#I just want some content where Bad is a shade from Hollow Knight or void! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ruthlesslistener · 4 years

Note

I'm honestly curious: Where do people get the idea that Grimm is a good person/god? Is there something I missed in terms of lore on him or something? I mean, the Nightmare Heart he serves only thinks about enslaving others, so he's kiinda complicit in that? And depending on how you interpret the thing about Grimmchild taking over his role, you could argue that such a process might consume the Grimmchild's personality, too. Just to be clear: I love Grimm, some interpretations just confuse me.

Through contextual clues, mostly, since we don't have as much concrete lore on the Troupe as we wish. One of the major elements of Hollow Knight is a role subversion, of sorts, with who is the 'good' guy and who is the 'bad'. The antagonists of the game are the Radiance and the Pale King- beings that would be coded as the 'good' guys in any other game, because we as a society have an unfortunate tendency to view white/pale god-figures and rulers as being good by default. But in Hollow Knight, it's their conviction that they are the one true god/that their way is the only means of stopping the apocalypse that causes so much pain and suffering.

The Radiance is the best example of this, imo. She's the cause of so much agony in-game, but when you encounter her she's gorgeous. Beautiful and breathtaking, really- she looks like an angel. And to an extent, she was; she apparently ruled over the Moth Tribe peacefully, before everything went to shit, but at the expense of everyone's freedom. And when it was taken away, her petty anger killed millions of people, and we, a being of void (a being of darkness and death, the evil scary dangerous thing in practically every other piece of media), have to kill her. The angelic god-being is not the savior here; she is a monster. And the 'good' guys/protagonists are the Vessels/Shade Lord, terrifying mute void monsters who are, at their core, children who just want to rest. In the majority of media, this would be swapped.

('Good' and 'bad' are in quotation marks because they are concepts that don't really apply in Hollow Knight; everyone is, thankfully, morally grey. But anyways, moving back to Grimm.)

Another thing with Radiance is that she and Grimm are antiparallels. They both ruled over the Dream Realm in the past, which then split in two because their philosophies with what to do with it were different; dream vs nightmare. The Radiance came back to Hallownest demanding that everyone serve her or die; Grimm shows up to Hallownest to feed his child and meet his end, demanding things only from the summoner. The Radiance, for all her beauty and whispers of comfort, ruled a kingdom where people were treated like children- and what is a child but a slave of their parents, really- content as long as they complied; Brumm is not only allowed to feel his discomfort with the Nightmare Heart, he is also allowed to leave Grimm’s troupe, and when he does, he is gifted a charm that protects the bearer from harm, he’s not torn apart by the wrath of his shirked god. The Radiance is beauty and sweet dreams, ruling over the entirety of her kingdom and the lands beyond with an iron fist; Grimm, however, only has the troupe, with no territory to call his own. So if we keep in mind the whole role subversion thing, as well as this antiparallel, then it stands to reason that the devil-figure here is the kind one, since we already know the angel-figure is fucking horrifying to deal with. He’s essentially the vulture/bats/corvids of gods; he’s absolutely terrifying from the outsider pov, this nightmare god that eats the flames of dying kingdoms, but in reality he’s a chill dude who’s just cleaning up after them and is essential for the godly ecosystem. He’s just here to do his job and leave

