDN'T SEE A FREAKING THING. Second. The deadline, the moment when Percy ran into the gods' meeting just as the final second ticked down and screamed to WAIT, that's just not going to happen? I know I make a lot of comparisons to the movies, but that's because ALL RR does is crap on the movies, and yet THEY actually stayed true to the books' feel, pacing, and intensity. You FELT how important that deadline was, just like the book characters did. You FELT the excitement of every action scene, just like the book characters did. You FELT the colorfulness and playfulness of every lively moment, JUST LIKE THE BOOK CHARACTERS.
Sure, this book adapted more scenes from the actual book, but MOST of the actually important stuff from the books? GONE. It's not fun most of the time, it's exposition and dreary conversations and action scenes that are pushed into the last two minutes. It's not funny, it's serious and miserable. It's not colorful, it's (literally) too dark (to see)!
Say whatever you will about the movies, and I know RR hates them (sometimes, quite unreasonably and meanly, if you ask me, especially for the actors that had loved filming them and loved the characters, like you can lay off for two minutes, okay?), but in terms of which adaptation captured the HEART of the books? Don't get me started.
The movies actually had characters use their POWERS from the very first scene, the movies tried to establish the grandness of the gods, the movies were more concerned with making something bright and colorful than completely true to the books, yes, but if this is RR's ideal adaptation? I'm sorry, but I just thank the gods we AT LEAST have the movies to fall back on for a fun time.
Again, I know some people think you can't critique something and enjoy it, but I do enjoy this series, and I thank the gods that when everything else comes out lacking, AT LEAST we have the main characters to count on. The gods only know that in Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Walker, Leah, and Aryan are the most (and often, ONLY) Percy Jackson things about it.
#percy jackson#percy jackon and the olympians#pjo#this is not anti#it's JUST a clinical critique#don't @ me I will not respond
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My final Hilda episode ranking for all seasons, plus the movie.
S Tier: Most of these should be self-explanatory. The standouts I feel I must explain are The Nightmare Spirit, The Windmill, and The Yule Lads.
The Nightmare Spirit is one of my favorite episodes in the entire series because it introduces the Marra, and has some absolutely spellbinding folklore behind it, as well as some great character development for Hilda and David. I couldn't NOT put it in S tier.
The Windmill and The Yule Lads I feel are two of the more underrated episodes; the former is a superb David centric episode where he ends up being the unlikely hero, and the latter just has some really good folklore behind, and is a unique take on the Christmas special. It also has a very sweet moment between Hilda and David at the end, which makes it even better in my book.
A Tier: These episodes are not as good as S tier, but are still brimming with charm, and thus are a joy to watch. Whether they have some fascinating folklore behind them, some good character development, or some just some funny or otherwise iconic moments (like David standing up to the Marra, or telling off Frida) these episodes are just as infinitely rewatchable as S tier most of the time.
These episodes formed the backbone of the series and kept me watching from beginning to end. They form a key element that is missing from most other cartoons, and made the difference between keeping me entertained... and feeling like the series was being padded out with unnecessary filler, as has been the case with the majority of shows I've watched in the last 15 years.
B Tier: This is more of a matter of personal preference, but episodes in this tier I just found were a bit of a chore to get through.
The Black Hound, I felt, was a lackluster ending to an otherwise amazing first season.
The Draugen wasn't bad, but I always found it to be pretty "meh" compared to the episodes I have in higher tiers.
C Tier: The House in the Woods was just kind of a boring episode, and I have mixed feelings about The Mountain King. My biggest issue with the movie is with Trylla, the mother troll, her warped justification for kidnapping Hilda, and the fact that she almost got Johanna KILLED while hiding the truth from Hilda. Sorry, but I cannot overlook that.
D Tier: Episodes in this tier all had something that held them back, but weren't so bad that I had a hard time watching them from start to finish.
The Troll Circle was a bland and meandering opening to the second season, and it introduced us to Ahlberg, who was at his most annoying in that episode.
The Beast of Cauldron Island had a lot of things I didn't like, such as the continuation of Frida's awful character arc for Season 2, and David being reduced to a useless coward yet again.
