Oh This Dlc Is Gonna Be So Fucking Good, Prepare For Me To Be Very Normal About This For The Following

Nothing in monster hunter wilds feels worse than someone joining your hunt (uninvited) right at the end and stealing literally half your Zenny from doing nothing.

Thinking about how Ranni probably hated her own body because it made her nothing more than a puppet for the GW. And that’s probably why there’s no depictions of her anywhere in the game (I wouldn't be suprised if she slowly got rid of them all before deciding to revolt completely), and why she decided to make her new bodies in the image of her teacher instead of herself.

Because any sight of her previous body would be a horrible reminder of what she was.

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Edit:

To add onto this, Rykard obviously loved his sister as he was willing to fuck with Maliketh just because it would help her, but despite this there’s no depiction of her in volcano manor. Only ones of himself and Radahn. 

Soooo he obviously cared for his sister and also obviously cared for these grand displays of affection/family power or he wouldn't have had these portraits made, so why wouldn’t he also have a picture of her? Well I can only assume it was because she didn’t want one.

There is one more thing I’d like to add to this theory.

In the chapel of anticipation, if you’re skilled enough to strike down the grafted Scion, you can actually avoid being killed by it and chucked over the side of the island. Now why is this important?

Because if you do manage to do this, then you can progress slightly further into the area, where a lone set of butterflies will likely lead you to your fall, where things continue as normal.

Specifically a set of Nascent butterflies.

The butterfly that represents Miquella and by extension, St. Trina.

Right there at the start of our journey.

To guide us towards Torrent.

To guide us towards Trina.

St. Trina's chosen

Thinking about how St. Trina only talks to the player tarnished despite Thiollier's undying loyalty to her.

Thinking about how before traveling with Melina, Torrent belonged to Miquella (and by extension, also Trina)

Thinking about how at some point Torrent was sent out in search of a new master

Thinking about how Ranni's doll body requires her to sleep

Thinking about how St. Trina can visit people in their dreams

Thinking about how “torrent’s former master” asked Ranni to deliver the spirit tuning bell to whoever he chose to serve next

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Did St. Trina put everything in motion? Was she the one who set Torrent out on his search for a new master? Was she the one who asked Ranni to give us the spirit tuning bell? Could it have been one final, desperate plea to find anyone capable of stopping her other half before it was too late for him? Does St. Trina only commune with us because she knows that we're the one who Torrent chose as his new master? Is that why this character, that we never meet before now seemingly has full faith in requesting our aid? because her trusted steed was the one to bring us to her? From the very moment Torrent found us washed up in the lands between, were we destined to find our way to Miquella's/St. Trina's path?

Rykard and the Night of the black knives.

Y’know after thinking about it for a while, I think Rykard's involvement in the night of the black knives could run a little deeper than just being a co conspirator. What if he was the person who actually did the deed?

Not on Godwyn mind you, we already know that was all the black knife assassins handy work. But there is one other corpse that is left unaccounted for.

What if he was the one who killed Ranni and carved the cursemark into her back?

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I know there’s no evidence in game that says anything about this but… it had to have been someone right? Someone other than Ranni I mean. She’s metal as fuck, but it would have been incredibly hard to carve such a specific symbol into her own back. Especially since failure would mean certain death. 

And I also don’t think it would have been some random black knife assassin either. It’s certainly possible but looking at everything revolving them, their alliance seemed shaky at best, and they may not have even known about Ranni's half of the plot to begin with. No, I don't think she would have trusted them to do it. But I do believe she’d trust Rykard. They were already in on this together, and assuming he wasn’t part of the heist itself then there’s only really one other role he could have played in the event. 

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And going off of purely in game mechanics, he definitely has the stats to wield a black knife blade. If you compare the stat requirements for the black knife and Rykards own blasphemous blade, then they match up pretty well. He would be able to use one.

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And then we've got Ranni's body itself, which is burnt beyond recognition. Which is strange for a black knife killing, since they have no inherent fire damage, and while they do seem to have some sort of burning affect, it's never as bad as how scorched Ranni's corpse is. We never see this sort of damage done by a black knife again.

This leads me to believe that Ranni's body may have been burnt after the fact. Possibly as one final middle finger to the Two Fingers and the GW for trying to control her fate. One last 'fuck you' by desecrating the holy flesh they bestowed upon her.

And who do we know that has access to fire powers? Or more specifically Magma powers?

Rykard. The lord of blasphemy himself.

Your honour, I rest my case.

Something curious I noticed recently while exploring Farum Azula is that some of the curtains draped around the area share a passing resemblance to the fabrics seen in Marika's bed chamber, and of the ones seen in the depiction of Marika from the opening cutscene.

I'm sure this isn't a particularly new discovery, and the designs aren't exactly the same, but they're just similar enough that it got me thinking.

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Funnily enough Maliketh also shares a very similar veil to Marika's (the thing connected to his elbows and looping around his back.) His even seems to have the same golden edges as the ones from Farum azula.

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To me it seems like black fabric with golden plant detailing's are a bit of a motif with Marika. Which is nice to know, considering how little we actually know about her. (It's also pretty sweet that she has matching outfits with Maliketh)

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But if this design is a running theme with Marika specifically and not just a mistake I'm making then it begs the question. Why does this ancient, timeless, crumbling city in the sky that's presumably much older than every other area in the game have Marika's favourite design decorating its walls?

