One Of My Favourite Concepts I Don’t Think I’ve Really Seen Before Is Characters Trading/lending

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

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

To SAOA:

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

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

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

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

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Anyone else getting Marika's bedchamber vibes from the curvy shapes draping from the branches of the Shadow tree?

There is one more thing I’d like to add to this theory.

In the chapel of anticipation, if you’re skilled enough to strike down the grafted Scion, you can actually avoid being killed by it and chucked over the side of the island. Now why is this important?

Because if you do manage to do this, then you can progress slightly further into the area, where a lone set of butterflies will likely lead you to your fall, where things continue as normal.

Specifically a set of Nascent butterflies.

The butterfly that represents Miquella and by extension, St. Trina.

Right there at the start of our journey.

To guide us towards Torrent.

To guide us towards Trina.

St. Trina's chosen

Thinking about how St. Trina only talks to the player tarnished despite Thiollier's undying loyalty to her.

Thinking about how before traveling with Melina, Torrent belonged to Miquella (and by extension, also Trina)

Thinking about how at some point Torrent was sent out in search of a new master

Thinking about how Ranni's doll body requires her to sleep

Thinking about how St. Trina can visit people in their dreams

Thinking about how “torrent’s former master” asked Ranni to deliver the spirit tuning bell to whoever he chose to serve next

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Did St. Trina put everything in motion? Was she the one who set Torrent out on his search for a new master? Was she the one who asked Ranni to give us the spirit tuning bell? Could it have been one final, desperate plea to find anyone capable of stopping her other half before it was too late for him? Does St. Trina only commune with us because she knows that we're the one who Torrent chose as his new master? Is that why this character, that we never meet before now seemingly has full faith in requesting our aid? because her trusted steed was the one to bring us to her? From the very moment Torrent found us washed up in the lands between, were we destined to find our way to Miquella's/St. Trina's path?

Xenoblade chronicles 3 spoilers

Honestly with how prevalent the Aionios queens were in the advertising material for Xenoblade 3 I feel almost clickbaited by the reveal of them just being robots. The game really builds Melia up throughout the first, like, 2/3rds of the story and by the time you finally encounter her the tension is palpable and the amount of questions you have is insane.

I don't like being majorly negative here but having all of that build up just to reveal that "oh that's not actually Melia, it's just a robot that looks, sounds and fights exactly like her" feels like a major copout.

It's like they wanted a major hook of the game to be that you'd be fighting against 2 nations lead by previous party members but also didn't actually want to make them antagonists. A classic case of having your cake and eating it too.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want Melia and Nia to be evil rulers knowingly waging an eternal, sadistic war. But if you're going to have most of your game building them up and creating tension, don't have the payoff be "they were identical robots the entire time!"

I don't think a game has ever made me feel as physically ill as elden ring did when I found out about how Miquella was using Mohg. 

I always had a sneaking suspicion that Mohg's obsession with Miquella had something to do with his charming ability, but never really had much more than a hunch to go off of.

Finding out that that hunch was not only correct, but also how much deeper the rabbit hole went made me feel genuinely sick. He didn’t just charm Mohg, he somehow used him to gain access to the land of shadow, abandoned him and then stole his still warm corpse to desecrate into an entirely different form to house the soul of the consort he actually wanted.

Mohg doesn’t even get a footnote in his little “thank you” speech at the gate of divinity. To him, we were more impactful in his plans coming to fruition for inadvertently delivering Radahn’s soul to him than the person who got him into the land of shadow in the first place. The person who died to become the vessel of his king consort.

I don't know why this part of the game specifically had me feeling so disgusted, it's not really something I can explain. There's just something about this character that was put on such a high pedestal by the world around him, and who has received unconditional love throughout his entire life, weaponizing that very same love against someone that probably struggled with it for most of his life and used it to manipulate, take advantage of and isolate him.

And then when one of his knights comes looking for justice, for the freedom of his master, Miquella just charms him too, burying his memories of his devotion to his lord and stealing him for his own followers.

He stripped Mohg of absolutely everything and used him for his own gain until the very end and beyond. For me, Miquella’s age of compassion died the moment he decided doing that was acceptable.

I'm genuinely shocked that so many people were blindsided by the reveal that Miquella was a bit fucked up to the point that some even think that it's a recon. Because honestly there were always signs that something was a bit off with him.

