#quantum break discord server

[cmdonovann]

btw, while i'm quantum break posting a bit, here's a proper post about the discord server! yes, you can join the quantum break discord server i run! i have a permanent invite link for it now!

you can join here!

[rhymeswithchronic]

Creator’s Favor When? Creator’s Favor now.

Howdy guys! You might’ve heard me in the past talk about something I’ve lovingly nicknamed the Quantum Leap AU.

Well, this is the moment I reveal what it actually is.

“Creator’s Favor” is a series designed as a love letter to the Parkour/PvP Civ fandoms and their fandom universes.

Creator’s Favor follows Boey, the version of PvP Evbo found in the *Mercy for the Lamb* series, as he finds himself being forcibly thrown across several universes and timelines, all with their own strange twists and rules.

Here’s the kicker: these universes aren’t randomly created for this story. These are alternate universes created by the Parkour Civilization/PvP Civ fandom. And anyone can participate.

In all, what I want to get from this series is a wide variety of interesting, cool creators all working together to produce a single series! Spiritually based on the television series Quantum Leap, Boey finds himself in these worlds, helping to solve minor problems and conflicts, all the while trying to find his way back home to the versions of Evbo, Seawatt, and EMF that he knows.

Instead, he faces timelines where strange diseases run rampant, his adopted parents have children of their own, players’ roles are shuffled all around, and the very timeline itself has morphed into something entirely recognizable.

One thing he does know is that he’s being used for someone else’s entertainment. His hopping isn’t something that is happening by random chance.

So perhaps to finally break the cycle, to finally get home, Boey simply has to earn his Creator’s favor.

How hard could it possibly be?

If you’re interested in joining with your own AU, DM me and I’ll send you a link to the Discord server! I’d like to have several different creators with several unique AUs involved, and there’s more information to be found there!

Hope to see you there!

[phthalology]

I keep seeing people saying the Quantum Break fandom is quiet, so, may I just say I’ve had a good time in this Discord (a little bit of Jack/Paul, a little bit of everything). I liveblogged some of the QB references in Night Springs there the other day. It’s a small, active, creative server, and it’s half the reason I’ve written as much QB fic as I have. (Run by @cmdthenerd)

[obviouslyinvisible]

you may be 8 years late to the quantum break party but CMDonovann and i are the freaks who hang around dancing forever after everyone else has gone home. by which i mean. welcome to the party. once you finish watching the playthrough you should join CMDonovann's discord server

!!! Oh that's so real though as someone who still likes making Oxenfree art when the first game came out 7 years ago lmao. Nothing wrong with enjoying a good game : ) , and yeh! I've got the link loaded up now so I'll be joining as soon as I've finished watching the playthrough probably to yell about the games endings and junctions and all sorts in general ♥️

[sida-wang]

DAY 2

Date: March 28, 2024  

Time: 12:00 PM - 6:00 PM  

Location: Kimber Street Studios, 5 Kimber Street, Paddington, New South Wales 2021  

Participants: Francis, Zinnia, Sida  

Overview:

Today's work focused on deeper collaboration following initial familiarization. The emphasis of the day was on content generation, aimed at preparation for upcoming exhibitions.

Chronological Entries:

- 12:00 PM - 1:40 PM: Mid Journey Practical Sessions  

  - Francis instructed on setting up a personal server on Discord and adding bots for private creation.

  - Learned to create prompt keywords, further filtering and saving images.

  - Utilized community browsing to gather prompts and creative inspiration.

- 1:40 PM - 2:00 PM: Indesign Roomsheet Layout Design  

  - Utilized templates established last week to format English and Traditional Chinese manuscripts provided by Zinnia into complete exhibition invitations for print and email distribution.

- 2:00 PM - 2:20 PM: Break  

  - Francis shared experiences from non-film festival competitions he participated in, including insights into the Sydney Biennale.

- 2:15 PM - 3:30 PM: Indesign AVALON Layout Design  

  - Enhanced previous week's design, adding more photos and adjusting photo presentation sizes.

- 3:30 PM - 6:00 PM: ZEN Sound Design  

  - Communicated sound design ideas for Francis's upcoming exhibition and desired concepts.

  - Preliminary screening of sound effect libraries and finding reference sounds.

  - Produced a 1-minute 30-second sound design based on reference sounds, achieving seamless loop transitions.

Skills Learned and Application:

During today's internship, I learned to utilize AI tools to enhance work efficiency, particularly in communication. Starting with Mid Journey to quickly generate several concepts, which were then presented to the client for direction selection, followed by detailed design and modification. Additionally, through trial and error, I resolved the issue of errors displaying when exporting PDFs from InDesign, caused by Chinese fonts. Henceforth, especially in bilingual environments, efforts should be made to avoid mixing Chinese and English in the same document. This not only addresses workflow issues but also significant differences in Chinese font formatting. Furthermore, given the studio's frequent need for both Simplified and Traditional Chinese formats, I should familiarize myself with commercially usable fonts supporting PDF export in both forms to expedite future workflows.

（Mid-Journey Generated Photo）

Analysis of Interviews and Events:

Francis shared experiences from film festivals and competitions he participated in. Particularly interesting was EQUS's art creation on quantum science held at M2 Gallery last year, which excitedly combines art with physics. Moreover, this serves as a good means to connect with local artists through the numerous galleries and their regular events. This aspect, which I seldom considered during my student career, involves broadening my social circle beyond school, yet it's precisely what I need once detached from school's protection. Additionally, Francis mentioned that due to technological limitations, XR and VR are still relatively niche fields with high chances of winning awards at film festivals. Therefore, considering VR film production when I can still borrow XR equipment from school.

Reflections on Experiences:

Overall, today involved deeper collaboration and my first independent sound design within a limited time frame. This made me feel pressure stemming from insufficient skills and preparation. Hence, I will continue to refine my sound design techniques, especially in synthesizers. This being my first opportunity to participate in exhibition sound design, I shouldn't easily let go of this hard-earned opportunity.

Next week, I'll complete the design of the Avalon spine layout and export versions suitable for printing. Furthermore, I'll refine the installation's sound design. Simultaneously, I should start brainstorming the direction of my research paper and begin preparations accordingly.

[mortimermcmirestinks]

ok tumblr isn't working properly for some reason (or I would've directly reblogged this) but the reaction I got from this post was... very strange

hey @funsize-cenobites! I didn't mean any offense! I'm sorry if there was a miscommunication somewhere, but this response is just... strange to me for a variety of reasons, and I always get talkative when I get tired, so

"this is just for the control babes"? that's good! I love Control. I think we probably don't know each other yet, so hi! I'm Berry, I really like Control and the other Remedyverse games, I've been doing fic and fanart of Control for about a year and a half now and I'm really active in a Control fandom discord server if you wanna come say hi!

I didn't really consider talking about Quantum Break to be changing the topic, because I kinda think of the Remedyverse games as being the same big overarching series (especially with Control AWE and the fact that QB was originally made as an Alan Wake sequel), but I understand if someone disagrees on this point, since the ideas of "series" and "franchise" and stuff are all pretty blurry and subjective

if you haven't played QB, I recommend it! it's very good and it feels a lot more like Control than Alan Wake does, so if you want more Control-like stuff, this might be a good game to play (although, like I said, Control's getting a sequel and QB isn't (yet), so y'know) (QB is also in the same engine as Control!)

I don't understand "keep that shit in the tags", but I might have just missed something? idk

"please don't derail my post about [video game] by talking about [other video game in same series]" is an… odd take? on tumblr of all places

I definitely don't want to come off as rude so please don't take this in an aggressive or belligerent way! I like Control and I think I did a Miscommunication of some kind in my original reblog. I played Quantum Break recently and so I kinda have Beth Wilder on the brain lol (definitely at least partially because she's also played by Courtney Hope, so, whenever I saw Beth, I'd point and go "JESSE!!")

