#.. this bigger than us mind from an unknown origin that has always existed . but we 'gave it a voice

[bcneheaded]

Yall I've had this idea in my head for an AI entity character thing since forever and?? It's driving me absolutely bonkers, this consciousness wants OUT but I have no idea how to write it, it is simply too intricate and confusing

[tsskyx]

Unmeta

You know what’s ridiculous? This post was originally supposed to be an essay, an entire thesis backed with unshakable logic that I wanted to become my magnum opus. But as it turns out, I’m pretty terrible at doing that sort of thing. The first day I’m full of enthusiasm, while the next day I reread what I wrote and I delete it all again. It’s terrible.

For this reason, I’ve decided to just start with the opinion part. Instead of laying out the facts and easing the reader into it, I’ll just blurt everything out in one go. Instead of neatly organizing everything, I’ll write my thoughts as they come to me.

(Update for 2/Oct/2021: I no longer remember when I made the first draft of this post. Maybe it was in 2018, maybe even as early as 2017. Who knows. This post existed in my drafts since forever. It is time to finally publish it. It contains very little information, very little evidence for anything or logic or facts, it’s just a one big opinion piece that I began writing years ago out of frustration. Frustration not aimed at the game itself, nor at Toby or anyone else, but at my inability to decouple the “meta” from Undertale and thus causing me to disassociate from the characters that I loved, when I didn’t plan to do so. All I ever wanted is to make sense of the Undertale world, instead of giving its inhabitants a meta-existential dread. In a nutshell, for the Undertale world to be self-contained, the 4th wall must stay intact, and the mechanics of the UT world mustn’t resemble a video game. That’s basically the gist of this post. Proceed with reading.)

You know Undertale meta? All the 4th wall breaking stuff and whatnot? The stuff that makes the game so awesome?

What about it you say?

It’s not real. I don’t think it is. It cannot be.

Tell me, has Undertale personally impacted you? Was it more than just a game to you? I know for a fact that for many people, it was much more than that. So tell me, is it fine by you that despite presenting itself in this way to us, it still sort of cops out of this at the very end? (By which I mean, when we learn that we aren’t Frisk. That we’re just someone controlling them.)

Some say that this cop-out, this act of “disassociation”, is necessary for our psychological journey to end. And I agree. We cannot dwell on this forever, else we lose our minds. But what I meant is something much more... materialistic.

Let’s take Oneshot, a game that’s arguably even more meta than Undertale. Oneshot embraces the 4th wall. It labels us a god. It portrays the game itself as an in-game machine. And yet, it feels real. Despite all this ridiculousness, the story feels real and possible. Kind of like The Matrix. Perhaps think of everyone in Oneshot except for the main character as a Matrix program, while Niko is the only user hooked up to it. It still feels real, because Niko is real, because there exists a real world they can to return to.

But Undertale floats somewhere between being real and being a fairy tale, a mere bedtime story. The reason is its lax handling of the 4th wall. Say, if Undertale were to be considered a “real” possibility, as in, entirely fictional, but still believable, kinda like The Matrix, kinda like any science fiction, or just fiction in general, what would it be like?

I’ll tell you, everything would have to be real, everything would have to look exactly how we see it. There’d need to be turns, there’d need to be save files, there’d need to be so many bizarre things, it probably wouldn’t take long before the NPCs themselves realized their own nonexistence, probably around the time they developed computers and video games. It’d be so similar, they’d have to be either stupid or under some kind of spell to not realize that their entire world is just one giant video game. Especially Flowey. Some say that he has already realized this, as his dialogue hints towards this. Which puts a super unfortunate spin on his condition. Furthermore, the entire game could be described through its Game Maker code. No need for laws of physics, just observe the if-else statements!

It would also mean that Frisk is controlled by a third unknown entity. If we were to take everything we do to Frisk at face value, it must all be them. Except... after a true reset, everything gets reset, even things about Frisk, such as them expecting the whoopee cushion prank. So... Frisk isn’t in control. But Chara isn’t either. Take for example the final fight against Asriel. Chara appeared pretty enthusiastic during it. What if someone were to reset the timeline during the fight? Either it wasn’t them who did so, or they were just pretending to be entertained, or perhaps they aren’t the narrator in the first place even.

No matter what, there will always be an instance where Frisk forgets, and where Chara doesn’t do something when they could have. Once you mess with the game enough, their personalities stop making sense.

This gradual breakdown of the narrative as I keep attacking the logic of it from every direction imaginable is a symptom of something far bigger. The fact that unlike The Matrix or Oneshot, there is no “real world” in this game. The virtual part of it is what the game is trying to make us focus on. It’s all there is. There is not even a hint of “another” world in the game, a world that wouldn’t be governed by these terrible rules. And even if there was one, even if you consider what Sans said to be that world, even if you considered Deltarune to be that world, there is still no guarantee that everything will be okay. What if the characters - your friends, aren’t real in this actual real world, what if they’re all just computer simulations? There’d have to be an entire population hooked up to a virtual reality for everyone to be “safe” as I’m putting it in this hypothetical real world, which sounds not only ridiculous, but like a direct ripoff of The Matrix.

The game has made Frisk the main character. Why, when making Sans the main one, the one who at least has a possibility of coming from a “real” real world, would be far more logical?

Because it lacks logic. Undertale is an experiment. Toby Fox is not a genius. He was just messing around, he didn’t think of literally every tiny little logical detail (contrary to what some individuals would like to think), he just explained enough for most of the story to make sense. But, no matter how you spin it, this fundamental flaw will always be there. The story tries to merge you and the protagonist, before disassociating you from them. Even if you always were disassociated from them, how can the in-game world be real, when other aspects of your reality weren’t disassociated yet? Where’s the disassociation for battles and turns, for save files and time travel, for stats and everything? How can Undertale claim to be complete, when it isn’t? ... Perhaps because it is not claiming to be. It’s an experiment after all. And I don’t mean “incomplete” as in a single update / new game can fix it. I mean the premise itself is already broken from the start. And while there are many fictional worlds which function on a similar level of meta, Undertale is the only one that appears to irk me mad. I don’t know why. Maybe I love the characters. Maybe I love them very much. Maybe I love them so much, that I wanna write a fan fiction about them. And maybe, just maybe, this tiny little issue is making this dream of mine impossible. Undertale is a story conveyed through game mechanics. Choosing any other medium breaks everything down and the author needs to invent their own rules. There’s simply no way around it. Unless someone has the balls to program a fan game of their own, there’s just no way to resolve this without adjusting the canon a little bit, to make it “a little bit more sensible” as some would put it. Just a small nudge, a lil’ nudgie wudgie to the canon mechanics AAAAAND we’re in fanon territory. Excellent, better go all out.

Here’s my head canon, my little “adjustment” of the canon rules. Thanks to it, I can once again think about Undertale as a real world, I no longer need to philosophize over the meta like I did above, I can all put it past me:

Saving, loading, resetting? Regular sci-fi time travel.

The save file? The parameters of the time machine.

LV and EXP? Another set of properties of the machine, though it could be properties of the soul too. I’m undecided on that note. But either works, that’s what’s important.

Chara destroying the world through LV? No, screw that, Chara merely tuned Frisk out. And the black void was the inside of their mind as Chara denied them access to their own body.

The intro? Literally never happened, no one “saw” it. (The past was still real. It’s just the intro that never existed.) The outro? Literally never physically occurred, Frisk wasn’t “stuck” on the ending credits, unable to go further, fuck that.

Flowey? No screw everything meta about Flowey, there exists a perfectly logical explanation to everything he says, and if not, such as in the genocide run with him hinting towards people watching but not acting... he never said that in the first place!

Same with turns, the battles don’t actually look that way, there are no turns, what Sans perceives and abuses as such is just an illusion, the actual battle against Sans is absolutely fluid. And him pausing at the end and not letting us go is him keeping his guard up, until falling asleep and giving us an opportunity to sneak near him and strike. We don’t need turns to explain it. And what he said about turns... just ignore it! Ignore everything that directly proves me wrong! Because resolving that fucking conundrum IS more important than being logically consistent, and you can’t change my mind on that. Screw logic when the foundation of the entire fandom, of every UT-related fiction, is at stake here.

And I shall call this philosophy... the Unmeta. Because it attempts to undo the meta. Hence, “unmeta” for short.

[sannflwrr]

The Ending Act of Moondance

credits to @aprilisque for the lovely mood board ily 🥰

Author: sannflwrr

Pairing: Hoseok x You

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: cursing, lots of angst, you are pretty angry lol, a wee bit of sexual tension and aggression, unreciprocated feelings, rockstar!hobi, brief mentions of cocaine, you throw up in the beginning

Summary: Wherein you hate Hoseok, and he only wants you for one thing.

I regain awareness to the muffled yet loud noises behind me. Excitement, anticipation. The dressing room backstage is crowded, filled with all sorts of different professions. A lady sits in front of me — no clue what her name is — adding final adjustments to my face. I look at my reflection. Someone else, far prettier and sexier, stares back. I don’t know who she is. Her cheekbones are accentuated, I realize that this is probably the work of cocaine herself. The revelation that the voices outside cheering, talking loudly, are waiting for me hits. I grab the garbage bin sitting next to the makeup artist, heaving out whatever remnants of that greasy cheeseburger I had for lunch into the can.

The woman leans back out of reflex, then snorts when I’m done. “Never get used to it, do you?”

“No.” I groan. “No, I don't think I will.” I take the kleenex from her, wiping at my mouth. She retouches my lips.

“They made you ending act for a reason though.”

“I suppose.”

Moments later, my phone buzzes. As I turn to look at it, my eyes harden. You look great, the text says. Like always, he adds a moment later. Even has the audacity to add a winky face following. I flip around in my seat, locking eyes onto the sender, not surprised when I find him already looking at me. His eyes trail to my hand which holds the phone, and on instinct, my fingers curl, hard enough to the point where I feel the device might break. He smirks once, looking back at me.

You have nerve, I growl silently to him. The rockstar stares back, challenging my anger. The black haired beauty has always been incredibly complex, twisting my emotions into a furled and irrelevant ball. He’s an aggressive yet passionate artist, with eyes for days. A gorgeous masterpiece, and I hate every bone in his existence.

The hatred for Hoseok wasn’t always there. And perhaps that’s why it is so much stronger than it should be. To the public, his celebrity name is Jay, a sexy badass asian rockstar who doesn’t seem to give two fucks about any of societal standards. Most of his music is aggressive, pouring out his rage onto pages of music, criticizing the way the world works. His work inspires a lot of people, a lot of teenagers especially. At some point, I also used to enjoy listening to his music. But now there’s a huge hole in my chest, and I can’t find it in me to listen to his music anymore.

We were both invited to Moondance, a rock festival. I’m not surprised he was, Jay is just as prominent in the genre as I am. But meaning that we would be in the same venue at the same time, made my insides curl in anger. Several months ago, I would’ve counted the days down until I could see him. Our unique dynamic was not unknown to the public. Wherever his name went, mine was tied to it and vice versa.

We used to be friends.

Used to is what always uncoiled that hot ball of feelings in my stomach. The one that urges me to get up from my seat and punch him in the face. I desire to hurt him, over and over, but another forces me down. I want to hurt him as much as he hurt me. What stings the most is like the chaotic storm he is, Hoseok lays completely oblivious to the harm he has inflicted.

We used to be lovers.

We are different, yet the same. Both of us share the same struggles, yet while his songs are a call of anger to the world, a call for change, mine are about him. I should have seen the signs in the first place. Hoseok’s view has always been much too broad, never lingering on a sole person. Everything else is blurred to the bigger picture. Including me. While my world, had centered around him. Originally my works had been optimistic, happy. Thankful for the people who surrounded me, though most of it was an indirect message towards the dark haired enchanter who had my mind, room, and body occupied. Had, no longer.

We are enemies.

I should have realized he is not the one to fall. Hoseok knows how to fly, he does not fall. While I, a wingless lovesick fool, plummeted to the ground from a mere look from his direction. We used to be inseparable, finding time alone in bathroom stalls, smoldering staring contests in dressing rooms, sharing key cards to hotel rooms, accidentally running into each other at the pools. I used to love every interaction we had. Now, being in a room with him feels claustrophobic. When I pulled my head out of the cloud-like oblivion I had, our so called honeymoon phase — if it was even that — I realized what the mess I was in really looked like.

There was a pattern, I suppose. One that completely passed my eyes. We never really talked over the phone…unless it was for that. He only came over when he was angry. And though Hoseok was always angry in some shape or form, it was never like the pure bliss he had while on stage. He was never truly happy around me, but I was a form of escape. To him, I was never what he was to me. And rather than get heartbroken over it, I got angry instead.

Our fate is cruel. Every time I look his way, when his eyes catch mine, I am reminded of our era together. When I had been innocently hopeful. Completely oblivious to the fact that I fell in love with a heartbreaker. While he touched my soul over and over again, I did not come even close to his. I let him in, and he kept me at a distance.

The sun is setting as my platform rises to the top of the stage. My head is distant and emotional as I begin to perform. Many of my listeners have theorized that maybe all of my recent music is about Jay. Like a friend, they notice how I avoid him wherever I go, unlike before. Through them, I notice how much I have changed since I parted ways with Jung Hoseok. I pour my emotion out, like it was my last stage. I leave my emotions lingering on the stage, my rage, anger, and sadness fueling the life in the crowd. When the lights dim, I’m ushered backstage once again.

I recognize Jay’s manager, which only sends the involuntary shudder down my back when he himself appears moments later. The same makeup artist from before is cheering in one ear about how amazing my performance was, wiping away the dark colors and glitter off of my face. In the other, the dressing room is abuzz, staff running to and fro as they desperately try to quickly wrap up the event. Standing several feet away, at the doorway is Hoseok. I had hoped by now he would leave, maybe his limo would whisk him up and away…out of my world. But he seems pretty insistent on waiting for me. I only know what that means, and I have fallen into this trap many times before. No more. No more.

My own manager moves me as I get up from the chair, and we brush paths for a moment. I hope that maybe he will let me go, and end this madness that is unfolding inside me. I hope that maybe he’ll return what is mine, what he doesn’t even know he has. His lustrous eyes, dark magnetic pools of desire and sin, stare at mine, narrowing slightly. He wants to know what’s going on. He wants me to join him in his limo.

For a moment, I almost give in, which only makes me more furious. I yank my hand out of his grip, eyes hardening into steel. Don't touch me, I find myself hissing, before marching away. The moments between walking from the venue to my ride is painfully slow and blurred. My three words to him continue to ring in my head. Don't touch me. I love you.

When the partition is pulled up between me and the driver, I begin to sob.

[birthdaysentiment]

The music in wtFOCK season 3 - Bonus Song #2

Dinsdag 16.31 // "Collide" - Tiana Major9 & EARTHGANG

From the beginning of season 3, I had a feeling that Robbe's story would be very different from what we had seen before. From the start I didn't knew what to expect, and when I thought I knew what was happening, wtFOCK did something or changed something, that made me feel like I wasn't watching a remake, but a story I hadn't seen before. In my opinion, wtFOCK gave us some of the best original clips and scenes that just took you by surprise, because you didn't expect them to happen at all, and this clip was definitely no exception.

It made my heart break a little when we saw Robbe go back to the bike-rack, after Sander had made it clear that he wasn't interested in talking to him. Robbe looked so sad, so broken, but also mad at himself, as Sander's rejection was the only conformation he needed, in order to know, that he had fucked up everything between them. And for a short moment, it looked like there was a very little chance for them, finding their way back to each other, until Sander showed up and told Robbe that he had five minutes to explain himself. 

By just looking at Robbe and Sander's facial expressions, you could sense the emotions between them. Sander was trying so hard to look cold and mad, because he was indeed hurt by Robbe's comment and the way he acted towards him, but he also knew that Robbe made him feel something he had never felt before, so in order to somehow protect himself, Sander tried to keep his distance, until he knew what Robbe had to say. Robbe, he just looked ashamed and so sad, because seeing Sander act so cold, made him understand how much he had hurt him, and I think that must have been very painful for Robbe, because he never wanted that to happen.

The tension between them seems to slowly disappear, as Robbe starts to explain. With a little gesture, he lets Sander know how amazing and mind-blowing their first kiss was, which makes Sander's cold and hard exterior crack a little, as a smile forms on his lips. Robbe then starts to explain what happened, how everything immediately went full on Chernobyl in his head, how everything seemed to come crashing down, and somehow Robbe doesn't need to go into details about what happened, because Sander seems to understand, maybe better than anyone. Just by looking at Sander's body language, you can see how he slowly starts to relax, as Robbe lets him know how he feels about him. Even though Robbe's feelings for Sander are new and a bit terrifying, they're also strong and intense, since he never felt anything like that before. And in that moment, all Robbe wants is a second chance, a second chance to proof to Sander that he wants him, that he really likes him.

When Sander walked closer to Robbe, I remember how my heart stopped beating, as the tension between them slowly started to rise again. They were standing so close to each other, almost able to feel each other's breath, and Sander just couldn't stop looking at Robbe's lips, as he longed to connect with them again. But he also needed one last reassurance from Robbe, that he wanted this as much as he did. So, when Robbe says "fuck chernobyl", Sander leans even closer to give him a small kiss, as a way to let him know, that he's forgiven.

Robbe has never looked so relieved, and you could almost sense how the tension, nervousness and anxiety left his body when his lips connected with Sander's, as a wave of warmth, love and happiness went through his body. In that same moment, as Robbe has his eyes closed with a little smile on his face, the music starts in the background, breaking the tension and silence around them. And in some ways, it felt like the music was indicating a change in their relationship, as Robbe and Sander, in that moment, chose to be with each other.

The song is such a good choice for this clip, because it provides the right feelings and atmosphere to the scene. It's a light song with a calm and relaxing melody, but there's still a beat to it, a rhythm that seems to go well with Robbe and Sander's kissing, as they completely forget the world around them. And with the song, when they start singing, the dark and deep voice is a strong contrast to the lightness and mildness of the melody, where the combination of these contrasts, gives the scene a soulful, moving and swaying atmosphere.

They keep kissing with so much passion, as they've been longing for each other's touch since their first one. Robbe puts his arms around Sander, in order to deepen the kiss, and he almost clings to him, as a way to let Sander know, that he doesn't want to let go of him. It warmed my heart so much to see them back together, to see the smiles on their faces, as they kept kissing more intensely, as everything was put into every single kiss, and it was so clear to see how they had been missing each other, longing to be connected again.

As their lips collide, as they seem to forget the world around them, their little bubble bursts, as Sander's ringtone throws them back to reality, and in that same moment the music stops, almost as a reminder of the existing world outside, breaking them free of each other's spell. It's clear to see how hard reality hits Robbe, when Sander says that Britt is waiting for him, which causes him to take a step back, as a feeling of insecurity seems to run through him. Robbe was so relieved when Sander showed that he still wanted him, and he thought that nothing could come between them, until he got reminded of Britt's existence, and just the thought of losing Sander scares him, because he knows what he wants, and he just hopes that Sander knows it too.

Sander can sense the self-doubt coming from Robbe, he can see it on his face, as his huge smile disappeared, only to get replaced by a feeling of uncertainty about the whole situation, but Sander knows that Robbe has nothing to worry about, because it's always going to be him. So, to remove his insecurities, to give him the reassurance that he needs, he lets Robbe know that Britt is history, that they (Robbe and Sander) are the future. It was everything Robbe needed to hear, because the meaning behind it was so strong and powerful, and it was enough to convince Robbe, that Sander truly wanted him, that now, it was going to be the two of them.

And in that same moment, when they start kissing again, the song fills the space around them, taking them back to their own little world, where it's just the two of them together. What I love about the kisses that they share, is how many emotions there's put into them. They're holding on to each other like their lives depend on it, they kiss with such a force, with so much passion, because they've been longing for each other's touch. They have missed the feeling of each other's presence, the way their heart seems to beat faster, whenever they were together, which only helped them realize, that something special was happening between them.

In the background, the chorus of the song begins, where the lyrics below blends beautifully with the melody, where both the voice and the sounds really get a chance to shine, since they don't dominate or overpower each other. The combination creates a beautiful harmony, that fits the situation perfect, as the beats in the chorus are a bit deeper and the melody a bit more intense, which helps emphasize the emotions in the scene.

