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ideas-on-paper · 1 year

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Rannoch researches - Part 1: Astrophysics, formation of the Tikkun system and origin of life on Rannoch

[Potential spoilers for the Mass Effect trilogy]

Alright, I finally, finally made it to the Rannoch arc of ME3 - and while it absolutely freaking destroyed me on an emotional level, I was nevertheless very excited to see the Quarian homeworld in person. I mean, it's one thing to just read the entries on the wiki, but virtually being there and flying around in the star system is something entirely else.

As you might know, I'm very interested in any lore about the Quarians and Geth, specifically everything that's related to Rannoch's culture previous to the Morning War, and being able to set foot on the site is like a dream come true for me. (Having an idea of the place you're researching just immensely helps with visualization. xD)

However, being my nerdy self, I decided to try and explore Rannoch's history a little further, beyond the Morning War and even the advent of Quarian civilization - that is to say, the history of Rannoch's star system. I'm aware that this topic might be a little dry to some people, since it has nothing to do with ME's story as a whole and basically just covers the scientific background. However, after researching about it, I must say that I find it to be quite fascinating, and I certainly learned a lot of things about astrophysics, the origin of life, and the universe as a whole along the way.

Disclaimer: I should mention that I'm neither an astrophysicist nor a chemist, and all my knowledge about the topic stems from self-study. Therefore, it's possible that some of my conclusions and projections might be scientifically inaccurate; if someone has more expertise in these fields than me, feel free to point any error out to me. For the sake of understandability, I will try to explain all facts as simply as possible.

The age of the Tikkun system

Before actually being able to travel to the system in Mass Effect 3, Legion already gives us a little trivia about Rannoch and its star in ME2. When Shepard inquires what the Quarian homeworld is like, they respond with:

"It is more arid than Earth. The star is older and more orange than Sol."

In combination with the information that Rannoch's star Tikkun has about 90% of the Sun's mass and half of its luminosity (which we learn from the planet's description), we can conclude two things:

Tikkun is older than 4.6 billion years (the approximate age of our Sun).

Tikkun is a K-type main-sequence star, sometimes also called orange dwarfs due to their emitted light being in the orange spectrum.

From an astrophysical perspective, these two pieces of information complement each other nicely: Since K-type stars are generally more stable than stars of the G-class like our Sun, they also have longer lifespans (about 17 - 70 billion years, in contrast to the estimated 10 billion of the Sun), which means that a K-type star that formed long before our Sun could still exist without issue.

Also, despite being colder and less luminous than G-type stars, K-type stars are considered to be of particular interest in the search for extraterrestrial life, if only for the reason that their extended lifespan gives organic life more time to develop. Furthermore, K-stars emit less total UV light and ionizing radiation than G-type stars, which are known to be damaging to DNA and thus would hinder the development of extraterrestrial life.

However, it's still debated how beneficial these presumed advantages actually are: Due to their lower heat emission, planets would have to orbit closer to K-type stars to have habitable temperatures, which might offset any benefit from a lower UV output. Also, while the total UV radiation is lower, K-type stars emit higher levels of X-rays and far ultraviolet light (F-UV) during their early lifespan, which may act sterilizing and destroy any atmosphere, thus preventing the emergence of organic life (or at least significantly delaying it).

Still, there is a factor that might have made it possible for life to develop on Rannoch after all: metallicity. Metallicity denotes the abundance of heavy elements in a star, although the term "metals" is a bit misleading - it's not about metals in the actual sense, but rather every element that is heavier than hydrogen and helium. Hydrogen and helium are the two lightest elements and the first to exist immediately after the Big Bang (in addition to small quantities of lithium), and all other elements were created by nuclear fusion in stars and then ejected into interstellar space by supernovae. Consequentially, that means the older a star is, the less heavy elements it contains (there are exceptions to this rule, however).

Now, the interesting part about this is that very recently, scientists have found out that planets orbiting metal-poor stars might actually be more habitable to organic life: Although metal-poor stars emit more total UV radiation compared to metal-rich stars, the spectrum of the emitted UV light strongly differs. Metal-poor stars emit more short-wave UV-C light, while metal-rich stars predominantly emit the longer-waved UV-B light. The difference is that while UV-B light acts destructive to any ozonosphere, UV-C light actually supports the formation of an ozone layer. It may seem like a bit of a paradox that a certain spectrum of UV light benefits the formation of an atmosphere protecting the planet from cytotoxic UV radiation, but what we can surmise is that metal-poor stars are generally more life-friendly.

However, Rannoch's star system potentially being very old by galactic standards introduces yet another problem: At first, scientists suspected that metal-rich stars are overall more likely to possess planetary systems, particularly such that include terrestrial planets. This was probably due to the assumption that since heavy elements were not that abundant in the beginning of the universe, terrestrial planets were also not very common back then, although further observation has shown that smaller exoplanets exist around stars with a range of metallicities. Evidence suggests, however, that large gas giants are more likely to form around planets with high metallicity - perhaps because cores containing a large amount of heavy elements exert a stronger gravitational force on light gases.