As for the whole thing with the Nightmare Heart enslaving people; is that not what all gods do? We know in Hollow Knight lore that the gods survive through worship and memory; they require dedicated followers to thrive and persist through time. The Radiance certainly didn’t give people a choice about worshipping her, and the Pale King-for all his blathering about free mind and will- damned those of his kingdom that turned away from his influence. By comparison, the Nightmare Heart’s following seems relatively tame, as it’s almost more of a fae trick than anything; you can dance and sing and live forever, as long as you remain bound to it, and the proximity to its power wipes away who you were previously, because it takes your name. Brumm does mention feeling chained to the ritual, but Brumm, as so many others in this game, is an unreliable narrator; he is mortal, he is made to die, and this dance through so many millenia tires him. Even when he is talking about breaking the ritual, he mentions that he doesn’t really care if you don’t go through with it, and when he thinks of it, he thinks to free Grimm of the endless cycle of death and rebirth; he sees a natural process as something he is chained to, because he has been stretched thin through many more years than he really should. And, like I mentioned previously, Brumm really isn’t a slave; when he breaks the ritual, Grimm lets him. He is not torn apart in a fit of rage, like those infected who rejected the Radiance, he is not stripped of his mind, like those who turned away from the Pale King, he’s stripped of his memories of the Troupe (another common theme in fae stories) and left in the safest town in Hallownest, with his accordion and a charm that protects him as best as it can. And when he speaks of that charm, he speaks of a sort of longing and nostalgia gazing upon it, which implies that his time in the Troupe was not necessarily a bad one, he was just really, really exhausted from completing the ritual so many damn times- which is valid of him. It makes me tired just thinking of living that long, let alone watching one of my friends die over and over. Like, don’t get me wrong, I still think that being in close proximity to Grimm is overall dangerous for your health- he is a god, after all, or the vessel of a god,and he is extremely magically powerful- but he doesn’t seem to do it on purpose or out of spite, like with Radiance and PK. It’s just a side effect of his natural existence.

Tdlr: The Ritual is part of Grimm’s natural lifecycle, the members of the Troupe are not so much enslaved as they are caught up with a powerful fae god whose magic has extreme side effects, Grimm himself is really only here to party and clean up after the messes of other gods, and we can infer from comparisons drawn between the Radiance, the Pale King, and the Lord of Shades that the guy who seems like he’d be pure fucking evil in any other piece of media is really just here to feed his kid and perish, like he said he would, because of how heavy of a thing subversed expectations are in this game.

#hollow knight #hk #troupe master grimm #nightmare king grimm #brumm #brumm hollow knight #tbh all religion is slavery of a sort grimm just seems like the chillest one #im not excusing what came of his actions bc some people might not like it but he's #not really doing it on purpose i feel #thats just how gods work #anon #reply #meta #lore #hollow knight lore #hollow knight lore speculation

406 notes · View notes

feralphoenix · 4 years

Text

BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN YOU’RE NOT PREPARED TO TRY

if you’re following my blog or if you read my fanfiction, you may have seen me talking in tags or comments about how the radiance hollowknight was a pacifist. “feral, wtf?” you may have thought. “she’s the freaking final boss and tries really, really hard to kill you and all her attacks do 2 entire masks damage. where on earth do you get pacifism out of that???”

to you specifically i say, that’s an understandable reaction! the short version of how i got here was that i started thinking about the story implications of radi not inflicting contact damage and took a deep dive into game mechanics and lore. when i came up for air i had made myself Very Sad.

if this intrigues you and you would like to know more, come along with me, i am happy to point out the things i noticed and share the Big Sad around.

this essay is also available on dreamwidth for accessibility purposes, since my layout’s text may be too small for folks on pc with high-res screens.

CONTENT WARNING: This essay discusses pseudo-zombie plagues and associated body horror, colonialism and genocide, horrible things that happened in real life Australian history... you know, the usual topics that come up when I’m talking about Hollow Knight.

ADDITIONAL NOTICE: TPK fans of the “TPK meant well/was working for the greater good”/“TPK and Radi are equally bad”/“TPK is bad but Radi is worse” variety please give this one a pass, it ain’t for you.

finally if youre from a christian cultural upbringing (whether currently practicing, agnostic/secular, or atheist now), understand that some of what i’m discussing here may challenge you. if thinking thru the implications of this particular part of hollow knight worldbuilding/lore is distressing for you, PLEASE only approach this essay when youre in a safe mindset & open to listening, and ask the help of a therapist or anti-racism teacher/mentor to help you process your thoughts & feelings. just like keep in mind that youre listening to an ethnoreligiously marginalized person and please be respectful here or wherever else youre discussing this dang essay

BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN YOU’RE NOT PREPARED TO TRY: The Radiance Doesn’t Deal Contact Damage And That’s Kind Of Fucked Up And Sad

The vast majority of hostile creatures in Hollow Knight deal contact damage: This is to say, if the Wandering Knight (who I’ll probably spend most of this essay calling by their affectionate fan name Ghost) touches a hostile creature, this harms them.