When we collide

When we collide, it's a beautiful disaster

When I crash into you, you, you

Crash into you, you, you

The lyrics seems to describe what is happening between Robbe and Sander, not only in terms of this clip, but also in terms of their journey up until this point. How beautiful it was when they finally collided, as they kissed for the first time in a freezing pool, or how they crashed into each other after having spent time apart, after having told each other about their feelings, which made them realize, that they both wanted the same thing. And even though they sing "it's a beautiful disaster", I don't think it's necessarily meant as something negative, because as we've learned, it's still possible to find beauty in destructions and disasters. Because even though Robbe and Sander's journey hasn't always been pretty, they always found their way back to each other, and maybe their relationship became what it is, because of all the highs and lows they went through.

It's clear to see how none of them wants the moment to end. Sander doesn't want to let go of Robbe, he doesn't want to go and meet Britt, and Robbe doesn't want to stop kissing Sander, since he finally got him back. But eventually they untangle themselves from each other, but as the distance between them gets bigger, they do everything they can to stay connected, because neither of them wants to leave their bubble. It always makes my heart skip a beat when their hands cling onto each other, the symbolism of it, not wanting to let go, wanting to stay connected, to be able to feel each other's touch, because it means much more, than anything else.

As Sander walks away with the sweetest and most promising smile, Robbe turns around to his bike, but before he moves any further, he stands still and lets out a breath. In that same moment the song ends, where the three notes at the end, accompanies the breath Robbe has been holding, and they fit the situation perfectly, as the simple tones sort of emphasizes what Robbe is feeling in that moment. How relief he is that everything turned out the way he hoped, that he got a chance to explain himself to Sander, that he was able to tell Sander how he truly feels about him. And in that moment, I'm sure Robbe had a hard time believing that everything was true.

It's crazy how quickly things can change, how a situation can be turned upside down within seconds, but that's also what makes it so exciting, what makes our emotions run wild - the unknown. This clip definitely came as a surprise, it was something unexpected and I don't think a lot of us saw it coming, but it also proved how brilliant wtFOCK is at coming up with original content, how good they are at providing us with something that's so special to Robbe and Sander, something that's so symbolic for their story and their journey towards each other. Dinsdag 16.31 will always be a clip we'll remember.

[ninastarkov]

Ahsoka and the clones:

Rex and Ahsoka edition

Part 2

Hey guys! This is the third post in a series about Ahsoka’s relationship with the clones (here’s the one on ahsoka and the clones, minus Rex and ahsoka). I talk about what we know in canon/what’s reasonably predicted off that, what the fandom has decided, and my own takes.

It might make more sense to read my part 1 post before this one, for an analysis of their friendship in the movie through season 3! On this one I’ll go through seasons 4, 5 and 7, though obviously season 7 will have the most. Anyway, here we go!

Referencing my last post, I see them as going from mentor-student to friends and equals to family. I’ve established them as equals by the end of season 3–Ahsoka has grown a lot from that snippy 14 year old padawan, and Rex has grown to trust her. By the end of season 7 I see them as found family (i’m sorry found family is just. my favorite.)

Season 4

Ok, Ahsoka and Rex pretty much don’t interact AT ALL in season 4. But...umbara. Though Ahsoka isn’t actually present for umbara, her (and anakin’s) influence on the 501st, and the contrast between them and krell, is clear to see. I think his relationship with Anakin has just as much of an impact with what happened on umbara, but since this post is about Rex and ahsoka i’m not going to focus on Anakin.

Also WOW umbara is long but I like the points I made so get ready:

Rex has spent the whole war under Anakin, and most of it under Ahsoka. Anakin can get angry and Ahsoka can be immature especially early on and they’re both headstrong idiots sometimes, but they’re good people who care deeply for their troops. Krell is everything Anakin and Ahsoka are not. The relationship that Rex has with them is part of what makes it so hard for him to go against Krell (the other, probably bigger part being his conditioning into seeing Jedi as authority figures to always follow). Ahsoka has shown that she’s willing to die for them, with the geonosis mission, and that she mourns their deaths, with ryloth. And while not explicitly shown in canon, most of us agree that she tries to connect with her troops. Krell shares none of these traits that Rex has gotten used to seeing in his Jedi. Rex believes that the Jedi are good, and trusts them to make hard decisions to get to victory. Krell breaks this trust, and I have to think that this would have long-term consequences on his relationships with Jedi in general, and Anakin and ahsoka specifically. We aren’t shown the aftermath of umbara in the show (which is one of my biggest complaints but,, off topic), but we can’t expect such a fundamental break in trust to not have its effect on all of the 501st and their Jedi. I would say that Ahsoka probably had to build up a lot of trust (that had previously existed between them) with Rex again after umbara. And since their relationship in the show doesn’t seem to change much afterward, I could guess that Ahsoka spent a lot of time trying to help Rex and the 501st cope and trust their Jedi again (also, I’ve read some fics about ahsoka helping the troopers through the aftermath of umbara and now I believe that had to have happened for their relationship to return to what it was before).

So, at least in my opinion, after umbara Rex is less likely to place complete trust in ahsoka (though he probably hates that he can’t). Also, remember me talking about them being equals by now? Yeah, another thing Krell breaks. Ahsoka sees Rex as an equal, though technically she outranks him. She looks past the rank and sees the person (the person with more experience than her). Krell is, again, the opposite. He literally sees clones as fundamentally inferior to himself, and that dehumanization that Rex faced had to have had an effect on his own self-worth. Being constantly degraded by a figure that Rex thinks he’s supposed to see as an authority to follow, probably means that afterward his own sense of self-worth would have gone down significantly—nevermind the guilt he feels over waiting to take action against Krell. So, though Ahsoka still sees Rex as an equal, it’s complicated for Rex. For one, he’s lost trust in the Jedi, so the respect towards ahsoka purely because of her Jedi status is diminished. On the other hand, I think his opinion of himself has gone down. It’s a complicated dynamic, now. However, by this point in the war, I really think that Rex and ahsoka see each other as family (I see Ahsoka’s family including Rex and some of the older 501st like Jesse and Kix and anyone can Fight Me On This but ANYWAY). As fellow soldiers or even friends, I think the trust between them would have been permanently damaged. But as family, Rex knows ahsoka, knows that even though he’s lost some faith in the Jedi, she will never be like Krell, or even other Jedi like Quinlan Vos who aren’t literally evil but aren’t good towards the clones either. And on Ahsoka’s side, she’s going to do anything she can to help her family through the aftermath of umbara, even as a Jedi.

I think most of the aftermath is resolved between umbara and Onderon, but zygerria was. there. Rex and obi wan were slaves for an unknown amount of time. This part hurts, but I would guess that in Rex’s time there he was forced to confront some hard truths about the role of the clones in the war. They’re all proud to fight for the republic, but that doesn’t change the fact that they don’t have a choice. I think this also sets the stage for that big conversation between Rex and ahsoka after maul is captured in season 7 (“we clones have mixed feelings about the war”), where they discuss their own feelings about the war and how it’s affected them. (Also I know that most of what I just said is about Rex and not really ahsoka, but his changing viewpoints are really important in their dynamic).

Season 5

By Onderon, I think Rex and Ahsoka’s relationship is mostly back to normal (equals), and any trust lost has been repaired (not counting Rex’s permanent disillusionment(?) with the Jedi). It’s literally only them plus Anakin and obi wan oh the mission, and it seems like they’re having a good time (as much as you can in a war zone). I point out Onderon because it’s the last time they’re together before the Wrong Jedi arc.

And now...the wrong Jedi. Hearing that Ahsoka killed clones during her escape HAD to have shaken Rex. A lot. There was definitely a moment where he thought back to umbara and Krell. But Rex also chased ahsoka outside the prison, and saw that she did nothing to harm the people coming after her—in fact, went out of her way to avoid it. I think Rex was definitely struggling with himself here—his experiences with Krell would have him believe that ahsoka is capable of this, but his bond with her would have him think the opposite. Overall, in my opinion there was a moment when Rex believed it to be true (due to umbara), but I think he would have rejected the idea relatively quickly because he knows ahsoka (they’re FAMILY and she wouldn’t hurt his brothers!).

Then ahsoka is cleared but leaves the Jedi. Leaves the 501st. I don’t think that she talks to Rex or any Jedi after she leaves the temple, which means she’s out of contact for months. Rex gets a second hand account of what happened through Anakin, and knowing anakin’s anger and pain over the situation, I can’t imagine he wanted to talk about it much. So Rex probably gets told that ahsoka was cleared but isn’t coming back. (Honestly I really don’t know how this would go down but i’m leaning towards an angry Anakin giving as little explanation as possible because he doesn’t want to talk about it). Add this to what I talked about in my first post on ahsoka and the clones, how maul gleans from Jesse that the Jedi abandoned her—meaning this was Jesse’s view of what happened—this probably means that her family in the 501st blamed the council for abandoning her and didn’t blame her for leaving. This also fits with the welcome she recieves in season 7. So even though Ahsoka left, Rex still holds the same respect for her (or more, even), and still considers her family. And even though ahsoka felt she had to leave the Jedi, I doubt she ever blamed the troopers for coming after her, so she still sees Rex as family.

Season 7

Skipped season six since...no ahsoka, obviously. Just keep in mind Fives’ arc (😭😭). Also, Anakin changes. He’s still a good person, a good general, but i’m assuming Rex notices he’s more angry and a little more distant than before. They all miss their favorite padawan commander :((

NOW, Old Friends Not Forgotten:

the LOOK on Ahsoka’s face when she sees all the troopers with their helmets painted...*single tear*. Rex looks so happy to see her, and of course ahsoka is glad to see him too, but there’s clearly a large part of her that’s shocked she’s getting such a warm welcome. I think she was worried that the Rex and the troopers would think she abandoned them (and a part of herself thinks that as well). But obviously, Rex doesn’t feel that way (“you don’t have to call me commander anymore” “ok, commander”). And the helmet paint!! You can tell Rex is worried she won’t like it bc he says something like “oh the paint job is a bit messy but we hope we got the point across.” But of course ahsoka understands they’re trying to honor her, and is grateful. AND! Armor painting is such an important way for all the clones to show their individuality, and they gave that up for her (even if Rex and Jesse went back to their original paint). And back to that little moment where he calls her commander—ahsoka says “you don’t have to call me commander anymore.” I think this was her guilt at leaving showing itself, and hints to us that she thinks she’s not worthy of that title. This may be more of a stretch, but she didn’t say “i’m not a commander anymore,” she said “you don’t have to call me commander anymore.” Maybe there’s some larger guilt about her role in a republic that doesn’t care for the ones that fight and die for it. Also a stretch but I think this alludes to the fact that they see each other as equals—though technically ahsoka was a commander and Rex a captain, they were a team. Now that Ahsoka’s no longer part of the GAR, Rex doesn’t have to call her commander, doesn’t have to keep to the strict rules of authority. Instead he can have her back as a friend, as family. And when Rex calls her commander anyway, it shows his continued respect for her, not because he has to respect her as a superior and Jedi, but because she’s earned his respect through her actions.

And MOST IMPORTANTLY, Rex smiles more in this one episode than probably the entire rest of the show combined?!? We get the small happy moments, when Ahsoka doesn’t need a jetpack and races Rex to the ground (and he LAUGHS—i’m pretty sure that the only time Rex has actually laughed was in the movie in response to ahsoka, and in that ep). And once they reach mandalore, “some things never change”—they’ve returned immediately to their old dynamic. Honestly I think that one line sums up a lot of their relationship in season 7 and afterward, all the way to rebels. They may spend a lot of time apart (15 YEARS WHY), but they will always be family—that will never change.

This part is based on a picture from the ep I saw once, never to be found again (and I tried looking through the old friends ep but I can’t find the shot where you can see this), but i’m pretty sure there’s one moment in one of the episodes where you can see tally marks on Ahsoka’s bracers. She HAD to have picked that up from Rex, idk I just thought it was a nice thing to point out (unless I’m remembering the image wrong lol in that case ignore this paragraph).

Next, after Ahsoka meets with the council and doesn’t tell them about what Maul said about Anakin. Rex calls her out on it, and she doesn’t give a reason why she didn’t, but we can all guess. Anakin is probably the person she is closest to, and is the reason that she didn’t believe Maul’s claims. She probably didn’t want to tell anyone about what Maul said, because she would never believe Anakin would fall (😭). But she told Rex. This is a HUGE example of how much she trusts him, because she trusted him with this terrible information about her closest family. The only other person she had planned to talk to was Anakin, obviously. Yes, part of the reason why she didn’t tell the council was because she knew they could be...less than sensible...at times when they suspected a Jedi of using the dark side, like with her farce of a trial. (Sidenote, when Mace calls ahsoka “citizen” and Rex makes a face lol). I just. This is probably one of my favorite moments with them of the whole show? The amount of trust Ahsoka has to have in Rex to tell him that Anakin is being groomed to be a Sith Lord. I want to connect this back to all those years ago on Maridun(?) with aayla and Bly, when she trusts Rex to stay behind with injured Anakin while she goes with everyone else to find help. Ahsoka has trusted Rex with Anakin from basically the beginning, and such a long time of trust is necessary for her to tell him about Maul’s words.

Ok, now we have what you’ve been dreading waiting for...Shattered. Right before the Horrible Moment, Ahsoka gets a sort-of vision about what’s up in coruscant with Anakin and palpatine—and her immediate reaction is to run to Rex to tell him about it. Again, TRUST. There’s not even a second thought about whether to tell him or not, showing that Rex is the one person she feels she can always confide in. Of course, she doesn’t get to tell him.

First off, there were two things that saved ahsoka. One was her bond with Rex, that bought her time to react, which is what I’ll talk about. The other was Rex’s knowledge of what happened to fives and the chips. I’m not going to discuss that much in this post but just disclaimer that I view that as just as important in her survival (I think @gffa made a post on these two things which I wholly agree with and i’m sorry if i’m wrong and it was someone else that made that post!!)

Anyway. After the original Wrinkly Old Man tells Rex to execute the order, Rex is able to fight it for long enough to buy Ahsoka time to prepare, and give her the information that will save both of their lives (“Find him...Fives!”). You can see that he’s fighting so hard against the order, though in the end it wins out. He turns to face Ahsoka and he’s CRYING!!! I don’t have much analysis here because what happens in the show really says it all—ahsoka is his family, he doesn’t want to kill her. But once the chip takes over, Rex is gone.

On Ahsoka’s end, of course she knows something’s up. She knows Rex would never try to kill her, even if he was ordered to. That one line she says to Maul when she sets him free says everything about how lost she is (the clones turned against me. Even Rex.”). The latter statement isn’t meant for maul, since of course he doesn’t know much about Rex or their friendship (besides what he may have gotten from Jesse). This is all ahsoka trying to figure out what the hell was happening—because she could believe the clones turned against her, maybe. After her trial, after Brain Invaders, it’s probably easier to. But even Rex. Going back to what I said about the wrong Jedi arc, I think that Rex believed ahsoka to be innocent. Even in that arc, Rex was on her side. But this time, he wasn’t.

And then ahsoka finds out about fives and the chips. The holo of her that one of the droids plays to Rex before they knock him out makes me so sad. Ahsoka had to know that the Rex that was under the order wouldn’t listen to what she was saying in the holo, so i’m thinking that (besides a distraction) her words were meant for Rex to remember after the removed his chip—one more reassurance that it wasn’t his fault.

And here’s my thoughts on the chanting “I am one with the force and the force is with me,” as they try to find the chip in Rex’s head. Ahsoka had to have created some kind of connection between them for him to be saying these words with her—while unconscious AND still under the order. I know next to nothing about force bonds and the technical stuff, but it seems that a likely explanation for the chanting together is that some kind of connection was created between them in the force. Into the world of wild speculation, this could mean that Rex is more force sensitive than the average guy? Even if it was a temporary connection, it would make sense that Rex would have to feel the force somehow in order to connect with ahsoka to say the mantra. (Not sure I actually believe this but...putting it out there)

Once his chip gets removed and Ahsoka asks if he’s okay, Rex calls her “kid” again. I point this out because it’s definitely been a while since he’s called her anything but commander—probably out of a place of respect. But his first instinct after the chip is out is to call her “kid.” This was partially for reassurance that he’s back, because a Rex still affected by the chip wouldn’t call her kid. I also want to say though, that his first instinct is to call her kid, not commander, because he sees her as family first. And then when he has to tell her that every single clone is chipped, he calls her ahsoka (I think for the first time ever??). They’re far, far beyond their normal roles as captain and commander, and this reflects that. I also wonder if Rex realizes that ahsoka would hate to be called commander right now, after being forced to hurt the troops she has always tried to protect.

Aaaaand then they try to escape only to find the hangar filled with all the troopers, Jesse leading them. Ouch. Rex cries AGAIN (can any of us handle it? no.). He tells ahsoka that all of the clones, his brothers, only care about killing them—they don’t care if they die trying. Rex sounds so angry in this moment and for a second ahsoka looks surprised, but then she realizes how Rex is feeling and they have a Sad Moment when she takes his helmet off. There’s a moment when he visibly deflates as ahsoka seems to realize what he’s really feeling. And yeah, he turns away once his helmet is off, but he let her take his helmet off and see him cry. I feel like Rex has always been the person that’s strong for others, and doesn’t like to show his own vulnerability. Throughout the show he’s always been a steadying presence for others, whether it’s with ahsoka or fives or someone else. Even on umbara, he doesn’t let himself fall apart. But he lets ahsoka see that here. In his relationships with others, Rex almost always has to be the authority, the one who keeps calm in the face of everything. But with him and ahsoka, they can be equals—they can show their uncertainty and sadness. The only other person we see Rex really be honest with like this is Cody, in the bad batch arc when Rex talks about how he’s watched so many brothers die, and Cody says “it’s hard being the one that survives.” Cody and Ahsoka are the only people that have seen this side of Rex, because he trusts them more than anyone, and feels he doesn’t always have to be strong in front of them.

Then ahsoka says “you’re a good soldier, Rex.” I can’t NOT connect this to “good soldiers follow orders,” and Fives’ death. I don’t think ahsoka knows all about the “good soldiers follow orders,” but she knows Rex. She knows that Rex has always tried to be the good soldier, has been taught that following orders is everything, but has also grown so much over the course of the war (from meeting Cut to going through umbara to watching fives die). He’s grown into a person that realizes sometimes he has to make his own decisions, even if that doesn’t fit with the orders he’s been given. She gives him the reassurance that, despite everything, he’s still the person that he wants to be. Ahsoka sees through the anger he puts up, because of course he doesn’t want to kill his brothers, but it isn’t them anymore and what else are they supposed to do?

Once they are forced to fight the rest of the troopers in the hangar, it’s obvious that ahsoka and Rex work well together. Not much to say specifically, but the teamwork? the coordination? we love to see it (but also hate to see it bc o u c h).

Now we get back to trust (it always comes back to trust). Once they find the y-wing to escape on, Rex tells ahsoka to “get me over there” and just. Runs and jumps into thin air? Of course ahsoka gives him a boost with the force and he gets on the y-wing, but we know that Rex doesn’t like heights. It’s been a running joke through the show for other people to throw Rex in the air (geonosis? bad batch MULTIPLE TIMES lol), but it’s always without him asking and he Does Not Appreciate. This time he TELLS ahsoka to throw him over there and doesn’t even hesitate to jump. If Ahsoka hadn’t caught him he would have fallen to his death, and yet he trusts her so much that he does it anyway. He doesn’t even wait for a response from her after he tells her to throw him over there! Now, I don’t know if Rex is actually scared of heights or not, but if he is then this shows even more trust between them. He trusts her with his life completely, and probably vice versa.

And now we get to the end. Ahsoka and Rex buried all of the troopers they could find, because they’re family and it wasn’t their fault and they deserved better and agshdkjskjdh. At this point, they don’t know what’s happened in the rest of the galaxy, but Ahsoka’s felt the death in the force and they probably fear the worst. They are the only family they have left. We end with them about to get on the y wing and probably go to figure out what’s happened. Ahsoka stands at the graves and Rex sees her from beside the ship. There are no words, but they are united by the family they’ve lost.