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First of all, and most obvious is that he took part in the shattering. Having Malenia go on a war path across the entirety of the lands between in his name. Even without the context of why this was done, it's still a pretty dubious thing to do.

There's also the fact that him and Malenia were the aggressors in the battle of Aionia. The fight happened just outside of Selia. Right outside of Radahn's home. She rocked up to the town he was protecting looking for a fight. A fight that, may I remind you, devastated Selia and other surrounding locations.

Miquella had done a copious amount of research into Malenia's affliction in search of a cure, I refuse to believe that he didn't have at least some sort of idea as to what could happen if she was pushed far enough. And he still allowed her to enter a battle to the death with radahn that ended up not only ruining both of them, but the entirety of Caelid too. All while he watched on from the sidelines.

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Moving on to a much shorter point, his power to compel affection. A power similar to the bewitching branches, an item that he may have also directly developed, which allows one to override the will of another person to such an extent that they'll turn on their allies and fight by your side.

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This point's something that I brought up in the past, and something that borderlines on headcanon but I think it's worth mentioning.

So, you know castle Sol. The castle in which Miquella attempted a ritual to revive Godwyn. The castle in which half of the key to his haligtree is guarded. The castle that watches directly over said haligtree. The castle in which Miquella definitely has very close ties to.

That castle Sol.

Did you ever notice that it contains a pretty sizeable albernuric torture chamber? One fitted with tools and contraptions that'd make Rykard proud, including the black dumpling.

Now there's no way to prove that Miquella had anything to do with this. He's been absent from castle Sol for decades. I just think it's notable that a castle so synonymous with him has a torture chamber full of the very people he's vowed to fight for.

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Now that's not quite everything. There's also a few more points, like how he's dubbed as the most fearsome empyrean and even some stuff with St. Trina like her cult that developed sleep inducing weaponry to forcibly spread her teachings (though there's no proof she endorsed this), but I think I've made my point. Miquella's always been kind of off. There was just enough ambiguity surrounding him to give his actions the benefit of the doubt. But those actions were still there.

I actually stopped watching a gaming youtuber a while ago because they were playing a horror game and skipping all the lore notes, saying how it’s the same sort of stuff in every game, all the while complaining about world details that seemed abnormal, which were actually explained in those very notes.

It’s one thing to misinterpret the lore, but it’s another thing all together to go out of your way to ignore it and then complain that the world design makes no sense.

DLCs got me having depressing Varré thoughts.

The Mohg he believed in was the same that Ansbach knew and respected. He didn't know Mohg had been bewitched. He would not have died begging Mohg to answer him. He knew the Mohg that was devoted to his dynasty and his people and after years of service to him, when he needed him, he wasnt there and he'll never understand why. I literally cannot even fathom how much that broke him, how betrayed he felt. he's so fucking tragic and so is Mohg. I truly believe that Mohg was the only demigod who had it right. He was so cast aside by the greater will and golden order that he was free of the cycle and their watchful eyes. He found strength in an outer god who didnt care to meddle with the lands between and he fucked off to create his own new dynasty completely hidden from everyone else where any being that had previously been mistreated could go and find power and a home. He only had good intentions

Mohg and Varré and Ansbach deserved better.

He gave me bad vibes from the very beginning tbh.

Like, after killing mad donkey P seems to be in some sort of shock/conflicted state as he stares down at his bloody hands (likely because that was the first human he had to kill) and Geppetto just doesn't acknowledge this at all. He doesn't even seem to register that his puppet, someone he sees as his own son has just killed in his defence.

Which imo reads at them being slightly misaligned from the start.

P is silently processing that he just killed a person (showing the first major flicker of emotion from him) and Geppetto doesn't even bat an eye at this fact.

I could see this tiny little dissonance between them growing larger if the two are faced with similar problems in the future.

Ok i have to share toughts but Lets talk about Geppetto, in convinced that somehow that guy is gonna play the villain role AT LEAST IN A FINALE. The idea of him being a good dad its cute yes, but think about the first lop trailer.

THE LAUGH-? THE FACT THAT HE TOOK DOWN AN WHOLE AS ANGEL? And again THE EVIL LAUGH AT THE END? No no guys, he doesnt give me a good vibe at all

With recent revelations about security breach’s development, it’s honestly impressive Steelwool managed to develop a functioning game at all.

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What the fuck do you mean he didn’t tell them the plot of the game that they were working on!?!?