[sasusakuzine]

Hey all, 

Unfortunately I come with terrible news. I would like to clarify that I’m not Day (pain-somnia), this is Max (byakugcu) posting this for them. They had asked me to post this the other day before they needed to take their social media break as I still have access to these accounts even though I have no involvement with any projects mentioned. My access to these accounts come from setting them up for Irene and Day and nothing more. I am aware of the info below due to being mutuals with both and being in the same Discord server as them.

Despite the fact that they payed out of pocket for the 2021 calendars they will be unable to ship them out to those that haven’t gotten them. They apologise that they couldn’t fulfil the project and instead will be refunding everyone. 

The calendar project began in April 2019 by another mod, Irene (saradacchi) as her own solo project with her own selection of people. 

At the time Day was beginning another zine, Quantum (put on hiatus in January 2020, later canceled in late 2020) and did not want to get involved but given their previous work with the Seasons Zine, helped Irene out. Even though they were not a real mod, Irene was getting Day to write posts for her throughout the year on the blog. Moreover, Irene added Day onto the contributor graphic for no reason other than aesthetics. As Irene disappeared in December, the management of the calendar fell onto them. Below are the final messages between Day and Irene about Irene’s disappearance and Day not receiving merch from her.

Throughout Irene’s disappearance, managing the project became increasingly difficult for Day and later on funding had to come out of their own pocket. From December 2019 and throughout 2020, Day became very sickly and unable to leave their home for their own safety. 

In November to December 2020, Day had sent out a few of the calendars out to customers which was made more difficult considering they had no access to any social accounts including email, Twitter or Tumblr which meant they had no access to customer details.

However, in January 2021, a member of Day’s family contracted COVID which made the situation extremely difficult for them to ship out the calendars due to their own health concerns. Presently, they intend to refund everyone. 

Again I’m sorry and this account will now be inactive. Additionally, any questions in replies is something I can’t answer and Day can’t come online to answer questions.

[talix18]

November 6 (evening)

This is my first attempt at night writing – work had the audacity keep me busy all day. And it's clear my external hard-drive is getting ready to die – my computer only recognizes it intermittently and keeps asking me if I want to format it.

I used to feel really competent around technology. I've been working in IT since...1999? I was young and teachable then; taking PC Repair and Networking Technology classes and paying for my own CompTIA Net+ certification (yes, I'm old). I'm not afraid to push buttons to see what happens and I've been on the Internet since Usenet newsgroup days. But that was when the technology sat still – on your desk, not in your pocket. Cybersecurity wasn't a thing then because there was barely any cyberspace. Now I'm working with the most absurd combination of old and new technology and our tools are changing faster than I can keep up with them.

Don't even talk to me about apps. I tapped out at...Tik Tok? Before that.

What the hell do I have 450 GB of on my external drive? No, it's not porn. I mean, there's some porn, but probably more of myself than of anyone else. I went through a phase. Some of it even ended up on the Internet (on private servers, amongst friends). How grateful am I that I got clean before social media was a thing?

My using story is actually really boring. Pot and alcohol were my drugs of choice; alcohol was the one that always got me in trouble. I started treatment for depression when the guy I was dating at the time, T, handed me the phone in his office and told me to say “hello”. “Who is it?” I'm sure I asked. “Just say hello.” “Hello?”

It was a counselor at a clinic with a sliding scale, and I have no memory of how I felt once I figured that out. I didn't try to deny I had a problem. Our first clue that it wasn't my only problem was when the doctor who eventually saw me wanted to start me on antidepressants and told me I couldn't drink while taking them. “Put me on a low dose, then,” I said, “because T and I are going to Europe for three weeks and I promise you I will be drinking there.” T's grandparents lived in Munich and we were going to see them, along with some of the continental highlights (Paris, Florence, Rome, Salzburg). We would NOT being going to Amsterdam, T told me, so don't even ask. Hmm.

I knew that pot was important to me. There was the weekend of the blizzard, forecast far enough in advance so you could get where you wanted to be for two or three days. I wanted to be with my friends D&J and whoever else ended up there, because that's where the pot was going to be. T wanted me to come to his place. There was no way for me to tell T that I wanted to be with friends without saying “Weed is more important to me than you are.” I remember thinking about breaking up with him and putting it off, afraid we wouldn't go to Europe if I did. So I spent the weekend at his (parents') place, we went to Europe, and broke up on our fifth day there. In Geneva. The Geneva Discord. Which ended up being for the best, as it got everything out in the open and we could have a good time. We still had great sex.

Then three weeks later, after a morning of riding horses across the Icelandic country-side, I was waving goodbye to him at the airport. He went with his folks and I went with mine. I remember one awkward getting together to go through pictures. He was a photographer. The best piece of life advice I have for anyone is to go someplace beautiful while you are still young and beautiful with someone who loves you and is a photographer. He took some amazing pictures of me.

Years later, my mother told me that T called her for months afterward, wanting to know how I was. Wondering if I was okay. I was mostly okay – still living in Mom's basement, going to grad school, working mostly full-time. Grad school had been Mom's idea. There was no question of whether I'd go to college – she and my father were the first generation in their families to go to college and it was important to both of them, and I liked school. School is my jam. I love to read and learn and feel smart understanding abstract concepts like quantum theory and Existentialism. In college one of my specialties was rephrasing whatever the teacher was saying so the rest of the class would understand it. Everyone wanted to study from my notes.

You always liked school, Mom said, so why don't you go back? One of my favorite professors in undergrad was the Philosophy Chair at a school with a grad program so I went. And loved it. I took classes in Literature and was finally appreciated what I was reading. I took “Cosmos and Quanta” and so much philosophy. It was a Catholic college and I remember one day a nun – I don't remember which flavor – came to talk to us about I don't even remember what, but she passed around a basket of stones. When I pulled out the one that looked like a slab of petrified layers with clear quartz in the middle, she said “I knew you were going to pick that one,” and I felt seen and recognized and valued without knowing that's what it was. I've always questioned my value. I don't know where that comes from.

I always knew my mother loved me. It never occurred to me to doubt that. Anytime I was sick in the middle of the night, even if I'd brought it on myself, she'd come sit with me and hold my hair and give me a warm washcloth for my face. No matter how old I am, no matter how old she is, if she has a home, I have a home. I am grateful for my mother every day.

I have a memory I believe is watching Dad drive away the day he moved out. I have no idea if it's accurate, but it's me watching him pull out of the parking lot from my bedroom window. There's a scene in Hope Floats where Bernice is begging her father not to leave without her, and it kills me every time.

All my memories of spending time with Dad before he got remarried are sad. I don't know if he was sad, if I was sad, or if we both were. I do remember Mom saying if I was going to be so upset every time I came home from my father's, maybe I should stop going, and that made it worse. It was weird having divorced parents in the mid-70s. It made me different from other kids. I felt a lot of things and had no understanding of what I was feeling or how to express it. All I knew was that I was sad.

Mom remarried first, I think, and wow, let's not even talk about that.

I started wondering if Dad loved me when he met his new girlfriend, G, who was seven years younger than he was and had a younger brother. I'd watch Dad and D playing in the yard and wondered if he'd've been happier if I'd been a boy. Then maybe things wouldn't be so awkward between us. I don't know if I knew the word “awkward” then. Dad and G got married and I was glad he wasn't alone anymore. He lived in a rowhouse with two other guys. One got married and moved out, then Dad got married and the other guy moved out so G could move in and I remember being glad my dad wasn't the last single one. Who thinks that stuff at 9? Maybe we all do.

[ariadnelives]

Chapter 12 -- The Worst-Case Scenario

[Missed earlier chapters? Go catch up here! Otherwise, welcome back! Oh, and make sure to join our discord server! Chapter can also be found @ ao3”]

“Honey, we're home!” Ariadne shouted as she and Spacebreather disembarked from her shuttle. “We have information and we need some synthesis!”