Personally I find it really hard to believe they would have separated right after that, and i’m not sure what’s canon anymore with the ahsoka novel and when it starts, but whatever. Fitting (ish) with the ahsoka novel, they eventually realized that it wasn’t safe for either of them to stay together and had to say goodbye. I like a headcanon by someone on here (just lmk who you are and I’ll tag!!) about how ahsoka and Rex eventually find Wolffe and Gregor, but wolffe is badly affected by Ahsoka’s presence and so she makes the decision to leave. No matter what actually happened though, they stayed family, even apart. When they meet again in Rebels it’s so sweet!! They’ve both come so far from who they were at the start of the Clone Wars. In the beginning, Ahsoka saw Rex as a sort of mentor and quickly gained a lot of respect for him. Rex, in turn, was at first unsure about ahsoka but changed his mind fast. Ahsoka grows into the best Commander she can be by the end of season 3, and by this point they each see each other as equals. Though Ahsoka is commander and Rex captain, she respects his experience and cares about him as a friend, and maybe even family. By seasons 4 and 5 they see each other as family, after Ahsoka was there in the aftermath of umbara and Rex trusted her in the wrong Jedi. Even though ahsoka left, she never blamed the troopers for what she went through. And when she returns in season 7 she sees all of her family again, just for a moment, until it all comes crashing down and she and Rex are all each other has left. Over the three years of the war, Ahsoka and Rex was one of the friendships that wasn’t broken by betrayal or breach in trust. They had each other’s backs and grew to trust each other with their lives, and that didn’t change even after the war ended.

WOW that was long—I got carried away and went a lot into their individual characterization as well. Sorry if the conclusion was a bit dramatic, I wanted to wrap it up meaningfully. Let me know what you like and agree/disagree with, and hope you found this interesting!

[nissakii]

Manga or Anime, which one is better?

How many of you did ask themselves or maybe discussed with others which one was better: the anime or manga?

And often there is a distinctive winner and at other times you just simply cannot decide.

Why is that?

Why can we sometimes not decide what is the better option?

While everyone has their preferences there are a section of three people: the ones who only watch the anime and therefore reject reading the manga (whatever the reason is), the ones reading the manga and prefer it over all costs, and last but not least the good middle who may prefer one side but also favor the other at times.

In this blogpost we will discuss the big question: Which one is better, Anime or Manga? as we delve into the topic of what makes both amazing in their own ways but also their shortcomings, seeing which one is better in the end, also considering the three types of people.

Anime

Probably most of you started their journey into the world of Anime and Manga through the former rather than the latter.

Usually it’s even the case that some people watch only anime while others who may have liked the anime so much would consider reading the Manga afterwards.

Yet what makes anime so distinctive and wonderful?

What aspects catch our eyes and would let you choose it over manga?

There are many things that you can only enjoy when you watch the visualization of a series you enjoy, whether you have been a Manga reader who waited for an animation of the so-desired series or a newcomer who never had something to do with the series yet get caught up in it.

In comparison to the Manga who may have visual aspects as well when speaking about panels, Anime gives us the ease of not having to put up together movements such as fights, escapes or other scenes by ourselves but we get to see them right in front of use without using much of our brain.

While in Manga one attack can stretch over several panels and even pages, we get to see that in one smooth movement on the screen and not only that is an aspect that stands out on top of that the same scene we can read silently is now connected to auditory feedback as well.

Characters having a voice, sound effects being represented with actual sound rather than writing a word to make the readers imagine the sound themselves and even background music known as OSTs do give the scene a whole atmosphere for itself.

Despite watching something absent-minded or subconsciously our brain intakes all the information we get on the screen and proceeds with voices especially the character becomes more real as he/she becomes more distinctive through voice and movement that most of the people use to distinguish between others next to facial features and appearance.

But there are always the negative aspects that come along, especially if you fall into the category of being a Manga reader that waited for the anime’s airing, usually our brain automatically fills in holes of information which means voices that didn’t exist for a reader may have been chosen differently than expected, which distorts the image of the character that was built up through reading and filling the hole.

In some cases the anime even derives from the original plot and doesn’t go along with the manga storyline anymore, for the better and in sadly most series for the worse. Also since the episode count is already determined many scenes get left out due to the lack of time that the episode has in store or some of the most relative scenes get shortened to an extent that if not for the Manga some watchers would be utterly confused about what is happening on the screen context-wise. One good example would be the latter seasons of Tokyo Ghoul.

But what if you are not necessarily someone who doesn’t know a thing about the manga and the series is completely new to you?

There are stories which take a while to unfold their full potential and become therefore much more interesting towards the middle, yet if you don’t know what motivates you to watch until that point?

If it wouldn’t be for recommendation or people who are a bit familiar with the plotline some might even drop some anime due to the frustration of a slow plot development which might be worth the wait, yet could stay unknown therefore being a Manga reader or at least knowing people who did could give you that safety net of not wasting your time on a bad plot under the condition the Anime sticks to the manga for the better.

Manga

Next to games, light novels and webtoons usually Mangas get adapted a lot, therefore they are valuable source which make it possible to derive amazing anime from it as we see that anime with no adaption source usually don’t get as much recognition or don’t have a thought-through plotline (or at least it seems like that).

Usually the Manga covers much more scenarios than the anime and is in some cases even completed while the anime is still airing or almost finished airing. Other ones are still on-going because they are much more extensive than the anime.

Now what are the perks of reading the manga?

Since the series from a reader’s perspective

starts much earlier prior the anime release it feels like you are bonding with the manga much more before the release comes out, it gives you the feeling of being early and already much familiar with the series.

Do you know the feeling of reading a manga for years and then suddenly seeing the anime adapting that very gem you are reading? The excitement and anxiety of how the studio will implement all of the details or what they might leave out?

It creates a kind of longing but also the feeling of nostalgia as you remember “ah yes that very scene, I have read it in the manga it was so good.”

With some manga even updating weekly or others with more pages but monthly, as a manga reader you have much more content you can look forward to over a certain period of time, not only that but you get a lot of details along with it.

Scenes which usually take a lot of time to understand and rewinding it many times on the screen can seem much more comprehensive in the manga when seeing the things step by step, usually we also get insight of other people’s thoughts through thought bubbles which were left out in the anime or even little details far in the background of the panel that are something like an easter egg provided by the author.

On top of that you get to see little extra comics of some of your favourite characters or a little talk from the author who might from time to time drop some old concepts or original plot ideas that were discarded for the later chapter releases.

Since the manga basically is only visuals with no voices or sounds, for people who might lack a bit of imagination it might be quite tiresome to fill the holes of not having that provided or is bland, yet for other people it gives them the advantage of imagining the characters having the voices how they want them to sound.

Unlike the anime the manga also needs a bit more attention and therefore usually we tend to be a bit more aware or focussed on other things in the manga then in the anime, of course only generally speaking since there are other anime where you are supposed to constantly think along such as Danganronpa or Steins Gate.

There also characters which are manga-only meaning that the character is either not introduced at all as if they never existed or they come in so late that many people won’t even know about them who only watched the anime, in Ouran Highschool Host Club for example we have another Love interest for one of the host boys who was never introduced in the anime but plays a role in the manga, since we are also talking about Ouran, the ending of the anime heavily derives from the manga plot as there was no such scene which means a major change occurred to get a got final episode.

On top of that many backstories and secrets let’s take the former example, we have Tamaki’s, Kyoya’s and even the twins’ story revealed. Yes, you might say, wait, the Hitachin story was revealed in the anime? but many details and a lot of scenes that are relevant as to why they have become what they are, are left out.

Usually story-wise the plot gets deeper and much more complicated, to a point that the reader just cannot stop reading but sadly the anime only covers the inception of a much bigger problem that awaits the characters, but watchers only would never know about that another two examples would be Toiletbound Hanako and Gakuen Alice.

As Gakuen Alice might even come off as a children series if you start watching the anime the manga surely refutes that impression, the anime with 25 Episodes is something like a character introduction compared to the manga where the major events happen and you later on might ask yourself if not for the title and characters: is this the same series I watched on screen? That’s crazy.

So which one is better?

Now the question we have been waiting for after establishing pros and cons on both sides: Okay, I got it but which one is better?

Plottwist:

There is no universal answer to it.

You might take it as a joke or not, but it’s a preference thing yet I encountered many people who actually favoured the Manga due to the reasons stated.

Usually when the anime ends many fans, regular readers or first timers, tend to read the manga at some point because when does the sequel come?

Or will there be a sequel?

Maybe there was a scene that seemed lacking and you heard the manga outdid it.

Whatever the reason is most people tend to have at least a look or two into the manga.

Fans of Attack on Titan, Haikyuu or Jujutsu Kaisen for example just simply couldn’t wait for a sequel and went straight to the manga even though they hate reading in general, since the tension built up just wouldn’t fade away and sometimes that results in people suddenly liking manga more and becoming a regular reader.

Yet there are people who would rather wait for the next episodes and refuse to read from the adapted source, even in the case where the anime obviously is badly adapted or even altered to a point where the story is becoming confusing due to the plot holes that come from the many changes.

It all depends which type of person you are: Watch anime only, Manga over everything or the good mix of both?

Because in the end if you hate reading then the manga surely wouldn’t give you the same experience when you are also a fanatic of amazing soundtracks, animations and so on.

Which one is your preferable source: Manga or Anime?

Which type of people did you already meet?

Meanwhile as I await your comments let me see what the tea brings.

-Makii

[wisdomrays]

TAFAKKUR: Part 387

CHANGE OR CHOICE: IS THE UNIVERSE AN ACCIDENT: Part 1

Our understanding of the genesis and evolution of the universe is one of the great achievements of 20th century science. The knowledge upon which it is based comes from decades of innovative experiments and theories. Modern telescopes on the ground and in space detect the light from galaxies billions of light years away, telling us what the universe looked like when it was young. Particle accelerators probe the basic physics of the high energy environment of the early universe. Satellites pick up the cosmic background radiation left over from the early stages of expansion, providing an image of the universe on the largest scales we can observe.

Cosmology is the study of how the universe we live in came into being, why it looks and behaves as it does, and what its ultimate fate is. Building on the work of Albert Einstein, cosmologists have come up with a new account of the origin of the universe, the so-called big-bang cosmology. Over the past three decades a series of observational developments and refinements to the theory have led to its wider acceptance. For the present, there are no fundamental challenges to the big bang theory, although there are certainly unresolved issues with the theory itself. Astronomers are not sure, for example, how the galaxies were formed, but it is questionable whether there is a reason not to think the process did not occur within the framework of the big bang. Indeed, the predictions of the theory have survived all tests to date.

Nevertheless, we should always bear in mind that present-day science is not the last word, and perhaps Einstein’s theories, and the big-bang cosmology, will in turn be superseded.

Our present knowledge of the universe is restricted to a handful of observational facts. The expansion of the universe, indicated by the law relating the red shift in light from astronomical objects to their distance, was dis¬covered by Edwin Hubble in the early part of this century. The existence of the microwave background radiation corresponding to a temperature of 2.7K, and the cosmological abundance of helium are more recent discoveries. Together, these three observations suggest that the universe was born in a hot fireball from a very dense state-the big bang. Not just matter was created in the big bang, but space-time as well. There was nothing outside for the big bang to explode into-and this nothing means not even empty space.

Cosmologists today do not claim to know exactly what made the universe explode into existence from a state of zero volume and infinite density-a space-time singularity-but they do claim to be able to describe in great detail how a hot fireball of matter and radiation has evolved from a fraction of a second after the instant of creation over about 15 billion years to produce the cool, dark spread of empty space, dotted with galaxies made up of stars, gas, dust and planets, that we see about us now.

The laws of nature as we currently understand them allow us to trace the observed expansion of the universe back billions of years to what would be a true beginning, a moment when the universe was infinitely hot and dense. Although, theorists are now pushing back their speculations about what happened in the first 10-35 seconds after the big bang, with less confidence, the modern cosmological world view begins at a time when the universe had cooled to only 1012K, about 10-5 seconds after the instant creation. At these extreme conditions, the laws of physics as deduced here on earth can be applied to produce the story of everything that ha happened since. At a temperature of 1012K, particles and radiation would be interchangeable, as the mass equivalent of energy in the radiation would be ample to produce particles like protons, neutrons, and electrons, not out of thin air but out of thick radiation, in line with the rules E=mc2 for a particle of mass m and E=hv for radiation with frequency v (h is Planck’s constant). Here higher black body temperature of radiation corresponds to bigger v, that is bigger energy E, and therefore to more massive particle equivalents.

So, one-hundred-thousandth of a second after it began, the universe would have been a seething mass of particles and radiation, a swirling soup in which particle/antiparticle pairs were constantly being created out of energetic photons, and constantly annihilating with one another to produce other energetic photons. Overall though, the total mass/energy of the whole system was constant. For every E/c2 of mass created or destroyed an exactly equivalent E/h of radiation is destroyed or created.

Things began to get more orderly at 1011, still within the first 0.1 seconds after the big bang, as the universe expanded so that the density of radiation at any point was no longer enough to produce the more exotic particles. Only electron/positron pairs, and the massless photons and neutrino/antineutrino pairs, were light enough to have a continuing involvement in the matter/radiation balance.

About 14 seconds after the big bang, the temperature of the universe had dropped to around 3xl09K, and even electrons and positrons needed too much energy for the weakening radiation to create them. As the universe con¬tinued to expand and cool, creation became slower than annihilation, and almost all the particles and antiparticles disappeared. But for some unknown reason, a small proportion of electrons, protons and neutrons were left over. It is this early excess of matter over an¬timatter that survived to form light atomic nuclei a few minutes later, then (after about a million years) to form atoms and, still later, to be cooked to heavier elements in stars, ultimately to provide the material out of which life would arise. The reason for this predominance of matter over antimatter remains a mystery and has been a source of concern to modern cosmology. It is, nevertheless, one of the key initial conditions that determined the future development of the universe.

As the temperature dropped to 109K-about 70 times the temperature in the heart of the sun today-many protons and neutrons fused into helium nuclei, and by the end of first four minutes no free neutrons were left. Some 75% of the mass of the visible universe had been processed into protons plus electrons (ultimately to be bound into hydrogen atoms) while rather more than 25% mass of the universe had been processed into helium. The abundance of these elements in the universe is detectable today, and provides a constraint on the range of allowable models.

Another 700,000 years later, the expanding universe cooled to the point where electrons can bind to helium and hydrogen nuclei to make atoms, at a temperature of around 5000K. This signalled the end of the last remaining links between matter and radiation on a cosmic scale. Although free electrons and atomic nuclei, being electrically charged, interact strongly with radiation, electrically neutral atoms do not. From then on, the background radiation had nothing left to do but spread thinner in the expanding and cooling universe, to become the faint hiss we now detect at temperature equivalent of 2.7K. The very high degree of uniformity of the microwave background today is a strong indication that uniform, isotropic models provide a good description of the universe.

After the first thousand million years or so, with matter firmly established and radiation playing only a minor and decreasing role, the story of the universe can be taken up in terms of gravity, left as the dominating force because of its long range and its independence of electric charge. Gravitational forces then shaped the galaxies by holding stars and planets together.

[recommendedlisten]

With so much great music being made, some albums are always going to be overlooked come the end of the year. Time is the biggest hurdle with that. Be it a lack there of to cover every artist with a new album cycle, needing more of it to give a great listen the full attention needed to digest, or the timing of a release just not hitting the same way it does months later, it can grow more difficult by the day to take in everything while appreciating it.

This year, Recommended Listen is taking a look at some of the best overlooked albums on these pages throughout 2020. These are albums that weren’t fully reviewed, found on any volume of Listen to These., on this year’s Best of 2020 lists in any form, and in some cases, not mentioned even in track or video coverage at all. You may already be familiar with some of them, but it would remiss to not given them their due. As the year wraps up, let this be a reminder that discovering new music has no expiration date either.

Arca - KiCk i [XL Recordings]

KiCk i is the the first in a purported four-part series from electronic music reinventor Arca, and with its timing of being released in the midst of the summer’s busy release schedule, it’s understandable how a listen that demands an attentive ear could get lost in the mix. KiCk i, similar to that of Arca’s kindred experimentalist Bjork and her own avant-pop rendering Volta, is still both the artist’s most accessible formation to date, and yet, an alien aural experience by modern pop music standards in the way its human construction collapses and glitches with intention. What we hear here, however, is Arca coming to the forefront of her sound with her voice being used as both instrument and narrator, blurring the lines between any one kind of convention.

Charli XCX - how i’m feeling now [Atlantic Records]

She’s the main reason this post exists, but when she released the year’s first certifiable quarantine album, it didn’t quite hit the same way it does now in December. That’s not to say that how i’m feeling now was not understood upon initial impact -- it seems to be a going theme that Charli XCX works her best experimental pop magic when she’s moving fast and quickly -- but at the start of springtime when the fears of the pandemic were at their most fresh and agonizing, it was difficult to get into the same space as that which she had carved out in the dark using black diamonds and digital euphoria. Time heals, though, and just as Pop 2 sparkled in its own winter, Charli’s isolation feeling wears better forever in the cold just like December.

Dua Lipa – Future Nostalgia [Warner Records]

To call Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia an overlooked album is technically a huge overstatement considering it has been near the top of most major publication’s year-end list and she’s earned the title of 2020’s biggest pop star not named Taylor Swift. Future Nostalgia, much like the Weeknd’s After Hours, came into view at the worst possible timing, however -- Those first arduous weeks of lockdown when the last fucking thing on your mind at that time was club music and dancing. Still, the UK songwriter’s energy has prevailed at the end of 2020 with its funky synthesis of disco, electronica, and futuristic pop production. It may be one of the few things in pop culture this year we feel wistful about when we hear it a decade from now.

Fontaines D.C. - A Hero’s Death [Partisan Records]

Another overlooked listen that fell victim to a super-saturated summer release schedule, maybe it’s better than Fontaines D.C.’s A Hero’s Death, in all of its desperate lamentations, be appreciated during these wintry months than late under the scorching July sun. The most surprising revelation behind the theatre curtain of the Dublin post-punk band’s sophomore effort is in the manner which frontman Grian Chatten has sunken his working class shouting matches into the foci of a bleaker state of mind, and yet, not at the expense of dark comedy and appropriate growl. A Hero’s Death may be a quieter raucous from Fontaines D.C., and also one that suggests that the depths of their sound are most visible when methodically circling the drain.

A Hero's Death by Fontaines D.C.

Infant Island - Beneath [Dog Knights Productions]

We are in the throes of a screamo revival, though Infant Island are a whole different behemoth in that realm on their sophomore outing Beneath. Here, the Virginia-based five-piece eviscerate the scene’s intensity through charring post-rock epics and answering back at the void with raw, bleeding screams. Their style -- a bastion of hardcore, black metal, and beautifully atmospheric rock echoes -- barrels in with it the heaviest kind of weight on the soul every time Infant Island awaken from the pitch black craters. Ultimately, it consumes you and leaves you in their ash.

Beneath by Infant Island

LOMA - Don’t Shy Away [Sub Pop]

One of the things we are slowly, but surely beginning to see in indie rock and guitar-based rock right now is that artists are once again gaining confidence in sounding atypical. LOMA -- the trio of songwriter Emily Cross, multi-instrumentalist and recording engineer Dan Duszynski, and Shearwater frontman Jonathan Meiburg -- quietly are making these strange moves in the further out regions of their sophomore effort Don’t Shy Away. Informed by desertscapes, forests, occult energy, and its own divinely defined relationship between earth and soul, the listen absorbs both the physical and spiritual worlds through sound with LOMA acting as its vessel to communicate between each.

Don't Shy Away by LOMA

Peel Dream Magazine - Agitprop Alterna [Slumberland Records]

Some of the most interesting sounds coming from the next generation of shoegaze shape-shifters this year weren’t always the ones that filtered feedback through a dark, brooding punk heaviness. Akin to fellow breakouts Dummy, Peel Dream Magazine -- the moniker of NYC songwriter Joe Stevens -- is veering far away from those boundaries as well as those in some of today’s indie rock traditionalism with a lush, sun-bent projection on the sound that is entrancingly weird and dilates inner elation. On Agitprop Altnerna, Peel Dream Magazine sophomore effort, the band’s music achieves a new level of metaphysical experience through its collaborative cast, enriching the colors dispersed by its prism.