Strange Frequencies made all of the characters unlikeable and OOC while focusing too much on the nisse, when it should've focused on Hilda's dad.
F Tier: These are the few episodes in all of Hilda that I consider to be genuinely bad to the point where they're unwatchable.
The Witch kickstarts Frida's awful character arc for Season 2, dumbs down Hilda to make Frida look smarter, strips the Librarian of her mystique from Season 1, and introduces some unlikable and annoying new characters in the form of the Committee of Three.
The Eternal Warriors uses all of it's runtime to make fun of David, reducing him to a useless coward, and giving us some really cringe-inducing scenes when he becomes fearless.
The Jorts Incident is the single worst episode of the entire series, wasting the potential of the tide mice on a forgettable side character and a lazy Ghostbusters homage... while also reducing David to a useless coward yet again!
The Giantslayer is a pointless time travel side quest that portrays the giants as victims even as they're carelessly stepping on people's houses and ruining their entire lives.
#hilda#netflix#series#david#series finale#the mountain king#season 1#season 2#season 3#frida#johanna#alfur#tontu#kaisa
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Octavian and Michael Kahale
I wrote out this post during school on a different device and now I am going to try and relay it as best as I can without like forgetting or whatever,
Let it be known that I was working on this instead of reading TSOA because I got to the Scyros part and I didn’t want to read Deidama(?) and I had to read the cave scene earlier that day after finishing a text.
But anyway, Octavian and Michael. They had a weird and in my honest opinion bad dynamic the two had (not to note the lackluster or contradictory characterization of them) and along with a conversation (can I call it a conversation? Maybe idk) @zazzander (who is amazing go check them out they’re super cool) a while ago when I first talked about Michael Kahale- and I’d want to say my re-imagining of their relationship (that would be canon to my re-imagining of Camp Jupiter in generally; which includes the map I’ve been working on :D)
But anyway Octavian and Michael- the idea that Zaz brought up was to make the two cousins! And I really like that idea because it makes a lot more things make a lot more sense.
Somewhere (or the community agreed? Idk where we believed it but I agree) we have agreed/the books have mentioned (idk) that Octavian is descended from the whole Julius Caesar, Augustus, etc lineage. And I find that an interesting concept. But this makes the family being legacies of Venus (as Julius Caesar claimed himself a descendant of Aeneas, a son of Venus) and this is when I that Michael is from the Venus descendent, he is a millennia old Legacy. (This explains why he doesn’t usually show any powers from what I know of. Even though the Aphrodite/Venus cabin/kids get the shortest end of the stick and I don’t like what Riordan really did with the Aphrodite cabin, or their power sets and like everything-) but it at least makes more sense why he doesn’t show very strong powers (as long as we forget that Frank exists for a second and we go with how I think legacies work. I’ll probably write on that)
But Octavian is from a branch off of that, where sometime much more recently there was a child of Apollo that can be tracked back (I’d say still fairly recent in the scale of generations-) so Octavian can have his much more potent prophecy thing or whatever.
This also makes sense of Michael just showing up at camp rather than Octavian’s father just like spawning into existence at Hawaii, pointing at Michael and going, “Alright kid, your joining the military” (totally not how it went down but like- you get the idea)
They were little buddies over. silly little cousin duo, Michael’s legacy parent chose to go to Hawaii (or maybe the families been out there, though I’d think they’d stay in New Rome) and occasionally Michael would visit over for the holidays (not the other way around because I stand firm by the ‘Octavian has never left Camp Jupiter or New Rome’. His quest to become Centurion probably puts a dent in that but idk- for now that quest in my head is being Terminus’s assistant. Julia *who is totally Octavian’s little sister, anyone who says otherwise is completely entitled to their opinion but I think it’s cute* is just the next in a long line to take up that ‘quest’ it’s really just and excuse by the family to try and get their kids more letters of recommendation, ANYWAYS-)
This still makes them little confidants AND it gives us a good reason to have a Michael Kahale. In this re-imagining, he can have a personality and a narrative function- I’d see it as a character that is genuinely worried for Octavian and doesn’t really know what to do because it’s the legion or it’s Octavian and we get to let Michael have this strong emotional moment at some point (whether that’s at his death *which I personally don’t know if I’m killing off Octavian in the re-imagining, I probably won’t for my biases- but if I do I’m giving him a more reasonable death than the stupid random death they gave him in BoO* or during a moment of weakness or whatever)
And it gives Octavian another person to bounce off of. It gives him someone to interact with so we see a friendlier version of Octavian. So we can see this hesitation and distrust of strangers (which is valid because I too am closed off and awkward and a little rude at times with people I don’t know in real life- please it’s literally just because I don’t know you.) but with Michael we’d get to see a more comfortable Octavian, see him positively interact with someone.
