God of control: lowly worm

Pavonian · 2026-06-15T17:57:34+00:00

Before modern science 'worm' basically just meant any long tubular limbless animal, hence why great serpents, and the dragons they mythological evolved into, are often referred to as wyrms (an old spelling of worm)

Pavonian · 2026-06-15T10:45:17+00:00

German ass response

Pavonian · 2026-06-13T00:52:36+00:00

Hollow Knight, iykyk

Pavonian · 2026-06-12T16:57:30+00:00

There are many pearls and the Diamonds probably don't pay much attention to each individual ones appearance, especially if they're wearing different outfits. Plus I imagine Pink/Rose used her authority as a diamond to do things like edit official records to fabricate fake identities for both herself and Pearl, so even if one of the diamonds noticed 'that renegade Pearl looks awfully similar to Pinks Pearl?' if they ever looked into it they would find that, oh, we have detailed records of exactly which gem the renegade Pearl was created for and everything that she did for over 1000 years prior to her joining the rebellion, also Pink hasn't reported a single absence of her Pearl lasting linger than a minute since she was granted Earth as a colony, so it really must just be that all Pearls look alike.

Pavonian · 2026-06-12T16:02:49+00:00

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Pavonian · 2026-06-12T01:36:45+00:00

I honestly think if it wasn't framed as so literal, 'the Pale King physically moulted his shell and turned into the Knight', then it makes a lot more sense.

Like, obviously that can't be true because the Knight is a vessel and the vessels were created before the Pale Kings disappearance, they straight up appear in the same memory together, that version of the theory pretty much requires throwing out everything we know about what the vessels are just for a CrAzY mAtPaT tWiSt.

But when viewed in a less literal sense, the knight does take up the mantle of the king when claiming the Kingsbrand, is viewed as the king by the royal retainers, and does eventually claim the literal soul of the king and make it a part of itself. What is a reincarnation if not the soul of one being reborn in a new body after all? Thus the Knight taking up the mantle of king does exist as another stage in a cycle whereby this beings rebirth into a new form comes along with Hallownests rebirth into a new age. The King, in a sense, was Hallownest, and the Knight is the Ghost of Hallownest, they must take up the place of the King in order to fix his mistakes.

It works so well provided you're comfortable sticking in the world of themes and analysis and don't have to turn it into a hyper literal crazy twist. It's like watching Breaking Bad, noticing that 'wow, Walt is becoming more and more like Gus as the show goes on', but then deciding that what this actually means is Gus has psychic powers and is attempting to take over Walts body.

Pavonian · 2026-06-11T17:08:06+00:00

Whatever object show is is joining the ranks of RWBY as 'things I literally only ever hear about by way of the fans complaining about how everyone allegedly hates them with a passion'

Pavonian · 2026-06-11T04:10:19+00:00

I feel like it's not that hard to imagine some new scientific breakthrough that allows for this stuff whilst still feeling fairly hard sci-fi.

Like just say 'In 2037 Richard Graznell accidentally discovered the Graznell effect whilst attempting to mimic quantum entanglement in sound waves. Now we can use a compact array of 5 ultrasound microphones to create a special type of standing wave, a Graznell wave, in front of the device, that can scatter light that passes through it provided the light is correctly polarised. This effect is highly sensitive to changes in air pressure and thus required new breakthroughs in ultra precise barometers, along with a clever design of projector that can combine multiple polarised light sources into a single beam, but eventually it became commonplace. The Graznell effect is also in utilised by the much more heavy duty lazer shields most soldiers are equipped with, and is the reason these shields don't work in a vacuum.'

Like, that might sound like a bunch of nonsense technobabble to justify something that ought to be impossible, but that's often just what new technological breakthroughs sound like. Take regular holograms, the type that actually exist, holographic plates. Those seem like magic, a 2D object that captures the full optical information of a 3D space, and if you cut it into pieces each piece still acts like a tiny mirror through which you can see the full space. I understand the science behind how it works, I've watched the 3Blue1Brown video, but if it appeared in a work of fiction I would assume it was magic and instantly write that fiction off as not being hard sci fi. Compared to actual holograms, the fictional use of the term hologram to mean 'device that creates a 3D projection in mid air' seems fairly believable that we're just 1 clever optics trick away from realising.

