styx in the river

Tumblr forced me to make an account so here I am. 24. Multifandom jumper. She/her.

[programaticallydelicious]

This is a neutral post

Feel free to stop here and rest before journeying to the posts below.

[spadedfox-deactivated20230116]

spreading these occasionally would be nice…

[justawriterinprogress-deactivat]

As someone with major anxiety who can’t fucking stop themself from scrolling, i appreciate posts like this

[orcboxer]

got a crick in my neck and a frog in my throat and a chip on my shoulder and a stick up my ass and now you're gonna stand there puttin words in my mouth? haven't I been through enough?

[phantomrose96]

Get your ducks in a row. Now get them in a circle. Get them in a Socratic seminar with that duck in the middle. Get them in a mosh pit. Get them moshing. Get them moshing.

[hylianane]

functionally suicidal character saying “I would die for you” to their significant other and its like. I get the sentiment, honey, but if a hot dog vendor told me he’d sell hot dogs for me, I wouldn’t feel very moved now would I

[munlyth]

[the-unkindled-queen]

I do find it interesting that the Miquella/Radahn debate and "Miquella taking away Radahn's free will" is up for argument still.

I always assumed the promise was something he also agreed to since Radahn would copy Godfrey in every aspect. Being a Lord of a God means following in his footsteps. I don't think he was "tricked" in that way or the promise was forced on him.

[thebrokengate]

Agreed. He was 100% in control and consenting by the end of the game as well. Narratively, as far as I could tell, there's no reason at that point to believe otherwise.

Miquella's charm is broken not even hardly a third of the way into the story. You hear the sound, the big wall of text on screen telling you that somewhere a Great Rune has broken, when you return to the other NPCs they talk to you about it- you literally can't miss it. And when Miquella does use his charm on anyone after ascending to godhood, it now comes with a lovely little circlet of light above the player or NPCs or co-op player's heads. So.. what's missing from Radahn's head? .. Yeah, exactly. ("But what about Mohg?" someone might ask. Mohg was charmed before Miquella ascended to godhood, so that's a moot point. Radahn would have to have been charmed again after Miquella's Great Rune broke upon Miquella's ascent into godhood, so if Radahn had been charmed again, we would've seen the circlet.. which we didn't.)

The point of Miquella's charm being broken is to see where everyone stands uninfluenced by the climax of the game. We see this in the fight against Leda and her allies where we learn who's standing with you and willing to challenge Miquella and Radahn, and who's standing against you, fighting for Miquella and Radahn. Being that everyone is uncharmed and therefore uninfluenced by anything but their own beliefs, we get that conflict of interest - those who believe the world is better off in charmed, peaceful compassion, and those who believe in the free will of choice to continue fighting and spilling blood for other causes. With everyone else free to make these choices before the end of the game, that means Radahn must also be free and has already made his own choice, standing guard at the Gate of Divinity.

Just an additional question: what would be the point of fighting Radahn twice if he was a mindless zombie with no ability to choose anything both times? It would just be a repeat of the last time we fought him. This is meant to be prime Radahn long before the effects of scarlet rot, and the soundtrack also reflects that Radahn is clear-minded and aware of himself - keeping a steady tune unlike his Starscourge theme that was all over the place and as disorganized as his witless mind was then.

Why would Miquella request Radahn to be his consort if he didn't want Radahn to have a choice to say no? He could've just charmed Radahn outright and saved himself the trouble of letting the request for his help hang in the air. The fact that we're shown Miquella presenting the concept of "if we honor our part of the vow, promise me you'll be my consort" is interesting when you compare it to his dialogue when grabbing the player - "I promise you a thousand year voyage guided by compassion" spoken before a second grab attack in which he is able to charm you and says "Lord of the old order, let us go together" or "Let your thoughts be only of love" - a command, rather than an offer on the table to accept Miquella's promise yourself. Miquella uses the words "promise me" or "I promise you" when he's leaving an offer open for choice, but rather uses a command of "let us go together" or tells you to "let your thoughts be only of love", controlling said thoughts to be just that upon stealing your heart. These are words he does not use when addressing Radahn for an answer to his request. He's down on his knees, totally vulnerable in the way one usually is when making a proposal, the camera pulls in tight which creates a claustrophobic feeling that's meant to raise anxiety from Miquella being likely scared to ask, and he's literally wishing upon a star...scourge- if you catch my drift (that Radahn is represented by the stars as the conqueror of them and literally makes himself into a "shooting star" at times in battle).