Alicia, Tripwire, Lefthook, and Taryn were all waiting in the docking bay for them, looking somewhat concerned.

“Promise you won't be mad?” Tripwire offered nervously.

Of course, neither Pilar nor Ariadne would make such a promise, and it's a good thing they didn't, as Pilar had never been angrier than she was when she found out Sasha had spirited away from the station.

“Please,” Alicia said calmly as Pilar kicked a crate across the room in frustration, breaking it into three pieces, “don't blame yourself for this, there was no stopping—”

“I don't blame myself!!” Pilar shouted, picking up a rather expensive-looking vase from the crate she'd kicked apart, and smashing it against the ground. “I blame you!”

“Querida, that's—” Ariadne started reassuringly, but Pilar cut her off.

“That's what, unfair? She's the one who helped her sneak out! She's the one who disguised her as me! This is on her!”

“No, it's not,” Taryn insisted, “It was Sasha's decision.”

“It's okay, Taryn,” Alicia said flatly. “This was on me, I'm the one who helped her.”

“Well, then, it's on me too,” Taryn replied angrily. “We all thought she should be allowed to go in the field. We all saw how miserable she was in here, if she said she wanted to go, there isn't one of us here who wouldn't have helped her.”

This struck something in Pilar. She was still angry, but something about hearing how her sister felt like a prisoner snapped her back to reality and made her feel a pang of guilt.

There was silence for a moment.

“I'm willing to take full responsibility for this,” Alicia said calmly, “but I need you to remain calm when I tell you this next part.”

Pilar once again made no such promise, and almost broke her hand punching the wall of the shuttle when she found out the station had lost contact with Sasha and her rogue crew, who were now presumed captured.

When she calmed down a bit, she pointed at Tripwire. “You. I want the coordinates for Sasha's last known location programmed into my shuttle five minutes ago.”

Tripwire scrambled into the shuttle in the hopes of not making the situation worse.

Pilar pointed somewhat aggressively at Alicia. “You. We're going to need to put a pin in how furious I am with you. We have information on the life centers and we'll need all the help we can get in order to mount a rescue.”

Alicia bit her lip and nodded.

Pilar then pointed at Taryn. “And YOU. Took a lot for someone as young as you to stand up to me like that for the sake of your crewmates. Me and Ariadne will have to have a talk about your name.”

Taryn would have smiled under any other circumstances.

***

Pilar was, at the moment, too anxious to pilot the shuttle, and Alicia was poring over the information they'd retrieved from La Pesadilla, so Ariadne took the driver's seat. Of course, she was just as anxious as Pilar, but she put it aside because her hands were a little bit steadier and Spacebreather was much better at panicking.

“So, I think it's pretty obvious what the immersion pods and Cortex implants are for,” Alicia offered.

“Let's pretend it's not,” Pilar snapped, “Sorry, my brain is all over the place right now. I'm going to need you to assume nothing is obvious.”

“Okay,” Alicia replied calmly, trying to strike a balance between being accommodating and condescending in the hopes of not getting Pilar even angrier at her. “Well, it's a cult. In the old days, and I'm talking really old, they would prey on people who crave structure and ritual, they convince those people that they're better off with someone else making all the decisions for them, then convince them that any of their loved ones who've got concerns are actually the cause of all their suffering.”

“And how do the pods and implants factor into it?” Pilar asked, trying equally hard to be patient, as she did technically ask for a long-winded explanation.

“Well, see, eventually they tried to make it seem more rational and scientific. They introduced fancy-looking machines that they claimed measured mental stress, or the despair of the soul, or some other intangible quality that no court could technically prove they weren't measuring. They'd scare people into joining their practice by showing them hard data that seemed to prove they'd be better off in the cult. I think this is something similar. The pods and the implants would both allow the cult's leadership to do all sorts of things. Show them visions of their god, convince them their dead loved ones can't get into heaven unless they sign up, encode their brain with the irresistible urge to wear ugly orange robes. In fact, they wouldn't even need to go to all the trouble of exploiting a certain group of people. They could program the appropriate psychological profile, with the brainwashing already done, onto a disk and then just pop it into people's heads. Anyone who agreed to their audit would be clay in their hands as soon as the machine turned on.”

“That'd explain why nobody ever seems to come out of the Life Centers,” Pilar looked slightly confused, “but then, why both? You could do that with the just pods or just the implants, and since the implants need to be surgically installed, it doesn't seem all that practical, you know?”

“Again, I'm not sure this is what they're doing. I'm just saying, it's something they could be used for. I agree, the implants aren't practical for large-scale cult programming, but they could be used for a more direct form of mind control.”

“How do you mean?” Pilar asked.

“Well,” Alicia continued, “we've considered the possibility that maybe our impostor Ariadne might not be pulling the strings?”

“And the quantum shift generator?” Pilar asked.

“Still not sure. I'd guess it has something to do with the life centers. I mean, the impostor usually seems to be in two places at once, with the right tweaking, a quantum shift generator could make that possible. Or…” Alicia saw the look on Pilar’s face and instantly regretted beginning this sentence. “…some of the old-school cults actually had prison ships so they could detain people who wanted to leave. A quantum shift generator could be used to freeze a person in time so you don’t have to worry about supplying them with food and water.”

Pilar looked horrified. “We have to get my sister out of there…”

“We will,” Alicia started, “just—”

“Don't,” Pilar snapped. “You and I… we're not there yet.”

“That's it,” Alicia sighed, “I was really hoping I wouldn't have to do this, but…”

Alicia pulled a small circular hologram projector out of her pocket and attached earbuds to it.

“I've made a call. Hopefully they can talk some sense into you,” Alicia said, placing the projector on the table. “She's on hold, just tap the crystal.”

Alicia quietly went up to the cockpit and took the controls from a very relieved Ariadne, who walked back to be with Spacebreather.

Spacebreather had the earbuds in both her ears, listening to the woman in the hologram that Ariadne recognized immediately.

She looked a lot like Alicia, although her demeanor was slightly more relaxed. Her hair was long and twisted into colorful locs, and she had a faintly visible scar that started on her forehead, crossed her left eye and eyebrow, and landed at the top of a prominent cheekbone.

She was talking quickly, and from having spent so much time with Alicia's younger sister Ariana Baltimore, that the speech she was giving was probably sarcastic and full of borderline irrelevant tangents.

Ariadne wished she could hear what Baltimore was saying. She was something of an expert in sisterly conflict. For some incredibly complex reasons that frankly don't need to be recounted again, Alicia was forced to fake her death and disappeared for ten years, and she and Ariana had spent the last several years working to patch up the damage this had done to their relationship.

Pilar was listening intently, shaking almost imperceptibly. Her responses to Baltimore's speech were mostly nods and quiet utterances of “mhm” and “okay.” At the beginning, she seemed angry, but her expression quickly softened until she looked sad, and then horribly guilty. By the end, both Baltimore and Pilar were crying.

“Thank you,” Pilar said to her.

Baltimore said something back.

“I will,” Pilar responded, and unplugged the headphones so Ariadne could hear.

Another woman walked into the holographic display. This was Marisol Beam-Spacebreather, Baltimore's wife and Pilar's adoptive older sister. Her brown hair was longer than the last time they'd seen her.

“Hi Pilar! Hi Ariadne!” Beam cheered. “We hear you're on a dangerous mission!”

“I wasn't super listening when Alicia described it to me but as I understand it, you're trying to help the President of Mars get his confidence back?” Baltimore asked while maintaining a totally straight face.

“Not even close,” Ariadne grinned.

“And Mars doesn't have a—” Pilar started, but was cut off by Baltimore.

“I know, I'm just being a jerk. Just be safe, okay?” Baltimore said. “And remember what I told you.”

“And come back alive,” Beam quipped, “I mean, ideally. We want to bring the twins out to the station on Halloween weekend and it'd probably be better if you two weren't dead, so please try to make it an easy mission!”