There are exceptions to this rule. The most notable and most oft-memed example is the game’s literal actual true final boss, the Radiance. Not only will Ghost not be harmed by running into any part of her body, but during her stagger animation, where she drops to the boss arena floor on her front with her whole body splayed out, Ghost still isn’t harmed if she lands on top of them! What’s more, this holds true for her full-power form Absolute Radiance, the secret final boss of the Godmaster quest/endings.

A lot of people find this amusing, because it’s a little absurd that a game’s final boss is an exception to such a consistent element of gameplay! Hence all the “haha moth too soft and fluffy for contact damage” jokes. It is objective facts that Radi is very soft and very fluffy, so it’s very easy to understand why people don’t overthink this too much.

Thinking about things I like in gross detail is unfortunately my hobby. When it comes to Hollow Knight this usually leads to me making myself really sad. I’d like to share the fruits of my theorizing with the class, so other people can be sad with me.

Now, from a game design perspective I can think of a lot of reasons why Team Cherry chose for Radiance not to inflict contact damage. Her hitbox only covers the central part of her body. Her limbs are large, so because of the way she floats, if she did contact damage she would be protected from nail strikes from below and to either side. This would give a player who prefers nail combat a punishingly small margin through which they could inflict damage without also taking a hit, potentially forcing them to adapt to a new and unfamiliar play style at the very end of the game. That’s not fun for anybody and tends to make players feel very frustrated.

In addition to this, Radiance’s attacks are all bullet hell-style spells. All of them except the floor hazards inflict two masks of damage, meaning if you want to stay alive and identify points where it’s possible to heal, you need to learn the spell patterns and dodge a lot. Radi is a large boss. If running into her hurt you this would make the bullet hell elements of her fight extra punishing.

So, I think the purely game mechanics reason for Moth Too Soft And Fluffy is in interest of keeping her boss fight fair, and helping players feel like they have a chance of actually defeating her.

Part of why we all love Hollow Knight, though, is that there’s not much in the game that only exists for purely mechanical reasons. There’s always some form of story or lore integration.

So what on earth is the story reason behind why Radiance doesn’t deal contact damage?

OTHER ENEMIES THAT DON’T DEAL CONTACT DAMAGE

Radi isn’t the only enemy (here defined as fightable/killable creature) in Hollow Knight who doesn't inflict contact damage, so let’s take a look at her fellow exceptions to the rule to see what we can learn.

Broadly speaking there are two categories of Enemies That Don’t Deal Contact Damage. The first is enemies or bosses who used to be hostile, but have become friendly to the player. For instance, when characters like Ogrim and Hornet are not being fought in boss battles, touching them won’t cause damage to Ghost. These story characters who Ghost has more or less reconciled with can’t be damaged by the player out of combat either.

In terms of generic enemies who used to be hostile but have become friendly to the player, we have the mantises of the Fungal Wastes and the Siblings/Ghost’s Shade. We learn from the game’s lore that the mantises Did Not Like The Pale King and were hostile to Hallownest, but that they established a ceasefire conditional on their keeping the people of Deepnest (who were also hostile to Hallownest) from leaving through the area’s main entrance/exit in the Fungal Wastes - essentially the two native kingdoms were pitted against one another by the Pale King.

Now, just because there was a ceasefire, that doesn’t mean the mantises take kindly to Hallownest bugs brazenly trespassing into their dang house; they will get in your face and try to kill you unless you have permission to be there. But once you’ve defeated the Mantis Lords in combat and proven yourself worthy of the mantises’ respect, they’ll let you pass through their turf unmolested. They are no longer actively hostile and don't deal contact damage.

(You're still able to attack them, though - maybe because you’d be locked out of receiving the Hunter’s Mark if you complete the Respect quest/achievement before you’ve successfully killed enough mantises? - and if you attack them, or if your pet charm familiars attack them, any mantises you aggroed will fight back and deal contact damage again.)

The Siblings, as well as Ghost’s Shade, are initially indiscriminately hostile. Our window into Shade psychology is limited, but we know that the Shade died violently and the Siblings probably did too; they may be lashing out. They’re also Void creatures, and Ghost looks a lot like the Pale King, whom we can guess from context clues pissed the Void off significantly by using it as his personal play-doh to make tools and toys with and also using its house as his personal garbage dump for baby corpses.