This is a big one to me, but if you bring Ansbach into battle, he doesn't speak to Radahn as if he were someone charmed by Miquella. Ansbach has been through this already with Mohg; he would likely speak to Radahn with more compassion and understanding if Radahn was charmed. However, Ansbach instead speaks to Radahn as if his mind is unclouded and almost like a former comrade who has himself stolen something very important to Ansbach - that being Mohg's body. "General Radahn, a pleasure to see you after all this time. But those remains do not belong to you. Lord Mohg will have his dignity."

I will say I could believe that Radahn getting a shard of the Elden Ring could've changed things, but by all accounts, "mad taint of their newfound strength" isn't exactly a good thing? I mean. It drove the demigods into a war. We had one who was crazy enough to feed himself to a serpent hellbent on devouring the gods. It genuinely has me questioning even what it might've done to Marika, like- if shards alone could do this to the demigods, what the fuck was the whole Elden Ring itself doing to Marika? And thus the further questioning of how much of her actions she was even in control of or if she was just a puppet for the Greater Will (I've seen some very interesting theories about that). I could totally be convinced he got too big of a head on him as soon as he got ahold of that shard and he just casually cometed himself into the capital of Leyndell and said "you know what? no, I'm running this shit now" .. and then proceeded to get jumped and got his ass kicked by Morgott fresh out of the sewers. I could totally believe he lost sight of his promise to Miquella with all that power.

I could be convinced of a lot of things, but the one thing I cannot be convinced of no matter what evidence I've seen is that Radahn never agreed to being Miquella's Lord and Consort. It just doesn't make sense by the end of SOTE, looking at everything I've talked about. And hypothetically, even if Radahn was ever charmed, it's not as if some characters didn't still align themselves with Miquella's ideals even after no longer being charmed, because they very much did. This could very well have also been the case for Radahn, but... I just don't buy it.

[the-unkindled-queen]

These are very good points honestly and many of which I had thought so too.

I never thought of the fact that once the charm breaks in game, there could be a possibility that Radahn would not be charmed, even after his resurrection. As for Mohg, he's the only one charmed who has an infatuation in ways no other charmed person has that we see. Which makes him unique in that case.

That one I can completely see.

In a way, I still felt underwhelmed by his fight, but the music and everything about it you mention here makes way more sense now that you point that out.

"if we honor our part of the vow, promise me you'll be my consort" I considered this line as well because it doesn't necessarily tell me that Radahn had no choice in it. Especially when you consider the time before the Shattering might have been completely different from what we know. This number explanation is one of my favorites you made because it does make several good points I did not at all consider.

I first assumed that Ansbach addressing Radahn like this was simply him following a certain respect as he addresses Leda in a similar fashion due to him being more proper? But the point you make here is actually a good one too.

[aroace-ryland-grace]

I NEED to write fanfiction <- guy who is not writing fanfiction

[theslowesthnery]

when someone is completely fucking wrong about your blorbo but you don't want to argue about what basically boils down to opinions about shit that doesn't matter so you just sit there like

"that guy's wrong tho"

[recurring-polynya]

me (crazy eyes, covered in blood): I NEED to finish writing my fanfic. so I can start writing a different fanfic.

[cykelops]

I like when characters try to fix their problems with bad sex

[nylilcosmos]

Messmer The Impaler 𖣂

[ru1n3r]

i feel like im constantly taking damage

[powerful-owl]

pick one

your ship goes canon

your favorite ao3 writer drops 100k of your ship + your favorite trope

Remaining time: 1 day 5 hours

[cobaltspartan]

fascinated by jeff the killer tbh. everyone in that creepypasta has generic white usamerican names (jeff, keith, barbara, billy, etc.) except for jeff the killer's doe eyed little brother liu. why is he liu. is liu chinese? it's okay if he's chinese. is jeff also chinese? has jeff the killer been chinese this whole time? am I a bad person?

[halcyoncyrus]

I'm sorry for (remembers I'm not sorry) You're welcome for all the character posting last night

[feastofsnakes]

hey sorry I snapped at you, I've just had a really hard day and [remembers focusing on myself is selfish] maybe it's your fault for provoking me?

[my-dailydreams]