“We'll do our best,” Pilar smiled, and wiped away a tear.

“What'd she say?” Ariadne asked.

“She gave me a lot to think about, and thought about a few things for me so I didn’t have to,” Pilar did not elaborate, and Ariadne did not pry further.

Ariadne and Pilar both intended to fulfill their promise to remain safe when they stepped off the ship. They gave Alicia instructions on what to do should they not make it back in time for the rendezvous, and attempted to break into the Life Center closest to Sasha's last known location.

It was almost too easy to break into. Seemingly, whoever was in charge of activating the security system had forgotten to do so, and despite the late hour, there was not a night watchman in sight.

Ariadne and Spacebreather quietly scanned for some kind of dungeon or holding cell, and after observing two barracks where rows of acolytes slept in bunk beds, a small kitchenette that seemed to be devoid of all seasonings, a recreation room that consisted of a few card tables and uncomfortably religious board games, and three separate dark rooms that had very little besides a capsule resembling a refrigerator in them, they found a large vault with the door ajar.

They silently hoped that this meant that Sasha and her rogue crew had escaped on their own. When they got inside, they found little more than dusty wooden crates, statues covered by white sheets, and shelves of books that had been there so long that, while there was no way for Ariadne to notice this, the dust mites in the pages had evolved into their own subspecies.

The only person inside was a young white man, about Ariadne's age, with dark hair and a naturally punchable face. He was shoving various trinkets, scrolls, and volumes into a large duffel bag.

He jumped back when he noticed that anyone else was in the room at all, but when he saw Pilar's tattoos a second later, he recognized her immediately.

“They let you out?!” Prescott said in a tone that was somewhere between a whisper, a gasp, and a scream.

“Uh … what?” Spacebreather replied.

“Do we know you?” Ariadne asked.

“Ugh, I guess if you want a job done right, you've got to do it yourself.” Prescott tapped the face of his watch several times and suddenly the silence split open as alarms rang through the air. Emergency lights switched on with a loud clunk and the vault door swung closed behind them. As easily as he'd deactivated the security, he'd switched the system back on, and the open vault door had triggered a full lockdown. He spoke loudly and clearly into his watch. “Babe, I've got what I need. I'm gonna need that teleport.”

“You got it,” a female voice said from the watch.

Pilar, however, moved slightly more quickly than the woman on the other end of the line. She unsheathed two of the knives strapped to her thigh and, in one move, sliced the watch from Prescott's wrist with her right hand, knocked Prescott several feet back, pinning him against the wall, and placed the knife in her left hand against his throat. Ariadne instinctively drew her blaster and trained it on his forehead.

The watch fell onto the open duffel bag, and there was a flash of white light. The watch and the duffel bag were both gone, presumably now in the possession of whatever accomplice Prescott had been talking to.

“You blew our cover and I've had a really bad day,” Pilar growled at the young man who was suppressing the impulse to wet himself. “If you want to keep all your fingers you'd better be able to get us out of here. ¿Está claro?”

Prescott began to laugh nervously.

“Something funny?” Pilar let the knife press a little harder against his throat.

“You just flushed it down the toilet!” Prescott laughed wildly. “Unless you've got a teleport of your own, the only way out of this vault just poofed away with my nest egg.”

“Wrong answer,” Pilar shouted and, with the knife that wasn't pressed to his throat, severed his right pinky and ring finger. The resulting scream was loud enough to drown out the alarms. “Clearly you've shut the security down before, so if you want this little piggy to keep eating roast beef you'd better tell us how to open that vault door.”

“That's toes,” Ariadne shouted over the alarms and Prescott's continuing sobs.

“What?” Pilar asked sharply.

“This Little Piggy, that's toes, not fingers,” Ariadne explained. “Still, I'd do what she says, you're losing a lot of blood.”

“It only opens from the outside, someone has to let us out,” Prescott whimpered.

“Try again,” Pilar hissed, and with another scream, his middle finger fell to the floor. “You've got 17 fingers and toes left to give me the right answer.”

“And probably some other things you'd rather not lose,” Ariadne added helpfully.

When the screams died down, Prescott managed to push a response through the tears. “I set up the security system,” he was gasping between every few words, “they know me. When they come check the vault, I can convince them this was a— surprise security, uh, audit, that you two are consultants, and that the system malfunctioned and trapped us here.”

Pilar considered this.

“P… please… don't hurt me again,” Prescott begged.

“Right answer,” she said, and dropped him hard to the ground. He fell to his knees and attempted to wad his T-shirt around his bleeding hand.

“You… you fucking bitch…” Prescott whimpered, which prompted a flash of rage in Ariadne that manifested in her clubbing him in the eye with the butt of her pistol.

Prescott fell to the floor, unconscious.

“Sorry,” Ariadne said immediately, “Oh god, Pilar, I'm so sorry.”

“Don't be,” Pilar said back. “You just knocked him out.”

“But now we're trapped for real,” Ariadne was trying very hard not to panic.

“Would've happened either way,” Pilar shrugged, and slumped back against a crate, waiting for their captors to come recover them.

“How do you figure?” Ariadne asked, really hoping to make sense of what she was being told.

“You were faster than me,” Pilar replied, “which is the only reason he's unconscious and not dead.”

Ariadne sat down next to Pilar and waited for someone to collect them.

[s4lticid]

The Shady as all Hell Whistleblower: Or why we shouldn’t take Romelle at face value.

Some firsts:

First and foremost, my deep thanks to the wonderful family at the Lotura Discord Server.  In the midst of dumping this stream of consciousness mess on you all, I may pull some ideas that were discussed there and are not original to me.  Where possible I will try and credit individuals, but if I miss anyone my deepest apologies and know that everyone there has had a great deal of influence over my thought process.  My love and thanks for all the great discussion and support – even the stuff I haven’t been present for!    

Second, this and the stuff to come right after, was the work of lots of thought and research that started right after S6 dropped.  That is a long time, and I wanted to get something out sooner but I have just been too swamped with RL, which has decided to become a giant, bloody, throbbing, pus-filled buboe blocking me from doing much of anything fun at all ever again.   Thus you will be treated to a stream of as much shit as I can spit out at once in the time I have to get this down, and it may not be in the best format or particularly well written, but here goes…  oh, and this is also another reason I may forget who said what in conversations exactly, because some of it happened nearly 2 months ago.

I am aware there have been a few metas written about Romelle.  I haven’t actually read any of them at this point, except for Leaking Hate’s awesome meta here, because  I didn’t want to get overly influenced by the ideas of others.  As such I have been on reading and participating in fandom even less that RL gave me a chance to.  So if you see something here that was said by someone outside of the Lotura Server and they are not credited, it is not me copying someone, I have just been holding on to it until I could post this.

That said, this builds off of some things LH posted in the above link, and I will do my best to credit those conversations I can remember reading and/or participating in within the Discord.

~oOo~ 

OKAY.

 I’m going to come right out and say it:  

Romelle is not who she says she is.

There are too many inconsistencies in her story.  So, let’s start at the very beginning and begin poking the holes to prove my point:

1.  Keith and Krolia find Romelle:

Keith and Krolia are in the Quantum Abyss riding a Space Whale and it brings them to a planet. Krolia takes a reading, and finds the same signal as the strange quintessence the Blade has been tracking on that planet.  

Note: Krolia first sees the readings from space and tracks them to the planet.  She doesn’t find any Quintessence signal anywhere else, she specifically states that it is strong and coming from exactly one place. 

It is coming from here:

So, if there was a moon base absolutely full of Alteans being drained for their quintessence, as they were shown later, why ever did such a larger source not register first and foremost rather than that cute little dome Romelle is in?

Speaking of that Dome, it’s pretty small, isn’t it?  It’s a bio-dome.  Meant for a few inhabitants.  Does this look like it could house a colony, or even a village realistically? No.  It can handle a handful, maybe a dozen people.  Probably, it was meant to house just one.  But we’ll get to that later.

