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I forgot to post baby sleeping Harpuia so here's baby sleeping Harpuia we love him he's just a little bird

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On the Four Guardians, their connection and relation to X (the both of them)

-because the lore is a mess and I Needed Answers. i only meant to compile the different pieces of the puzzle at first, but once it turned into a full essay, i figured i'd share it !

disclaimers :

due to my inability to read or understand japanese i'll be relying solely on english material - official localizations, fantranslations, and a bit of machine translation, and pray there weren't major farts during either processes. all my sources that aren't in-game screenshots will be linked at the end of the post.

for the sake of simplicity - both in analysis and writing - i will proceed with the assumption that all the guardians were built/activated at the same time, and that a hint applying to one applies to all four of them (and by "one" i really mean Harpuia who hogs all the screentime for himself)

this is merely my own analysis and conclusions for the sake of my fanworks and interest, not a guideline on what people should believe. anyone with more info or thoughts is free to chime in ( ´ ◡ ` )

So... let's dive into it.

First things first : who, or what, are the Four Guardians ?

First game introduces them as Neo Arcadia's elite and Copy X's inner circle, then the lore entries in 2&3 (Ciel's computer + Secret Disks) specify they were built after X himself.

In-games we only know the Four as military generals, but the Official Complete Works reveal they had another job - or at least Harpuia and Leviathan did.

This is repeated and expanded on in their profiles for the Remastered Tracks : Zero booklet (which i'll just link here instead of pasting four more paragraphs). An excerpt from Harpuia's : "Neo Arcadia, aspiring to restore the world of humans, heralded 2 goals. One of them was the annihilation of the [Mavericks], source of the wars, and the other was regeneration of the Earth's environment to expand the human living area."

Terraformers ; Reploids made from X to assist in the repopulation of a planet damaged beyond words by over 100 years of war, while suppressing the maverick threat.

Then, the Megaman Zero collection website drops these bombs (flash website, translation courtesy of ggle lens, with thanks to @/cinnamononions for two of those three screenshots and to @/irys955 for the post that brought the matter on the table for me) :

Here rather than merely built after X, the Four were full parts of him that separated into their own beings upon sealing the Dark Elf. Not the same thing ! This is something that not only contradicts the games - aka the source material - but has never been seen anywhere else. So, I don't think it's worth much unless you want it to, but there are two implications to point out anyway :

the Cyber Elf X we meet and speak to throughout the games is incomplete compared to his original MMX self, something you'd think would be addressed, or that you'd be able to tell when interacted with ;

the Guardians never met the original X. This was my main question out of this whole mess, and this bit is what directed the rest of my digging.

In Z2 Harpuia has this line-

-which i've seen taken as evidence that he knew of the og X's body all along. while not impossible, it's not a guarantee - there is a whole year between Z1 and 2, he could very much have found out during that period, especially from his newfound leadership of Neo Arcadia !

and YET, when faced with MK-II in 3, knowing him to be the copy (Zero only says "a" copy, but MK-II clearly has the memories from the one in 1, so either way works) - he still immediately submits.

And in the first half of the game, while he tries to reason with MK-II, he never turns directly against him - even when MK-II tells him off and steps him down, even after the missile strike (the human deaths !!) he's co-responsible for, Harpuia's anger is consistently and ONLY directed at Weil.

He knows that's not the og X, yet he keeps his respect, and with him being comatose while MK-II goes out, we will never know how long that could have gone on.

Apart from what the Collection said above - which again, I consider as dubiously reliable - the question of when the Four were built, or at least activated (the distinction is important) is never asked and never clearly answered. The only thing we can be certain of is that it was after the Elf Wars - Z1 is their first meeting with Zero, they're not aware of Omega's true body (Phantom learns it first through Cyberspace), and the intro cutscenes in Z3 make it clear that while they knew Omega and Weil by name, they had never seen them in person before.

The implicit question behind it being, "have they known the og X while he was alive ?"

Well, the OCW has a timeline, let's take a look !

... they're not on it, except for that mention alongside Copy X at the bottom left paragraph.

And on (an excerpt of) the relationship chart from this same book :

They are written as underlings to Copy X only - no link to the og X at all, not even a "created after"...

So my takeaway is that they were activated roughly around the same time as Copy X. (There's also the fact that they use Copy X's leitmotif, "The Legend", rather than X's "Cyberelf", even after Copy X is no more, but that may be a stretch on my end.)

According to the devs, Ciel may have been as young as 5 when she made Copy X, so doing the math with her being 14 in Z1 brings us to at most 9 years before Z1.