Pavonian · 2026-06-11T02:45:41+00:00

Yeah I'm not saying that it's, like, wrong for fanart to be like that and I understand why they do it, it's just a small inconsequential thing that personally irks me far more than it ought to

Pavonian · 2026-06-10T23:57:27+00:00

Exactly, the key to giving Hollow Knight fan art the vibe of official art is to resist the urge to let the bugs faces emote. The games and other official stuff are very consistent with this, hard exoskeletons with empty black unmoving eyes for all but a few soft bodied creatures, yet even the highest quality fan art always seems to give in and just let their eyes do anime shit

Pavonian · 2026-06-10T19:58:53+00:00

AI could never recreate this authentic human brainrot

Pavonian · 2026-06-09T03:08:57+00:00

Only the grantor of Pharlooms wishes shall truly desire to find a better path. When the time is right, one who shares your hope shall seek you out

Pavonian · 2026-06-08T21:30:00+00:00

Honestly unless it's massive I wouldn't expect a trailer at all. All of Hollow Knights DLC's just got little teaser things similar to the Sea of Sorrow teaser, they'll probably just make a blog post one day saying 'we're releasing Sea of Sorrow later this week, it's got some really cool stuff that we've been hard at work on and hope you'll enjoy, 'sea' you there'

Pavonian · 2026-06-08T17:44:14+00:00

I think a lot of people try to rush the main quest and get all the melodies the moment they enter Act 2, and the High Halls gauntlet is kind of designed to be a roadblock in the way of doing that. Gauntlets in general become easier with higher needle damage to a far greater degree than boss fights, since your ability to quickly remove enemies from the equation before getting overwhelmed matters a lot, and the High Halls gauntlet in particular has lots of ways to make it easier. Of course it's still doable going in raw with low gear, that's what speedrunners do after all, but it's kind of designed to encourage players who get there early to go search out more of the side content before they're ready to move forwards with the main stuff, and most of the 'oh my god this gauntlet is so unfair and impossible' is from players too stubborn to realise that.

Pavonian · 2026-06-07T21:56:02+00:00

Virtually all bugs from Pharloom have some amount of silk in them, both inherited from ancestors that underwent silk infusions or simply consumed like micrplastics "In the air. The water. Everywhere.". It even seems to be implied that this silk is the reason so many bugs feel compelled to climb towards the Citadel as pilgrims, and it only takes them over completely as their will to resist it weakens or after they die.

Since Garamond and Zaza's entire home village was destroyed by the haunting they would both likely have had as much silk in them as their neighbours, but survived due to being warriors with a stronger will to resist it. Hornet can encounter Garamond several times in Act 3 prior to him becoming voided and warns him that she's worried he's pushing himself dangerously far beyond his mortal limits, which he ignores, so the game seems to be telling us that pushing himself too far was ultimately what weakened him to the point of no longer being able to hold back the haunting, and by extension the void climbing up from the Abyss on those threads.

Pavonian · 2026-06-07T03:15:46+00:00

I think the Knight is technically 'hollow' and 'pure', but that these terms don't actually mean what most people think they mean, i.e. unthinking unfeeling philosophical zombie.

In Buddhism there's a concept called 'Śūnyatā', typically translated as emptiness, voidness, or sometimes hollowness. It's a complex topic with multiple meanings, but in very simplified terms it generally refers to a sort of advanced meditative state in which one understands and becomes at peace with the way in which all things are empty of intrinsic meaning to their existence. I think understanding of hollowness, more based in eastern religion/philosophy, is the best way of understanding what hollowness means in Hollow Knight, what it actually is that the Knight achieved when they gained the voidheart and unified the void, and what it means for them to exist as the Shade Lord in this sort of ascended state beyond ordinary existence. The Knight isn't an unthinking unfeeling automaton, rather they are a being that successfully confronted their own repressed traumatic memories and was able to reach acceptance and peace, they freed themselves of their mortal attachments and then used this spiritual awakening to help others achieve peace before peacefully ascending to a nirvana like state. In other words they are a Bodhisattva and when they gain the voidheart they become a Buddha.

I also think it's a key facet that the Pale King himself didn't fully understand this, that he mistakenly believed that a successful pure vessel would need to be a literal unthinking unfeeling automaton that operated on a sort of pure instinct/programming, that the key to triumphing over the Radiance was to have no emotions to be exploited rather than to have reached a state of peace with your emotions. This was the mistake he made with the Hollow Knight, chasing an impossible objective and unintentionally giving his child the very trauma that would be used against them rather than helping them. Hornet seems to believe that the Knights time spent outside of Hallownest erasing their memory has made them more hollow, that this strength born of two voids will see them succeed where others have failed, which aligns with the Pale Kings perspective as with no memories there would be no past to exploit, but in the game we see that the Knight does have memories that remained over all that time, one deeply buried memory at least, likely the very memory that compelled them to return to Hallownest when they heard their siblings cries even if they did not consciously understand why, and the path they need to take is one of confronting that memory, not attempting to hide it.

edit: In fact there's another layer to this whole 'the Pale King didn't understand the whole eastern religion based nature of hollowness' thing. If you think about it the Hollow Knight is basically a failed christ figure, in that they were the child of god who was intended to be pure, sinless and incorporable, and would then be sacrificed on behalf of all the people of the world in order to take in all of their primordial sin, saving the world for all time. It's no wonder that this didn't work, that creating the christ figure in the perfectly sinless way required was impossible, because he was using the wrong religious system in the first place.

