#devon yaps

So it initially started as Proton and I having a think about the lampreys and how they were likely once people, at least the pinkish/fleshy ones. Perhaps this is what happened to most of the finger weavers when they started eating the nostrum and finger mimics.

But I also had wanted to look at those big round stones at the ruins because I remembered they were maybe cracked like eggs? Upon further inspection however they're not hollow and instead look like something else, something I've been watching a lot of reels about recently

That shit looks like concretions. They've got the proper round centers and the thin chipping layers.

So putting fossil type rocks around here just further says, yeah this is an ancient ruin. This shit is OLD as fuck. But it also sets a precedent of fossilization in the area.

Looking at the bell and the walls around the ruins, we can get an idea of what the ancient carvings of these worship sites looked like, what the art style and cleanliness of their lines looked like- it gives us a standard despite time passing

Also can I just add how amazing these walls are? How they so beautifully depict Metyr and each stone ends in the look of her tail fingers? It's gorgeous! This must have really been a gorgeous worshipping ground once.

But anyways, I was rolling around the "how did the finger ruins get like that" thought, like, "What's up with all these fingers? Who built them? Are they natural?"

And I stepped back to look at the bell and I genuinely feel like this is a fucking personal revelation. This is the same thing! Cherishing fingers is the same as the fingers that came up to protect the bell.

So, the look of the finger ruins not quite looking like sculptures and not quite looking like rocks, having this odd gold vein like shimmer to them, and also having the feature of still being textured on the insides, even where the fingers have broken- where they would be untouched stone had they once been carved, suggests something interesting to me. The ruins were either the result of a huge spell similar to cherishing fingers, or the ruins are made out of the petrified remains of much larger fingercreepers from very long ago who's soul job was to protect these bells. Either way there's something organic/ once living to them. They also appear to have more of a look like they bursted from the ground instead of being put there.

This also adds a really interesting layer to the cherishing fingers contradictory description as one of Ymir's spells (paraphrasing) "protecting the mother or perhaps that's just what the mother wants to believe"

So not in a, "this guys delusional" way but in a "there is a different goal here" kinda way. Is the goal of this spell to instead protect that which can communicate with Metyr/ the GW? In the same way protecting the bells in the same fashion has stood the test of time? Idk, I still like the implications of this spell at Yuris grave regardless, but I think, if we want to look at this spells origins, there's a possibility it had this original function. That spell is also interesting because it's the one finger sorcery not attributed to studying the ruins or historic ritual, it's also the only one Ymir cannot teach you. There's an interesting significance to its role and function. Like, it's not something the finger weavers or Ymir made up from studying, it seems like it's something more innate? And what does us being able to learn it now mean?

What's up with the talismans that the bells drop? Idk.

Can I tangent to something kinda related that I've talked about before? Can I talk about the fingerprint shield and the frenzy flame?

We can either say, devs didn't think about dlc possibly existing and made that item, or we can say That item came from the land of shadow intentionally and perhaps helps to explain the nomadic merchant genocide/imprisonment and the origin of frenzy in the lands between? 🤔

Fingerprint shield and remembrance coffin

So we've got, nomadic merchants- where'd they originally come from? I don't know but being nomadic they have likely been most places that were once accessible by land and likely also have a very rich oral history. If we say that the fingerprint shield, likely more of a tablet to them, traveled with them for religious reasons, it's easy to say, yeah that came from the remembrance tomb of a god, something the description says and something we were given in the dlc- something strictly from there, linking the nomadic people to Marikas past as at least a group of people who would know about the hornsent to a likely large degree. So they were either a loose end in terms of obliterating hornsent culture or a more senseless sort of victim of her destroying everything even remotely tied to her homeland.

Regardless, trapped beneath the shunning grounds, the merchants sought answers/help/freedom from their god via an artifact brought with them but weren't answered by the GW. Something answered. Drawn in by their anger and hopelessness, the thing that is known for taking on the form of something trusted, appeared to them and they woke the frenzied flame in the lands between. It makes sense that the frenzied flame would appear as the three fingers in the same way shabriri takes on the skin of a friend or loved one to get in and sew trust. The same way the grapes mimick the light of the erd tree, the flame mimicked something known. It gave them their own fingers to follow, different from those that had led to their banishment.

Further, this follows the idea of the remembrance tomb having a unique power in being able to communicate with outer beings. The slab of it being able to reach the frenzy, the ability to use remembrances at them, and, if you're into it, the idea that the hole laden necklaces came from the snapped off fingers of those tombs in the dlc that are only at finger ruins- thus making them capable of interacting with Metyr/the cosmos at the bell.

Me and @tarnishedbloodhound bounced a lot of this back and forth last night and I want to thank them for yapping with me and sharing their thoughts from their huge brain!😚✨💜 We cooked.