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?
Screw Marika's motivations. I want to know what the fuck is up with Melina and Ranni. Why do they seem like 2 halves of the same whole?
Why are they so similar design wise? Why are they both "burned and bodiless"? Why are they the only characters that know torrent on a first name basis? Why do they both share the same closed eye aesthetic? Why do their faces complete eachother if you overlap them? Why do these two, seemingly completely unrelated characters have so much in common? What the fuck is going on?!
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Semi side rant incoming but what if those eye markings that Melina and Ranni have are markings of an Empyrean? I mean, other than Ranni have we ever actually seen the full, undamaged face of an Empyrean before? By the time we see Malenia, Marika and even to a certain extent Ranni’s own face they’re all damaged to the point where any marking would be long gone (and we just straight up never see Miquella’s face) and we conveniently also never see a proper painting or depiction of any of the Empyreans faces ever throughout the game. Sure there’s a couple statues here and there but I’d believe that tattoo/mark details would be left out of that sort of stuff.
They're dating!? Oh my god that's fantastic! I really need to get around to playing Celeste 64 properly soon. Wasn't expecting there to be such major lore drops!
Some Maddy X Alex art i did for valentines day after hearing the news that shes dating Alex in CELESTE64
Thinking about how Kayaba and Kirito's character arcs mirror each other really well in SAOA.
Kayaba, despite trying his best to help the people he trapped in the game and to be a good person, eventually fell into nihilism and hatred for humanity, spiralling to the point where he’ll directly murder innocent people for no reason other than feeling like it.
While Kirito tries his absolute best to be a cold, nihilistic horrible person but eventually breaks when his genuinely good qualities get forced to the surface by the people around him. Despite his best efforts he is, deep down, a good person who wants to do the right thing.
They both start and end the series on opposite sides of the same spectrum.
Probably the mildest head cannon I'll ever share on here, but I like to think that Miquella grew his hair out so long because it was literally the only way he could show his actual age with his appearance. He may have been cursed to never grow, but his hair would always be a clear signifier to his peers that he was much more than he appeared.
I think shits going to hit the fan hard in the next chapter. Something tells me that if the knight is a lightner, which they almost certainly are, they're going to follow us into the Dreemurr house dark world.
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Pure speculation here, but since deltarune has a lot of metanarrative stuff going on, what if the knight also follows this?
Ralsei seems determined to keep Kris (and by extension us) on the path of the hero who's going to save the world by sealing the fountains. Throughout the game he railroads the party down this narrative constantly and gets rather agitated when things go in a way that they're "not supposed to." (see his reaction to susie in chapter 1, the spamton fight aftermath or most scenes with him on the weird route). He knows what direction the plot needs to go in and it trying to guide us in that direction.
The story has a hero who is trying to save the world (Kris) by sealing the dark fountains and an antagonist that is trying to end it (the knight) by creating the dark fountains. Seems simple enough.
but Kris has now gone against that narrative by making their own fountain before the knight makes their next move. By playing the role of the knight themselves they've brought the world one step closer to damnation for seemingly no reason. You'd assume the knight would be happy with this since it makes their presumed plan of "destroy the world" easier.
But what if they're not.
What if the knight, the antagonist of this story gets angry that their role is being overtaken by the hero. That the way their story is supposed to go has been derailed by the protagonist fighting their own fate.
What if the knight ends up being a dark parallel of Ralsei. Knowing how the story is supposed to go and becoming confused and angry when things suddenly divert from that story.
In a battle of light vs dark like deltarune, what happens when the hero starts to fight using darkness as well?
Well the knight would only have two options.
Tip the scales and end the world.
Or seal Kris' fountain themselves.
What if we're not the ones to seal chapter 3's fountain?
I think people who see the tarnished in elden ring as just murder hobo assholes who kill everything in their path for no other reason than wanting to are kind of missing the point of them.
First off, they’re not just some random asshole that strolled into the lands between looking for a fight. Our character was resurrected, torn from their home and thrown into this unrelenting hellscape against their will. They are just as much victims of circumstance as everyone else in this game.
Also there’s the whole aspect that we’re supposed to project a personality onto the tarnished ourselves. They’re not literally mute, determined, personalityless killers. If someone comes out of elden ring thinking the tarnished is just mindlessly killing everything in their path for no reason then I think that’s more of a problem with the player themselves.