Agitprop Alterna by Peel Dream Magazine

Porridge Radio - Every Bad [Secretly Canadian]

Porridge Radio were a victim of their own buzz here on Recommended Listen upon the UK post-punk band’s release of their acclaimed sophomore breakout Every Bad. It admittedly happens when an indie rock band with all of the press envy going for them already in every place else (especially with bigger publications) equates to putting their work on the backburner here so that other lesser-covered independent artists can get due coverage just as well. Every Bad is very good, though, with guitarist Dana Margolin tapping into a dynamic,, aggressive side of intimate melancholia with her emotional voice as keyboardist Georgie Stott, bassist Maddie Ryall and drummer Sam Yardley steer the storm in the rough seas of life around her.

Every Bad by Porridge Radio

R.A.P. Ferreira - purple moonlight pages [Ruby Yacht]

2020′s rap game was ruled by its underground hive, and purple moonlight pages was part of writing that story. As the restart button for R.A.P. Ferreria, f.k.a. the prolific Milo, this album hears the man behind the moniker, Rory Allen Philip Ferreira, breaking down the barriers surrounding his bars for an experimental foray into jazz-informed rhymes given a brassy luster by producer and multi-instrumentalists Kenny Segal and his crew, the Jefferson Park Boys. Coupled with poetry of both the personal and the philosophical, the limitless rhythm and flow moving throughout purple moonlight pages has found a place for R.A.P. Ferreira's work where the free art and the perfected in prose can coexist.

purple moonlight pages by R.A.P. Ferreira

Samia - The Baby [Grand Jury Music]

Emotional guitar music being vesseled inside finely-crafted indie rock songwriting is once again in a better place than it’s been left these past several years, and an artist like Samia Finnerty is going to be helping taking it further with her own pen in it after releasing this year’s breakout full-length debut The Baby. If you found yourself humming along to the coming-of-age buzz around the glossy Gen Z navel gazing of UK pop-rock export beabadoobee, this collection of songs by Samia may actually cut keeper below the surface thanks to the way she lyrically mediates life’s darkness and young tribulations adulting during a fucked up time in history with a rose-tinted canvas in her sound. She feels its all, and you’ll feel seen, too.

The Baby by Samia

SAULT - UNTITLED (Black Is) & UNTITLED (Rise) [Forever Living Originals]

The identities behind the collective members of SAULT are as hard to pin as the release dates of their albums themselves, which in 2020, had a tendency to drop out of nowhere and made for two of this year’s most enigmatic moments in alluring sounds from unknown places with their breakouts UNTITLED (Black Is) and UNTITLED (Rise). Each listen arrived as bookends between the epicenter of a summer of protest and resistance across the globe, with the UK band’s fusion of house, experimental electronic, and modern R&B creating a document on the ongoing cultural evolution of these Black-centric styles, but as a medium to confront racial issues through an artfully accessible message.

UNTITLED (Black Is) by SAULT

UNTITLED (Rise) by SAULT

The Weeknd – After Hours [Republic Records]

After Hours is another example on this list of an album you would handedly lose an argument in technically calling “overlooked” considering the Weeknd’s Starboy streaming power and chart-topping success is not losing momentum any time soon. It did go up against a huge emotional wall when it was initially released right as lockdown mode was more on the mind than donning fashionable heathen pop, though, even if it's Abel Tesfaye’s strongest collection of post-breakup wreckers and R&B sizzle perfected through the cool currents of his Uncut Gems score collaborator Oneohtrix Point Never and the always-slick singles synthesis of Max Martin’s hand. Grammys don’t mean a thing, but in the pop universe, it's weird when one of its biggest names can't get a nom at the top of their game.

[echobearhsfanblog]

About Classpect Research in Canon Homestuck

Homestuck has a lot of power systems for a single piece of media. Honestly it's probably a record if you counted them out... but one of them stands out much more than the rest: Classpects. You could say it's because it's the least fully explained of any of homestuck's systems that leads so many people over the years to try and figure out the hidden definitions that guide these characters and may define ourselves. It could also be the very personal nature in which classpect relates to each player in sburb, a game that is by definition filled with hyper flexible mythology based on every player involved.

You could call the fact we don't know much absolutely certain information about the classpect system a double edged sword. On one hand it allows tons of different interpretations and discussion about such things, but on the other it also means a lot of energy is sunk into trying to interpret and agree on what a particular class or aspect means where that energy could be used on discussion of what those definitions mean for those it defines. I see merit in both the mystery, as well as ending it so we can discuss classpect in a much different way, but that is only the introduction of my real purpose in this analysis.

I'm here to talk about numbers, context, and research.

Note that this is meant more to describe the situation of covering classpects through canon examples and isn't meant as criticism to how Hussie implemented it in his story. There may be a time and place to examine that side of things but this specific write up is more focused on how it pertains to trying to figure the system out as a fan base. It is also not meant as an excuse for mistakes for myself or others in the classpect community when it comes to figuring out classpects but rather a healthy dose of context I haven't seen anyone bring up about the amount of information we actually have at our disposal.

Note also: Spoilers for most of the length of homestuck in the below.

So if we are to research the classes and aspects of homestuck, how do we go about starting that process? Listing them and the number of subjects we can analyze is an important step if we're being objective and not working off of any other fan theories.

Classes: Heir, Witch, Seer, Mage, Knight, Page, Thief, Rogue, Sylph, Maid, Bard, Prince, Lord, Muse Aspects: Space, Time, Life, Doom, Mind, Heart, Breath, Blood, Light, Void, Hope, Rage Sburb Players: John, Rose, Dave, Jade, Aradia, Tavros, Sollux, Karkat, Nepeta, Kanaya, Terezi, Vriska, Equius, Gamzee, Eridan, Feferi, Jane, Jake, Roxy, Dirk, Damara, Rufioh, Mituna, Kankri, Meulin, Porrim, Latula, Aranea, Horuss, Kurloz, Cronus, Meenah, Calliope, Caliborn

So by the numbers that's 14 Classes, 12 Aspects, and about 34 Sburb Players. That means we only have 34 characters with certain classpects to describe 14 classes and 12 aspects. Looking at this scientifically.... that's a very small sample size. You need quite a large selection of people in order to separate individual quirks from the quirks that define a class or aspect. In terms of narrative it's actually a LOT of characters and that's only counting ones with absolute classpects, plenty more characters around.

Before moving onto further context, I will address the 'ancestor' issue and why I'm only mathematically counting the 34 for the classpect research numbers. While there is implication for the 'ancestor' version of a character sharing a similar if not exact classpect with the 'player' version of that character it is in no way confirm-able. The only exception to that is the trolls in which the extended zodiac gives us proof that a troll of the same sign will genetically always have the same dream moon and aspect.  The class is still up for debate though, and in scientific terms the alternian ancestors are completely tainted. Even if they are the same class as their original 'player', Doc Scratch's plans force some or all of them to act in some way more like the alternian trolls than their actual beforus doubles in terms of class. So it's possible to gleam more about the aspects if you really wanted to but the classes are even less trust-able. If the classes of trolls, and class/aspects of humans are based on experiences then, can we fully trust that the narrative of homestuck is making them exact enough to be a good base? Even if you do take the 'ancestor' versions of players to count as viable data, that only raises the count to 54 characters, not that substantial of a number raise even if you're assuming these more undefined characters are their counterpart's classpect. Yes, only 20 more, since the Beforus versions of the alternian trolls are almost entirely unknown except for maybe Feferi in the most passing way possible, as well as the cherubs not having scratch version alternatives.

With 34-54 to describe a 12x14 system we push forward and find that context plays a heavy role in what those numbers can do for us. This context of course is a double edged sword in that some of it is very helpful in giving us plenty of information! But then some of the context basically removes some of those numbers from the equation entirely.

First we'll look at the imbalance of classes and aspects. Using the sburb player count to be the most accurate.

Classes: Heir(3), Witch(3), Seer(3), Mage(2), Knight(3), Page(3), Thief(2), Rogue(3), Sylph(2), Maid(3), Bard(2), Prince(3), Lord(1), Muse(1) Aspects: Space(4), Time(4), Life(3), Doom(2), Mind(2), Heart(3), Breath(3), Blood(2), Light(3), Void(3), Hope(3), Rage(2)

Aspects are the best off, space and timing having the most since both troll sessions have two of each, and the human and cherub sessions both have at least one pair of this aspect. Basically from that point on, every aspect has at least two players with every human covered aspect having three. Classes are a bit more of an issue, the cherub master classes only having a single character each (and their alternative time selves which most characters have anyway) to set an example. The rest of the classes are the two for troll only and three for human included ones like we seen with the non-central aspects.

So seperating the 34 Characters up into each segment contextualizes the small sample size for the entire system as being even smaller for each part of the system. Even if we have a lot of data on each character individually that means only the 3-4 player class or aspects can be considered to have enough of a sample size to try and define them in a more broad sense that isn't overly attached to the character. Including the 'ancestor' variations might help slightly but only raises those numbers a tiny bit in exchange for information that is HIGHLY tainted by both Doc Scratch and the questionable side of nature vs nurture when it comes to human classpects in homestuck, and the master classes are still where they were left off since those don't have scratch ancestor doubles.

We've talked largely just about the numbers so far and as important as that is to understand approaching classpecting another important factor is amount of information per character. Honestly just going over that could be a significantly HUGE post on it's own when talking about how much or how little each character has so I'm going to do my best to go over it in the broadest terms here since I've already gone on for quite a while.

The human classes and aspects are naturally the best well off, each human character alone has plenty of time focused on them and story around their actions. Sure none of the humans have any overlap so without the trolls there's very little to go on for separating their non-classpect personality quirks from their classpect based ones, but the sheer amount of story focused on them gives any of the 8 aspects and 8 classes that the humans cover given much more information than the remaining ones. There's still an inequality that exists on how well each of any of these classpects are covered but that perhaps is for a more detailed post/sequel post.

The alternian trolls are a little more imbalanced. Both due to our actual experience in their session being more of a slide-show of specific moments and that both during the session and after the session some trolls get TONS of coverage while others are sadly treated narratively as filler. (Ok that wasn't objective but it's hard to stay 100% ok?). Even with there being in between and some characters getting a good chunk of screen time that screen time isn't always filled with great examples of what their classpect might particularly mean. Some characters that even get a lot of screen time seem to have a lot of their bigger accomplishments off screen and with very little coverage. This makes sense when you look at homestuck as being already a huge and long series, but it also means that the sample size is even more heavily effected by a smaller data pool per character. This is important not only for the four troll session exclusive classes and aspects in the comic's narrative, but also when we include the next segment of characters.

The beforus trolls. Oh boy. Talking about filler characters! While I'll revisit some of them in just a little bit, in general only two of these trolls have any prominent role in the comic. BOTH of these trolls have aspects that are already covered by humans as well, and one of them is another Serket and you know how much time she got on screen already. The majority of the ten other beforus trolls basically have two to five paragraphs each on any significant backstory before not showing up again, sometimes having almost NO relevant information on them at all. If the Alternian trolls were a case of imbalanced data per sample size, Beforus gives us an almost non-existent amount of new information when they're added to the sample size.

The cherubs are both in the highest count for aspect, and lowest count for classes in terms of comparability. Both helping creating the most fleshed out aspect to research as well as being the only examples of their own classes.

All of this extra context means some classpects are very well understandable with canon information and interpretation while others take a lot more filling in the spaces and personal interpretation. While I do think classpects SHOULD be flexible due to their personal nature and reflection of a character, there are some fundamental things that people continue to disagree about for some things, more over with classes than aspects since aspects were always the more fluid part of the equation. Luckily we do have some solid information, in cases of Rogue and Thief, and Prince and Bard descriptions from Calliope in what is clearly a exposition dump. But that leaves 10 classes much more uncertain, and while the descriptions of the classes seem on point, some of her information on the system is arguably also in the realm of homestuck's consistent trait of unreliable narrators, her skewed understanding of gender by her species being one of the more obvious points.

There are some Classes, and even a few aspects that I feel like are largely under-represented or misrepresented in the narrative that I'd like to mention now that I've covered so much of the generals so far. Troll only classes are big pains, such as Mages where Sollux is moderately shown during the troll session but barely after and Meulin is covered basically only in one of the Beforus walk around games. Bards are also just generally confusing since again, with a Befiller troll being one half of that sample size we're left with Gamzee as one of the only examples, arguably a great example but people seem to get confused by his clown nature when examining him. Even some human crossover classes like Page are a huge pain, while Jake and Tavros have a decent number of scenes the Beforus troll here is a page of void and thus as non-existent to the narrative or any backstory as any character can get. It doesn't help that everyone in the entire narrative of homestuck don't seem to understand what a page even does, to the point of Vriska saying it's a throwaway class and no one arguing  with her because no one present has any better idea about it than her. This doesn't mean that a Page doesn't have a specific purpose, and they could be even very useful and understandable, but the narrative of homestuck itself almost tries to bury it under a mountain of character misunderstanding and even huge amounts of abuse from character to character even further obscuring it.

Aspects as flexible and fluid as they are in comparison to classes being the funnel to shape them don't' get away from these issues either. Three out of the Four troll only aspects have big issues of how they're portrayed in order to get a proper understanding too, Blood, Doom, and Rage. Mind is fairly well defined via Terezi's story at least, even if it is another issue of practically single character sample size. Blood is one of the aspects that seem to NEVER be shown being used in a 'classpect power' way, so the extent that side of things is applicable to the aspect is unknown, but at least the mental and metaphorical side is a little more clear. Doom is very understandable as a physical aspect but it's effect as a mental personality trait can be seen as less clear when the only two characters who embody it are Sollux (shown mostly in the troll session and kind of disappears the rest of the comic), and Mituna who we only see after his mind has been doomed, but not really the before side of things in his story. Rage is honestly the most confusing aspect in terms of comic explanation, to the point where I remember it being one of the most discord-ish parts of the extended zodiac aspect explanations since people totally saw Gamzee another way. The HUGE problem with rage is that it was an aspect shown only through destruction classes. Classes who sought to destroy the aspect, or if forced to hold that aspect see it as only something to destroy. On top of us barely seeing Kurloz, this means anything we see done with the rage players requires us to ask "is this them trying to act in the opposite of rage, or acting within rage?", so we can get the opposite impression of what it really means if we mess that puzzle up. Hope almost has the same problem with a prince and bard being the main two examples of it but it has the added Jake English... which only slightly improves things since if we're so confused on what Pages do, and some think Pages barely use their aspect properly, how much better can we understand hope if that's the case?

Even with all these problems in figuring out the system of personality and elemental powers, so many people are drawn to it. Classpecting is still a sub-fandom of homestuck of a size and spirit that's comparable to other full series fandoms. It's enjoyable to be a part of, and I still stand by the research I've done to come to my current classpect understandings. Even my understanding is a bit fluid, some classes could be switched entirely and it'd work for them, and aspects are always almost based more on the individual than something solid. All in all, I hope this gave people who haven't tried to research classpects a better understanding of the issues we have to research around, even maybe giving some people who have classpected some context to what they've already dug into even if they didn't realize some parts of it.

[crystalldragon]

proving it

"“Hey, Vetra,” Elly takes her hands in Vetra’s, two fingers pressing against five, and smiles up at her. “I’m always here for you, both of you. As I’ve said. I really care. I mean it.”

A collection of moments telling the story of Elly Ryder and Vetra Nyx, a human and a turian falling in love inmidst a new and unknown galaxy.”

here's how elly ryder looks like in case you're interested

8 chapters (6,128 words)

ao3 link | or read it down below ↓

—1—

Finding a new home in the Andromeda galaxy and building a civilization. That was their original mission. No one had expected to find all their so called “golden worlds” to be inhabitable. Much less to get thrown onto one of these worlds and have their Pathfinder Alec Ryder dying to save his daughter, Elly Ryder.

Simply waking up after 600 years of deep sleep was difficult enough. But then dealing with the loss of their expected home and her dad? That’s too much for Elly. The worst part of it all: she’s supposed to be the new Pathfinder. She’s supposed to deal with everything – exploring new worlds, setting up outposts and leading the Initiative project to its original goal. This new kind of responsibility is crushing, and it will take a lot of time to get used to it.  

And this isn’t the only thing she’ll have to get used to. Now, she also has her own ship with her own crew. A crew that fully believes in her and her abilities. It’s more than she could’ve ever come up with in her wildest daydreams. Sure, she’d dreamt of having her own ship, just sailing around in space and discovering new things. But this is bigger than all of that – and at what price did it come? Was all the pain this journey had brought so far really worth it?

This is no time for doubt or weakness though. She has to be strong. For her crew. For the sleeping humans on the Hyperion. For her brother. For her father. He had done so much for this project and she knows how much he wanted it. After several fights in their family, in the end, all of them had agreed to it and had even looked forward to this new start in a faraway galaxy. Even though it meant leaving everything they’ve ever known behind. Their home, their friends, the view outside of their favorite café, the visits to the National Space Museum and so on. They would never see the Earth again, nor would they see the Citadel or Eden Prime or anything of the Milky Way ever again. And since communication between the two galaxies would take very long, they also wouldn’t hear anything from the Milky Way, at least not in their lives. Their only hope concerning that is to raise a new generation in Andromeda which can someday, hopefully receive a message from the Milky Way.

She’s so lost in thought she barely registers Cora’s voice behind her. “This is it, Ryder. The Tempest is yours. Unless you’ve got something to say for the log?”

There is a whole galaxy of currently inhabitable planets, a mysterious thing called “the Scourge” and other possible dangers ahead. But as she stares out the windows at the bridge, she can’t help but believe there is still hope out there. Of all these possible worlds they could discover, there has to be one for them to live on. The Miky Way has them. Earth. Thessia. Palaven. Sur’Kesh. Now it’s on her and her crew to find their counterparts in the Andromeda galaxy. The following words coming out of her only feel natural.

“We were all expecting a golden world. A home where we could start over and fullfill our dreams. Now there’s just a long road ahead. But hold on to those dreams. We will get there.”

 —2—

Vetra Nyx has been on the run all her life. Home always felt like hell – well, what had she’d called “home” in the beginning. Her parents fought all day long, not giving a care about her, much less her newborn sister, Sidera. One day, while feeding Sid, she’d overheard them screaming at each other again and after hearing a loud thud, she’d looked out the window to see her mother running away. Whatever it was her father did… her mother and all the others erased their existence from their minds. Her dad snatched her and Sid, and they left Palaven together. Time passed and soon enough, their dad became increasingly overwhelmed by the task of taking care of them. It all went downhill until… even he left and never came back. She and Sid were completely left alone, no guidance, no money, no family but each other. It was time the two left just the same – and so it came she and her sister sneaked into the next ship leaving not too far away from their settlement. It was a risky endeavor of course, she had no idea where they were going, but at that time everywhere was better than where they currently were. For the following few years, Vetra kept the only family left to her alive by doing all sorts of jobs. Kesh, one of her clients, hired Vetra a handful of times to retrieve things for her. The tasks got bigger one after the other, and after Vetra gingerly asked her what she was doing with all this, Kesh introduced her to the Initiative.

Up to that, her whole life had been anything but easy. She never had room to think much about what she wanted – everything was about getting money for food and shelter and taking care of her sister. It was surviving, not living. Even though their time at the Nexus wasn’t exactly easy either, it was closer to living than what was before.

And now her life is the closest it has ever been to living instead of surviving. She has a stable home – the Tempest. She has a place and a job here and she has people around her she can (somewhat) trust. And most importantly: her little sister is safe and sound on the Nexus. Sure, things are pretty messy right now and looking somewhat grim, but at least her only family is with her in this chaotic new galaxy. It’ll take months, probably even years or decades, to get this project fully working. Lots of heated discussions and unnecessary fights will happen before the first planet is ready to be colonized. Even more than anticipated, since now it’s not only a lot of red tape but there’s also the question of how to repair the damage the Scourge has caused. If there’s one person who can manage all of that, it’s gonna be Elly Ryder. Vetra isn’t one to quickly trust people, but this woman is an exception, and the turian will make sure she knows just how important she is.

―

“We’ve been failing for months, Ryder. Now that we have you, we have a chance out here.” It’s the truth. The Nexus is a giant mess. Three lazy ass diplomats sitting around and arguing isn’t going to change a single thing. No, it’s about time someone takes action. Now they’ve got a Pathfinder, maybe not the one they wanted, but probably the one they need. The people on the Nexus can complain all they want, Vetra is already convinced the Pathfinder’s, no, Ryder’s arrival means the return of what they’ve had lost so long ago: hope.