Keith and Krolia break in and find Romelle, alone and by a riverside.  Washing clothes?  Why do that in her only clean water source when she has technology all around her? And make no mistake here, she is alone and demands help.

 ~oOo~

Now I am going to digress here for a moment before I go on to point 2, so I can point out a parallel to the original show, Defender of the Universe (to be referred to from here on as DotU for brevity’s sake, and for my fingers).

There are a LOT of nods to the original shows, (GoLion too), throughout VLD.  Some are flat out mirrors for the original, same plot ideas remade, lines taken and reused, Characters, Mechas, motives and situations, they’re all here, though sometimes reworked in very unexpected ways.  It’s beautiful seeing them all.

Finding the pretty Damsel alone by a stream, helpless, perhaps even passed out, is one plot device DotU used a LOT.  

For instance, when Allura’s Aunt Orla comes to visit, Haggar intercepts and captures her, and then takes her form and lies down to appear knocked out after an attack on her carriage.  She is found lying by a stream.  That was a plot to get to Allura:

Or how about the time Haggar herself was caught being pretty for a day – in apparently her original form – and cursed the person who saw her?  

Again, found by a river.

Fine, you say.  But this isn’t Haggar pretending to be Romelle.  That didn’t happen, right?

Oh but it did.  “It’ll Be a Cold Day”:

Ok, so she wasn’t found by a river this time.  But two out of three combined with the VLD writers’ way of reworking things make this a nice little reference point for this original trope.

Something else to note here is there is always some part of Haggar that is a tell.  Some part which she cannot disguise.  I would posit that we have one with VLD Romelle too: Her clothes.  As you go through this post, where you see images of other Alteans, please get a look at their garb.  There are several styles that are re-used among each of the people shown. However not one of them wears the same cut we see Romelle wear.  And yet someone does.  Who?  Haggar/Honerva.

No, I am not saying Romelle is actually Honerva/Haggar in disguise.  But she could easily be in league with her, and at the very least she definitely is not the innocent she appears and claims to be. Not just because of these fun little references to the original, but they are nice signposts along the way.  

 ~oOo~

2.  Romelle’s Story:  The Colony

Romelle starts her story to the Paladins by telling them she comes from a planet where there are thousands of Alteans.  

This bears repeating:  Thousands. Of living Alteans.  

Not “were” thousands, but are.  

Lotor apparently hunted down every Altean who had been off planet at the time Altea was destroyed, and their offspring, to bring them to the first Colony.  

Here is an image of the beginnings of that colony:

Here’s another:

Green as far as the eye can see and a giant ship that, as Leaking Hate pointed out in her meta and on Discord,  is easily the size of the dome we were shown above where Keith and Krolia first found Romelle.  

That ship would never fit in the bio-dome.  And as the upper picture of these two states in the subtitles, Lotor chose a remote planet beyond the Quantum Abyss, not in the Abyss.  A planet with a sun such that plants could grow, not a pulsar.

This means it cannot same planet as Romelle was found on, because she states the colony planet is beyond the Abyss, so the Abyss and the Pulsar within it already existed back then.  Neither could that ship ever hope to fit inside that dome, as is shown in her memory.

And that colony that was built, shown in the lower picture?  Is easily twice as big, or more, as the one Romelle is found in.

 3.  Romelle’s Story:  The Second Colony

Generations ago, once the Colony was very successful, Lotor began testing Alteans for special characteristics such that they could survive the journey to and live on a “Second Colony”. “To better our chances for survival”.

Let’s start with who was chosen.

Around Nine Thousand Five Hundred to Nine Thousand years ago – assuming time for Lotor to mature enough to do all this, knowing that he ages slowly thanks to the writers – Lotor would have started the first Colony.  The last people brought might have been found within a couple of hundred years of that range, but probably less.  

Think about how long a time that is.

Now, get a look at the faces that came in with some of the survivors found way back then:

 Now look at who is being tested:

(Note: I circled a few faces, but if you really look you will see many of the same ones from the above pic)

And note two of the faces I circled.

We know Alteans have a long life span.  Far longer than Humans.  But we also know from Allura’s reaction that they shouldn’t be anything like at least Nine Thousand Years or more.

So how are First-comer Refugee Alteans alive and young at the same time – ‘Generations Later’ – as both Romelle and Bandor?  

Let’s argue that they could be.  Bandor and Romelle were just younger then and not chosen.  So then Why have neither of them aged at all by the time Romelle related that eventually Bandor was old enough to be tested and passed?

And look, here are some of the first people chosen.  Recognize at least one face and clothing? (Not including Petrulius who is a contemporary of Romelle’s as she identifies him on the Moon Facility)

Sure they could be chosen much later, but then why have they not aged at all?

So were Romelle and Bandor refugees?  If so then why did Romelle say she was born onto that planet?

Were they born on the planet as she claims? 

Did Lotor start testing for special Alteans earlier than she says?  Or was it really later?  If the latter then how are these original refugees still so young?

However you look at it, her timeline does not add up,

 4.  Romelle’s Story:  The Monument

Thanks in advance to Trisha, Giobana, Crystal Rebellion, Leaking Hate and anyone else who contributed to the conversation that led to this one.

Romelle shows us in her memory that there was a memorial wall to those who went to the Second Colony. Whether she mentions it to the Paladins, I don’t know, but what is shown in the episode looks very much like a memorial to the Fallen.

The base of the Lotor’s statue is covered in names, and we see it cracked with age.  People go there to pay respects and leave flowers – and not just any flowers, but pink flowers.  

This kind of memorial is what you do for Fallen Soldiers and Fighters in a struggle, not people who are alive off somewhere on another colony and whom you hope to see again once the struggle is over. We even see this is a cross-cultural, cross-species, and intergalactic practice when we see the monument planet Pidge first traced Matt to. 

And what do we know about Pink to Alteans?  From Allura:

Fallen Warriors.  Not people who have gone to a second colony in the hopes of keeping their people alive.

Actually, let’s look at that little tale there.  Any colony, in order to be successful, requires a genetically diverse population, a breeding population.  A handful of people at a time, because they test as special is not going to provide that. Particularly not in what has been portrayed as a potentially dangerous and harsh journey and place – that alone would be safer in numbers.

Add to that we clearly see that Lotor has separated breeding pairs – Couples – in the few images we see of those chosen.  If he is trying to establish a new colony why would he logically do that?  The Alteans are intelligent and have some technological expertise, at least some of them, how did no one question that?

I call Shenanigans.  

Whatever was going on, it was not another colony and the Alteans all knew it.

This wall?  Is a War Memorial honoring warriors who the Alteans think are probably dead. 

 5.  Romelle’s Story:  The Communicator

When Bandor is chosen, he is portrayed as giving Romelle a communicator to try and stay in touch with her. 

This, despite his being portrayed by her as someone who deeply believed in the importance of not compromising the location of each colony through stray communications that could be picked up and tracked.  He is portrayed as explaining to Romelle, in such a ways that impies he has explained it to her time and again, why it was so very important that there be no communication.  He seems to understand and believe that it could be life and death.  But he creates one anyway?  

And then, he doesn’t think to give it to her until he is about to board the ship, in front of the guards:

Look at this picture above.  If you zoom in, everyone is looking at them and watching.

This whole part of the story is flat out ridiculous, and makes zero sense. There is no logic to this chain of events or his giving her the thing only at that very moment and not before testing just in case or something.  

It is a lie on the level a six year old might tell.  It shouldn’t even be considered as more than that.  And it is here, I think, that we fly into the realm of pure fantasy. Everything up till now was probably half-truths and misdirection.  From here on out though, her story really starts to fall apart and it is very likely we are seeing total and full fabrication.