Okay I’m on my way to the airport and just wanted to get this out before I had to get on my flight but that’s all I could think of right now, so uh- let’s hope I get to Cali safely :]
#idk how to tag this#pjo hoo toa#hehe :3#camp jupiter#hoo#pjo octavian#hoo octavian#hoo headcanon#michael kahale#okay bye#I have to go to my grandparents house and I’m honestly just tired
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Undead Unluck ep.5 thoughts
[Don't Ya Wanna See UMA Clothes on Me?]
(Contents: Animation, griping)
Admittedly, I think this was the weakest episode so far, but that's to be expected since this was pretty much entirely a set-up episode and not one that really required too much allocation of budget
I still would have liked a bit more energy to it, though; while Apocalypse had that really cool moment when the Quests were being listed with the stylistic dark flames, Apocalypse himself had pretty stiff movements that, as I am always dreading, just looked like stills from the manga given animation cycles rather than being full bespoke animations
Clothes kind of had that too once his face came out, though I will say I really liked seeing how much difficulty it had forming into a cohesive outfit at first. I really got the feeling that he was trying to properly take shape but just didn't know how to do it
The Union's introduction was also somewhat lackluster, but that might just be because I've been building it up in my head for so long, a weakness that I've been anticipating for the last fouryearsandananime. I think other people won't have this issue, and newcomers especially will probably just accept it at face value as a cool moment where we're meeting the cast that we'll come to know and love later, but I think that the anime didn't quite go as far with making that scene its own as it could have. I liked that we actually got everyone's names and a brief preview of the fact that we don't know what their abilities are yet, but I think there must have been a better way to build hype for them than just...counting them one at a time
What I'm especially disappointed with, though...UMA Eat's intro was really lame!!! Burn was all shadowy, Sean had a little cutscene, Language was a bit more stylized and showed off what the language unification would look like, and we even got a little preview of Unrepair, but...Eat was just...mouths...floating...they weren't even actually chewing the food!!! I wanted the mouths to emerge from the darkness and start voraciously devouring whatever they could find, to show us a bit more than the manga since it's a UMA we'll likely never actually see, but...somehow it gave us less! It's such a minor little gripe, but it's indicative of what I don't like about a lot of anime adaptations - even if it's in isolation and other things took precedence, I still want an anime adaptation to actually bring the material to life! And that felt like the director or the animators or someone decided that that was a moment that wasn't important enough to bring to life!
Sure, it was a tiny moment, and sure, if something else needed the budget something needed to be trimmed down, but STILL! Even if it was just a little chewing motion, that would have been better than the mouths vaguely bobbing up and down! I'll likely forget about it by the time the next episode comes out, and it certainly won't color my interpretation of the rest of the series (not on its own, anyway), but in the moment it's disappointing to see
Oh, I also don't love that Shaft David Pro keeps clearing every non-Negator out of every scene. Andy and Fuuko being alone in a closed restaurant is really strange, and means that Andy can't make a point of ordering a third glass of vodka to represent Gina. Sure, it lets Fuuko cry louder since she doesn't need to be mindful of anyone, and the candlelit dinner is a bit more striking visually, but I feel that something is lost in having every scene take place in wide open, lifeless vignettes
I hate that I have so little good to say about this episode. I don't want to give the impression that I had a bad time, it's just that so few of the good parts were good in a way that was unique to the rest of the series so far, so I don't really feel any need to discuss them. They weren't novel, but the complaints are pretty specific, so I ended up focusing pretty much solely on them
To keep from giving too negative of an impression, I'll close by saying that I think it's good for an episode like this to happen; as a lower stakes, less bombastic episode, the surrounding episodes will feel so much more impactful, and with what's to come, this is a well appreciated chance to breathe
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YAKSHA LORE !!!