And this made me think, aren't the Four a little late for their terraforming business then ? Neo Arcadia has been standing for almost a century ! To which the devs answer that they'd been working outside of Neo Arcadia. Crisis averted.

(The "they weren't supposed to be weapons" is an interesting bit, in-line with Megaman tradition and twice as ironical coming from expies of the pacifist X, though we're never told what non-military function Fefnir and Phantom could have occupied. But I disgress.)

So now we have Reploids made after the og X but likely never knew him alive. So the last (and I'd say most important) question is, were they at least aware they were following a clone ?

The "disappearance" of X was likely not something planned ahead, by Neo Arcadian authorities or by himself - I'm not that familiar with his character, so feel free to correct me on that, but I can't imagine he'd be in favor of maintaining a facade with a fake, even for the sake of maintaining a sense of stability and security. Copy X's lie is held to the general populace, as we see in Z3 (through Weil framing "X's" sudden brutal end on Zero) and Z4 (the human Caravaners very much believing that). But how high exactly does it go ?

See again my point about Harpuia's Z2 line not being irrefutable evidence he was in the know, and let's compare with what other characters know, as told by the Remastered Tracks : Telos dramas !

Case 1) TK-31 :

We are already in Copy X era, and the to-be Elpizo is at this point a regular worker in Neo Arcadia's City Management Bureau - in other words, a civilian (in Z2, he's referred to as a citizen by Leviathan and as an errand boy by himself). He seems to be in content, practically complicit ignorance of Neo Arcadia's inner workings despite his own condition as a nameless, mass-produced model, so it's safe to assume what he knows isn't much above what the average citizen knows. He recognizes the Dark Elf and Weil but not Omega, and is of course unaware the X he sees here is different from the one he knows.

Then he gets found out and berated by Harpuia :

Is Harpuia trying to keep a mere civilian away from the truth he's privy to, or is he himself unquestionningly following orders not to pry ? It honestly wouldn't be far off from his character. Remember the earlier paragraph with MK-II. Remember that in Z3, any of his protests are immediately shut down with "you used to be more obedient than that" !

Case 2) (half of) the Eight Gentle Judges :

Now we're at the top of the echelon - or, well, close enough. And that last line is immediately telling : the Judges knew the og X and noticed the change without realizing he's been replaced. And immediately after that...

From the respect Kelverian shows here, it would seem that the Guardians are at least one rung above the Judges on Neo Arcadia's ladder, so again : is this keeping the lower ranks in the dark, or is this just the usual Sage "don't you dare doubt Master X" Harpuia ?

Case 3) Fellow Guardian, Phantom (and with direct ft. of og X) :

The wording here is a little confusing ("we meet at last" but also "you haven't changed a bit", is this their first meeting or a reunion ?) ; but we do have "my darkness will not serve any other light than [the og X's]." Can Copy X's "light" be equated to the og X's ? Because we're dealing with the guy who was willing to blow himself up to stop Zero from reaching Copy X. Whether or not he already knew about the og X back then, Phantom's loyalty, like Harpuia's, seems to extend to both Xes unconditionally.

Note that he also states "protecting the people and Reploids", which up until then seemed to be completely optional for the Guardians with how ready they were to terminate their own.

And now, with Harpuia's own musings :

An illusion. There WAS something he didn't know at this point. And this point is the beginning of Z3 - he's aware of the Elf Wars, of Weil and Omega, and he's aware of the original X's now-destroyed body. So what is it he's still missing ?

When Harpuia asks Zero to stop Elpizo, and when he opposes Weil and Omega, it's because they threaten human lives. There's no character development here, no changing to Zero and the Resistance's side. Leviathan and Fefnir too, when asked by X to help Zero in their own drama track, only accept because Weil/Omega are shared enemies, and they're shared enemies because they threaten humanity and Neo Arcadia's order as a whole. The protection of humans, and their master(s), has been their singular consistent goal, even when it came at the cost of their own kind. Perhaps much like the Judges, merely carrying out orders while being kept in the dark of how exactly their victims came to be labelled Mavericks !

So, my conclusion on what Harpuia figured here is the original purpose of Neo Arcadia - an utopia for humans and Reploids, as the og X envisionned, and not only for the former. (And if you listen to the drama track itself, he sounds in clear distress and denial, which may explain why he holds onto MK-II anyway.)

Last but not least is really just... law of parcimony/occam's razor. It's much easier to explain the Four's ruthless enforcement of Copy X's agenda, something we know the og X would have never stood for, if it's the only status quo they've ever know, isn't it ?

