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my tablet stopped working before i could get anywhere with this but here they are with some birthday hats for yesterday :)

Actually I think I do want to ramble a little more on the subject.

While I do love making buzzsaw jokes (especially after completing Path of Pain, like, the fuck?) I do also think the layout of the Dream White Palace wasn't intentional. If he did it after that horrible cry came out of the Black Egg temple the first time when Holly was starting to crack, he must've been in a fucking state.

Like imagine you convinced yourself that what you're doing is for the greater good, that this being that you do love (even if you're denying it to yourself) that you thought was emotionless, a blank slate, only does as is told, has no hopes, thoughts, aspirations, merely exists, suddenly with one cry proves you wrong.

Just imagine that horrible realization that you were wrong about them (you always were, you ignored all of the signs they were alive) and you damned them to a fate worse than death. Eternal imprisonment sucks too, but since they're an unfeeling creature, it's fine, right? Nope. Definitely not. It was not fine, even if they were an unfeeling creature, but now it's even worse because the infection is eating at them now.

All of those children left to die in the abyss? That all happened for nothing.

Those dreamers you made to sacrifice themselves to keep people out? They're now the only thing holding the vessel inside of their prison but they sure as hell are not containing the infection. That too was all for naught. Your daughter lost her mother for no reason.

You did this all to save so many people, your entire kingdom of Hallownest. You choked down the guilt of your decisions because it would save the kingdom. Now you find out it was for nothing.

I think anyone would break, and break the King did.

By that point, there was no one left to stop his spiral. The White Lady was gone, most of the knights too, his council, everyone. No one was left to stop him from making extremely irrational decisions, including putting his palace into the dream realm to flee from the infection along with anyone inside. As he runs into his throne, trying to somehow run from the guilt, the grief, the horror, the palace twists. It becomes extremely hard to follow him, almost impossible. He makes it to the throne, the Kingsmoulds loyally guarding the outside...

It's there he breaks. He spirals. He falls into a deep despair.

I personally think the Pale King died of grief, and with that death, left his surviving children the monumental task of cleaning up the mess left behind.

Hollow doodle

depression tips™

shower. not a bath, a shower. use water as hot or cold as u like. u dont even need to wash. just get in under the water and let it run over you for a while. sit on the floor if you gotta.

moisturize everything. use whatever lotion u like. unscented? dollar store lotion? fancy ass 48 hour lotion that makes u smell like a field of wildflowers? use whatever you want, and use it all over. 

put on clean, comfortable clothes. 

put on ur favorite underwear. cute black lacy panties? those ridiculous boxers u bought last christmas with candy cane hearts on the butt? put em on.

drink cold water. use ice. if u want, add some mint or lemon for an extra boost.

clean something. doesn’t have to be anything big. organize one drawer of ur desk. wash five dirty dishes. do a load of laundry. scrub the bathroom sink. 

blast music. listen to something upbeat and dancey and loud, something that’s got lots of energy. sing to it, dance to it, even if you suck at both.

make food. don’t just grab a granola bar to munch. take the time and make food. even if it’s ramen. add something special to it, like a hard boiled egg or some veggies. prepare food, it tastes way better, and you’ll feel like you accomplished something. 

make something. write a short story or a poem, draw a picture, color a picture, fold origami, crochet or knit, sculpt something out of clay, anything artistic. even if you don’t think you’re good at it.

go outside. take a walk. sit in the grass. look at the clouds. smell flowers. put your hands in the dirt and feel the soil against your skin.

call someone. call a loved one, a friend, a family member, call a chat service if you have no one else to call. talk to a stranger on the street. have a conversation and listen to someone’s voice. if you can’t, text or email or whatever, just have some social interaction with another person. even if you don’t say much, listen to them.

cuddle your pets if you have them/can cuddle them. take pictures of them. talk to them. tell them how u feel, about your favorite movie, a new game coming out.

tumblr, i am ever-so curious: how would you all expect hollow to eat soup? through their void tendrils? through a mouth? their eyes? some combination of those?

Oouuuggghhh I can't sleep, incoherent ramble time:

Why is the Knight/Ghost so tiny in comparison to their siblings? The Hollow Knight is goddamn huge, and even the Broken Vessel is a fair bit taller than Ghost.