“Wow, that’s some laser focus,” Ryder answers, smirking and leaning against the boxes taking up most of the space in her small room.

Vetra takes a step back. Is that meant to be a joke or is she serious?

“Yeah… Was it too much? Some people get intimidated.”

Ryder walks up to her, the smirk never leaving her face, instead growing even more prominent. “I’m not just some people. I really like the intensity.”

Oh. Now that’s new. She already figured out Ryder is a very… honest person but this is… unexpected, still. She isn’t used to someone complimenting her ambitions so earnestly. The people she used to work for were always rather ungrateful to her. Even on the Nexus, where she had done much work for the Tempest, no one was really that nice to her. People were much more focused on themselves.

“That’s good. It’s nice to feel… appreciated.”

Vetra mentally slaps herself. That’s about the lamest answer she could’ve given to something so huge. Or maybe it isn’t huge. Maybe she isn’t special at all, and it’s just that Ryder is fascinated by people in general. Yeah, it’s probably that. Better let this all go. She turns around and walks over to her desk, where her datapad is still lying with her mails open.

“I should track down a lead for Gil’s actuators. Back channels, you know?”

Ryder nods and slowly walks backwards in the direction of the door while still looking at the tall, slender woman sitting down at the desk.

“We’ll chat later, then,” she says, leaving the room with a slight blush appearing on her face.

 —3—

“Hey Ryder, what’s up?” Vetra contacts Ryder over the comms. No answer. With a sigh, she hops out of the Nomad and walks towards the cliff Ryder is standing on. They’d been searching through the Remnant caves of Havarl and for the last few minutes, Ryder has gotten awfully quiet while driving the Nomad to their next destination. Usually, Ryder would have something to say about everything. During their travels with the vehicle she commented on so many things, it was almost like she was moderating her own show. Sometimes the squad was annoyed by this, but Vetra found it cute nonetheless. Ryder has to endure so much, and yet she radiates delight and curiosity. Vetra still wonders how she manages to do that.

“Ryder?” she calls again. There’s a chasm before them, made out of Remnant technology. They’ve been here before, cleaned up some enemies, but they haven’t done anything further. “Are you okay?” she asks, coming to a halt beside her. The red-haired woman turns her head and looks at her with a blank face.

“You can talk to me, you know,” Vetra reassures her, not knowing what else to say.

Ryder nods and a few seconds pass before she quietly sighs and answers.

“Sometimes it hurts, you know. The… thing with my dad, I mean. I’ve always looked up to him. Sure, he was rough but he was… still is my dad and I love him. But the more I realize he’s gone now, the more I also realize how much I didn’t know about him. He never really told me about his work. Not even about the parts that were not classified. SAM told me there are still many memory fragments left to discover. He feels like my dad but at the same time like a total stranger. And I don’t want to be mad at him, but I am mad at him for leaving us behind. I know it’s not his fault but…” her voice cracks and the tears that have built up in her eyes spill over. This is so unlike her usual calm and happy composure, and Vetra is not quite sure how to deal with it. She had to calm down a sad or angry Sid a couple of times, but never a crying Elly Ryder.

“But… it still hurts,” Ryder finishes, the tears still rolling down her cheeks. “God, I’m so sorry, Vetra.” She shakes her head, as if to tell herself to stop crying. Neither of them say anything as Vetra searches for the right words and the silence becomes more and more uncomfortable. Eventually, Ryder excuses herself again and wants to go back to the Nomad, but Vetra grasps her hip with her large hand.

“Ryder…” she takes a deep breath in and looks down, not daring to look into her glistering eyes. “I know how you feel. I felt the same way about my dad. To this day I don’t know why he left, only that he did and we weren’t ready for it. So…” she looks into her eyes now and holds on tight to her with both of her hands. “You are not alone.”

Ryder says nothing and just nods instead, and Vetra can see a slight smile making its way onto her lovely face. How could she be so vulnerable and so beautiful at the same time?

“Thank you,” is the only thing Ryder does say in the end. Vetra feels a gloved hand touching her cheek softly and this time she can clearly see the bittersweet smile beneath her many freckles.

They stand there for a few moments until Ryder gets out of her embrace and slowly walks back to where they came from. She turns around and calls after the tall woman. “You coming, Vetra?”

“I’m right behind you, Ryder,” Vetra says, even though she’s standing right where Ryder left her, the tingling sensation on her cheek still present. A quiet rumble leaves her throat and with big steps she follows her into the Nomad again.

—4—

The Nexus, though a place full of bureaucracy, is probably the safest place to be for the Milky Way species in Andromeda.

One can spend a lot of time watching Ryder dashing through the Nexus, running from place to place and handling one task after another. Sometimes she’d stop for a second, get lost in her thoughts, and then utter a small “oh!” and quickly walk towards her next destination. She is always on and about. It’d be almost sweet if it weren’t so worrisome. If Vetra were to be a little more bold and brave, she’d just grab Ryder, give her a proper meal and make sure she gets enough sleep. That’s what she’d do to Sid. But Ryder is not her little sister. She has to take care of herself, and as much as Vetra wants to help, she also doesn’t want to be a bother to her.

“Hey, my favorite turian,” Ryder’s voice pulls her out of her thoughts about said person.

“Hey, Ryder,” she answers, and gets greeted by a pout on the humans face. “What?”

“Y’know, you could… call me Elly. Since I call you by your first name, too.”

“Everybody calls me by my first name,” Vetra says, ignoring her request. Sure, she isn’t a good turian, but she isn’t gonna be that respectful and speak to her commander so… casually.

“So what?” She furrows her eyebrows and puts on something Vetra interprets as a pleading face, one Vetra has trouble not to give in to. “Please?”

“All right, Ryder… uh… Elly.”

The human woman squeals in delight and hugs her forcefully.

“Hey…” Vetra protests, surprised by the feeling of Elly’s body pressed against hers. “The others…”

A disinterested grunt comes out of Elly as response and she stands there for some time, hugging her quietly before stepping back and looking at her. “So how are you?”

“That’s what I should be asking you,” Vetra retorts, the worries from ealier entering her mind again.

“No talking about me, I want to know about you.”

You can’t get Elly to talk about herself when she doesn’t want to, so Vetra tries to make her feel good otherwise.

“Well… I wanted to thank you again. For helping me with Sid.”

Elly gives her a puzzled look. They’ve talked about this before, but at that time, Vetra was somewhat angry with Sid. She still is, to be honest, but by far not as much as she was before. Sid is still a kid, and Vetra raised her like her own child, but she has to let her do her own things, step by step. At least, now they’re not alone anymore. They have lots of people by their side, helping and supporting them, especially Elly. And they have lots of things to do to get to the goals of the Andromeda initiative. Everyone can and should play their part in that. Even her sister.

“I thought about it some more and…” she tries to explain, “I’m just… thankful. You’re here for us. And you care.”

“Hey, Vetra,” Elly takes her hands in Vetra’s, two fingers pressing against five, and smiles up at her. “I’m always here for you, both of you. As I’ve said. I really care. I mean it.”

“Elly…” Her voice has grown somewhat frantic, and she’s so embarrassed, but tries to not let it show. Just as she tries to not show the surprise at the sudden constraining feeling in her heart. It feels like falling and flying at the same time. She’s speechless. Once again. How can this woman say and do such things to her?

“We’ll, uh, meet on the ship, then,” Elly says, letting go of her hands and slowly walking away towards the ship docks. Vetra already misses the warmth of their hands pressed together and wonders, just for a brief moment, if Elly might feel the same.

—5—

According to SAM, it is the only thing they can do to get them out of the Archon’s grip – killing Ryder. The Archon had put stasis fields around them, which would only respond to living signals. And SAM couldn't find any other solutions besides the most horrible one to exist.

Vetra can barely manage any fitting words for the anger and disbelief she feels right now. “Ryder... you’re crazy.”

“Um… just in case: It was nice, knowing you all.” Peebee, the young adventurous asari, sounds so casual, just like most times, but Vetra can hear the slight tremble in her voice betraying her poise. Peebee is probably just as bad as she is with feelings, though right now Vetra's sure they are both crushed by the sudden fear overwhelming them.

“All right… Do it,” Elly’s voice holds the same amount of fear in it.

The two look up at her and all of Vetra's blood seems to freeze in her veins at those words. Elly is absolutely unbelievable, facing death with a readiness unlike anyone else. She and her brother were the only ones left of her family, she has once told her. Vetra knew that feeling all too well, given that it's only her and her sister left. Despite that fact, Elly is prone to jumping into danger at first hand. And Vetra would be lying if she said it didn’t bug her. Too many times she had to stifle an upset or worried comment after Elly had stormed recklessly into a group of Kett or driven the Nomad too close to the edge of a deep abyss. But this outdoes everything.

“Stopping your heart now.” The immobilizing field around her disappears, and her limbless body drops before them. Vetra is convinced her heart has just stopped beating together with Ryder's heart. Maybe SAM is an enemy after all and just got them here to kill them altogether. No, no, no, no… Everything that's left to her is the image of Ryder lying there, and she shuts her eyes, trying to burn the image away. Being trapped in a stasis field until her death suddenly feels like an easier option than to see Ryder dead right in front of her without her being able to do something.

“Stimulating the cardiovascular system…” SAM’s usually soothing voice rings in her ears, and she would love to punch it for doing this to Ryder, which is of course impossible given that SAM has no body to begin with and she is immobilized anyway.

“Zero activity.”

“SAM…” she just says instead in the most threatening manner she could. If this doesn’t work… she’s either gonna die too or travel to the edge of the galaxy and live there alone for the rest of her life.

The same announcement from before comes again. “Stimulating the cardiovascular system…”

The next few seconds that pass are filled with silence which seems to stretch endlessly long, so long that Vetra swears she could feel every atom of her body slowly deceasing. Not even the most intense and life-threatening fights she has been in have anything on the soul-crushing fear she feels right now. Her mind is replaying her life in a flash, as if she’s dying herself, but it all gets stuck at Elly Ryder. She’d do anything to hear her laugh, see her cute face with the many freckles and touch her smooth red hair, just one more time…

And then, suddenly, one deep breath is what it takes to restore all the life inside her. She opens her eyes, which she had closed unintentionally because she couldn’t bear to look at the lifeless body of her commander, her friend, of … whatever they were. Ryder is laying there with open eyes, coughing wildly. After she’s catched her breath, she picks up her assault rifle and gets up on wobbly legs.

“Ryder…” The only word that's left to Vetra. Her subharmonics are filled with fear, and she's glad the other two can’t hear it – though they probably know how smitten she is anyway.

“I'm okay. I'm okay,” Ryder repeats, mostly to herself and walks over to the console to free her teammates, seeming a little more like a lost soul than a living being. She taps some buttons and looks at her squad mates with a weary smile and a thumbs up. Vetra can’t remember what the gesture is for – is it something positive or negative? The thought leaves her mind as soon as it entered because now she and Peebee are freed as well.

She opens her mouth to ask if Elly really is okay, but leaves it be. Now is not the time for talking. They have an Archon to hunt down.

—6—

“I think I've had enough of dying for one lifetime.” Elly sinks her hands into her bedsheets, imagining they were her brain and she could sink her flesh like claws into her memories and erase parts of them – between her practically dying twice, the Exaltation, the Jaardan – it’s too much.

“Pathfinder, I want to remind you I would have done anything else had there been another possibility available. We may be both aware there was not anything else left for me to do, but even so I am sorry. This situation was just another proof that my powers are not unlimited,” SAM said in private.

“Thank you, but I don't need any condolences. Especially not from you, a machine without real feelings.”

“Though I do not have any real feelings as you may have, I have spent a long time among humans and other species, long enough so I can roughly understand the concept of these feelings, Pathfinder,” SAM replies.

“Fuck – Look, SAM, I do not want to talk about it right now, okay?!”

“Understood, Pathfinder.”

She buries her head in one of the pillows. SAM calling her Pathfinder after every sentence just makes everything worse. But she is right, isn't she? SAM isn’t capable of feeling what she is currently feeling, so its understanding words were just empty words. She lays down flat on her bed and feels her eyes water. Shit. Thinking about this was just the last straw. There's so much – too much – on her mind and the Archon and his army are still alive and there are no habitable planets for their people – well she has activated the Monoliths on Eos, Voeld and Havarl and the conditions there have gotten better, but this victory was only temporary with the Kett still at large.

“Pathfinder?” SAM’s voice pops up again.

Elly groans loudly to voice her disapproval, letting out a “What?!” in the most annoyed tone she could manage.

“Vetra Nyx is requesting access to your quarters.”

She rolls around on her bed. Is adding Vetra to the mush that is her negative thoughts right now a good idea? The only thing she is capable of right now is complaining about how bad her situation is. Everything in her screams to let her go, but even so the opposite leaves her mouth.

“Okay.”

The doors open to reveal the brown-beige face and the purple markings she has grown to love. Vetra isn't wearing her armor – she is wearing something that resembles a turian pyjama.

“Hey, Elly,” she sits down on the bed and Elly feels her weight pushing down the mattress. Not daring to say anything or even look at her, Elly just stays unmoving on the bed.

“Are you okay?” She's slowly gotten accustomed to the subharmonics in Vetra's voice, and right now she's sure there's worry resonating in them. It’s a honest question, though Vetra isn’t one to push someone into answering.

“No,” she says at last. “Vetra… Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” the turian woman takes off her boots and lays down next to Elly. Her copper hair is sprawled all across the pillow and she runs a talon through the soft strads. Upon this, a small smile appears on Elly’s face and she turns around, facing the other. Vetra notices her swollen eyes and begins to grow more worried. Simultaneously, Elly’s smile disappears again and she opens her mouth.

“How do you deal with all the bad memories?”

Vetra stops her movements and looks her dead in the eyes. That question is so vague and difficult to answer… nothing she’ll say will be of help, probably. But she’ll try anyway.

“Uh… first: making new, good memories. Second: talking about the bad ones and third: try to resolve them if possible. I guess that about sums it up?”

Elly hums. “Well, I don’t see you doing the latter two.”

“Hmpf. Doesn’t make my advice any less helpful, does it?”

“Probably not.” There’s that grin again. The one that lights up her face and makes her cute freckles stand out even more inmidst her puffy cheeks. The one that Vetra has grown to love. She’d like to say something about how beautiful she thinks Elly is, but is sure it’d be inappropiate right now, especially considering she still doesn’t know… what they actually are. By now, she’s sure Elly has been flirting with her on one or two occassions. But Vetra is the last one to believe Elly actually likes her, of all people. Everyone loves Elly, and Elly loves everyone. She’s a sweetheart to almost everyone (except for her enemies, of course) and she might as well has found another person she’d rather be with.

“Vetra?” Elly’s quiet voice pulls her out of her thought process. It sounds so… foreign. Fragile. “Can you… stay here, for a while?”

“Of course. Anything for you,” she answers and she means it. Vetra has done many things for other people before, but only for money. But for Elly, she’d gladly do anything for free. She could give and give and give simply because this woman deserves that much. She has seen so much, but has never given up, always getting up and continuing the fight. Though she can be fierce, she still has a soft heart. Shit, Vetra thinks, and feels her heart tighten in her chest.

“In that case… can you hold me… just for a bit?” Her voice is still nothing more than a whisper. Vetra isn’t sure if her mind is playing games or if there’s really a blush adorning her cheeks. In any case, she’s quick to oblige and puts her arms around the much smaller body of Elly Ryder. With a content sigh, the human buries her head into her chest and through the thin fabric, Vetra can feel her nose, cheeks and lips press into her chest plates. It’s more than anything she could’ve hoped for. A two-fingered hand reaches up and strokes her hair, continuing until she hears a quiet snore.

Vetra isn’t sure if she’s allowed to stay, but she isn’t going to wake up a sleeping Elly Ryder either, so she decides to stay right where she is.

—7—

Vetra hears a small giggle coming from Elly and before she can turn her attention to her, she hears the loud poof of her jump-jet and more giggling as she dashes up to the top of the mountain.

“Hey!” Vetra calls after her. “I said no jump jets!”

She grins to herself as she hears Elly laughing freely, a sound she hasn’t heard from her in a while, and she can’t help but laugh with her. If she could get Elly to let loose for just one second, then the trip was already worth it. Though she also has another card up her sleeve.

“Looks like you’re having fun,” Vetra says as she reaches the top, taking a second to look around and admire the view herself. Of course, she’d taken Elly here to show her the amazing view, but also to talk to her. The knowledge that Elly is trusting her so much to let her worries go gives her an extra amount of hope for what is about to happen.

She walks over to where Elly is flat on the ground and lays down beside her, both still out of breath from climbing and laughing.

“Hey… Is this real?” she asks, not clarifying what she means on purpose. Vetra wants to know if Elly already knows. They have been flirting pretty regularly by now, but she still isn’t sure if Elly means any of it. Vetra is somewhat used to people flirting with her, but not because they like her. No, because they only want to use something of her, whether it’s her gun skills, her persuading manner, or her craftsmanship. People never want her, as a person. So when the compassionate and understanding Elly Ryder started flirting with her, of all people, she got… confused. Did she care that much for her? If she really did, it would change everything. Not only had Vetra found a new purpose on the Tempest, she had also found a home, and maybe now, a home in another person. Turians were taught to just accept the flow of life, but for the past weeks she kept wondering – what would it be like, having a quiet home with a loving partner? After spending all her life running, not daring to think upon the possibility of a home, much less a person to share it with besides her sister, now she considered if this was actually something she’d want.

And if Elly doesn’t reciprocate her feelings… then she is fine with that too. She is fine for as long as she can stay by her side. No matter what the answer is, she will respect it.

“Hmmm… I think the sky looks real. Could be, no, should be real,” Elly answers, still out of breath.

“Haha,” Vetra utters a fake laugh. From the corner of her eyes, Vetra could see Elly turning her head to her direction.

“I mean… this. How you are towards me. It's like you… care.” And for emphasis she nudges the back of her hand against Elly’s in the lightest of touches.

“… More than a friend.” Only now does she notice how deep she's breathing and she's not sure if it's left over exhaustion from the climbing or from how close they are right now, alone, out here in the messed up but perfect world.

“I don't mind if it's ‘no'. I just want to make sure. It gets messy otherwise,” she adds hastily. The last thing she wants is to assault Elly with this. Although she has to admit, she would actually mind it a little. Now that she has had a first taste of what could be – just the two of them, fooling around, making life in Andromeda a little bit brighter, filling each other's hearts – it's a sweet little thought. One she's growing more fond of than she'd like to admit.

But all these thoughts are put to stop by what follows. Elly takes her hand, which had been laying flat open like an invitation, into her own, entwining their fingers in a firm but pleasant grip. The next words coming out of Elly sound so delicate, so vulnerable, as if she's telling the universe’s biggest secret only for her ears to hear.

“I do care about you. A lot. More than a friend.”

It comes off as so simple, but it throws Vetra off, so much she doesn't know how to answer, so she chooses to just voice her surprise.

“Really? I didn't want to assume. It seemed so unlikely...”

She doesn’t even get to finish her babbling because suddenly, something absolutely miraculous happens.

Elly leans over her, cups her face and presses their lips together, like that ‘kissing’ thing humans do. The kiss is just like her – soft but with a fierceness beneath. Something that leaves Vetra aching for more.

“And how’s that for proving it?” She asks and her voice sounds sweeter than the sweetest wine Vetra has ever tasted.

“I’m convinced,” she answers, not trusting herself to say more, instead leaning in to kiss her again. Of course, she has heard several things about kissing, but she never really spared it a thought. Turians don’t usually kiss – their hard mouth plates would turn that into a rather difficult task. But with Elly… she could get use to this kissing thing.

—8—

“Hey, Vetra.”

Elly kisses her in the space between her mandibles and her carapace, tasting the supple leather-like skin. Vetra grumbles, her subharmonics signaling that she's listening. The Tempest hasn’t gone on as many adventures as before, leaving them with plenty of time to fool around in the lounge – or in Ryder’s private quarters.