spoilers : 2.7 quest stuff in general
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In case anyone is wondering, my favorite part of genshin lore is mostly the Liyue related stuff, yakshas in particular. I love angst, it’s the first thing I look for in game storylines, books, fanfics, characters ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Gives me a nice fuzzy feeling lol The whole story of the yaksha and Xiao’s ✨traumatic✨ life draws me in so easily. I have a whole google doc that’s all just my yaksha theory stuff (a lot that was either confirmed or debunked(?) when I did the quest today lol) BUT that’s not the point! THIS EVENT FILLED SOMETHING IN MY HEART IVE BEEN WAITING SO LONG FOR AH I love the yakshas so this entire event has been a blast knowing what it’s about.
I very much so enjoyed each tiny cutscene, all the characters I never thought would interact interacting. I’m sad Itto and Xiao didn’t have a bigger interaction. I love Itto’s whole big brother vibe towards Xiao and I would enjoy a relationship with them where Itto kinda fills a bit of the hole that Xiao’s yaksha siblings left behind after they died.
I really felt like the whole time Xiao was kinda just over it. He wanted to either save or have closure with Bosacius leaving. He didn’t want his friends (a word I think he’s slowly getting comfortable with once again) to die, so he felt like the easiest solution was to sacrifice himself.
I feel like I shouldn’t be saying this because it’s literally Xiao contemplating death but uh he looks so fucking pretty at this part. The way he looks up, lowkey majestic, I love him.
That aside you can tell he thought for a quick moment, probably more “I wonder if I can do it.” rather than “I wonder if I should sacrifice myself to do it.” Mans do not care about himself and he makes it obvious to everyone.
I really enjoyed the moment when Yelan just went ham on him for even considering to sacrifice himself. She didn’t hold back and didn’t try the whole “bUt PeOpLe WiLL miSs YoU!” shit. She said it like a slap to the face and it clearly got through to him. Your sacrifice isn’t worth it if everybody can’t get out, including you. She even pointed out his whole tough exterior being a cover up. While it’s obvious Xiao is a strong much more elite being than others, despite not being a human, he’s still a person, someone with thoughts a feelings and Yelan indirectly pointing that out did make me appreciate her character a little more. She has an interesting approach with those she cares about and knows she can trust that I can somewhat respect.
For some context, I don’t enjoy Yelan’s attitude, her whole “I’m better than everyone because I have experience and trauma” vibes bothers me, but there are things here and there that make me appreciate the tiny details in her character. I’ve yet to do her story quest so mayhaps I will change my mind if it gives us a bit of a better glimpse into her character.
That also brings me to this. WHEN I TELL YOU I ALMOST SOBBED- Again, I don’t like Yelan, but this look on her face made me b r e a k- She barley knows Xiao, but the thought of losing an ally, someone she recognizes her friends value, makes her crumble. It felt very unusual to see her make that face, even though we the players also haven’t known her very long. Xiao u heart breaker smh
The entire cutscene was fucking gorgeous, I loved every moment (kind of, the red blobs were kinda confusing and I was like bro ok I get it they’re fighting while doing this, move on). Aether animated in cutscenes always makes me happy lol he’s so bouncy and excited, ready to fight. Paimon just chillin cause she don’t know wtf to do. Zhongli saving Xiao actually didn’t happen how I thought or wanted it to,,, I had it spoiled for me that he saved him but the way he saved him was kinda lackluster to me ig. While I do think it was really pretty and well done, still a great way for that scene to end, I was still kind of hoping for a lil more dramatics on Zhongli’s side. I suppose he’s not much of a show off anymore ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I think the whole Xiao’s father figure being Zhongli was in my head and I was like “What? No coming to his aid and heroically rescuing him in the same manner he saved us?