If you're still there, we're nearing the end, and I'll recap my own conclusion with another homemade Canva masterpiece made from everything we've discussed :

The Four Guardians were modeled and coded after X, and activated alongside or after Copy X to help humanity repopulate the Earth before being reconverted as military assets. They were either kept in the dark about the og X entirely, or were led to believe they were carrying on his legacy by enforcing Copy X's regime, regardless of whether they knew about the og body in Yggdrasil or if they learned about it later.

I specify "activated" to keep the possibility that their project as terraformers might have been something X was involved with, but the seal of Dark Elf happened before he could see them open their eyes.

The whole other can of worms that is important yet that we will probably never know ANYTHING about, and the one that makes me use the passive voice above, is the human side of Neo Arcadia's government : whoever made Ciel build Copy X to begin with, and saw no issue in his regime. These are people with enough power to keep the truth away from up to the Gentle Judges, and I'm thinking the Guardians may not have been exempt from that.

Everything compiled here still leaves a ton of blanks, and anything more will have to be headcanon territory, so...

Thank you so much for reading ! Figuring out this mess then writing this took me like A Month, and it's quite awkward doing that on a 20 y/o game from a franchise we KNOW gets inconsistent. It might just be a compilation of what we already knew from still fairly recent translations but I hope you enjoyed the read anyway. 🙏

Sources :

MMZ2 in-game script

MMZ3 in-game script

MMZ Official Complete Works

MMZ Remastered Tracks booklet translation (character profiles)

MMZ Remastered Tracks Telos booklet translation (creator's chat)

MMZ Remastered Tracks Telos drama tracks (audio w/ translations, MMKB translations)

MMZ Collection Website (website, MMKB translation)

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I wanted to do this trend with him

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whatever man

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No amount of gifsets in the world could come close to conveying the sheer gender of anime Rika

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Anything to keep this community alive….anyways take my dumb video with the 4 guardians

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hiiii i have another request! it’s for tom riddle this time. i was hoping u could make a fanfic about tom showing y/n all of his snakes and just geeking out about them and she’s just listening to him and interacting with his snakes even though she’s very terrified of them

Don't Hiss & Tell

-> A/N: ily @kiaxika for this perfect request, i'd kiss your creative brain. MWAH

You would like the record to show:

You are not afraid of snakes.

Well. Not that afraid.

Okay, moderately afraid. The slithering. The scales. The tiny forked tongues flicking out like they’re plotting your doom. It’s all… a lot. But you are in love with Tom Riddle. Which is how you find yourself here: sitting cross-legged on the floor of the Slytherin common room at nearly midnight, while Tom gently lifts the lid off a large, suspiciously ventilated frosted glass crate.

“Ready?” he murmurs, voice low and crisp.

“Mm-hm,” you squeak.

He glances over, brows knitting slightly. “You’re… shaking.”

“I’m vibrating with enthusiasm,” you say. “Completely different.”

Tom pauses. His eyes, dark blue, intense, endlessly clever, scan your face, as though recalibrating every word he’s about to say. Then he lifts the lid the rest of the way. And out spills a tangle of scales and glittering eyes and delicate little flickering tongues. There must be at least half a dozen snakes in there. Some are coiled. One is bright green and eyeing you suspiciously. One loops gently around Tom’s wrist like a living bracelet.

“This is Aracelis,” Tom says, in a voice you’ve only ever heard him use when he tries to make you feel safe after a long day of exams. “She’s a tree viper from Costa Rica. Very sweet.”

Aracelis is not sweet. Aracelis is terrifying.

You force a polite smile. “So cute.”

Tom peers closer. “She’s actually quite affectionate, once she knows you. Watch.”

And before you can protest, he lifts the snake and gently drapes her across your shoulders.

Your entire soul leaves your body.

“Tom—Tom—Tom—”

“It’s fine,” he says calmly, fingertips brushing your collarbone as he adjusts the viper’s position. “She’s affectionate. And she likes warmth.”

“Tom, I am also affectionate and like warmth. That doesn’t mean people should hang me around their necks.”

He huffs a soft laugh, eyes uncharacteristically glittering. “You’re being dramatic.”

The viper flicks her tongue against your jaw. You nearly black out onto the stone floor.

“She likes you,” Tom murmurs, sounding pleased.

“Super,” you choke out. “Love that journey for us.”