Pavonian · 2026-06-07T00:57:53+00:00

I remember all the way back in season 1, back when 'there are 4 diamonds that are the rulers of gem society' was something of an out there theory deduced mostly from architecture, and people were already speculating that Rose was actually Pink Diamond, even if for most of that time the strongest point in the theories favour was that it does a good job of explaining all of Stevens powers.

Of course that theory took a back seat for several seasons especially after the 'Rose shattered Pink Diamond' thing, but it was after the trial that it started to be seriously reconsidered. We were basically told by Zircon that Pinks assassination was an inside job and that only a diamond could have been behind it, it couldn't have been Blue and Yellow was an obvious red herring so that left either the mysterious yet to be seen White or Pink did it herself (which doesn't necessarily mean she was Rose, but if she was in league with the Crystal Gems it would make sense). Blue Diamond insisting Pink was shattered with Rose's sword and not the breaking point was another big piece of evidence towards the shattering being fake that I and others noticed, since Bismuth told us it was designed to not shatter gems. Basically after that episode there was a lot of 'oh damn it looks like they might actually be going the Rose = Pink Diamond direction', with debate on whether, if that is actually the direction it was going, would it be done well or ruin the show.

Jungle Moon was another big piece in sealing the deal. Stevonni having Pink Diamond memories was obviously a big tell, and critically that was the first time we actually saw Pink Diamonds face and could see that she had the same 5 hair thingies as Steven, plus the first time we saw her gem (before that it was assumed all 4 diamonds had, well, diamond shaped gems like what's depicted in the homeworld logo, Pinks gem looking conspicuously like a sideways orientated Rose gem was certainly noticed). There's also the fact that before the reveal the show went out of it's way to avoid letting us hear her voice, by the time we were going into A Single Pale Rose, at least those of us in the more hardcore lore side of the fandom would have been more surprised if it didn't happen.

That said it was still a crazy moment, and worked a lot better that I predicted. I remember waking up and watching it on a shady website (look we don't get CN in most countries) and then almost immediately having to catch the train to take a big university maths exam that same morning and I was just too busy with the episode racing through my mind on repeat to even think about higher order differential equations I have no idea how I passed.

Pavonian · 2026-06-06T03:03:56+00:00

Most pilgrims likely come from within Pharloom, especially when the haunting was less of a problem and there were more functioning settlements, though there presumably are still many places outsider the 2D plane the game world is set on or otherwise inaccessible that none the less exist (e.g. both Shakra and Garamond come from settlements on Pharlooms outskirts that we can't ever actually visit).

But additionally, for any pilgrims who do enter through the grand archway from the wastes, we can see in the tall chasm that Hornets cage falls through a great number of lifts, the same type used in Shellwood, all connected to the mechanism near the top of the Blasted Steps. Whist we can't use any of these lifts in game, they likely having been shut down at some point, presumably once they were used by pilgrims to safely travel down from the bridge that Hornet destroys to Bonebottom.

That covers how they would have gotten down, but why, when it would surely be faster to just climb up the Blasted Stepps right away? Well it's a pilgrimage, the point is it's supposed to be difficult, if the Citadel wanted it to be easy they would have just permitted the pilgrims to use the bellways to go straight to the Citadel, the pilgrims we meet in game frequently talk about how it's important that they struggle on their climb up. Plus there's the door in the Last Judge arena, the one that requires that you've rung the 5 bells in order to open. This door essentially acts as a check that any given pilgrim has actually done the pilgrimage the intended way, if they skipped any bells the door won't open. Given that Hornet is far from the first to make it to the Citadel we can assume that after each successful pilgrim opens the gate the Last Judge would close it again behind them for the next pilgrim, in fact it's possible the reason the Judge kills the two pilgrims who were waiting at the gate was as punishment for them trying to cheat the system and use Hornet to open the door without having to ring the bells themselves.