I do think it’s quite poetic to see the way he made no effort to prove it was him who helped other than looking down on Xiao before leaving. I bet he had a tiny smile on his face just as Xiao looked over at him. Xiao’s face looked so sweet. I can’t put a word to the face he made honestly. There was a hint of confusion, disbelief, surprise. Many emotions running thru his tiny little brain. I like seeing him properly animated, it’s nice to see actual expressions rather than the dull face he has as an npc most of the time. I hope we get some sort of scene where we (or even just Xiao) have another interaction about the whole event.
I want to say it’s my favorite part but it’s not lol The story of the yakshas just fueled my love for them though and it was so excited to actually get to learn more canon information about them. Watching theories get confirmed and sparking even more in the process was neat. I hope we eventually get to learn which yaksha is which other than Bosacius and Xiao of course. My favorite has to be the geo yaksha. Don’t know why ngl I actually thought he was quite ugly the first time I saw him and I was obsessed with the pyro one for the longest time but now he’s growing on me. I think he’s quite pretty and his voice is very calming (despite that we only got like a second of a voiceline from him, I tell you I overanalyze anything and this guys voice is included).
Tbh Bosacius ugliest sibling- no shame. The rest of them are so pretty and Bosacius....... pyro yaksha got me on my knees I swear. The hydro one is cute too I love her she sounds like a sweetheart.
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Alright I’m lowkey tired so that’s all I’ve got to say about the quest. I enjoyed it a lot and hope we get another yaksha centered quest to learn more!
#cryspygi#2.7 update#yaksha#yakshas#bosacius#xiao#alatus#yelan#yanfei#itto#aether#paimon#zhongli#genshin
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Wyll's romance feels sooo... lackluster. I don't know. I was expecting more dedication. I feel like every other character got so much love given to their romances.
I'm not even talking about the evil inclined romances. I am talking about the good inclined ones.
Karlach's romance is such a big thing, she can touch, she goes on a first date, she has a heartfelt conversation with you where she tells you she wants to ride you. Asta... well, what hasn't been said of Astarion's Romance that is both the longest and the most well defined. He learns to know what is true love and true care and not be used ever again. He learns to trust and it's such a big thing.
Gale's journey through love is a journey of finding self-worth, finding himself and what made him worthy and a prodigy, find his worth besides delusions of godhood and ambition. You fuck in the fade like gods, or in a bed, he makes stars for you, he teaches you magic.
Lae'Zel it's a story of valour and vulnurability, of accepting love in a harsh life, finding someone her equal and allowing herself to be vulnurable with them. (I never followed her romance, that's what I read XD).
And Shart it's about facing her fears, and finding herself and love. You two drink wine together, go for a swim, make plans of a simpler life with her family or finding herself without her family. Going beyond what a goddess tried to mold her into.
Wyll you get to dance, then he asks you to marry him over an acorn. His personal quest doesn't feel like it connects to his personal story. It feels like he gets to just, hey, have a chapter from fairytale. Hero gets the girl or guy.
I like that love isn't a cure all for their personal quests, but I love the connection of it to their personal quests. Love isn't a cure all but it sure helps you face a goddess if you have someone who loves you by their side, or brave the hells of Avernus against Zariel.
Heck, even Halsin's romance, which is reduced to him going bear on you feels more fleshed out. At the end, Halsin gets to start a new commune, and you can go with him (now for what I understand). Halsin's story is about facing your past, what you left undone, and solving it, love with Tav is Halsin finally letting go of his past and starting anew, and in his own way, showing that love isn't a cure all, rather you romanced him or not he's ready to start a new chapter, a new circle, and you can come with him and be part of this new chapter in his life.
Wyll... proposes with an acorn. Oh, and dances with you.
Nothing wrong with a fairytale romance, but it feels shallow and it feels like it doesn't contribute in anyway to his personal growth other than give him a textbook happy ending.
While with every other companion I feel like we helped with their growth and our love made us grow as people, with Wyll it's more like, yey, you got over your daddy issues, he sees you're a hero, here's your hero's "and they lived happily ever after".
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