However, once Ghost recalls their past and breaks the mask of the Kingsoul charm to reveal the Void Heart at its core, the Void recognizes them as a part of it, and Ghost becomes able to direct/lead the Void to some extent. As an extension of this, the Siblings and Ghost’s shade become docile and can now be killed by any weapon in one hit instead of just the Dream Nail (which is made of Radiance’s Light and is the Void’s natural weakness). They don’t deal contact damage anymore either.

That’s it for “enemies that inflict contact damage at one point, but stop inflicting it after becoming friendly or neutral to Ghost”.

The generic enemies which don't inflict contact damage include shrumelings, maggots, maskflies, and lightseeds/lifeseeds. These enemies are incapable of inflicting any damage on Ghost whatsoever, because by themselves they are completely helpless entities with no natural defenses.

Shrumelings are infant members of the mushroom clan who are usually protected by adult fungi like shrumal warriors and ogres. Lightseeds and lifeseeds are harmless single-celled organisms. Maskflies are similarly harmless. Maggots, we glean from the Hunter’s Journal and dialogue from False Knight/Failed Champion, are the bottom rung of Hallownest’s society because they are weak and helpless, and are forced into menial and slave labor by other Hallownest bugs because they cannot defend themselves. The maggots’ plight is the whole reason why False Knight/Failed Champion stole Hegemol's armor in the first place, as he wanted to protect his people.

All of these enemies flee when Ghost approaches them. (Some maskfly groups’ flight triggers are set to specific areas on a map and won’t flee if you can avoid stepping on/passing through those areas, but this is clearly due to a programming oversight because their whole Thing is running away.)

But, there’s something interesting to be observed in the case of lightseeds and maggots: They can fight back against and harm Ghost if they use tools. The little flock of lightseeds you chase around the Ancient Basin eventually get sick of Ghost’s shit and take over Broken Vessel/Lost Kin’s corpse, which they puppet around to try to murder you. By doing so they gain access to Broken Vessel/Lost Kin’s considerable combat prowess and become very dangerous, contact damage included in the bargain. (The lightseeds’ doing this seems to evoke the vessel’s spirit, since they reach for Ghost when defeated. That’s not a gesture the lightseeds have any reason to make. The Lost Kin fight, by which the spirit seems to gain some form of closure, becomes available here too.)

False Knight/Failed Champion’s fights work on the same general principle. Now that he has a weapon he can attack Ghost, and his armor deals contact damage. The maggot inside the armor does not inflict contact damage; essentially both his boss fights consist of your whacking the armor until he’s stunned and pops out of the armor for a moment so you can hit his vulnerable real body, which is the only part of him that yields Soul when you smack him. In fact, his boss fights will last forever if you let him recover from being stunned on his own.

Between these two groups, Radiance very obviously doesn’t fit in the first, as she’s the final boss and is very vigorously trying to kill Ghost with various magic spells. You can tell from her Dream Nail dialogue that she’s furious about what the Pale King did to her and her people, and is afraid for her life. She is willing to use everything at her disposal to try to destroy Ghost so she can survive, go free, and get revenge for the Pale King’s crimes. If she could do contact damage to Ghost she would.

So, the only logical conclusion to make is that Radi falls into the second group of enemies that don’t inflict contact damage. She is physically incapable of causing any harm to anyone with only her body. Her magic is deadly as all get out and the 2 masks damage explosion noise probably haunts the nightmares of anyone who’s struggled fighting her, but without it she is helpless.

WHY CAN’T RADIANCE DO CONTACT DAMAGE?

It might be pretty hard to reconcile the fact that a character with Audre Lorde energy as potent as Radi Hollowknight’s is has a whopping 0 ATK. The biggest clues we get in terms of story context for her inability to inflict physical harm of any kind can be found within the culture of the moth tribe, who were her people.

Thistlewind, the backer-designed moth ghost who can be found in the Resting Grounds, tells you that the majority of moths were pacifists, and that individuals like them and like Markoth who learned to wield a nail were in the minority. Thistlewind appears to have learned to fight as a means of self-defense while they explored the crater area, and describes Markoth as having done so in order to “[brave] the edges of this world, hoping to uncover a truth long forgotten”. It sounds to me like Markoth was trying to recover parts of moth culture that were lost when their tribe was assimilated into Hallownest, or maybe even searching for Radiance or trying to learn what happened to her. (Judging that his corpse is hidden behind one of the Pale King’s shade gates it seems this didn’t go well. Thanks TPK.)