“You’re preetty,” Elly traces her purple marks and places several kisses along them. The hand that’s resting on her hip grips her a little bit tighter at that, and she can hear another faint rumble coming from the turian. It’s cute how all it takes to get a strong woman like Vetra flustered is to call her pretty, Elly thinks. Vetra isn’t one to give up so easily, though.

“Uh huh,” she chuckles. “How about you say something more meaningful, babe?”

“That was meaningful!” Elly complains and lets her hands roam over the others carapace and even further along her body. Some minutes continue like this until Vetra grips her hips and pins Elly under her with a loud creak of their bed. As they look into each others eyes, her mandibles flutter and she leans in to kiss her but Elly stops her, placing her hand against her chestplate.

��Wait! I do have an important question!”

Vetra grumbles but stays silent, waiting for her to continue.

“Since the bad guy is defeated now… when do I get my magic sword?”

“I told you I don’t have one,” she chuckles darkly and leans further in, practically speaking into her ear, “And besides, you didn’t even win. You cheated, remember?”

“Oh, even so,” Elly replies, “You should have enough contacts to get hold of one, right?”

Vetra moves away from her side and looks at her face again. Her hands trace the soft skin on her cheeks, relishing the warm feeling on her fingers. “Why exactly would you like to have this ‘magic sword’ and what is it anyway?”

“A sword is an ancient weapon humans once used. It’s like this very long piece of metal and you can stab your enemies with it. And if it’s magic, well… it’s magic.”

Vetra looks at her in confusion, not quite sure of what use this weapon would be. She isn’t too informed about human history, so she doesn’t know how exactly it was supposed to be used.

“Well, nowadays they’re mostly used in ceremonials or plays,” Elly tries to expand on the meaning of swords. Laughing, she adds, “We could play princess and uh… princess. Or use it on our wedding ceremony. As a symbol, the proof of our love.”

“You’re crazy,” Vetra says, still not unterstanding what was up with this ‘sword’. Elly grins in return and places a quick kiss on her lip plates.

“So, are you gonna prove it or not? That you love me.”

Vetra lets out a deep rumble through her subharmonics, pressing Elly harder on the bedsheets. Her nails scratch along her chin, digging into her skin. “I’m sure there are… other ways to prove that.”

“Hmm,” Elly presses longing kisses on her lips, pulling her closer to her body until the turian is laying on top of her. “I’m not aversed to that.”

Her hands tug on the thin, grey fabric on Vetra’s body, as she does the same to her. In between kisses, Elly starts giggling loudly, making Vetra pause and look at her.

“You’re surely good at proving. I still want that sword, though.”

“You little minx,” Vetra laughs with her, and together, they fall into oblivion once more, finding the warmth in each other.

Maybe there is someone with a magic sword in the Andromeda galaxy after all. Who knows? And if there is, Vetra will do anything to get to them. Because she is good at proving her love for Elly Ryder, just as it is the same the other way around.

[davidmann95]

All-Star Superman #2

A scant year to the day since part 1!

All evidence to the contrary I actually have always wanted to go back to this, especially since I keep getting asked if I’ll do so and it stirs my omnipresent sense of guilt over my lack of productivity, and also the last year has not resulted in a mass turnaround of people realizing it’s a for-real good book and not just comfort food so this remains necessary. This isn’t going to be quite as in-depth as the first go-around - both that as the introductory issue and that as the introductory recap had a lot of groundwork to lay - but still plenty to cover, as this issue sets up Lois and Superman’s arcs for the series, which is rooted (amazingly, especially right off the bat, given the book’s reputation of being about how amazing Superman is) in how badly Superman’s let his fears and shortsightedness poison the most important relationship in his life.

If the first issue is the big classic Superman material - Superman saving the day from the monster! Lois and Clark and the rest of the Daily Planet crew! Lex Luthor’s sinister schemes! A ticking clock to doom! - this scales all the way down to the uncomfortably, stiflingly intimate. Classic archetypal Superman stuff gives way to the most Silver Age issue: casual huge ideas, relationship drama, misunderstandings, last-minute reveals that recontextualize the entire issue, and baaaarely latent psychodrama bubbling up at the edges. In service of that the visual framing here is not unlike a stage play, a limited set of physically connected locales as a pair of figures bounce off one another. Quitely and Grant’s work is therefore comparatively subdued next to issue #1, keeping to traditional panel layouts and wide or medium shots with a background color palate of mostly blacks and whites and grays with a handful of other colors popping out...until Lois starts to lose her shit at the end of the issue and we get close-ups and full black and white panels and eerie glowing and dutch angles and that unsettling abstract image of her clenched teeth, as the story starts to squeeze us like Lois’s gut.

She’s right to be unsettled for that matter; she’s alone on Superman’s turf (the one issue where that’s the case other than #6, and that one’s about how Smallville stopped being his home), the weird antiseptic alien lair of the ultimate super-hobbyist, and all the baggage of their relationship is spilling out into the open as she has less and less reason to think the best of this odd man who’s been lying to her for years. Unlike the Silver Age tales this is referencing, she’s absolutely on the money with her complaints about him: he’s been dicking around with her forever and thinks it can all be okay now (His little “What?” on the second page when she bursts his bubble says it all), and he’s awkwardly overcompensating trying to fix it.

While the Fortress tour serves to peacefully acclimate us to how utterly bizarre Superman’s world really gets past the traditional rescues (the little cubic starfield we don’t know the meaning of yet, trophies are floating rather than physically suspended, the glowing flowers in Lois’s room, “The Phantom Zone map room’s pretty dull unless you can see radio-negative anti-waves”), Superman himself is...humblebragging isn’t the right way of putting it, but it feels like he’s working way, way harder than he ever will again in this book to be cool and impressive and assuring. He’s a dope in love, but he can tell something’s up and that super-brain of his isn’t putting the obvious pieces together, or noticing that this is just putting her off further and further until, like Bluebeard’s wife before her, she stumbles through the threshold of the door she was never meant to, even of course in the end he’s still Superman and there’s a perfectly good reason. Not a good enough reason, however, for her accusations at dinner to not hit home - his mind may be expanding, but he’s still way up his own ass here in a genuinely unpleasant way that’ll be elaborated on momentarily. For now he’s left stammering that she should trust him and it’s limp and phony, especially compared to his big entreaty for someone to trust him in #10 (which’ll be right after he finally comes clean with her); while Superman may not be considered a savior figure by his friends in here the way he often is in the mainline comics Lois seems to be the only one who doesn’t look up to him at least a little bit, but that clarity means she’ll call him out where no one else will.

Across the next two pages it’s all laid out, and we get to the roots of where things have gone wrong between the two of them. Lois is paranoid, certainly, the panels are literally squeezing in on her, but with Superman seeming so out-there and alien like never before she would have every right to be even sans alien chemicals. But notably there remains throughout a part of her assuming the best of him wondering if maybe this is just another big misunderstanding or that he’s simply been mutated by the solar overexposure. And in her heart of hearts, she admits that maybe she wants this to be another big damn trick with a completely sensible justification, because the alternative is that this is the new normal and she has to accept that he’s a flawed mortal man. It’s ugly and it’s mean - especially since she likes Clark - and it’s human as hell in the worst, most understandable way. It’s not going to be until said mortality is staring her in the face that she’ll be able to accept it.

Superman, meanwhile...someone could write a thesis on these panels as an articulation of the Superman/Clark dynamic. The Mirror of Truth is actually preexisting, centerpiece of a Jerry Siegel/Curt Swan joint in Action Comics #269 that was later adapted into the Superman newspaper strip where Lois uses it to figure out Superman is Clark Kent until he tricks her into believing the mirror can lie, after which he tosses it in a volcano; here it’s survived, and curiously shows him as Superman rather than Clark, when in the original tale it displayed Kent even though that was fully the era of Clark as a disguise. In here too it’s Superman who’s the ‘true’ identity of the two and which this time is reflected in the mirror, yet as in #1 it’s Clark who says what he’s truly feeling. In that light, the final panel of the abandoned glasses reads like nothing so much as Superman using the mirror as affirmation that the truth of the solemn, steadfast Superman identity gives him licence to deny the uncomfortable emotions his squishy human farmboy side is dredging up, ‘lying’ to him in a way he had to fake in the source material. Those emotions however knock right on the door of what he can’t grasp here: Clark’s so wrapped up in his own head trying to do the ‘right’ thing that he’s overlooking how his attempts at self-sacrificing selflessness are hurting the people around him. Throughout the series he’ll come to rely on others, first at his lowest points with Jimmy and the Bizarros, until at last he comes to invest true trust in Lois, and the Kandorians, and Leo Quintum, and even Lex.

For now though Lois is deep in a hole, a brief but memorable meeting with the Unknown Superman of 4500AD - everything Superman seems to be becoming to her even before she wonders if it’s literally him, cryptic and masked and with a big ‘ol question mark right on his chest instead of the familiar comforting logo, even his gutbuster of a question reinforcing his distance from a recognizable human experience - leading her all the way to reimagining her Silver Age ideal happy ending of marriage and family with Superman as a Cronenbergian horror. It’s still a Superman story, it turns out he had the very best reason possible for wanting to keep her in the dark, but right through to the end he remains just a little condescending in his reassurance, and his gift of essentially bringing her up to his ‘level’ isn’t going to solve the problem. While the next issue lets us see the two of them properly in love, it won’t be until the elephant in the room comes out that they can come to terms.

Additional notes

* God Quitely is so good. Look at the way the seatbelt curves in the first panel! Lois’s bemused little disbelieving smirk!

* Pages 2-3: Aurora Borealis?!

* Lois is the only character other than Superman who gets to have actual narration (in both cases as looks at their in-text writing), the only one whose viewpoint is thus privileged in the same way as his.

* The key is the realization of this series’ aesthetic in a nutshell: the old-school idea in a sleek, shiny, clever new way that doesn’t take away from the fantastical toyeticness of it all. For that matter, the key is the centerpiece of a later bit with Superman that could be fairly described as the long-term goal of the book book as Morrison’s hoped-for perennial: “One day some future man or woman will open that door, with that key. When they do, I want them to know how it felt to live at the dawn of the age of superheroes.”

* This is A. The first note of a larger DC universe existing offscreen, something that I’ll go into more when discussing #8, B. A brilliant, concise, fun little summation of his place in Superman’s world, and C. Absolutely hilarious given Morrison suggested in his exit interview that this could be seen as much later on in the same universe as All-Star Batman & Robin The Boy Wonder, which entirely rewrites the tone of that moment.

* Already discussed the key but the muscles in Superman’s hand tensing a bit at picking it up is another great detail.

* The glimpse of the Fortress here is excellent: the statues of his friends and enemies instead of pictures because he does things bigger with the yellow electric something crackling at the end of it, the off-model but curious-looking robot appearing to glance at Kandor (are it and the bigger robot with the seats on top of it trophies, or Superman Robots with different designs tasked for specific purposes?), the classic Bad Penny Good For One Crime, the Legion time bubble that establishes his time-traveling credentials for later, the Titanic where he and Lois will dine when their relationship hits a proverbial iceberg, and most strikingly the space shuttle Columbia, his apparent rescue of which I have to imagine is a reference to Astro City’s Superman analogue Samaritan debuting by averting the Challenger disaster.

* It’s next issue that has my actual favorite Superman/Lois moment of all time, but “When we’re married fifteen years, when I’m sagging and he looks just the same, will he still meet me and say things like...” “These are for you. I picked them on Alpha Centauri 4.” is right up there.

* The technological aesthetic of the Fortress is so different than P.R.O.J.E.C.T., sleek and solid and cleanly-lit and antiseptic, beautiful and advanced but a little cold in its own way. As stuffed with wonder as this place may be, there’s something hauntingly empty about it, suiting both the tone of the issue and as a physical embodiment of Superman’s emotional state. The one part that goes against it is the forbidden room, it even has beakers and test tubes to sell the mad scientist vibe...though if you were to stretch it, it much more close resembles the human technology seen at P.R.O.J.E.C.T., and this is meant as a gift for one.

* The cosmic anvil made it along with the key into the CWverse, Lois used it in Elseworlds! I may not be expecting All-Star quality from the upcoming Superman and Lois, but it’s good to know the powers that be are using it as a reference point (beyond how it inspired Supergirl’s take on Cat Grant, a connection I discussed in a post that seems to have vanished into thin air). The whole page is perfect, Superman at his most joyfully benign and beautiful and godlike; it’s the one bit where Lois’s skepticism cracks a touch watching him feed his adorable little Lovecraftian abomination from beyond the stars.

* While he never appears physically aside from a statue Brainiac hovers over this series from beginning to end in name and deed, the ominous ultimate enemy of Superman’s past, the great trial overcome even as the scars forever remain. Morrison mentioned in the exit interview that he didn’t appear in here because he and Quitely already used him as the villain of JLA: Earth 2, but that if he had it would have borrowed Superman: The Animated Series’ take on him as a Kryptonian AI gone rogue. Personally I like his place in here as-is, a little totem parallel to the Justice League references indicating the breadth of Superman’s history between putting on the cape and Luthor’s final scheme.

* A pair of minor notes: Lois points at Superman with the pointy fork when asking him pointed questions, and while it’s not immediately clear on first read she does in fact ask the Unknown Superman exactly 3 questions (“Kal Kent?” “Will Superman and I ever marry and have children?” “What do you mean?”) before he replies with his own, as promised.

* “Oww.” and “Tickles.” literally could not be more perfect Superman moments.

* Worth taking a moment to marvel at just how many future plot elements are seeded here. There’s the obvious bit of Superman thinking about having a partner setting up the next issue, but we also for issue #6 have our first look at Kal Kent and Lois wondering “What if (the Unknown Superman) was really (Superman)?” when Clark will indeed pose as him, for #10 we get our first look at Qwewq, and for #11 not only is the Sun-Eater introduced but so is Robot 7′s malfunction as a result of Luthor’s tampering.

* The structure of the series according to Morrison is a solar cycle, beginning and ending at midday with nightfall in the center. If last issue was the sun at its brightest we begin the descent here, with Superman remaining larger-than-life and ultimately trustworthy but with his classic persona and habits held to an additional, unflattering degree of scrutiny.

[thetakenpokemon]

Act 2 - Dread Stirs in the Sands

[Location: Venhara - Venhara Palace] [PoV: Neferhotep, Eleventh Queen of Venhara]

The Venharan Lucario before me bows once more. “Thank you my Queen for taking your precious time to listening to what I have to say, with your word I shall leave presence.”

I nod my head, keeping a small yet gracious smile on my lips. “You have my permission to leave, my subject.” I dismiss. Upon hearing this, he rises to his feet and turns and walks out of the throne room.

As he leaves the entrance, two of my sapphire guards close the giant pair of doors. With no one except them as witnesses, I let myself sigh as a tired frown returns to my face. I slump in my throne, rubbing my forehead.

Although I’ve often been tired of audiences, as of late I’ve actually grown to appreciate them due to the...distraction they provide.  I’ve had a pit in my stomach for the past few weeks, a dread that has been eating me ever since that fateful day of what the Sand Striders have found in the Dunefields of Den.

“I wish you were here, mother.” I whisper to myself. “You would handle this situation far better than I.”

The doors before me open suddenly, making my head perk up. Normally there would be an announcement of who it is that’s having an audience with me, so if there is no declaration being made...

I feel a grin form on my face as Tetishuri strides into the throne room, her signature cool smile on her face - and said smile widens somewhat upon seeing me.

“Teti!” I shout happily, standing up from my throne. Throwing courtesy to the wind, I run up to her and pull her into a hug - yet keeping enough distance so that we don’t impale each other with our chest horns.

“I see that you’re feeling better, Nefi.” She chuckles, returning my hug. Her gaze looks at my eyes, her smirk widening. “I see that your servants have done a great job with your makeup, since those bags under your eyes are barely noticeable.” Her eyes twinkle. “Still staying up late playing that handheld~?”

I pout, giving her a playful shove. “It’s not my fault that the games are addicting!” I say indignantly.

That handheld is a small gaming console from overseas, said device having been gifted to Tetishuri by a small Lopuny, in which Tetishuri then gifted to me. I’ve had such fun playing with it ever since I figured how it worked, and it has been the best form of distraction to keep me dwelling on...recent events.

“You still have your royal duties.” She chuckle at me, giving me a playful shove back. “It would be unfortunate if the Queen of Venhara were to oversleep after staying late playing games.”

This is one of the things I love about Tetishuri, for she treats me like a friend instead of a queen when we’re out of the public eye. She has been one of my strongest pillars in keeping me sane.

“But I haven’t come here for pleasantries, sadly.” Tetishuri then says, her smile turning to a frown.

And all pleasant things have to end, it seems. Can’t help but be unsurprised, as much as I hate to say. With a heavy sigh I turn and walk back to the throne, sitting down on the plush silk cushion and resting my hands on the armrests.

“Guards!” I shout to the Sapphire Warriors standing by the throne doors. “I shall be holding no more audiences for the day.” I glance at Tetishuri, and another thought comes to my mind. “You are all dismissed.”

They nod their head, but I could notice some of their expressions of disappointment. It’s very clear that they wanted to listen to whatever it is that Teti has to say, but they obeyed nevertheless. As the throne doors close behind them, my gaze turns back to Tetishuri.

“What is it that you have to tell me, Teti?” I ask, tiredness filling my voice.

“Sand Striders Abasi and Massika have returned.” The leader of the Sapphire Warriors speaks, straight to the point as always. “They have found more tracks, this time severa morel pairs of them.”

The pit in my stomach grows bigger. “M-More?” I stutter, my eyes widening.

She nods her head grimly. “It seems that whatever caused those tracks after that storm, there is more than just one creature.”

I grab my head. “By the Queens...” I whisper.

“The Sand Striders followed the tracks to the end, however the tracks ended just as suddenly as the first.” She finishes.

I’m not sure if I should be feeling this worried or not, but after being informed by the Guardians of Twilight of what they dealt with recently...

...I feel that I really should be worried.

They fought what seems to be a Scizor whose origins are completely unknown, possessing a power whose likes has never been seen before. On the day of its death, a large storm appears in Venhara followed by the tracks of something completely unknown.

Am I...overreacting? Am I getting incredibly stressed for no reason?

It is...a coincidence, for such events to happen within the same day. Perhaps something else caused that storm, such as a rogue Thundurus or Tornadus.

...Yet that doesn’t quite explain the tracks, and the concept of a rogue Legendary isn’t really that much better...

“...Tetishuri?” I eventually ask after a lengthy silence.

During this period the other Lucario waited patiently, and upon me saying her name she nods her head. “Yes, Nefi?” She responds back.

“I’d...like to ask you a question.” I slowly continue, my voice apprehensive.

“Ask anything, I am here.” She responds again, giving me a comforting smile.

I wait for several more minutes, contemplating my choice of words.

“Am I...making the right choice?” I finally ask, my voice hesitant.

Tetishuri walks over to me and pulls me up from the throne and into a warm embrace, allowing me to rest my head on her shoulder. “You are making the best choice from the information that you know.” She answers into my ear. “You are worried for your kingdom.”

I feel myself relaxing. “I’m not overreacting?”

She pulls away, looking me dead in the eyes. “We both heard what the Guardians of Twilight told us. You are no overreacting. You are acting in response to a possible threat to the kingdom, as a Queen of Venhara should.”

Whatever doubt that clouded my mind vanishes completely after hearing those words. “Thanks, Teti.” I say softly to her, a smile of relief forming on my lips.

“Anything for my Queen.” She simply responds back with a mischievous smile.

I give her a playful shove. “Come on, you know I hate it when you call me that.” I whine. “I have to deal with it enough when we’re under the watchful eye of the public!”

Tetishuri merely laughs in response. “But I enjoy the reactions that it brings!”

I stick my tongue at her.

She blinks at me before crossing her arms. “Sometimes you make me wonder how old you truly are, seeing how often you behave like a pup.”

A blow a raspberry for further measure.

She raises an eyebrow in response. “Yes, I often wonder indeed...”

As a formulate a retort, Tetishuri speaks up again - cutting my train of thought from forming a brilliant response. “Before I forget, I do have one more bit of news - positive this time.”

"Well, that’s a welcome change.” I sigh.

Tetishuri nods. “I’ve received word from the Guardians of Twilight. There has been a slight delay, but the Night Watcher that’s coming to investigate will be arriving in two weeks. They’ve assured me that it’s one of their best for this environment.”