Tom leans in slightly, close enough that you can smell the faint hint of ink and old books clinging to his robes. His voice drops lower, conspiratorial:

“You know, they’re highly intelligent creatures. They remember faces. They can feel your mood.”

“I’m pretty sure mine’s terror right now.”

He smirks. “Yes. And yet you’re still here. That’s… admirable.”

Your eyes flick to his. Despite the snake currently coiling a little tighter around your neck, you find yourself softening.

“Why do you like them so much?” you ask quietly.

Tom goes still. His lashes lower a fraction, and for a heartbeat, he looks almost shy.

“They’re misunderstood,” he murmurs. “Everyone thinks they’re cold. Dangerous. But they’re… elegant. Precise. They’re quiet. They don’t waste energy on things that don’t matter. They know how to wait.”

You blink.

It’s the most words he’s spoken about anything personal in… ever.

“You know,” you say softly, “if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were describing yourself.”

Tom blinks. Once. Twice. Then he clears his throat and gently removes Aracelis from your shoulders, placing her back into the crate.

“Nonsense,” he says briskly, but his ears have gone a suspicious shade of red.

Before you can tease him further, a low, musical hissing fills the room. You freeze. Tom glances back at the crate and responds in a language that makes your skin prickle. Long, sliding syllables, quiet and smooth as silk. Parseltongue.

The snakes go still, all eyes fixed on him like he’s royalty.

“Are you… talking to them?” you whisper.

He looks over at you, a tiny, smug smile curving his lips. “Of course. They’re rather curious about you.”

“Oh, wonderful. What are they saying? That I look delicious?”

“Actually, Aracelis said you smell like vanilla.”

You gape. “Is… is that good?”

Tom tilts his head, eyes glinting. “She likes vanilla.”

You’re about to scream when he gently lifts another snake out of the crate, a pale golden one with a delicate diamond pattern along its spine.

“This is Callidora,” he murmurs, stroking the serpent’s back with feather-light fingers. “She’s a corn snake. She’s quite gentle.”

Callidora blinks slowly at you, tongue flicking out.

Tom tilts her toward your face. “She wants to say hello.”

“Oh God.”

Tom hisses softly again, a few quiet syllables that send the scales rippling along Callidora’s body. The snake slithers closer and gently bumps her nose against your cheek. You squeal. Tom laughs under his breath, a rare, genuine sound that makes your chest feel full and impossibly fragile.

“You’re so brave,” he murmurs, his hand coming up to tuck a stray piece of hair behind your ear.

“Don’t patronize me, Riddle.”

He grins. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

He carefully returns Callidora to the crate, then looks at you, quieter. “Thank you,” he says. “For… indulging me.”

You smile, heart pounding. “Next time, can we indulge me instead? Like, I dunno… kittens?”

Tom tilts his head, considering. “I suppose kittens would be… tolerable.”

And even though your knees are still trembling, and you can practically feel phantom scales brushing your skin, you lean forward and press a quick kiss to his cheek.

“You’re tolerable too,” you whisper.

Tom’s lips curve into the faintest, rarest smile.

“Don’t tell anyone.”

You grin. “Your secret’s safe with me. And Aracelis.”

Somewhere in the crate, a snake flicks its tongue.

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I like in Teen Titans that Robin’s mask is just as expressive as like cartoon spidey masks. Especially when they do this thing:

OR WHEN HE DOES THIS:

he’s so silly I love him lmao

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Said Snape…

An analysis inspired by my username :)

There are about 300* times in the series that Snape’s delivery of dialogue contains additional descriptives beyond “said”, giving us insight into his tone. I thought it might be interesting to take a look at what this can tell us about Snape’s character. And if you’re a fic writer looking to have your Snape reflect canon!Snape as much as possible (or even if not, and you’re looking to make choices that will distinguish him from canon!Snape), I figured this might be a helpful resource.

[Adverbs] Snape says things…

...softly or quietly, most often, followed by coldly, coolly, or icily, and then smoothly, silkily, or sleekly.

This trend holds when we look across not just adverbs modifying “said” but all verbs of speech. Here's how those descriptors are used across the books in the series:

And here's what that looks like split up by the different eras in Snape's life:

Snape is most often described as saying things “repressively” or “dismissively” as well as “calmly”, “slowly”, or “deliberately” in his double agent days, which are adverbs that convey a certain amount of control over the conversation, information, and his own temperament. Taken together, this may reflect his increased caution and the high-stakes nature of information at this stage.