But like, Ghost is the same age as the Hollow Knight. Why 'n how are they so different? Like, at first I was thinking maybe it had something to do with the way the Pale King brought up THK. Cultivating THK's power or something, I dunno. But then I gotta wonder, what's up with BV? We don't really know why it's outside the Abyss; whether it's another escapee like Ghost - in which case, it would've grown to that size on its own - or they were let out of the Abyss as a potential candidate for containing the Radiance - in which case, the growth again could've been due to the Pale King giving them protein shakes or whatever. They still have a rounded face, similar to Ghost, so I guess you could say it didn't finish growing up - whether being unable to survive on their own or being killed purposefully for not being hollow.

But also, like, we see other Vessels out and about in Hallownest. Again, never made clear if they escaped on their own or were let out. But they generally seem pretty close to Ghost in terms of size. I think maybe some are slightly bigger? I'd have to look again, it's been a while. So, who knows why they're all the sizes they are.

I guess, the only other thought I had was, if you want to go with "all Vessels can get that big even without PK's help" is that maybe Ghost was dormant or something. We don't know much about what they were up to before the game started. Just that it was somewhere outside Hallownest. Maybe Ghost just took a really long nap, and after waking up, made its way back to Hallownest. Ghost didn't get big, since it wasn't eating or fighting or anything. Just conserving their energy. I rly dunno.

No voice to cry suffering.

Ghost from Hollow Knight is disabled, and here's why

Obligatory disclaimer, of course, that this is just a theory. It may not even be what the creators intended! But it’s special to me, which is why I want to share if. And I think that a well crafted theory with textual evidence is far better than any inflammatory thumbnail by a YouTuber with enough charisma to overcome his utter lack of reading comprehension. 

So, to start, I’ll explain the particular disability. Put simply, being filled with the primordial darkness soup has detrimental effects on one’s health. It takes the place of blood, but it’s more viscous, which means that the heart is constantly working overtime just to pump it properly. 

So, what are the symptoms of this? Well, the most prominent one is this: Ghost is able to fully recover their health simply by sitting on a bench. If you’re wondering how that could possibly be linked to a heart condition, it’s actually based on my own experiences with POTS, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome. It’s a health condition that’s affectionately known as “can’t fucking stand disorder” or less affectionately known as other, more explicit things when it’s causing me trouble. 

To get personal about my experience with POTS: I get dizzy standing up, or standing too long. I use a cane to support myself, and I need to drink what amounts to salt water to raise my blood volume. The blood volume is important, for reasons I’ll get into later. 

So, on the surface level: they’re disabled because they need benches to recover. But bear with me, because I think it goes a little deeper and a little weirder. Here’s my theory.

Ghost was intended to be invincible. They don’t take contact damage. Every time they take damage, it’s actually just them flinching and their heart rate increasing.

I know, it sounds insane, but I promise that there is evidence to support this. The first piece is the Pale King’s ambition. He created everyone in the dead baby pit to be invincible, right? The perfect vessel to seal away the Radiance, no voice to cry suffering. But then we also know that the Hollow Knight themself wasn’t perfect. They were weak specifically because they wanted to be loved. They were weak because they had a heart, they had emotions, because their traitorous heart pumped blood too fast and it made them vulnerable, because they felt fear. It’s poetic, in a sense.

Diversity Loss! The dead baby pit created in a fruitless effort to save the remnants of a crumbling kingdom is made up of disabled bugs who were subject to a fuckshit eugenics experiment, yippee!

Another interesting piece of supporting evidence is the existence of Lifeblood. The heretic Joni pioneered its use, and there’s some weird implications that maybe this wasn't the best idea, but hear me out for a second. What if it’s literally increasing blood volume of our protagonist to give them some protection from the symptoms of what is effectively a goopy heart disease? The name is quite literal, actually.

The final piece of evidence? Look at the effects of the Fury of the Fallen charm. This one is like adrenaline overdose, complete with pulsing visual effects meant to set you on edge. While this charm is equipped, the knight won't even perform their idle animations. It's a small thing, but I think it is definitely meant to indicate that they're too pumped with adrenaline to have the focus to do this little things. All of that energy is dedicated towards not losing control, one way or another.

Overall, like I said. It’s not something I can prove, but it is backed up by some canon evidence. And it adds to the tragedy, I think, of a scared bug with a bleeding heart.

Another Moth but better and real.