 6. Romelle’s Story: The Dome

We know Romelle never gets chosen for the second Colony, or at least she never states that she does. Her never being chosen for the second colony wouldn’t be something to hide, it could totally benefit her story.  It would also help to explain why they didn’t try to warn anyone or stop the testing once they found the moon base – a fact that no one questioned, which itself is suspicious.  But she implies by her story that she remains at home, among her people, all alone and depressed because now she has no family.  

So she is supposedly still at the original colony when Bandor finally does contact her.   He has crashed by the woods.  She goes to him and what does she see?

The roof of the Dome. Which we have already established does not exist on the First Colony.  So, where is she?  Why is she now in this Dome?

What happened in the intervening time that she is not telling us, and is this story about Bandor crashing and the communicator even true?  Or are we now in fully manipulative fantasy?

There appear to be no other people in the Dome at all.  At least neither Keith nor Krolia relate having seen even one single person to corroborate her story.  No other Alteans on this original Colony she is supposed to still be on, which is where Keith and Krolia supposedly find her, and where she states very clearly in the beginning of her story that there are thousands of living, healthy Alteans.Why did Keith and Krolia not see one other person? 

Why does Romelle know about a flight bay on the outside of the Dome such that she can take Keith and Krolia to it, but they are supposed to be on an open planet?

When Romelle shows them to said pod, she actually says that “No one else here would know how to fly them if they wanted to”.  She represents in this line, once again, that this is the First Colony and there are other people here.  So where are they?

 7.  The Moon Base

Let’s begin with a question I asked at the beginning.

Why, when they were coming in to the planet, did Krolia see  

no quintessence signal at all

 from that moon base?  

These supposed people are supposedly being harvested – and Keith uses the active verb. 

These people

Are.  Not. Dead

.

The signal of Quintessence from a place so full of so many people, and the energy being harvested from them, not to mention the pods of Quintessence being harvested off in a storage room somewhere, being collected and stored for pickup, would have logically dwarfed the signal coming from Romelle and her little Dome.  They would have ended up here first, not at the Dome.

Even when they finally get there, at first Krolia only says she sees something down on the moon, not that she is getting any kind of Quintessence signal there.

Why?  Because there isn’t any.

The pods and the people are a mirage, created by them and for them; woven out of their own pre-existing prejudice and hate, and so very easy for them to believe.

Lotor never was portrayed as taking so very many people at once.  For that many people to still be alive and being drained on that station, almost every single Altean would have to still be alive and being used.  

A key thing Lotor has been portrayed as is not wasteful. Realistically, and if this were true, Alteans would have died of age.  Some even may have died from the process itself.  

Why would you keep a dead body in a pod like that for generations, and just build another?  

You wouldn’t.  You would dispose of the corpse and reuse the pod.

There wouldn’t be so very many of them if what Keith and Krolia saw was real, and was what they thought.

Let’s get a look at the pods, btw.  They are very reminiscent of Earth Batteries or Quintessence Capsules themselves, aren’t they?  Why do you think that is?  Perhaps because they are being manufactured from the thoughts and imaginings of Keith and Krolia?

Here is what real Galra Pod Tech looks like – this is the most recent example, but we HAVE seen it before in earlier seasons.  I am just too lazy to go and find it.

Lotor is a Prince, with access to resources and a scientist who designs and creates his own tech advances, ships and fleets.  To top that he has access to all of the best and latest technology in the empire.   

Does this really look anything like real, known and hi-tech Galra technology, except in a passing, functional way?

And why, after they have seen this and come to the conclusions they have, if the colony is right there and they have not only the proof but are themselves outsiders, giving them credibility….  WHY do Keith and Krolia – both Altruistic heroic do-gooders – not go and try to warn the rest of the Colony?  Get them to stop participating or submitting to the tests?

Again, that makes no sense at all according to their personalities.  Instead, they run headlong back to Allura to blow the whistle on evil, evil Lotor. No stops, no questions, no thought about the others still at risk.  

Also, no proof aside from this one little girl and her story, which without other evidence amounts to nothing more than Heresay.  No pictures, no video and no attempt to grab a jar of Quintessence to prove their case.

We find out in S7, that Keith at least sent a message to Kolivan and asked him to send a squad out there.  But what did Kolivan’s team find?

Nothing.  The place was empty.  “Cleaned out”.  And judging by the lighting when they got there, it was already probably empty and shut down.  They just imagined the pods.  How else would it be empty?  It’s not like Lotor had any time to clear it.  Neither did Honerva, if Kolivan acted right away – and honestly, Kolivan would have acted as fast as he could.

Speaking of Honerva:

 8.  On the Castle of Lions

Honerva is watching through Mommy Cam Kuron.  Nowhere in this episode is she at all surprised or disturbed to see another living Altean.

We find out later when she speaks to Lotor that she is aware that he has continued her work and succeeded where she could not.  That work was partly involving Alteans, but I will get to what that means later and probably in a different post.

So she is aware that Alteans exist, but she is still not at all surprised to see Romelle there in the castle.  At all.  As if it is part of her plan.  Could Romelle be in league with Honerva?  A part of a plan?

OR, thanks to the Blade being compromised by the alliance with Lotor – which Keith points out in S7 – Honerva found out about the investigation into the Quintessence early on into the new Alliance and traced the path herself.  She has access to all databases and resources in the Empire, after all, and we do not know what she was doing for a looong time while a lot of other things were going down in S5 and S6.

Kolivan and the blade, despite their own resources, were having trouble tracing the source and route of the quintessence.  Perhaps what they did find was carefully fed to them when Honerva was ready for them. When both she and Romelle were prepared.

And let’s talk a moment about how not one of the members of the team, including both Hunk and Kuron – both great voices of calm and reason for the team – questioned any of the discrepancies of the story I mentioned above, or Keith and Krolia’s actions, lack of corroboration and lack of trying to help the surviving colonists.  

They have started to build a relationship with the Galra, learn their culture and working hard for peace for months and months.  They were all starting to get to know and like Lotor even.  They know the careful balance going on right now in the empire.  And then one girl shows up with an MIA team member and has an uncorroborated story, and starts ordering people to shoot Lotor down, not caring that Allura is there too.  Even after she is told that Allura is there she doesn’t care.

Her story starts preying on emotion and projecting her own obvious desire to see him dead.  And the team members all get very emotional and ready for violence as well, as if the last several months never happened.  Their reasoning starts to slip, they don’t question or think out what they’re being told, not even the ones that normally do that no matter what.

And then we have this foreshadowing from waaaay near the beginning of the show:

Keith is still a hothead in many ways.  And he was too impatient to get Lotor to be focused against mind control.

He shows up on the Castle ready to rush into the rift and attack.  Even after hearing that Allura would be caught in the crossfire he presses to try and do just that and has to be bitchslapped by Lance.

The sheer venom and anger in all of the Paladins’ responses once Romelle is done with her story is off the scale.  Especially Hunk and Shiro.  Shiro’s tone when he says once Lotor and Allura land they will separate them and “Take Lotor down!” is a tone I have never once heard from him in the entire series.  It’s sheer rage fueled bloodlust.  This is not any of them.  This is them being manipulated.

A brief thought about S7…  Never mind that Romelle’s Altean frankly sucks, and she seems able to read Hunk’s mind – convenient that.  How about Romelle identifying Lotor’s fleet by sight?  When did she ever see enough of that, while living isolated on the colony, to know his ships by sight?

 SO. Who or what is Romelle?

Well, we have seen how characters are reworked from the original.  And there is one major character from the original we still haven’t seen.

Merla.

It makes no sense to bring in a new character now.  But merging her with another character already brought in, one who disliked and enjoyed thwarting Lotor as much as the original Romelle did?  That is not only possible, it is plausible, considering many of the character merges and re-works the VLD Team has already done throughout the series.