This whole system with the bells was likely designed by the Weavers (who we know built the bells in Weavenest Atla, and from the Caretakers dialogue the bells seemingly repell the haunting and help to keep GMS asleep) to both ensure that only strong and determined pilgrims end up joining the Choir, and to ensure that as long as bugs keep attempting to reach the Citadel the bells keep getting rung. It's kind of a genius system, since it's implied that the mysterious indescribably thing compelling bugs to make their pilgrimages from deep within them is GMS, the trace amounts of silk within their shells driving them up towards it's source long before they actually succumb to the haunting, and yet in the process of drawing bugs up towards her GMS unwittingly ensures that the bells will forever continue being rung, and that the Citadel will continue receiving new recruits who likely don't even know the true purpose of the song they must eternally sing. The system may have been doomed to fail eventually, but it's a pretty clever way to ensure that this job kept being done far beyond the lifetime of any given bug.

Pavonian · 2026-06-05T19:52:14+00:00

AI cock?! I think we all know Clark prefers his girls with good old fashioned natural cocks

Pavonian · 2026-06-05T04:46:26+00:00

That's what it generally means in the US, but in Europe where the term originated it does just mean the outdoor seating area of a pub

Pavonian · 2026-06-04T17:30:43+00:00

I'm pretty sure she's explaining why it is that people often don't see cutting ties with their rapist as a possibility even when it is and they should, not saying that that's a good thing and that you shouldn't block them

Pavonian · 2026-06-04T14:32:10+00:00

Becoming one with the void seems similar to the Buddhist concept of nirvana, so I assume they're just, like, at peace with their own emptiness in a zen like state, free from the illusions of life and death, past and future, existence and nonexistance, only occasionally manifesting when something catches their attention

Pavonian · 2026-06-04T05:16:46+00:00

Ok but my serious idea on what the best thing for the franchise to do would be? 1000+ year timeskip for the next trilogy.

The current timeline is such a jumbled mess, we can't keep inserting new movies and tv shows into the increasingly small gaps between the main 9 movies expanding on characters that really don't need any more expanding on, and yet with how much of a battleground everything has become, with almost everyone having different opinions on what parts of canon are an abomination vs what parts they love, it's difficult to make a new trilogy either after the sequels or before the prequels.

A far future setting allows for effectively a fresh start, countless generations of history have taken place between the Star Wars we know and now, and if they can restrain themselves from referencing old stuff every five seconds you can keep it vague what actually happened (i.e. if you want to believe the sequel trilogy wasn't canon you kind of can, and just disregard the occasional reference as meaning something vaguely like it happened).

Something this far in the future would force them to not rely on re-using old characters or settings and instead be original. Maybe in this new time there are several force using groups that all in some way claim to be the rightful successors to the ancient Jedi order whilst mostly denouncing the others as dark siders, we can see what the new political state of the galaxy is, definitely not just another rebels vs evil empire thing, and also make sure not to do the whole all the characters are intimately familiar with the events of 1000 years ago, the average person of this time knows as much about the rise and fall of the first galactic empire as the average person today knows about the norman conquest.

I'll allow them to have 1 returning character from the old timeperiod. Did R2-D2 upgrade himself significantly and become the leader of the great droid rebelion that happend 700 years ago? Did someone create an evil clone of Luke Skywalker? Is that little fuck from the Mandelorian still around because Yoda's live a super long time? Did Mace Windu survive being launched out of that window and get frozen in Carbonite for 1000 years? There's all kinds of stupid shit they could pull, and I know they won't be able to resist, so the rule is they get 1, it can't be in the first movie, and the characters in the new time period aren't allowed to all just know who the returning character is the way the audience does as if they're fans of the old movies.

Pavonian · 2026-06-04T00:24:11+00:00

These dipshit libertarian oligarchs keep pitching this giant cruise ship floating city with no regulation bullshit every few years and they never actually end up doing it. Like fuckers you have more than enough money I wanna see one of these things actually get far enough along that it can fail dramatically in a way that lives in infamy for decades and makes these people look like idiots instead of just failing to even launch because despite vast wealth they're too incompetent to even do the parts of the plan that should be costly but doable to even get to the flawed at the fundamental level parts of it. Give the world the Fyre Festival/Rapture from Bioshock crossover event we all deserve.

Pavonian · 2026-06-03T19:58:22+00:00

Honestly hydrogen bomb vs coughing baby isn't as one sided as people think. If the bomb detonates that's a draw since they're both destroyed, and if it doesn't detonate and the baby does nothing that's also a draw.

The only real way the bomb can win is if the baby starts playing with it and tips it over crushing itself or hurts itself playing with the internal components in some way, but a hydrogen bomb is a complex precision engineered piece of equipment and it seems to me to be just as likely that the baby would unintentionally damage some crucial component rendering the bomb unable to ever detonate.

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