That being said, if someone doesn’t care to do that sort of character building or likes the idea of that being their tarnished’s personality then that’s perfectly fine, I’m not here to judge how you play the game. I’m just not a fan of people who call the tarnished in general a horrible person for doing what they do.
I know this is basically a pointless argument but the fact that people generalise the tarnished as one character instead of what they actually are (a blank slate that can be any type of character) kinda annoys me. Your tarnished and mine are not going to be the same type of person.
TLDR
“The tarnished in elden ring is an asshole” no, no, no, your tarnished is an asshole, mine is fine actually.
Out of curiosity, what are the major rebuttals to the "Melina = GEQ" theory?
Because honestly, the more I think about it the more it just makes perfect sense for her to be the GEQ, and I can't really think of any counter arguments that are all too convincing for me.
y'know with all the courage motifs going on in deltarune, seemingly replacing determination for Kris I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that Kris' soul was actually a bravery one before we were super imposed onto them.
I think it'd be a pretty cool twist all things considered. We're so used to playing as a red soul so we don't question it, but in reality we have no idea if that was always Kris' soul. If it turns out that Kris' soul was replaced with ours then I wouldn't be shocked if it's a different type all together.
Everyone being furious with Aang over running away from his responsibilities is even dumber when you remember that this time around he did not run away from his responsibilities! They removed that part of his character, so now it just straight up doesn't make sense.
The day he found out he was the avatar went like this:
>He found out he was the avatar and may have to stop an oncoming war
>He decided to go for a late night fly to clear his mind
>He got stuck in a storm and while attempting to return to the air temple ended up being pulled under the ocean and subsequently frozen
>He woke up, found out he'd been frozen for 100 years and the world was on the brink of collapse and decided he had to do something about it and immediately got to work.
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By removing his agency in his disappearance (along with his wandering and exploration of the world in the OG series) all the while making people more angry at him for it, the people criticising him for avoiding his duties have gone from looking like a bit of a dick with some semi-valid complaints to completely unreasonable assholes with no meaningful points. They've removed nuance by trying to make the story darker and more mature.
People in the show keep getting on his case for not prioritising his duties as the avatar despite the fact that that is all he has been doing from the moment he woke up from the ice, which may I remind you is now (for Aang) mere hours after he learned he was the Avatar in the first place.
what is with this fucking show and guilt-tripping aang????? bumi being mad at aang is the stupidest fucking thing ever because he of all people KNOW aang is a kid. KYOSHI of all people know the burden that the avatar has to carry and would NOT accuse him of running away??? the guilt that aang felt being the last of his kind is something he carries with him and is evident in his anger and his desire to keep his people's way of life alive. it is not something that other characters need to YELL AT HIM for???? just for him to have to COUNTER it??! as if they were wrong??? what the fuck is the thesis of this show???
Assuming this isn’t sarcasm here we go (also some spoilers)
There’s not really a lot of lore on torrent. All we really know is that he’s a spirit mount that we can summon with the golden whistle ring, much like we can summon normal spirit ash’s with the spirit calling bell. Both of these items seem to reanimate the dead in a sort of 'spirit state', with the whistle we summon a spirit to ride and with the bell we can summon spirits to fight with us. Both of these things are possible because death isn’t really a thing in the lands between anymore. This is because the 'rune of death' was removed from the elden ring, which essentially removed the concept of death from the world itself. (the elden ring seems to control the laws of reality and said laws can be messed with or altered by taking away or adding different things to the ring). Torrent just sort of poofs when he gets hurt and can be resummoned at will because he isn’t alive in the first place and thus cannot be permanently destroyed.
The Erdtree’s a little trickier to explain but if you’re interested I can go into it.
Elden Ring lore, huh?
I mean I can just say a bunch random words with 'the' in front of them, too.
A lot of games get accused of having world building that really doesn't matter to gameplay. Elden Ring feels like a dare to see how far you can take that.
I still don't know why you can summon an antelope to ride on that can't die but just disappears if someone hits it, and then there is a cool-down period before you can bring it back. And what does that have to do with the giant LED tree?
Who made all of these barrels and boxes? Because this world seems to only have monsters and guys who kill monsters in it.
Please reblog this explaining everything to me. I'm sure it will suddenly be not a bunch of whatever nonsense when YOU type it.