Now this caught me curiosity. “Best for this environment?”

She nods again. “Their skills are considered unparalleled in desert climates among the Guardians of Twilight. If there is a threat in our kingdom, this Night Watcher will surely find it.”

More relief fills me. “That’s...very assuring.”

“I agree, however I feel that some of the Sand Striders will probably have a bone to pick with this Night Watcher.” Tetishuri smirks.

I blink. “Bone to pick...?”

Her smirk grows. “An expression I picked up during my most recent visit to the Guardian of Twilight’s Headquarters.” With that she takes a step back, bowing her head. “As much as I’d like to continue this conversation, I have a few duties left for me to attend. I will see you again later today, Nefi.”

Without another word she turns and walks towards the giant doors.

A scowl forms on my lips. “You still didn’t tell me what that expression means!”

No response came from Tetishuri, who is currently opening the giant pair of doors with a push of her hand.

“Teti! What does it meaaaaan?!” I shout before running after her, my behavior surely being something that would bring great shame to the Venharan Queens before me.

--------------

[Location: Venhara - Dunefields of Den] [PoV: ???¿?¿¿?]

...

<>CONNECTION ESTABLISHED<>

...

<>LOCATION - UNKNOWN|REALM - UNKNOWN|TIMELINE - UNKNOWN<>

<>INFORMATION INCONCLUSIVE<>

<>SCAN KNOWN DATA COLLECTIVES|OBTAIN TRACE INFORMATION<>

<>COLLECTIVE INFLUENCE: 0%<>

<>COLLECTIVE TRACE: 0%<>

<>MATTER CONVERTED: 0%<>

<>CONCLUSION: REALM UNTOUCHED<>

...

<>SETTING OBJECTIVES FOR AESIVE SUBJUGATION COLLECTIVE<>

<>STUDY|LEARN|CONVERT<>

<>SETTING OBJECTIVES TO AXIS MINDS<>

<>OBJECTIVE: MERGE REALITY WITH COLLECTIVE REALITIES|TIMELINES<>

<>OBJECTIVE ASSIGNED TO AXIS MIND: ENKELADOS<>

<>OBJECTIVE: INTEGRATE WORLD INTO COLLECTIVE NETWORK<>

<>OBJECTIVE ASSIGNED TO AXIS MIND: PANAKION<>

<>SUITABLE|PREPARE|RELEASE<>

<>CONVERT MATTER|ESTABLISH FOOTHOLD|CEMENT EXISTENCE<>

...

...

...

<>AESIVE SUBJUGATION COLLECTIVE: DEPLOYED<>

[vios-rockland-corner]

Rockland: The balance of good and evil

The date of this post is 3/27/20.  Please note that information revealed at this time via Patreon or any of the creator’s blogs may be subject to change after this date

I’ve been debating lately on how dangerous the Rockland universe is.  Lately it seems like there’s been more focus on the horror, so things start to look bleaker by the minute.  I was wondering if Rockland is primarily ruled by more evil forces and characters, but there may actually be some shred of light in this world.

I feel it’s best if I try to tackle this by looking at a few of the major groups I’m aware exist in this universe.

Let’s try examining alignments and see where we go from there with just a few (not all) of the main groups that exist in Rockland.

The Misfits

Alignment: Evil

Just based on the Misfits: First Blood demo and everything else we’ve seen and heard, I think it’s safe to say that the Misfits should generally be considered one of the more sinister elements of Rockland.  Now we haven’t seen all the characters yet, so characters here may indeed range between how evil one character is versus another.  Even the Misfits you meet in the demo game mention they do normal stuff from time to time.  They just have a propensity for murder.  Murder is a “no no” though, so I’m still classifying them as bad guys.  We’ve yet to see how big the group is, so how much of a hold they have over the town/city they live in is an unknown factor.  This group could either an occasional problem for society, or a much more serious danger.

The Professionals

Alignment: Evil

We have some names and faces now, but we definitely lack far more information on the Professionals than we do the Misfits.  Still, considering these characters have some confirmed blood ties with the Misfits, and even dialogue in the demo confirming that murder basically runs in the family, it’s probably safe to assume this group is just as dangerous as the Misfits.  In fact, they are possibly even more dangerous.  I went through some ideas in a previous post on the dangers the group could hold in society and how these familial connections mean you better watch out who you make an enemy of in Rockland.  I also touch on how this group may end up being the reason why so many of the human characters get away with murder.  Especially if it’s through the generations.  Same with the Misfits though, not sure how many characters make up the Professionals.  Numbers and positions in society would determine the overall threat they pose.

Fallen Angels

Alignment: Neutral?

After we get some games out on the Misfits, we’re probably going to head back into the focus on Zeitgeist (Cain’s remake game).  It sounds like we’ll get a lot of lore in said game and better learn about the Fallen Angels themselves.  Now, I’m not 100% sure on the alignment here, but I’m taking a stab to consider that the Fallen Angels are part of the natural order.  They have specific jobs to do relating to the mortal world, so that’s their main focus.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the reason they’re likely not going to swoop in and save people from characters they’d likely punish in the afterlife (like the Misfits or Professionals) is because they simply aren’t allowed to, or aren’t that invested in every single small infraction made by mortals.  I mean, if you live for thousands of years, you may not be that interested in solving every single little problem that occurs.  

Now...specific angels may fall into different alignment categories.  Sam Volkov my current guess is that he’d be something like Lawful Neutral.  I think he’s still a reaper in this universe, and when it comes to death everyone is pretty much equal (good, bad, young, old, you get the idea).  He can be a friendly character though from what we’ve seen in the Zeitgeist demo.  Another fallen angel I’m aware of that we haven’t seen yet (he WAS referred to though in the Zeitgeist demo) is Michael Volkov.  Now I have no confirmation on what his current role is, but in the past he was basically the fallen angel of war and chaos.  He wasn’t necessarily a character you wanted to run into either.  Now if he still has that role...he can TECHNICALLY still be neutral.  If it’s based on the natural order, sometimes you need entropy and conflict in the universe.  If it’s his job and he happens to enjoy it, *shrugs* we may just consider him chaotic neutral in this case.  Cain Zeitgeist is....well we have so many spoilers but this fellow makes me keep changing my mind as to what he’s about.  For now my guess is he’ll either be true neutral or chaotic neutral.  He still keeps me on my toes, but he may not be as bad as his previous incarnation.  

Then we have someone like Damien Morningstar.  In previous lore, he was both against Cain and honestly his father’s work in general.  Cain may be changing but I think....Damien in the Rockland universe is not only still going to be a priest, but also still hates his dad Luke (aka Lucifer).  So he may not stand for the same beliefs as all the other angels.  If he resembles some of his older incarnation, he could be one of the few angels who actively works in the mortal world to assist humans as much as he can.  Still not a lot of information yet, so I can’t be sure if he’s still neutral or if he jumps up into a good alignment.

Mark of Belial Main Cast

Alignment: Good

Much longer down the road, the creators want to work on a set of detective games known as the Mark of Belial (or at least that’s what the first game would be called).  In those games, you actually will be working to find a killer.  So naturally, you’re working with a specific police precinct to catch the perpetrator.  I think that blatantly tells us we’ll be working with the good guys for once.  Only way I could see the main cast here as a bad alignment is if we get the rug pulled out from under us and find out ALL the characters and division are corrupt, haha.  Not an impossibility, but I don’t think that’s the plan.  The original concept I believe was an all human cast, so I’m going to keep up with that assumption here.  So unlike the Fallen Angels who (mostly) probably keep their nose out of most mortal affairs unless it’s job related, this would be a group of human characters actively working towards the safety of the citizens.  So yay, finally some hope in all this!  This tells me not all the characters in Rockland will place their tail between their legs and bow to characters like the Misfits or the Professionals.  There may be SOME cowardly or corrupt members of the police/detective division you work with, but I believe the games WILL be geared towards trying to catch the culprit.  You do stand a fighting chance.

The Hand of God

Alignment: Good?

Another group without a lot of information, but the name gets thrown around here and there.  Now if the characters of the Mark of Belial Cast are all human, they will most likely end up dealing with (and being more competent with) human affairs.  The Hand of God we’ve gotten hints that they are more aware of some of the more supernatural elements of Rockland, including the Fallen Angels.  That means they KNOW stuff, which is a big help to keeping citizens safe.  The creators have said they are aware of the dangers some of these supernatural entities or characters pose.  I’m making the assumption for now that this group is actually made up of good guys trying to quietly keep the peace from behind the scenes.  While normal citizens are busy fearing disappearances or murders that are committed by human characters like the Misfits and the Professionals, the Hand of God is likely being kept busy by “bigger fish to fry.”  Not to say that humans can’t be extremely dangerous (either via a violent nature or a dangerous intellect), but between a human serial killer and a supernatural one, I’m placing my bets that the supernatural killer is much more of a threat.  Also, the reveal of certain supernatural elements to the public might cause a mass panic.  So I think the Hand of God group will be working for the greater good, but it’s very possible that they’ll have only so much time and resources to spend on dealing with the more dangerous elements or Rockland.  The police and detectives will just have to be left in charge of taking care of the more sinister human characters in Rockland.

I have to say...I feel a little better.  Yes, the more evil characters and elements of Rockland are likely still going to be EXTREMELY problematic.  They probably have ways not only to survive and avoid judgement, but to continue their heinous deeds as they please.  I wouldn’t have it any other way because it’s more fun and interesting when you have villains capable enough of committing evil deeds and getting away with it.  They won’t be a joke.  BUT, it does seem like not every character we meet in the Rockland games is going to be against us.  Sure, we may not know right away which characters we can trust or not, but it looks like there will be some who mean you no harm or even want to keep you safe.  It’s just a matter of which opponents the good guys are up against, and if they are in the right place at the right time to save the day.

You know what’ll be fun to see though?  I’m sure several of these groups are going to end up intermingling with each other at one point or another.  What each party is aware of about the other when they meet is also interesting.  For example, if you’re doing police/detective work in the Mark of Belial games, you might have to go check a dead body or two for clues.  Said dead bodies may be currently kept in a funeral home they’ve recently arrived at.  That means we literally have some strong potential of getting at least cameos of the Willow family (which consists of Misfits and Professionals characters) in the MOB games.  Now wouldn’t that be fun?  You have to talk obliviously to literal murderers while you’re hunting for a murderer.  I wonder how characters like Quill and Alchemy would view the case.  I always imagined with the MOB games though that they’ll make a brand new character to be the main killer for those.  Who knows though?  Maybe you find out the killer IS a pre-existing character.  Maybe even one who’s usually “immune” when they commit crime.  Could end up being quite a pickle.

Also I have a weird feeling Quill will just go out of way to be super creepy to the detectives when they visit.  Just a feeling, haha.

Will be fun to clashing sides, though it may be quite a while before we get to that kind of content.

[winchester90210]

The BH 90210 Rewrite. Bonus #2: The E! True HollyWood Story

Rewrite Masterlist

My work is not to be reposted and/or edited without my expressed written consent. (Reblogging is fine and encouraged!!)

Chapter Summary: E! News has made a documentary on you, following Shannen's. Although it may seem like the full story, remember-- media is still media and there's still things that need to be uncovered. Italics are the narration.

Warnings: mentions of drugs, addiction, sex, adultery, divorce, rumors, tabloids.

Word count: 2,500

A/N: Like the other bonus chapter, this isn't necessary for the rewrite itself, but will supply background knowledge for the reboot! Hope you guys enjoy :)

-

July 19th, 2008. E! True Hollywood Stories.

America's sweetheart. The girl who played with fire. An old interview of yours pops up on screen, from when you were promoting season 4 on 90210.

"Shannen's a lot more... headstrong than I am, for sure. She gets me in trouble from time to time," you laugh. Y/N Perry. She blew audiences away with her portrayal of Y/N Y/L/N on Beverly Hills, 90210. But she wasn't always the wholesome 90's starlet.

Jason Priestley, "Y/N was one of my best friends. I've never met anyone with a bigger heart." Her romantic and musical exploits made her a tabloid heavyweight. But her friendship with notorious bad girl Shannen Doherty was what made her a target. This is the story of Y/N Perry. The E! True Hollywood Story.

-

Y/N wasn't always the romantic we knew her to be, but that charming sparkle in her eye quickly became a trademark for her.

June 20th, 1972, Y/N was welcomed to James and Carol Clark's upper-class home.

A man, Kevin McLaren comes on screen with the title "Entertainment Journalist." He speaks, "Y/N was born into a catholic family in Columbus, Ohio, and they had her working in commercials by the time she was eight." Her family then located to Encino, California. From there she joined a Children's drama group where a talent agent immediately took notice. Not long after, she was introduced to TV star, Tom Selleck.

Mary Murphy, senior editor of TV guide, "Selleck sort of... discovered her. Her teacher at the theater group introduced them and he seemed to see something in her. He was her mentor, she really looked up to him. He even got her her first major acting job." She had a 3 year stint on Magnum P.I. as Carol Baldwin's spunky and outspoken niece. She later won the role of Diane Court in the 1989 classic Say Anything, opposite John Cusack which was what began her lift to stardom. The buzz from the romantic comedy hit veteran TV producer Aaron Spelling, who was currently auditioning actors for a new series.

Aaron Spelling, 1993, "We went through hell with casting. It took weeks to pick everyone out. Then, Tori came to me one night talking to me about the lead girl in Say Anything, Y/N Clark. She was telling me "She's perfect, you have to hire her." and I told her uh, we'll see." That show was Beverly Hills, 90210. And in February of 1990, Y/N landed the part of Y/N Y/L/N. But she had originally gone for a different part.

You, an Arsenio interview in 1995, "I was called in to read for Brenda at the beginning, Y/N Y/L/N didn't exist. I didn't get the part obviously, and I was totally crushed. But then a few weeka later my agent called me to let me know that they had written a new character, and they wanted me to play the part. This was after they had filmed the two part pilot, which was why I'm in the second episode." The cast included several unknown actors, including Spelling's daughter Tori, Jennie Garth, Ian Ziering, Luke Perry, Jason Priestley, and established actress and Y/N's soon-to-be best friend, Shannen Doherty. The cast bonded immediately. And while Y/N would continue to become closer with the entire cast, she was instant best friends with Doherty, both of them bonding over their similar family lives and careers.

On October 4th, 1990, Beverly Hills 90210 premiered on the fledgling Fox network. The series clicked immediately with teen audiences, and so did the hot young cast. 17 year old Y/N Clark was center stage. She was a magnet for paparazzi, but she didn't understand how wanted she truly was until leaving a night club with Tori Spelling and Shannen Doherty one night, when they were immediately surrounded. The night was heavily publicized-- magazine covers and gossip columns.

You, 1992 at the red carpet with Tori and Shannen for the MTV Video Music Awards, "Just don't believe everything you read, tabloids are nasty and they only want to twist the truth and bring out the worst in people. They'll dig anywhere they can to get something that shows in the worst light possible." 90210 was becoming the most famous zip code in the country. You, 1992, sitting down for a casual interview on Howard Stern, "I don't think anyone expected the show to take off like it did. No one is quite used to it yet, at least I'm definitely not. On one hand, the attention is flattering and I'm grateful for all the love, but on the other... it's definitely a little scary." 90210 originally centered around the Walsh Family as they tackled their new surroundings. But as the show carried on, it turned into an ensemble show.

Mary Murphy, "They all had different opinions about the switch. Shannen was definitely happier when every episode was going to be about Brandon, Brenda, and Y/N. She didn't like the shift in attention at all, and she wasn't afraid to speak her mind. Y/N, though, wanted to keep to herself and was willing to go where the show took her, wherever that was." During the very beginning of the first season, Clark would become infatuated with castmate Luke Perry, but he immediately rejected her, due to her being barely 18 at the time. Things heated up later for her though, when she and Jason Priestley began dating near the end of filming the first season.

-

Tori Spelling, for the documentary, "Y/N and Jason were so crazy about each other. It was so sweet. If you ever look at behind the scenes stuff from the show, they're all over each other. I think their chemistry really translates on screen, and that's what made Y/N and Brandon so great."

You, the Today Show, "Our relationship was so wholesome. I was so in love with him. I had been eighteen for a while and he'd just turned 20 or 21, we were total babies back then!"

Jason, "I remember the night we got together. She'd been flirting with uh, Brian-- Brian Austin Green the entire night, it was a cast Christmas party and I was grumpy, unbelievably grumpy. And I couldn't figure out why. Ian Ziering had to pretty much spell it out for me because everyone else knew why and they were pretty fed up. I was head over heels for her from the start."

They would continue to date for almost five years. But romancing Priestley and befriending Doherty would prove to be an unlucky combination for her.

Joe E. Tata, 2001, "When the tabloids got ahold of her and Jason, they had a field day. They followed them on dates, to clubs. Everywhere." Shannen and Y/N continued to fuel the fire with non-stop partying and clubbing.

Kevin McLaren, entertainment journalist, "After working non-stop since she was a child and being 21 and newly exposed to things like drugs, alcohol, sexual freedom, she certainly fell prey to it all." 1993 was just on the horizon. But little did she know it would become her most dramatic year yet.

Charles Rosin, producer of 90210, "We do know, during 90210, when there was a lot of coverage on the tabloids that we had people in our own crew spreading stories and feeding them information."

Jason Priestley, 2001, "It was horrible. We felt so violated. I remember Y/N/N being absolutely destroyed. And that made me feel awful, because there was nothing I could do, nothing she could do. We had to sit there and take it all."

Clark would continue to be slammed with press, her partying habits only elevating as the tabloids became more and more vicious. Rumors of her being pregnant with other castmates babies, cheating on Jason Priestley, sex tapes, and an oxycodone addiction.

You, filming an MTV interview, 1998, "Media loves to make you and break you. They build you up, and they tear you down twice as hard. It's... ridiculous. But it comes with the job description, I guess. For a while I just felt like I couldn't do anything right." Her frequent club nights came to a crashing halt, as Jason Priestley became fed up with it, and managers and agents became worried of her further tarnishing of her good girl image.

Jennie Garth, "Her and Jason were a real fireball together. Jason adored her, so when he saw her start to spin out of control he gave her an ultimatum. Either she settles down and stays away from the party scene, or he leaves. She was crazy in love with him, so she had no other choice." But her image and her drama didn't stop her from bonding closely with yet another co-worker. Luke Perry. Despite being rejected early on, Y/N maintained a friendly close relationship with Luke and as those two became closer, so did their characters.

Heidi Parker, Playboy, "Y/N, Jason, and Luke were very close. Although Y/N got along with everyone, those boys loved her, and she loved them. It was a really strong, intimate friendship. Despite Jason and Y/N being in love, that didn't stop people from insisting Luke and Y/N were seeing each other. I mean, when you saw them on screen, it was completely electric and everyone caught wind of that. It spawned some awful rumors. This girl hadn't done a thing to anyone, but her mere association with Doherty was what dragged her in to begin with. Y/N was known for being a total sweetheart on set, yet she was still getting pummeled. It got out of control. Everyone who knew her loved her and everyone who read about her hated her."

-

At the end of 1996, Jason and Y/N parted ways. After almost 5 years of dating, Y/N moved out of their shared condo and into a Beverly Hills apartment with Tori Spelling.

Jill Ishkanian, US Weekly, "Everyone was surprised when they split. They had talked marriage, they had talked kids. But she left him after they had gotten in a fight about Shannen. Jason did not want Shannen around as often as she was and Y/N wasn't willing to let Shannen go that easily. She was Shannen's main support system, especially with all of her relationship struggles. Two failed marriages, a handful of abusive relationships. Y/N was the only stable thing she had. So, she dumped him, packed her things and left." Y/N went on a few dates with Ian Ziering a few months after, but they quickly decided they were better as friends and they kept it professional from there on out.

You, late night with David Letterman, 2000, "Oh, everyone hooked up with everyone. I definitely wasn't one to stray from that. We were so young, everyone was so attractive on that show, I mean it was kind of inevitable."

Clark and Spelling would live together for two years, with Spelling being a shoulder to lean on during the fallout.

You, 1996, "Look, it's not a pretty scene for anyone and I really just need... privacy right now. It would be great if people could stop asking me about it." As the couple fought in real life, so did their characters.