Is Marika from the time of Farum Azula? The time of Placidusax? Is Marika his missing god who he's been waiting for? That should be impossible, and maybe it still is, but she seems to have some sort of connection to this place. If not for her design adorning its walls then certainly for her godly appointed body guard living here.

Her body guard who, by the way, uses a weapon that has cultural significance to the society of Farum Azula.

You know, the society that was blasted off the map by a meteor long before the age of the erdtree even began.

This was just supposed to be a nice little post about a small detail I noticed, and now it's turned into this. I don't even know if any of this actually makes sense but I've tried my best to put it together in an understandable way.

There's still so much to go into regarding this theory (why did Marika wage war against the dragons if they have a history like this? could the meteor that destroyed Farum be one of the ones the GW sent down to bury the eternal cities? If so then could that event possibly be one of the first things that shook Marika's resolve in the GW?)

But for now I think I need to just post this and let it simmer for a while. If you got this far then thank you for coming down this rabbit hole with me. I'd love to hear your thoughts because I am thoroughly lost in just what this could mean.

With recent revelations about security breach’s development, it’s honestly impressive Steelwool managed to develop a functioning game at all.

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What the fuck do you mean he didn’t tell them the plot of the game that they were working on!?!?

Kind of beating a dead horse (goat?) here but does anyone else find the interaction between Kris and Ralsei in chapter 2, before bringing all the Darkners to castle town kind of weird?

Just to refresh your memory, I'm talking about when he ushers Susie away, approaches Kris and whispers-

"(Kris, I have something to ask of you.)

(I need you to return to the Light World...)

(And go to the old classroom, to the EAST of the closet doors.)

(Inside, gather everything on the ground...)

(And bring it back here. Could you?)"

Most people have seen this interaction and have come away wondering how Ralsei knows the layout of the Light World, but I don't think that's the most important issue here. Mainly because knowledge of the Light World seems innate for certain Darkners, as Queen also references her light world location being the Library several times.

No, the thing I find weird about this interaction is his insistence on keeping Susie entirely in the dark.

This, by all accounts of reason doesn't make any sense.

Not only would two Lightners realistically have a much easier time transporting all of those items than one, but Susie is their team mate, there's absolutely no reason to keep this a secret from her, even with their rocky first encounter. But despite this, Ralsei goes to great lengths to make sure only Kris hears this advice, not only talking well out of earshot of Susie but also whispering as to negate any chance of her overhearing him.

It's just weird. I know a lot of people playing chapter 2 for the first time picked up on the uncomfortable vibe Ralsei was giving off in the beginning but I don't see much discussion on this interaction in particular.

And it's not only this either. From what I can tell, he seems to have a bit of a habit of keeping secrets from Susie. Even more so than his normal secrecy.

My memory is admittedly kind of foggy, so I can't pinpoint all examples of this, but a specific one that comes to mind is his secret conversations with Kris from chapter 1 and 2, which even we haven't been able to see yet. (Though you could easily argue that it's the player he doesn't want overhearing the conversation that time.)

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What do you think? Is there a totally reasonable explanation behind these actions? Am I just reading too far into things, or does something actually seem off with his exclusion of Susie in this conversation?

I've already made a semi-joke post about this idea but now that we know that Shulk and Rex's kids are going to be a part of the Future Redeemed party and that they've been reborn into the Origin system as child soldiers I'm really curious as to how the two are going to react to what Moebius has done.

Despite Shulk's track record of violently flying off the handle when the people he cares about are hurt, I can imagine his reaction to seeing (who could be) his child in Aionios being that he’s just happy to see them and to know that they’re safe, even if they’ve been turned into a child soldier that doesn’t recognise him. 

After all, his reaction to Fiora being turned into a Mechon in XC1 was to almost instantly let go of his hatred for the Mechon, try to save her and try to understand what was actually going on. He wasn’t angry that they turned her, he was happy that she was alive.

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Rex however, despite being outwardly optimistic and kind throughout his game I think would fly off the fucking rails the second he realises what Moebius had done to his daughter. 

Pyra and Mythra both have a lot of trauma about their past as living weapons, which they probably carry in some way even to this day. And I think the fact that Moebius would dare subject his daughter to the same pain his partners have been through, being dehumanised and forced to fight to survive as nothing more than living weapons would be enough to tip him over the edge.

I also imagine that N is going to be in some deep fucking water if Rex ever figures out what’s happened to Mio as well.

One of my favourite concepts I don’t think I’ve really seen before is characters trading/lending their weapons to each other. There’s just something I find really sweet about that act (especially if the weapon has sentimental value to the owner and letting someone else use it is a big deal.)

Everytime I see talk about silksong taking too long to come out I can't help but raise an eyebrow. It’s been what? Five or six years since hollow knight had its final DLC and was officially “finished”? That’s a perfectly normal amount of time for a game to be in development for.

Hollow knight itself allegedly took around 4 years to create, so silksong, which is clearly a significantly larger and more ambitious game compared to their first has only been in development for slightly longer than that was atm.

Now, I'm no 'hollow knight news master', so I totally could be missing something or be wrong about something here, but from my point of view it hasn't been in development that long at all.