Merla is telepathic, but more, she can control people.  Partly via telepathy, but most often she uses the trope known as Emotion Bomb:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EmotionBomb

It is so much easier to control people through emotions and insecurities they already have.  And by the behavior of the Paladins that day? That is exactly what was happening. Not one of them acted rationally or completely within the current development of their character to Romelle and her appearance/story.  Not even Keith and Krolia did when they found her, as pointed out earlier.

They are all being manipulated and at least mostly, lied to. They are pawns and Romelle a tool to get Lotor out of their Alliance and out of his safe space with Voltron.  This is why Honerva was not surprised about Romelle being there on the ship.  This is how Honerva knew about the Alteans and the research when she finally got Lotor back onto her ship to try and talk to him.

Honerva is back to herself and she wants to get back to her people, probably to lead them.  She wants her son back now that she has herself again too.  To get even a chance at that she needs to get him away from his safe and stabilizing place with the Voltron Coalition.  She wants his Sincline ship, so she wouldn’t need Voltron anymore.  She certainly wouldn’t want him cozying up to Alfor’s Daughter.

Honerva has put a nice chess game onto the table, getting Romelle on her side, manipulating the Paladins, and forcing the breach in the budding New Empire and Alliance.  

Romelle is pissed, perhaps understandably, and has a bone to pick.  She may have been exiled to that planetoid by her people and Lotor, for starting shit on the Colony, and found there by Honerva, or she may have been set up there by Honerva.  In the end the result is the same.  Perfect tool.

Because Lotor had not been harvesting Alteans all this time.  Romelle, as he said in the episode, was not telling the truth and did not know what she spoke of.  What would be the point of that, there is no research in that, only death.  No, he has been developing fighters like the one we saw in the end of S7.  Fighters that fuse Altean Alchemic Magic and fighting skill from the pilot, allowing the pilot to see and experience straight through the ship’s sensors, and powering the ship through their own Quintessence – very like the Lions only more.  (My thanks to Crystal Rebellion who helped me develop this base idea with this meta.  There will be more to come on this.)

The special Alteans who went with him from the colony were test pilots, heroes to their people, to help ensure their survival.  A new protective military force.  .  

Test pilots have a dangerous job, one that is known to lead to death.  And who knows, maybe some Galra had snooped around at times. Regardless, that memorial to fallen warriors was just exactly that, and all the Altean people knew exactly what they were volunteering for.  

Even Lotor said a few were martyred for an important cause to save the future for thousands.  One cannot become a martyr unless everyone knows what they did and why.

Lotor is their greatest Hero and Savior.  And now his Mother is likely there – having forsaken the Druids – and has given the Colony a story of betrayal, and the Komar to perfect their fighters.  Perhaps a wounded and/or Comatose Lotor is with her if she managed to pull him out of the rift first.  But regardless, the Alteans are not friends to Allura, Voltron or the Coalition.  They are going to see Allura and the Paladins as enemies, who betrayed and hurt their leader and protector.

That fighter was not a part of Sendak’s fleet, she was a forward thrust.  A shot across the Paladin’s bow.  The Alteans will be hunting Voltron.

I’ll leave you with a parting thought.

The writers also said in the end, we would look back and see that Lotor was never lying.  And that he came from a genuine place, though he never had the tools and choices the rest of the Paladins were given in their upbringings and lives.  And lastly, that his feelings for Allura were indeed genuine.

I am working on a meta for Lotor.  I’ll get there soon.

My thanks again to everyone on the Lotura Discord.  You are all amazing, wonderful people and I am lucky to have met you and to be able to discuss ideas with you.

Thanks to Crystal Rebellion for helping me last minute find links at 2 AM so I can get a bit of sleep before work

And thanks to the love of my life for putting up with me being tied up so late tonight. 

Without your support I can do so little.

[cmdonovann]

Reflections in Glass

The last of my posts about the books I made to celebrate Quantum Break's 9th birthday! Here's Reflections in Glass by GS_Pier, an AU where the events of the game happen in 2010 rather than 2016.

The cover paper for this one is suminagashi paper gifted to me from an acquaintance in the Renegade discord server. It seemed like the right kind of ghostly vibe for this fic! The typeset is also fairly simple, like the others, but the reflected text on the title page and chapter headers was fun :3

(Original post about the books is here.)

[hornydeicideenjoyer]

So made this in discord. Jon really needs a break, and maybe the desolation to? warning for spiders bullying elder entities online and language. Jon: sighs. statement of… the desolation. regarding the email it received from…(god damn it)… the web. original statement given June twentieth, 2023. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.

Statement begins: Dear maiden-less bastard, You fool! You foot-sucking moron! You have fallen right in my trap! I have your IP address, your weight, and your moms phone number! honestly, you didn't even check the servers primary settings before joining AND turning PVP on. This is one of the most obvious virus dupes in the history of steam engines! Even a LIgHtLEss FlaME should have at least one small candle in their skull. I was a little nervous for putting those cards so blatantly public, but decided to have a little fun tonight, as I thought you had at the very least the common knowledge of a beer-ponged under grad! But no! You have less intelligence than a stoned monkey! I was bored more mindless than Micheal! You idiot. You pubescent troglodyte! While you were reading this message and googling what even is a troglodyte, I was beating quantum physics at OMNI-DIMENSIONAL CHESS. (squeals like a genocidal kindergartner) YOU DRUGGED UP STREET PLANT! While you spent an hour trying to learn that there are more sciences then whatever was on your F- report, I FUCKING SENT INTERCONTINENTAL BALLISTIC MISSILES FROM MADAGASCAR TO YOUR LOCATION! What!? I can hear you on your mic! You have a girlfriend named Alice? (laughs in many maidens). Oh dear. Looks like I can't berate you any longer, though not because you would have been beaten by Martin's scream before you understand what I am saying, it is because I have to go to the airport to pickup Alice. Farewell.

Ps: (unapologetically whispers loudly like a deranged Jergan Lietner getting a new book for Christmas) I'M AT THE FUCKING AIRPORT ALREADY! I BASICALLY HANDED THIS ONE TO YOU, WTF

Signed: H0LYSH1T1AMBAN6IN6ALIC5@THEH0TEL!!! To: #gamertag;LITLES FLAM!!!@1234I_HAVE_YOUR_PAYPAL_AND_P***.FuckU

Jon: (screams like a maniac) This is utterly preposterous. if anything, it means that the web must have learned some things from martin. sigh. i should never have given that boy my steam account. no the last thing i need to do is remove this visceral image from my mind, god i wished the circus had ended me already. picks up phone. Hey Elias? about that date… uhuh right… (edited) [10:24 PM] statement ends

[trustimagine]

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UNPKG MATERIAL 2 DEV PATCH

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Here are a few thoughts I have about how Material compares to Universal Theme from a component feature perspective (so I’m not going to mention layout, movement, color, or versatility). A few component feature comparisons between Material and APEX’s Universal ThemeĪll of the Material designs were built on the concept of “quantum paper” – Google dreamed up a universe in which your computer screen peers into a paper theatre stage – on which highly responsive paper moves and transforms across your screen in magical but fundamentally consistent and intuitive ways. Take your time to admire the components on offer. Integrating Google Material components into Oracle APEX can describe a broad spectrum of workflows – today we’re going to pick a relatively simple workflow in which we simply copy and paste from Material into our APEX application.Īs APEX developers, we are interested in “Web” components, so head to and explore the components menu in the left hand nav. Google’s Material is an open-source project/design philosophy that offers a stunning open-source selection of components and features. Let’s begin with an overview of Material. I’m going to assume you have an intermediate knowledge of APEX but I’m not going to assume you have any exposure to Google’s Material.

UNPKG MATERIAL 2 DEV HOW TO

In particular – we are going to look at how to integrate Google Material components to Oracle APEX. If Github Issues don't fit your needs, then please visit us on our Discord Channel.In this blog post, we are going to explore how a 3rd party library can be added to Oracle APEX. We're constantly trying to improve our components.

