#dandy does endwalker

Cat Mirroring!

alisaie’s correct that they’re all skeert. “we did all this, and we were SURE it was right and merciful and kind, but now we don’t know any more! and now we really really need to convince ourselves and all these weird people that we weren’t making the biggest mistake.” and we’re all like, “yeah, you all made a mistake. but it’s not your fault. nor is it wholly hermes’s (because depression really REALLY impedes clarity of brainz and his question was less sound than it could have been as a result). you aren’t the first to despair, or to arrive where you are on account of misfortune and the choices made to adapt.” sable thorn in particular is a balm. “as you flew further and further from one another and home, there was more and more space between you sisters. in that space, there may have been worlds awake...but you may have been too far to hear them. or they were worlds awake in such a way that you couldn’t understand one another.” hirara adds, “you might’ve brushed past a star full of kind and clever and joyous people who’re all genius shades of really bright blue! so you see a lovely ocean-y planet, and they see a shooting star! but neither of you know how to talk to one another, so on you both sail.” (yes, she just brought up the hooloovoo. XD)

this entire zone here is EXTRAORDINARILY UNDERTALE (seriously, we’re defeating the ideals of depressed, nihilism-fixated wee birbs with the power of hope, friendship, and BEING FILLED WITH DETERMINATION) so i can’t help but be charmed by the correspondence between one of undertale’s souls’ hues and azem’s crystal.

orange 🧡 connotes bravery.  (in the actual story, it’s eirianedd here (and that soul-hue works well with her), but vikki’s a good messenger!) this works for hades too! violet 💜 is for perseverance.

hyth witnesses the moment that spacebird meets kittybird. XD

It didn’t go into things as viscerally and ruthlessly as “Now and Then, Here and There” (which is quite blunt in unearthing matters that are REALLY NOT OFTEN ADDRESSED—and be forewarned, MASSIVE CONTENT WARNINGS FOR ALL MANNER OF CHILD ABUSE IN WARTIME if you look up that anime, it’s dark as fuck) but that wasn’t necessary.

It’s awkward in places and flawed in others, but the game did make a genuine effort to address heavy shit, and do so without edgelording into pointlessness. The Garleans flat-out quoting the kind of “THE BARBARIC FOREIGNERS WILL STEAL YOUR WOMEN AND EAT YOUR BABIES” wartime poster business that proliferated all over WW2 on all sides was quite something for someone in my line of work. Like YEAH I FIXED A PRINT AD THAT SAID THAT.

I was surprised there wasn’t more “SCRAP DRIVE FOR OUR LADS” being brought up but canonically everyone was pretty scattered. I plan to address that kind of a thing in my own take on the whole shebang. I can see where Garlemald got kind of truncated story-wise and there’s material I’d like to expand upon if only to spare a few more civilians.

(Licinia and her sis survive in this timeline; Vikki and Jherr ask for a favour from their nan’s old friend, and…well, fleeing into the wilds seems less wise when you stumble upon a house with hens’ feet and then the occupant comes out and yells at you.

These two maybe-felines roaming around in the snow like it’s no big deal, occasionally going ekekkekekk or mrrrrpt or *weird little corvid noise* back and forth as they look for firewood or fish or spare machina bits.

And people watching from a window;

“Halina look look look it’s back again. The…wait wait that’s a different one and…are there TWO? Are they cats, they look like cats???? There’s TWO?”

“I don’t know…but if you go ksksksks at them, Stasya, I’m going to body slam you.”

“I’m not crazy, I’m not going to do that. …There IS two of them.”

“There’s definitely two of them. …If someone follows them tonight on patrol, and it turns out that their home is a cottage with stork feet up in the mountains? I won’t be surprised.”