As far as fighting moths go there’s Marmu too, but she seems to be a special case, possibly raised in Hallownest's culture instead of with her tribe. We don’t actually get any sort of canon explanation for how a baby moth wound up as a child soldier who died defending the Queen’s Gardens, but given the overall tone of Hollow Knight as a game and all the colonization/Australian history parallel subtext, some horrifying possibilities come to mind.

So, if Thistlewind, Markoth, and Marmu are Outliers Lepidoptera and should not be counted, how did the majority of moths spend their time? According to Seer, who knows more about the tribe’s history than most (and to Quirrel, who points you to her if you defeat Uumuu before picking up the Dream Nail), the moths’ main prerogative was cultivating and developing dream magic. From the way the Seer describes dreams as a living history as you collect Essence, dream magic seems to be a parallel to the Dreaming (or Dreamtime), a spiritual concept in Indigenous Australian religion related to both history and myth.

To translate this into simple terms, the moths were by and large pacifists whose culture celebrated art, history, and spirituality.

Team Cherry tends to adapt at least some aspects of real-life bug behavior and biology into their sad cartoon bugs, so moths-as-pacifists tracks: Real moths do not really have any way to fight. They defend themselves from predators via their mobility and their markings, which tend towards either camouflage that helps them hide or bright markings intended to scare predators off by indicating they’re poisonous (therefore not good to eat) or look like the face of something much bigger and more dangerous than they are.

There's not that much we can glean about the moths in pre-Hallownest society aside from Seer’s dialogue, because Hallownest destroyed their civilization so thoroughly: Except in the Dream Realm (which is filled with Essence spirographs and the wisteria charms that decorate Seer’s room), their architecture can only be found anymore in hidden parts of the Resting Grounds and at the very top of the Crystal Peak where Radi’s statue and a fuckton of lore tablets Ghost doesn’t know how to read are located.

But, we know that the crater pre-Hallownest was home to a ton of diverse bug nations - the mosskin, the mushroom tribe, the mantises, Deepnest, the Hive, the flukes - and every SINGLE one of those had some kind of warrior tradition, as well as their own unique cultures. In the midst of all that it was only the moths who were pacifists, so from there we can tentatively assume that they were on good enough terms with their neighbors for there not to be any fighting. The mosskin in particular also had and still have a Higher Being on their side, though in the modern day Unn seems to be rather conflict avoidant to say the least.

And we know from Hallownest’s past dealings with the mantises and Deepnest that even having Two (2) Higher Beings isn’t enough to keep rival civilizations off your nuts if they hate you, so it’s improbable that Radiance just did all the moths’ fighting for them.

The only hint that the moths ever had beef with anyone at all is one of Radiance’s Dream Nail lines, “ancient enemy” - this is popularly theorized to refer to the Void and might be corroborated by the Void’s willingness to follow Ghost into Radi’s boss fights and fight alongside them. As the Void seems to be some sort of Higher Being/god of darkness and nothingness, and the Dream Nail’s only offensive ability is to kill Void creatures, the Void and creatures of Light appear to be in a position of mutual vulnerability. Some of the Pale King’s writings in his workshop, which identify the Void as a power in direct opposition to his, support this too.

It’s unclear whether the Void civilization and Radiance ever directly came to blows or whether they were just giving each other the stink eye over being natural enemies - personally I think the latter is more likely because the two civilizations existed on opposite sides of the crater*, and again, the moths were pacifists; plus when Ghost brings the Void along to Radi’s boss fight she is quickly and gruesomely overwhelmed by it.

What I am saying here is that if pacifism was such an integral aspect of moth culture, and Radiance epitomized her people’s culture, and she is 100% incapable of inflicting physical harm, she was probably a pacifist too.

DEEP DOWN YOU KNOW YOU WEREN'T BUILT FOR FIGHTING

Hallownest flourished for a long, long time between the Pale King and White Lady first establishing it and the initial outbreak of the Infection.