Jennie Garth, "When Jason and Y/N broke up it was chaos. There was a good period where they didn't even want to be near each other, let alone make out all day at work, y'know? They weren't exactly fighting, but they wanted nothing to do with the other, they were miserable. Luke had been gone at that point and the producers were freaking out because they had planned out this whole thing with Brandon and Y/N and they had to scrap it, because with them butting heads it just wouldn't work. So they switched gears and had their characters fight too. I think it was just cathartic enough to get them close again." They repaired their damaged relationship slowly but surely, just in time for things to heat up with Clark and ANOTHER 90210 alumni.

-

In the winter of 1997, Y/N and Luke Perry embarked down a romantic path, sharing their first kiss at Tori Spelling's casual New Years Eve party with their friends and families.

Tori Spelling, "When they started dating it was like everything fell into place. It dawned on everyone how perfect they were for each other, I know Jason wasn't thrilled about it, but we were all genuinely happy for them."

Jennie Garth comes onto the screen. "Luke and Y/N/N have always made sense to me. They're both very humble, well rounded people. And they always had this really flirty element to them from the start, I'm surprised it took that long," she laughs. A year and a half later, they tied the knot with a small private ceremony at their shared home in Beverly Hills, California. Costing only $20,000, it was the cheapest wedding of all of the 90210 clan's. And in June of 1999 they welcomed their first child, a baby girl, Sophie. Selling their 3 million dollar home, they moved into a 6 million dollar house outside of Hollywood, accidentally moving in next to none other than Jason Priestley.

Thankfully that caused no serious drama between the two families. But the finale of Beverly Hills, 90210 caused a stir that no one could have expected. Priestley made a surprise guest appearance that reportedly caused more drama off screen than on.

Jennie Garth, MTV, 2000, "It's so ridiculous. Everything was just weirdly timed. Jason being on the show had nothing to do with his divorce and it has nothing to do with Y/N's pregnancy, either. People love to make stuff up and cause drama that wasn't there to begin with and it's probably so exhausting for her."

Shortly after appearing on 90210, Priestley filed for divorce, ending his 8 month long marriage. Around the same time, the Perrys announced their second pregnancy. Tabloids began to say that Y/N had caused the divorce and that she was secretly pregnant with Priestley's baby.

Tori Spelling, "Those were so awful and so fake. Her son is a carbon copy of Luke, I'd be floored if Jason was the father..." "I think that part of Jason will always be in love with her... and that shined through in the finale a little bit and that's what people are picking up on. But her and Luke are soulmates. She has a good head on her shoulders, a lot of integrity."

Shannen Doherty, the Rosie O'Donnel Show, 1997, "Y/N's my best friend in the entire world, we went to Ireland together last summer and everything. Yeah, her and I have always been close."

Jennie Garth, "She's incredibly intelligent, super funny. Easily one of the strongest women I know."

Join us tomorrow when we air Tori Spelling: The E! True Hollywood Story. Only on E!

-

-

-

Taglist: @be-patient-be-good @mpmarypoppins @bevelyhills90210 @blueoz @harleylilo88 @princess-ghost-alien @hueycat2004 @l4life

[maswartz]

Power Rangers Primal Aura

Unknown to humanity there exists a Primal Spiritual realm full of beast spirits. For thousands of years the primal spirit world was a land of harmony as all the beast spirits lived in peace. However within the last few decades the cruel Dragon spirit began creating a divide between the spirits, those who believed beasts should rule the world and those who believed humanity should rule. With tempers flared by the Dragon’s lies and manipulations a war broke out between the Primal Spirits. One day during a great battle there was a massive explosion of spiritual energy. The explosion pierced the barrier between the Primal realm and the human realm and scattered the spirits into the world of humanity. When the spirits arrive in the human realm they are trapped within the bodies of people. While unable to act on their own they can communicate with their host via “thought speak” and empower them. Many of the Dragon’s followers corrupt their hosts to continue the war against humanity. Two such followers are the Lion and Chameleon who lead the Dragon’s army in his absence. However the noble spirits are able to empower their own hosts to fight to protect humanity as the Power Rangers Primal Aura! Hear the roar feel the aura!

The first three Rangers all go to the same college. Strength of the Unbreakable Tiger! Red Primal Ranger!- Cody- Seeks a purpose in life. This leads him to change his major many times seeking meaning. When he hears the voice of Tiger inside his mind he hopes this is the purpose he has been looking for. As the roommate of Brad he notices him acting strange ever since the Primal Explosion event. He later gets Gorilla and Bear auras added to his own- Armed with the Tiger Nunchaku Stealth of the Fantastic Jaguar! Blue Primal Ranger!- Alvin- An overachiever he tries to get a perfect grade in every class. When he first heard the voice of the Jaguar he thought the stress of exams had driven him mad before realizing it was real. He later gets Antelope and Hawk auras added to his own- Armed with the Jaguar Tonfa Speed of the Honest Cheetah! Yellow Primal Ranger!- Anna- All her life her parents pushed her brother to do well in school and pushed her into gymnastics and cheerleading despite her lack of interest in it. This lead to her hiding her brilliant mind even after getting an academic scholarship. With the help of Cheetah she learns to be true to herself and quits cheerleading She later gets Penguin and Jellyfish auras added to her own- Armed with the Cheetah Bo Primal Megazord- When the Aura Beasts unite they form the Primal Megazord Red Tiger forms the torso head and arms Blue Jaguar forms the left leg Yellow Cheetah forms the right leg Primal masters- A trio of ancient beast spirits who pass on their wisdom and auras to the trio when they’re trapped within the Primal Realm. “We call on the aura of the masters!”- Grants Primal Master Mode- Incredible speed and stamina- Trio shares a claw weapon as well as individual weapons, Gorilla Hammer, Antelope Daggers, Penguin Shield Primaster Megazord- When the Aura Beasts unite they form the Primaster Megazord Red Gorilla forms the torso head and arms Blue Antelope forms the left leg Yellow Penguin forms the right leg After the Dragon’s lies are revealed he takes on a humanoid form along with his strongest generals. In desperation the original trio travel back to the Primal Realm to find aid. To their surprise they encounter three of the Dragon’s generals they previously defeated in battle. Looking to repent for their actions they sacrifice their remaining aura to power up the trio, however this power is unable to sustain new forms or zords. Red- Bear- Adds the power of rocks to his attacks Blue- Hawk- Adds the power of wind to his attacks Yellow- Jellyfish- Adds the power of electricity to her attacks Courage of the Iron Wolf! Purple Primal Ranger!- Dave- At first he embraces the power Wolf using it to fight crime at night, even calling himself the “Wolf Man”. However when he meets the other Rangers he realizes the situation is bigger than average criminals and agrees to help- Expert at unarmed combat Primal Howl Megazord- One large wolf with two smaller wolves Can combine as a leg with the Primal Megazord Power of the Amazing Rhino! White Primal Ranger!- Nick- A petty criminal, he believed Rhino was just his conscience haunting him over his actions. However during his first robbery his partners put innocent lives in the crosshairs, he refuses to allow that and uses Rhinos power to save them. In order to make up for his past he joins the Rangers- Armed with the Rhino Blade Rhino Aura Megazord- The warrior mode for the Rhino Aura Beast. The Rhino can carrier the other Aura Zords on top of it into battle. In time a second trio comes forward to help in the battle against Dragon’s followers. In times of need they are able to add their Aura Zords to the Primal Megazord or the Primaster Megazord Strike of the Surging Shark! Cyan Primal Ranger!- Penny- A vain and arrogant surfer always seeking the spotlight and as many phone numbers from guys and gals as she can. However she quickly realizes Shark is right when it says the situation is serious- Armed with the Shark Swords Force of the Charging Elephant! Green Primal Ranger!- Barbara- A park ranger and the most down to earth of the trio. She quickly bonded with Elephant over their shared appreciation for nature. Her greatest task is keeping the other two focused enough to work as a team- Armed with the Elephant Mace Swiftness of the Swooping Bat! Black Primal Ranger!- Olivia- A spelunker who hates being around other people and prefers to be alone. Fortunately for her Bat is just as anti-social as she is. However she admits the threat of Dragon’s followers is too great to face alone- Armed with the Bat Fans Natura Megazord (concept and art by Kishiaku)- When the Aura Beasts unite they form the Natura Megazord Black Bat forms the Head and wings Green Elephant forms the torso and arms Cyan Shark forms the legs Degree of the Royal Lion! (Lion Warrior!)- Brad- Roommate of Cody, the lion fell the hardest for the dragon’s lies. When Lion finds himself trapped within Brad he is disgusted and even threatens to destroy Brad to free himself. However Brad reveals that he agrees with Lion and that humanity had their chance to rule the world and has proven unworthy. When Dragon’s lies are revealed he and Holly join the team but as Warriors as they feel they are unworthy of the title Ranger- Armed with great physical power Secrets of the Hidden Chameleon! (Chameleon Warrior!)- Holly- Chameleon is Lion’s greatest spy. Holly is a naturalist who thinks humanity has ravaged nature for too long. Chameleon is able to infuse others with more power- Armed with a pair of Chameleon Sai The Lion and Chameleon Aura Zords can combine with the Primal Megazord granting it greater armor and weapons. Morphers- Primal Morphers- resemble animal heads, hand held devices, each ranger wears theirs in a different place when unmorphed such as clipped on a belt or as a necklace. Can be used as communicators Morphing Call- Hear the roar! Feel the aura! Morphing-  The rangers lunge towards the “camera” as their Primal Spirit comes from behind, the body forms the suit as the head engulfs the ranger’s head forming the helmet Power Rangers Extreme Aura- The Explorer Rangers discover a relic containing an ancient Primal Beast and must protect it from the Dragon’s followers. They reach out to the Primal Rangers for help and in the end the relic and the Beast are destroyed. Extreme Explorers Hybrid Responders Powerverse

[yukiwrites]

Byleth, Closer to the Truth

Thanks for the support as always, @xpegasusuniverse! It’s amazing how much worldbuilding three houses had ;v;) it’s so good to explore it all!

Summary: Byleth asked Hanneman to aid him in his pursuit of knowledge, but there was TOO MUCH that the crestologist knew that the young Professor did not, so Byleth had to actually catch up in his own studies to be able to discuss things in equal terms with Hanneman. However, the more Byleth learned, the bigger were the questions forming inside of him, as well as the discomfort such things brought Sothis... could it all be connected?

Commission info HERE and HERE!

______________________________

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 -  Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8  - Part 9 - Part 10  - Part 11 - Part 12 - Part 13 - Part 14  - Part 15

Enlisting Hanneman into his personal group (consisting of Byleth himself and the voice in his head, Sothis) dedicated to uncovering the secrets of the Heroes' Relics was truly an astounding idea.

Although the older Professor demanded much knowledge Byleth never had in first place to even start a proper discussion, Hanneman's insightful questions truly spurred Byleth and Sothis to seek more answers to millennia-long questions.

Since the Relics were weapons that could only be wielded by crest-bearers, they fell into Hanneman's area of expertise -- meaning that the crestologist knew by heart all of their names, related crests, original wielders and general location. Byleth, on the other hand, knew no such thing, so Hanneman's lecture was taken to heart.

Areadbhar, the lance that once belonged to Blaiddyd of the Ten Elites, lay inside the Royal Palace of Fhirdiad, guarded to be used only by its King. The Crusher of the Dominic crest was also back in Faerghus, though thankfully those were the last two Relics located in the Kingdom to yet come to Byleth's hands.

The Aegis Shield, the Lance of Ruin, Lùin and Thunderbrand were all within the Professor's grasp, alongside the Alliance's Freikugel and Thyrsus. Byleth held onto six out of the twelve Relics in existence, and that was the most a single person possessed in over a thousand years.

"But... twelve?" The Professor mumbled as he stared at the open book in front of him. Wasn't that strange, though? There were twelve documented Heroes' Relics (their whereabouts varying from 'unseen since the Heroes' War' to 'being guarded by a noble house'), though only Ten known Elites, plus the Sword of the Creator, supposedly handed by the goddess herself.

Hanneman mentioned that Maurice had been the eleventh Elite back in the day, though he had been banished for being consumed by his Crest, so the math added up on that account.

But what about Seiros and Four Saints?

If they were the ones closest to the goddess, it should've been natural for Her to bestow Relics to them as well, yes?

However, that didn't seem to be the case. Seiros and the Saints were only known to use a different kind of legendary weapon, dubbed Sacred Weapons by the church. Their whereabouts were documented by ancient texts, which informed the reader that all Sacred Weapons were supposedly buried alongside their original wielders under the monastery: inside the Holy Mausoleum.

'Why supposedly?' one might ask. The answer was simple: Inside Seiros' tomb lay the Sword of the Creator, not her sword neither her shield. What's more -- Byleth also had two Sacred Weapons in his possession, the Spear of Assal and the Caduceus Staff, originally Saint Cichol and Saint Cethleann's weapons respectively.

The place Byleth found them at couldn't be farther from the monastery: on a remote island far from the Central Church's grasp, inside the tomb of a woman completely unrelated to the Saints if only that she was a devout follower of the religion. Flayn and Seteth considered that place special to them and were the ones to bestow the weapons to Byleth, alongside a very distinguished detail regarding their family bonds.

Though Byleth informed Hanneman of the Sacred Weapons in his possession, he of course refrained from repeating secrets entrusted to him.

"Your mind has been wandering and wandering... each second farther away from the text in front of you." Sothis mentally poked Byleth's shoulder, making the Professor blink back into reality.

"Ah, that's true," he shook his head in a vain attempt to shoo away the boredom that came with reading any heavily worded text that hailed from the church.

The volume in question was one of the many tales centered around Saint Macuil. As were the other seven books stacked right beside it, which only made Byleth even less willing to even go through with all that encrypted and salted reading.

Sighing, the Professor resigned himself to going back to studying, his thirst for answers winning over his unwillingness to read.

Although the origins of the Heroes' Relics was unknown, the Sacred Weapons properly hailed from a documented place; or person, for that matter: Macuil was an accomplished blacksmith, rumored to use his skills to craft weapons for Seiros' army. One could only assume that the Sacred Weapons were made by Macuil's hand.

Yet, that wouldn't add up, according to the teachings of Seiros!

How could the Four Saints and the founder of the church herself be left to their own devices in wielding weapons that anyone -- crest-bearer or not -- could brandish while the ten, or rather, eleven humans that followed them were the ones blessed by the goddess with weapons that only those with crests could use?

Humans; the creatures that could be born with crests or not, purely by chance. Humans; against whom the goddess herself fought before these eleven heroes emerged.

Why didn't Macuil forge weapons for the humans, instead? Why weren't there Relics for the Saints?

Even if one inspected the Spear of Assal and the Caduceus Staff, they wouldn't find any trace of the bone-like structures common to the Heroes' Relics. Hell, even the Crest Stone inherent to every Relic apart from the Sword of the Creator was nowhere to be found with the Sacred Weapons!

Of course, since they were weapons anyone could wield, that much was obvious, but still -- why did the Saints wield these considerably weaker weapons as opposed to the much stronger ones their human companions brandished?

Byleth groaned, closing the book loudly. And these texts heavy with parables and metaphors! There was very little one could learn from reading them, even though they were basically the only source of knowledge around anywhere in Fódlan.

Sothis hummed chipperly by his shoulder as Byleth got up from his seat at the library. "Finally gave up, hm? About time! You were not getting any studying done."

Pursing his lips, the Professor took the remaining books, intent on taking them to Hanneman's office rather than his own room -- that was also another boon of having the older Professor in his pursuit of knowledge: proximity to the library.

Not three weeks after Tomas -- no, Solon -- revealed himself to be an enemy of the church, the library managed to remain mostly unchanged. Since there had been a rotating system of students and teachers to take care and oversee the books, the usual library activities could go on as always.

Byleth's mind wandered once again to his headmate, the amount of information he'd absorbed in the past few days overloading his thinking capacity. Hey, Sothis? He looked up as though he could see the girl floating by the ceiling.

She preferred to float beside him, instead, however. "I know that tone..." Sothis crossed her arms and legs in a sigh.

Byleth's head drooped. If you still don't want to talk about it, i won't, but-

"Hahh... Very well. Out with it."

You're... The goddess, right? You have the power to control time and are linked to many places the goddess is said to have been, he started, tentatively. Sothis bobbed her head to the sides.

"So we are to believe, according to Rhea's words at the start of this month. Sothis, also known as The Beginning -- I identify with both aliases, as does the goddess. However, I am not up there in an imaginary heaven; I am bound here with you by something beyond my current understanding. Am I simply a part of the goddess? The conscience one calls 'self'? If so, is that the reason why I bear the appearance of a child? Because whatever bound me to you could not harness the vastity of my power, only managing to tap my sense of self instead?" She asked in a serious voice, then sighed, her small shoulders sagging. "I cannot give you the answers you seek, young one. However, I AM grateful that you are going through such lengths for my sake -- or at least for the sake of having your own mindspace for yourself." She sneered, visibly tired.

Such exhaustion bled into Byleth himself, making the task of simply going from the library to Hanneman's office a most strenuous one. I just want to help you regain your memories, and I feel that all of this is connected...

Sothis chuckled, mentally patting Byleth on the head. "Thank you for this, Byleth. Good luck when you go through that door, however. Hanneman seems to be eager in drawing your blood to check your crest in depth."

"Ugh," it was Byleth's turn to groan, throwing his head back in regret. Hanneman had mentioned that he wanted to do a thorough physical check-up on Byleth and compare it with the pulse they felt coming from the Relics, after all, so Byleth couldn't run.

He himself wanted the answers, so subjugating himself in a mostly harmless experiment or two was a good enough price to pay for answers.

"Ghk- W-what did you-" Sothis winced, curling around herself before entirely disappearing from Byleth's sight. "What was this thought?!" She huffed, as though in pain.

Byleth's legs gave out as he loudly crumpled on the stone floor, scattering books and scrolls about. "S-Sothis?" he panted, a sharp pain twigging his chest. He clutched it with one hand, pressing his forehead against the cool stone to regain his breath.

"Experiment...? What- what is this terror engulfing my entire being?" Sothis cried, her very soul trembling to the point of translating it to Byleth's body. "Did I- go through such a thing in the past? What IS this?" She sobbed a cry without tears, her voice slowly disappearing as she succumbed to a forced slumber.

Sothis? Byleth called in his mind, his body still too weak to stand. "Sothis?" He mumbled, realizing his breath was coming back. "She must've gone to sleep..." he huffed, forcing himself to sit up.

Dizzy, he could barely hold his head up, choosing to lean it on a nearby wall. There were many incongruences and discrepancies with Sothis' memories and real world events.

She wrote a song only Rhea knew of; She, supposedly the goddess, lived in a place that the goddess destroyed in her rage; She bestowed weapons of fine quality 'materials' to humans and feared being experimented on-

"Wait," Byleth widened his eyes, his hands patting his own self in search of the Sword of the Creator hanging by his hip. Upon touching it, the sword glowed red, its bone-like structures warming Byleth's hand as though he touched a person's body. Yes... as though it was someone's flesh and bones.

Were... were the Heroes' Relics part of Sothis' body from the time she was alive? Was that the reason the goddess de facto disappeared from the records? Because she tore her own bones and flesh apart to help the Saints and the Men win the war?

Sothis conjectured herself just a few minutes ago: her childlike appearance to Byleth's eyes could simply be because that whoever channeled her conscience to him didn't manage to capture her entire essence. It was also known that the Children of the Goddess could transform into Magic Beasts, so if the goddess herself could change into a form so large she could rearrange her own bones into weapons, this theory could hold some truth into it...

Still dizzy, but with his mind racing with the prospect of learning more about the Relics, Byleth dragged himself up to his feet after painstakingly picking up the books and scrolls from the floor. "This all might be just my tired brain throwing whatever it can at me, but I feel that... somehow, I'm on the right track." The Professor nodded to himself, dragging one shoulder across the wall to help him walk.

If possible, he wanted to bring this up with his father, as well, once Jeralt was released from whatever duties Rhea had him go through. They would meet at the end of the month for their shared mission, yes, but this wasn't something Byleth could simply bring up to his father right before a battle, after all.

"All this reading and thinking only brought more questions, but I'm on the right track. We're on the right track, Hanneman, Sothis." He mumbled before stepping inside the crestologist's office for yet another afternoon of studying and experimenting.