fanart of @f-117-nighthawk 's fic waiting for the second death. this is a fic i have been back to reread so many times bc ough dan heng and its my first victim for @fanartfrenzy !!
im so behind no one look
i definitely overestimated myself committing to a full piece for my first art square but it was fun and really good practice. i havent done a fully rendered scene like this in. a very long time ??? and ive improved a lot since my last one. def some things id do differently but overall im happy with the result
aiming for a bingo with the leftmost column 🙏 no clue which one i wanna tackle next but i have ideas for all of them
I wanted to update the silly print I write thank-you notes for customers at. Dan Heng with a trash bin has been in the spotlight for about a year so with the next wave we'll jump to Amphoreus, let's go!
Trust the process, they said. It will be fun, they said. And it was fun XD
Ending my Currency Wars journey with "Mydei vs Nikador" duel. His finishing move to defeat the Strife Titan is "Godslayer be God," he literally struck down a god and brought me to CW final rank with decent score. A lore accurate finale...? 🥹😭
Thank you to whoever invented this Bloodflame Mydei strategy. Now I can finally start playing around with other strategies to complete the Achievements in lower difficulty. 🙏
( ( wish i could upload the full final battle here, but the 5-min video on my PS5 is too big to upload to PSApp lol ) )
i need to talk about my conceptualization / interpretation of nikador bc i am frothing at the mouth. i got to the part where they start talking about the five virtues of nikador and we start freeing his divinities and lord gnaeus talks to castorice about like... the majesty of the world and also strife as like the thing that teaches people to stand tall and unyielding and i have So Many Thoughts.
like nikador is the embodiment of strife, but he is also valor, he is the struggle of humanity in the face of strife, he is the fight. and also i've been reading she who becomes the sun, where the main character is a buddhist monk (she disguised herself as a man which is why she's a female buddhist monk), and she keeps repeating "desire is the root of suffering". but instead of it being about shedding her desire, for her it's about bracing herself to endure the suffering for her desires (tenacity), to strive for what you desire is to suffer and in the pursuit of desire / of your fight towards what you desire you can also inflict suffering upon others. something i also connect to nikador. so i think of nikador also representing this and go crazy, esp in relation to his conversation w castorice about a) the majesty of the world and b) that strife is what teaches humans to stand tall and unyielding. i also probably lend more credence to my interpretation of this bc like metatextually hsr is created by a chinese company & therefore influenced by chinese values, and she who becomes the sun is like very explicitly chinese w chinese philosophy/values including the way it subverts them, and so i do think that on some level they also connect desire to strife. But ANYWAYS
nikador <333333333
^ attached is images of the things I'm referencing (the five virtues of nikador and the conversation w castorice)
The undefeated. The sovereign of all battles. The king of Castrum Kremnos, the throne upon a mountain of corpses, the father of victory. The usurper of glories, the lightning that split the sea, the Guardian of Amphoreus, the Titan of Strife, Nikador.
When 3.4 came out I had a few thoughts about which titans is simulating which path and like most of the ones I was sure about weren't confirmed while the ones I was just like ???? were confirmed so I thought I should share this (keep in mind that everything past this is whatever the fuck I wrote after 3.4 unless it's in brackets)
I'm yapping about the Titans and Aeons and paths here.
Part 1 of my thoughts about Phainon
Continuing that train of thoughts:
So it's confirmed that the titans are simulations of the aeons
Oronyx | Time - Fuli | Remembrance
Cerces | Reason - Nous | Erudition
Thanatos | Death - Hooh | Equilibrium
Zagreus | Trickery - Aha | Elation
I'm gonna point out the obvious and say that Worldbearing is the simulation of the Trailblaze. Which is actually pretty interesting when we think about how Akivili just disappeared and Kephale fell silent. Phainon aka Khaslana is most likely a narrative parallel to us, the Trailblazer, especially since we're supposed to face Nanook at some point.
With the thing that Dan Heng said in his drip marketing for DH Permansor Terrae I'm gonna assume that Georios is the simulated version of Long and the Permanence.
Kephale | Worldbearing - Akivili | Trailblaze
Georios | Earth - Long | Permanence
For Janus I'd take Terminus as the counterpart. Both Janus and Terminus are the names for Roman gods, Janus is the god of passage and Terminus is one who protected boundaries. There is also the fact that the Aeon and Titan are both connected to prophecies and Janus is said to be the first titan to have been 'born' while Terminus has the whole paradoxical reverse time thingy.
Phagousa is a lot harder to pin point in my opinion. Is what I first thought. The rivalry with Georios - the simulation of Long, the Permanence - and the meaning of their name makes it pretty obvious that this is the simulation of Tayzzyronth, the Propagation. For the record, according to the wiki Phagousa can be interpreted as "she who ate"/"she who has eaten"/"she who has devoured"/"she who squanders." Which is a very obvious indication for Tayzzyronth and the whole eating half the universe thing.
(literally no idea why I didn't think of Nihility and IX like oh my god it is so obvious in hindsight)
For Aquila I'm a little torn but mostly leaning towards Ena, the Order. Eye stuff, sky imagery, control, restriction, ect ect I had considered Ena as a possible origin for Talanton too because of the whole control thing. I had also considered Yaoshi for Aquila but ultimately think that Ena is the more likely option.
Mnestia, Titan of Romance, is almost definitely the simulation of Idrila, the Beauty. I don't think I need to explain that train of thought.
Nikador is maybe a simulation of Nanook? Maybe Lan? I'm not sure tbh (I was making blind guesses at this point)
Same can be said for Talanton. I had considered Ena, maybe Hooh idk
Alternatives:
About Georios and Phagousa, while I did say that it's probably Permanence and Propagation, I also think it's entirely possible for it to be Perservation and Voracity. A lot of the paths do overlap a little and Qlipoth and Oroboros do have a similar kind of opposition to another as Long and Tayzzyronth had since Qlipoth has that thing with leviathans and Oroboros is a leviathan.
I was also surprised to see that Zagreus is a simulation of Aha since I personally would've guessed that it was Mythos, the Enigmata. Especially because of Cipher's whole "lying/mental suggestion" thing and the things the History Fictionologist do.
Also about Fuli. Fuli has a thing with mirrors, Idrila has a thing with mirrors. Mnestia is probably named after Mnemosyne, the Greek goddess of memory. Fuli is therefore in my eyes also an option, no matter how unlikely it is. Maybe this is just showing that the paths of Remembrance and Beauty are overlapping to a certain degree.