UNPKG MATERIAL 2 DEV FULL

Please see quick start demo on glitch for full example. This'll initialize text field component on a single. import from textField = new MDCTextField(document.querySelector('.mdc-text-field')) Import MDCTextField module to instantiate text field component. Load styles required for text field component. Please see Textfield component page for more options.

UNPKG MATERIAL 2 DEV INSTALL

npm install usage of text field component. Install textfield node module to your project. You can also see the final code and result in the Material Starter Kit. To configure webpack, please see the full getting started guide. This guide assumes you have webpack configured to compile Sass into CSS. Please see quick start demo on codepen for full example. (document.querySelector('.mdc-text-field')) Material Design Guidelines (external site).

UNPKG MATERIAL 2 DEV PATCH

We typically follow a 2-week release schedule which includes one major release per month with breaking changes,Īnd intermediate patch releases with bug fixes. Semver so you can control when you incorporate them. NOTE: Material Components Web tends to release breaking changes on a monthly basis, but follows It is also specifically architected for adaptability to various major web frameworks. In addition to implementing the Material Design guidelines, it provides more flexible theming customization, not only in terms of color, but also typography, shape, states, and more. Material Components for the web is the successor to Material Design Lite. In short, whether you're already heavily invested in another framework or not, it should be easy to incorporate Material Components into your site in a lightweight, idiomatic fashion. Material Web strives to seamlessly incorporate into a wider range of usage contexts, from simple static websites to complex, JavaScript-heavy applications to hybrid client/server rendering systems. Material Components for the web helps developers execute Material Design.ĭeveloped by a core team of engineers and UX designers at Google, these components enable a reliable development workflow to build beautiful and functional web projects.

[hiaennyddei]

As long as you don’t open the box, the owl is both dead and alive.

Owlboy © @dpadstudio Art © me.

A BIG CHUNK of ending theories under the cut !

One night I found myself wondering, what if Otus remembered all of his deaths?  What if all of his deaths are alternate timelines, and us going back to the last checkpoint was just the loop in action, since with Otus dead the loop wouldn't have ended ?  And that would be why noctae says he saw Otus dying but also alive enough to find his hologram, despite the ancestor's level being available only after defeating Solus.

One of my friend from the Owlboy Discord server called that “quantic immortality“. I like this expression because in quantum physics, as long as the particle isn't observed, it exists in all of its possible states at the same time. The observation projects the particle in one state. We could think that while the loop is still in action, Owlboy’s world is "non observed". All the possibilities (Otus dead, Otus alive) coexist.

Breaking the loop projects the world in one of the possible endings, which can be summed up as either Otus is alive, or he was killed by the anti hex. The analogy isn't perfect but it's good enough. 

Noctae would know that Otus is technically immortal. The possible states of a particle can be predicted through calculations, which is exactly what Noctae does.

That being said, I don't know if Otus would remember all timelines. That'd be an interesting theory for a character study though. If we keep on with the quantum physics parallel, the equivalent question would be, does a particle retains information from its potential states once it has been projected ? I'm not good enough at quantum physics to answer that.

However, after a bit of research, I learnt that a particle’s potential states influence its projected state, wether or not they are realized or not. In Owlboy, it would mean that when fighting a boss, Otus would find himself suddenly more trained and agile than a second before, because all the time he tried and died influence his abilities in the reality where he survives.

One last thig : one can wonder whether or not the different states are linked to Otus only. What if another protagonist died, preventing the loop from being broken ? Of course, the game mechanics would lead us to believe that it's the case, which would make Otus a very special boy. This is somewhat confirmed by the fact that noctae mentions Otus and no one else.

[recentanimenews]

Ani-Gamers Podcast #122 – Guess I’m in Charge of the Conspiracy Cops Now

After a brief break due to our two-part Evangelion podcast, Evan and David check back in on anime industry news, Rie Kugimiya’s ticketed AnimeNYC appearance, Super Nintendo games on Switch, and Fire Emblem: Three Houses. And in this episode’s Mini-Review, Evan discusses Control, the new supernatural action game from Remedy Entertainment. Topics include: gacha guest signings, turning into a tree, and getting hired and instantly promoted.

Runtime: 1 hour, 17 minutes

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More episodes

Show Notes

Opening/Ending Song: “Blues Machine” by Scott Gratton

News

Nintendo announced and released the Super Nintendo collection on Switch. Evan talks about what he’s played so far on it.

Cool Japan Fund invests in Sentai Filmworks.

Crunchyroll buys controlling share of VIZ Media Europe.

Sony merges anime business, including Aniplex, under FUNimation.

Tickets to voice actor Rie Kugimiya’s event at AnimeNYC will cost $125 per person!

The Queue

Both Evan and David are playing Fire Emblem: Three Houses.

Mini-Review: Control

We name-drop Max Payne, Alan Wake, Quantum Break, Infamous, Prototype, and Dishonored.

Twitter: Evan, David, Ani-Gamers

Mastodon: Evan, David

Evan and David write for Otaku USA Magazine.

Evan sometimes updates his side blog Anime Burger Time.

David is streaming every weekend on his Twitch channel!

originally appeared on Ani-Gamers on October 3, 2019 at 6:19 PM.

By: Evan Minto

[cmdonovann]

it's time.

welcome to…

QUANTUM BREAK APPRECIATION MONTH 2024

okay, fuck it, i went too hard last year trying to post every damn day in april. this year, i am taking a break and inviting you all to join me in making too many insane posts for quantum break month.

yes, that means i will be giving out prizes to those brave soldiers who join me in posting about a nearly-dead eight-year-old fandom for an entire month. i cannot promise that they are GOOD prizes, but i WILL reward you for joining me in quantum break hell.

HERE IS MY CALENDAR:

you will notice i am starting on the second week of the month. this is because i have been renovating an office and am exhausted. i will not be taking questions at this time.

anyway, the 5th of april is the 8th anniversary of quantum break's release! if you post about quantum break on this day and send me a link to the post, i will draw you a tiny doodle on a post-it note of one of the quantum break characters.

the week of april 7th - april 13th i have designated as ships week. this week, post about your favorite quantum break ships! for every shippy post you make (and send me a link to), i will put your name into a hat one time and then pick a random person (on the 30th) to recieve a ship certificate from robinboob, a parody website that sells "certficates" saying you "own" a certain ship. (to clarify, this is parodying nfts, but the money actually funds fandom-centric web development projects.)

(i already own certificates for jackpaul and paulcest. see below. but i'm sure you can come up with some fun new ships that i can buy for you ;3)

the week of april 14th - april 20th is blorbo week. who is your quantum break fave? which of these characters do you want to squeeze like a stress toy? post about your fave this week, and for each post you send me, i will put your name into a hat once and randomly pick someone (on the 30th) to receive free art, done by me, of your blorbo.

(i have already drawn so many quantum break fanarts, and yet, there are still characters i have only drawn once or twice. if your fave is underappreciated, this is the week for you.)

the week of april 21st - april 27th is plot week. gimme your meta, your theories, ramble about the plot points you love to hate or hate to love. for every plotty post you make and send to me, i'll enter your name in my little hat of names once and then pick a random person (on the 30th) to win either a copy of the secret history of time travel or quantum break: zero state, your choice.

that's about it! general diclaimers: you can tag your posts with "quantum break appreciation month 2024" obviously (that's what i'll be doing) but the only way to guarantee i see them and count them is to send me a link. my askbox will be open all month for this reason. you're also free to join the quantum break discord server i run and send your posts there, if that's easier! i won't announce winners for anything until the 30th. if i can't get in contact with you to tell you you've won (ie via tumblr message, askbox, discord, etc) i will pick someone else.

also, full disclosure, yes, i am giving out prizes specifically because i am too tired to make a ton of posts myself. but that doesn't mean i won't try! (i'm not going to enter MYSELF into the hat for a prize though, that would be silly.)

anyway. happy quantum break month! go wild my friends!!