i tthink blade and sunday should take tea together. talk about the monumental guilt and shame that's been following them through their lives. you know, girl stuff.
someone edited the Artemis II mission to “We Know The Way” from the Moana soundtrack and that was kind of my last straw. I broke down sobbing. We humans have gone from using the stars to navigate the seas, to navigating through the stars and returning by landing in the seas. Humanity is so beautiful when we work together like this. We are voyagers. We were always meant to explore the beautiful world we were given.
mortenax bladie design analysis because somebody cooked an entire meal with the way the design shows a significant shift in his character.
im lowkey loosing my mind over it because blade was always a beautiful example of great character design, full of symbols and metaphors. but now we read not only the character but also his development by putting both sheaths of his eidolons next to each other. and let me just tell you the symbolism hits even HARDER.
the E1 and E2 stayed remotively the same. the new version is just more detailed. the real fun starts with E3.
on the og one we see is the movement from his skill, an attacking move, something Blade was really associated with at the begginig of the game. no real personality, just exhaustion and madness caused by mara. the urge to snap back, immediate need to attack. he clutches onto the sword, he stokes it with his hurt hands. the new one? he rips something off his body, some kind of neck accesory, i believe to be associeted with yingxing's xianzhou zhuming heritage. it has similar color palette to yunli and also resembles the oval shapes seen in her own design. juding by the fact they're related i do think it has something to do with xianzhou zhuming. what's more important is he let's go of the damn thing. im still not sure about the way they're gonna lead his story but there's something very powerful about the gesture.
then there's E4 which absolutely broke me.
i've spoken about blade being portrayed as a faceless character before and i truly believe his og E4 kind of proves it. yes, we see him, but his face is turned sideways. we see only a profile, only a half of his face. again looking somewhere far away, gazing away from the viewer. new one is another example of a very bold statement and a shift in the narrative. he's facing us, no shame no reluctance. and what's more we see both of his faces - blade aka the stellaron hunter and yingxing, reflected in the blade he wields. both of them looking at the viewer, both of them facing the present.
then there's E5 which may not seem that different since it's just a fragment of his portrait. however!! we can see the clear difference in the outfits. the old one is tightly closed, very restrained and moderate. hiding his scarred skin, all the bandages and wounds underneath it. once again it's like looking away, hiding from the real picture. denying the hurt human flesh, all the pain he's carrying wheras the new one is shoving the wound right into our faces. he is hurt, he knows it, we know it. this time there's no backing away, there's full awarness of the pain and burden. this time however it's not a source of shame but rather power.
last one, my beloved E6 proving once again that they mantained the faceless agenda for him. most vulnerable state? one he will never face you in. i absolutely adore his og E6, i alwayes considered the image a tier top choice. no bandages, no gaze, just scars. it feels so silent and lonely. as always facing away, looking in the past as the source of all suffering and the only direction he's heading to. the knew one? they went a bit crazy with it. tiddies out, once again facing the player. no shame or whatsoever. we see the burning spider lily, symbol of passing, wether memories or life itself. where is it? right on his heart. something he's been stabbed through countless times, something that was a painful reminder he's unfortunetly still alive and nothing will change it.
you know who also has a blazing heart? general huaiyan, of the xianzhou zhuming. a place where yinxing achieved his great craftsmanship, where he truly came to be. i believe mortenax blade to be the exact middle place between yinxing and blade we knew till now. he's both of them, but also he's neither. as he stated in the 4.2 quest he's blade, an identity he chooses for himself. we finally see him trying to truly shape it and let us see him for himself. and so there's yingxing in the reflection of his sword, the ends of his hair no longer red but greyish, the flaming heart he carries within himself. he is abomination, yes, he is something he swore to destroy but at the same time, he is still an extension of xianzhou, wether anyone likes it or not.
there's something so powerful about the way hoyo showed it all through his design, through a body he never truly had an autonomy over. yingxing was a smith, a briliant one. in yunli's companion quest we've seen the art of crafting a sword with a soul in it. i believe we might see it once again in blade's storyline. yingxing is not a ghost that haunts him, it's the past he carves into a tool he names himself after. i truly believe that no matter how badly dehuminised he was, nothing could break the creative spirit. especially with the entire smith symbolism. you risk your life working in a forge. you create in fire, through melting, changing of form until you create a tool. going through fire and flames straight to the harmony.
mortenax blade seems to be everything. the smith, the forge, and the very sword he creates. taking control over his past, his body and life. taking it all as he was given and shaping it into a new form. after everything it's still you, but with a huge twists. after everything it's still you, the one you forged into being.