There’s no conclusive information in-game as to why this is. We can only guess: Maybe Radiance was so badly hurt or weakened by the moths’ assimilation that it simply took her That Long to become capable of the mass dream broadcast to Literally Everyone In Hallownest that would eventually become the Infection when Hallownest’s people tried to suppress it. Or, maybe it just took a long time for her to come up with a way to fight back. It’s possible that it took her a while to find the resolve to actually fight back, too, with her principles of pacifism in conflict with the necessity of defending herself and taking her people back. Maybe there was a change in the moths’ situation in Hallownest somewhere down the line that compelled her to step in - all the moths are super extremely dead at the time Hollow Knight starts, after all. Even Seer is eventually revealed to be a revenant like Ze’mer the Grey Mourner, only lingering in the world to pass on the Dream Nail and tell Radiance’s story. Maybe it was a combination of all those factors. Barring Team Cherry dropping in to explain this bit of Sekret Deep Lore, we are never going to know.

All we DO know for sure is that when we mosey into Hollow’s brain (and/or Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny our way to the top of Hallownest’s Pantheon) and challenge the literal actual sun to a fight, Radi takes the challenge with extreme prejudice and comes in swinging.

Something interesting I noticed while comparing the Radiance boss fights with the Pure Vessel fight is that some of their attacks are vaguely similar. Where warrior-mage characters like Xero and Markoth have physical weapons that they summon and manipulate with magic, Radiance and Pure Vessel both create nails and daggers out of Essence and Soul respectively. Both characters’ magical weapon attacks are similar in nature too: Some are used to create hazards that must be dodged or avoided, and some are fired directly at Ghost in radial patterns.

This begs a very sad chicken-and-egg question. Did Radi and Hollow develop these battle techniques independently of each other, has Hollow in their prime form somehow absorbed similar techniques to Radi through osmosis since they’re currently chained together by the brain... or is Radi mimicking and innovating on these attacks she knows Hollow can do?

All her other attacks seem very obvious for a light-themed character, after all: Beam attacks and blobs of light. A flash of bright light is also how she shakes off the Void the first time it tries to grab her, too, making for a strong argument that that’s the original natural defense she possessed, and that’s what she based most of her attack magic off of.

Making sword’s and knive’s from Essence when most of her people didn’t even handle these sorts of tools even at the height of her power and influence, though... that seems less like something that would come naturally to her. i don’t really know i don’t have a definitive answer or theory for this one it just Seems Possible and it’s fucking me up guys

Even the Infection - which began life as Radiance’s attempt to communicate, let’s remember, before it progressed to “The End Of Eva Disease Will Continue Until Someone Actually Listens To Me” and then finally Radi screaming “FUCK U LET ME OUT, GET THAT NEW SUNNY D BOTTLE THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME, HALLOWNEST EAT SHIT” during canon - does not appear to be fatal to living bugs until the tumorous growths grow so large they impede bodily functions, like real cancer. We can observe this phenomenon via a number of NPCs and enemies that are rediscovered as tumorous corpses after the whole Crossroads area becomes infected.

At least to me, all of this points to Radiance being a character to whom violence and causing harm doesn't come naturally, and who has resorted to these methods in desperation.

It actually reminds me a lot of False Knight/Failed Champion. It’s a very common theory among fans that when he stole Hegemol’s armor he killed Hegemol - this is a reasonable thing to believe, since Hegemol is the only one of the Five Great Knights of Hallownest who never appears at all in-game, not even as a corpse like Dryya and Isma. Like Radi, False Knight/Failed Champion is a character who rose up and turned to violence in order to protect his people, despite the maggots not being a belligerent species.

False Knight is one of the game’s first major bosses, sometimes the first boss that players encounter at all. And so Hollow Knight’s story bookends with two separate victims of a predatory system, one who lived within and was cannibalized by it, one outside of it who was deliberately targeted by the Pale King. Neither of them started out as a fighter, but both of them still adopted violence as a tool to protect themselves and their people. Radiance is as doomed as False Knight by the Pale King’s genocide, but just like False Knight, she has no intention of going quietly, and will rage against the dying of the light as only the literal actual sun can.

Cue Deedee Magno Hall voice clip. You all know the one.