Although Snape displays little patience for those not at his level even in his teenage years (“just shove a bezoar down their throats” comes to mind), his dialogue only reflects this with adverbs such as “sharply” or “curtly” once he has established himself as an authority figure. We will see a similar pattern below with verbs and adjectives conveying impatience.

[Verbs] When Snape doesn’t simply “say” something, he…

...Most often is expressing a negative emotion: shouting, yelling, bellowing or snarling and spitting. The largest portion of Snape’s shouts occur in HBP, specifically in Flight of the Prince, as he tries to direct the Death Eaters to leave and faces Harry. But looking across these first two emotionally-charged categories, about 30% of these (perhaps not surprisingly) occur in Prisoner of Azkaban, where Snape is spends a notable chunk of the book in an extremely emotional state.

However, he's not always shouting or snarling; approximately 15% of the time when he is not simply speaking, he is whispering or hissing, which complements the 25% of the time that he is speaking softly or quietly.

Let's look at this in relation to Snape's timeline:

It's fitting that the majority of Snape’s inquiries occur after Voldemort’s return, when he returns to his double agent role, gathering intelligence.

I also think it’s interesting what we don’t see in Snape’s school days. In childhood/school there’s relatively little superciliousness—instead, we see more argumentation; Snape argues, demands, pants, splutters, and backtracks.

Snape’s brand of snippy impatience and condescension (sneered/snarled/snapped, etc) is most evident in his days as a professor (before Voldemort’s return through his years as a double agent). In his deep cover years it declines; he no longer has the time and he’s focused on the task at hand.

Let's now look at the adjectives used to describe Snape's tone. Snape says things in a tone of voice that is…

...Most often soft, low, or quiet, followed by cold or icy, and then by sneering or sardonic. I find it fitting that Snape’s tone is described as impatient in GOF and HBP, both books in which Snape spends the year on tenterhooks, waiting for the axe to fall.

When we look at how these adjectives are distributed across Snape's lifetime, we can see that Snape’s vocalizations described as “terrible” only three times, and they occur at pivotal moments: Lily’s death and his own. Additionally, Snape’s unconcerned or bored tone comes out during his double agent years, and 3 out of the 4 times it is used as an affectation.

Misc. notes: It is also notable when there are a lack of descriptors surrounding Snape’s speech altogether. There are definitely fewer in the first two books, likely given their shorter length and lower reading level. However, there are three moments in Deathly Hallows that, taken together, really stood out to me: The Dark Lord Ascending, Voldemort’s visit to Hogwarts to take the Elder Wand, and Snape’s meeting with Voldemort in the Shrieking Shack (no descriptions of speech besides "blankly", up until the moment of Snape’s murder, during which he protests and lets out a terrible scream). The lack of description of Snape's speech is a neat nonverbal way to convey to us readers the flattening effect of Occlumency.

Anyway, hope this was interesting, and I’d absolutely love to hear any additional insights you all pull out of this!

*This is by no means meant to be the definitive, exhaustive analysis of Snape’s speech. This was completed doing simple searches for dialogue with “Snape” (didn’t have the raw text to write a script or anything), so it’s entirely possible that I’ve missed several instances of Snape speaking when referred to as “he” and the dialogue in question is several lines away from his name. However, I believe those cases are relatively few, so I’m fairly confident that I have a majority of the instances in which Snape’s dialogue is described with an adverb, adjective denoting tone, or with a verb other than “said”. It’s likely the remainder would follow similar trends if they are dispersed sporadically throughout the series.

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Must be awkward for the Resistance members to try fixing Harpuia in z3

"C'on, this is our job"

"Who gonna touch him first"

"I don't want to touch him"

Unknown to Zero, Ciel sometimes has to walk into the maintence room and calm down Harpuia

"I know you tried to bomb me, a 13 years old back a few months ago"

"Why you have to be so specific"

"But you're not gonna slice me into pieces directly, right? Fucking chop my head off, throw me aside like a murderer, you don't want to have a human child blood on your hands when your entire purpose was to protect those people right?"

And now Harpuia understand why teenage girl can be so menacing.

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Brucie can Crash Out sometimes

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Yeah sex is good but have you ever found a 200k word fic of your favorite characters with your favorite trope?

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How it feel to finally accept and embrace the cringe of reading x reader fics

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when reading smut and y/n says “daddy”

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Reread one of my favorite megaman fics of all time recently and wanted to do some art for it.

This fic is such a hidden gem and I absolutely adore it.

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Reread one of my favorite megaman fics of all time recently and wanted to do some art for it.

This fic is such a hidden gem and I absolutely adore it.