I'm so tired of people feminizing Fingon in Russingon. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing bad in feminine men (we love them), BUT. In this very context, where Fingon generally is mostly associated with Russingon, aka gay romance, it just seems so bad and unnecessary.
I feel like Findekano often gets the Obi-Wan treatment, where just because he is paired with a literal war criminal, he becomes the polite and mild one. And that is so crazy because Fingon literally did some of the most insane shit any of the House of Fingolfin members did. He crossed the Helcaraxë, he joined the FIRST kinslaying. He went through literal pits of hell to get the son of Feanor back to his side. He was the first one to figt Glaurung. He died fighting Gothmog and several other Balrogs. And whether or not you ship Russingon, most of those actions can be associated with Maitimo. And let me just add that Maedhros was the one to call him The Valiant!! He acknowledged Findekano's willingness to commit to the deed, he knew Finno was much more of a warrior than him. And yet I feel like Findekano is often portrayed as the one to be the erudite, whereas Maedhros is made to be the sword, when it's clearly Fingon's dominion. Maitimo was always about words. I've always wondered what kind of activity/craftsmanship I would associate with him, since almost all the other feanorians have one, and I think what fits the most is rhetoric. Just take a look at the way he handles things. Where Fingon crosses the sea, Maitmo wants to persuade Feanor to send the ship back for him. Where Fingon goes to hell for him, Maitimo gives the crown away, once again showing his real face through words and diplomacy. Fingon was the one to be called The Valiant, he was a fighter first and foremost. I believe his nature changed after becoming the High King, but even so, the actions he took show us that even after that he was willing to take a lot of risks, and his victories often came from sheer luck as well as the trust he held in both his people and his love.
It's also worth pointing out that Fingon was significantly less burdened than Mae, he was much more reckless and free in his love for Maedhros. I feel like their relationship was very even when they were in Valinor, but after the Oath and Thangorodrim, Mae realized he could not go the lengths for their relationship that Fingon did. People say for Maedhros the oath and his family came first. I don't think it's necessarily true. I think he loved Fingon much more than we give him credit for. It's just that no matter how much he valued their love, he couldn't give in to it fully because of the Oath. And I feel like Fingon was aware of that, but it was not enough to stop him from loving Maedhros anyway.
In Russingon, Maedhros is the one who needed Fingon's guidance much more than it went the other way around. After Nirnaeth Arnoediad we see major change in the way he acts. Where Fingon was mostly reckless with the love he held for Maitimo, Maedhros was reckless only when it came to his brothers and fullfilling the oath. When Findekano was alive Maitimo was a great diplmat, he was keeping his brothers in check. With Findekano around he doubted his judgement meaningly less, than when he no longer had him by his side. It says a lot that only after Fingon's passing the two other kinslayings happend.
Of course it's okay to have your own take on this ship, however I just wanted to point out that there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about who Fingon truly was in it. He wasn't simply this gentle and comforting soul to Maedhros' darkness. It was his unbreakable loyalty and resilience that kept this relationship going. And I also think the slight feminization might come from the obvious thing that he was much shorter than Maedhros (who was unnaturally tall), and it fits people's expectations of couple dynamics, where the bigger one takes the more dominant and masculine role, while the other automatically takes the more feminine side. And that's okay, but like. Don't forget they are not even human. And they are in an incest relationship. And most importantly, they are gay as fuck, it's not gonna to be a typical heterosexual-like dynamic.
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