*A footnote: There’s no conclusive evidence to tell us whether the Void civilization was contemporaneous with the other pre-Hallownest indigenous bug nations or whether it predated them. Mask Maker has a line suggesting that the Void civilization tried to expand throughout the crater in its heyday and that maybe this was linked to its collapse, but in general the Void lore is just too darn thin to draw firm conclusions - it’s like trying to speculate on the ancient stone age cultures of the Americas that came before pre-settler Indigenous countries when the only sources you can easily access are elementary school level US history textbooks. (To non-Americans: We mostly teach kids propaganda until they hit college-level courses and it sucks so much ass.) This is very realistic worldbuilding, but also please Team Cherry I want to know more about these ancient bugs who apparently got lost in the sauce

#hollow knight #hollow knight spoilers #hollow knight meta #the radiance #hk radiance #essay #long post under cut -#bad and naughty catholics go in the catholic wiggler

91 notes · View notes

bae-leth · 4 years

Text

hghbndfhgghghbhbbh hi it’s been a long time.,.,i saw you talking about dimiashe and i had been wanting to write dimiashe for a while so i wrote one for the both of us!! sorry if this is uncalled for…

purring

Dimitri shook his head vehemently, shrinking away where he knelt on the stone tile walkway of the courtyard outside the monastery. “No, no, no. Do not make me, please, Ashe, I’m begging you!”

Ashe gestured vaguely with the small calico cat in his hands. “Come on, Your Highness! It won’t bite!” Dimitri opened his eye to peek at his knight and the fluffy creature he was clutching to his chest, and he leaned very far backwards when Ashe held the cat out to him.

“No! I will not be touching it!” Dimitri announced with the dignified rigor of a king, though his voice was quivering with terror. “Put that thing down, Ashe, immediately!”

The little cat suddenly squeezed its blue eyes shut and yawned, hugely so, as the action seemed to make its whole body convulse. Ashe gasped and looked at Dimitri expectantly.

“Did you see that?”

“Yes, I don’t—”

“It yawned!”

“I—I know, I just—”

“Oh, please, Your Highness, you must get over your fear! It’s so adorable and small. There’s no way it could possibly hurt you,” Ashe insisted, reaching over the small distance between him and his liege and taking Dimitri’s wrist. Dimitri flinched, but let his arm be pulled over to the cat. “Here. Just touch it.”

“No, I’m—” Dimitri hissed, tugging his hand away before Ashe could place it on the cat. It was starting to clamber up Ashe’s arm. “Ashe, I am not afraid of I…I am—I am afraid of doing it any harm.”

Ashe frowned, letting go of Dimitri’s arm and plucking the small cat off of his shoulder and returning it to his lap. He, as well as anyone who had ever known the young king of Faerghus, was aware of Dimitri’s almost inhuman strength, as well as his struggles to control it. He’d been improving with the assistance of his friends—this had actually been a complex plan devised by Ashe, Sylvain, Ingrid, Annette, Mercedes, Dedue, and begrudgingly, Felix, in order to help Dimitri—but the thought of handling a small animal was simply too much for him.

“You won’t,” Ashe promised. “I’ll be here to make sure you won’t.” Dimitri grimaced, wringing his hands nervously. Ashe bade the king look into his eyes with a soft nod, and he smiled encouragingly. “Want to give it a try?”

Dimitri seemed to be searching the depths of Ashe’s olive gaze; in the end, he nodded back, returning the smile. “…All right.”

“Okay.” Ashe shifted a little closer so his knee brushed Dimitri’s—much to an unknightly rush of feverish warmth that coursed through his veins—and lifted the little cat up in his hands. The calico mewled, pawing at the air. “Here, hold out your hands.”

Dimitri’s fingers were trembling as he cupped his palms underneath the tiny animal, his blue eye wide with anticipation and anxiety. Ashe lowered the cat into Dimitri’s hands, then let his eyes flick to Dimitri’s expression. The king took in a shaky gasp as Ashe let go of the cat, then placed his hands up against Dimitri’s to support him.

“Ah! It’s—get it off!” Dimitri spluttered frantically as the cat got to its little paws, then started to climb impatiently onto Dimitri’s chest. Ashe laughed at the sight of Faerghus’ fearless king, horrified of the tiny kitten clinging to his cloak. The knight took Dimitri’s hands and placed them around the cat’s soft belly.

“Here, you pick it up. Just gently lift it…don’t apply pressure, or you’ll scare it,” Ashe instructed, and Dimitri leaned his head back, swallowing when the cat took an interest in the small scar on his neck and started to bat at it. The king squeezed his eye shut and gripped the cat with just enough force, peeling it off his clothing with some resistance like a burr.

“You did it!” Ashe clasped his hands together under his chin. “See? That wasn’t so bad, wasn’t it?” Dimitri looked absolutely mortified at the tiny thing hissing and wriggling in his hands. “Just place it in your lap, let it get used to you.”

Dimitri dropped it (to Ashe’s horror), and it landed with a soft plop on his leg and scrambled to its paws, bristling.

“Oh, goddess,” Dimitri breathed. “I’m so sorry. Are you all right? Did I hurt you?”

Ashe couldn’t suppress the bloom of warmth in his chest; how concerned and caring his liege was! The small calico cat sniffed Dimitri’s hand, which the king lowered tentatively, then rubbed its cheek against it, closing its round eyes contentedly.

“Ashe! What’s it doing?” Dimitri whisper-screamed, and Ashe—dare he?—sat a little closer to scratch the cat behind its ears.

“It likes you. Don’t you see? It’s so happy!” Dimitri looked as if he was having trouble processing this, but he nodded, letting his thumb gently rub the black spot between the cat’s ears.

“I see,” he murmured thoughtfully.

Ashe stroked the cat’s back, letting its long tail flick up against his palm when he lifted it. Dimitri observed his knight’s gestures, then started to do the same. Before long, the cat was being pampered by the alternating hands of the king of Faerghus and his knight running down the silky fur on its back, and it started to purr.

“It’s vibrating! Is that bad?” Dimitri asked suddenly, and Ashe couldn’t help laughing a little more, letting his head rest against the hollow of his liege’s shoulder.

“It’s purring. That means its very happy.”

Ashe and Dimitri continued to pet the cat, and Ashe was content; then, when he realized the cat was sideways, as was the shaded pavilion he and Dimitri were sitting in, he froze. He was still leaning his head upon Dimitri’s shoulder!

If he pulled away now, then he would probably seem impolite. That would make things awkward. But if he stayed, he would be overstepping his boundaries. Ashe tensed up, his hand pausing on the cat’s back as Dimitri lifted his off the animal’s tail and rested it back upon its head, and the knight suppressed an “eep” when Dimitri’s hand slipped down and over Ashe’s, and—goddess have mercy—paused.

“What’s the matter, Ashe?” Dimitri asked softly. Ashe was panicking. The cat opened its eyes, looking around in confusion.

“Oh—uh—um—” Ashe chanced a look up at his king, and Dimitri was looking back down, a rare, fond smile gracing his lips. His handsome blue eye was void of apprehension, and filled with a pleasant contentedness. He didn’t seem bothered. “…Nothing.”

“Okay, then. Let us continue! Our little friend here is growing bored.” Ashe nodded shyly, and Dimitri let his fingertips brush across Ashe’s knuckles as he lifted his hand. Ashe bit his lip as he started to pet the small animal sitting on Dimitri’s lap once more, and Dimitri followed suit.

Soon, Dimitri started to hum, and Ashe could feel the faint vibrations in his chest, as well as his liege’s, as if they were purring.

[have…..good day]

-----------

notes from bae: OHHH THIS? THIS IS.... SO SWEET..... I’M GENUINELY GRINNING DOWN AT MY PHONE AND I LOOK LIKE A FOOL BECAUSE THIS LIL FIC IS SO SWEET!!!!

#submission #photographerh #fire emblem three houses #dimiashe #dimitri #ashe #THASNK YOU SO MUCH FOR SENDING IT IN IT REALLY BRIGHTENED MY DAY!!!#also it is never uncalled for... i always love your submissions.... i love em a lot!!#also also can i just say that it's really nice watching your writing style grow n flourish like this??#ahh this genuinely is so sweet. dimitri trying to pet the cats!!! ashe helping!!!#the purrs..... AW...!!

22 notes · View notes