Still, the issue remains that the cores of planets which formed during the early phase of the universe most likely contain next to no heavy elements. This is important because the iron and nickel core of Earth is one of the main reasons life was able to develop on our planet in the first case: The heavy elements in the core are responsible for Earth's magnetic field, which stabilizes the atmosphere and protects it from being blown away by solar winds. So, presuming that Rannoch's core is composed of a larger portion of light elements, it would have a weaker magnetic field than Earth, which in turn would make it harder for the planet to develop a life-essential atmosphere.

Either way, we can surmise that the question whether a planet is actually habitable depends on various different factors, and it once again proves what a delicate balance has to be met for organic life to develop. In case of Rannoch, it's worth mentioning that Rannoch's atmosphere is stated to be slightly thinner than Earth's (0.93 atm). So, if Tikkun is indeed an old, metal-poor star, perhaps the influence of the increased UV-C radiation is just enough to offset all other atmosphere-depleting factors, like F-UV radiation, x-ray radiation, and solar winds. Also, it's noted that Haza, the only gas giant of the Tikkun system, is comparatively small; thinking back to the observations that large gas giants predominantly form around stars with high metallicity, this might suggest that the percentage of heavy elements in Haza's core is pretty low, which in turn could hint at the system's high age.

Life based on dextro amino acids - proof of Rannoch's age?

However, there might be another, even more convincing indicator that Tikkun is pretty ancient by astronomical standards: As we know, life on Rannoch is based on dextro amino acids, including the Quarians who are the only dextro species in the galaxy aside from the Turians, with all others being levo amino-based. For a long time, scientists have been speculating why lifeforms on Earth consist pretty much exclusively of L-acids (levo), and why there are sugars (e.g. glucose) consisting of D-molecules (dextro), but no proteinogenic (protein-creating) acids. Theoretically, the chemical construction of D- and L-acids is exactly the same - the only thing that's different is the way the molecules reflect light, which is clockwise for D-acids and counterclockwise for L-acids (a property known as "chirality"). This may not sound like much, but it has major consequences: As a result, D- and L-acids are entirely incompatible with each other, acting like image and mirror image. (Just as a side note because I keep hearing that Quarians consist of "completely different" molecules than humans and thus are completely different lifeforms: Broken down to their chemical components, D- and L-acids don't differ from each other at all - it's basically the same, just the other way around.)

Meanwhile, the American chemist Ronald Breslow has proposed that the reason why L-amino acids are dominant on Earth has something to do with electromagnetic radiation: Going by the panspermia hypothesis, the molecules of life spread through the universe by means of meteoroids, asteroids, comets, and other matter. However, on their way through space, these molecules are subjected to the radiation of neutron stars and pulsars, and it's been observed that dextro amino acids get destroyed more easily by neutron star radiation than their levo counterparts. Thus, the meteoroids that fell down on Earth contained more L-acids than D-acids. Since amino acids of the same kind paired up with one another and became crystallized, the only ones that remained were those that couldn't find any partner: the excess L-acids, which were dissolved in the water and eventually became the components of organic life.

Now, one thing to keep in mind is that neutron stars and pulsars are objects that form after a dying star turns into a supernova. Logically, this would mean that the older the universe gets, the more neutron stars are created, and consequentially, their number must have been lower during the early stages. If this is true, the radiation hazard must have been lower as well, and presuming that the quantity of D-amino acids contained in a meteorite exceeded those of L-acids, it could've led to life developing along an alternate path on a different planet - even Breslow himself considered it a possibility that life based on D-acids and L-sugars might exist elsewhere in the universe.

This would lead to the conclusion that the Quarians as a species are way older than humans - and potentially, the majority of the other races in the galaxy. What makes this even better is that it actually lines up very nicely with the comment from Erinya's bondmate (the Asari you meet on Illium during the sidequest "Medical Scans" in ME2) that Quarians have "old souls". (I'm not entirely sure how Asari are able to determine how old someone's soul is, but then again, I never quite understood their esoteric mindset. xD) Going from this, it might mean that the Turians are another "old" species of the galaxy, since they developed based on dextro acids as well - either way, I quite like this theory, since it not only fits in with the lore but would also make sense from a scientific point of view.

Rannoch's position in the Milky Way

However, as with pretty much all good theories, there is just one problem: Rannoch's position in the Milky Way. In 2016, scientists created the first global age map of the galaxy based on observations of 100,000 red giants, coming to the conclusion that the oldest, most metal-poor stars are located in the galaxy's center and in the halo (the roughly spherical space surrounding our galaxy, acting as a kind of "border zone"). Furthermore, they observed that with increasing distance from the galactic center, the stars of the disk (the "flat" level that the spiral arms are on) get younger the farther away they are - and with the Tikkun system being located at the disk's very edge, this puts my theory in a somewhat precarious place.

However, at the same time, the stars' age increases the greater the vertical distance from the galactic disk is (to put it simply, the oldest stars are found above and below the disk). At first, this led me to the suspicion that the Tikkun system might actually be located in the halo, since the galaxy map of Mass Effect is only in 2D and doesn't account for the 3D aspect. However, I was stopped short by the realization that the halo contains no interstellar medium - that is to say, clouds of gas and dust which are essential for the formation of solar systems. With nebulae (like the Perseus Veil) also being part of the interstellar medium, this makes a localization of Tikkun in the halo extremely unlikely. Still, one thing I did find out that Tikkun is probably located "above" most of the rest of the Milky Way: Due to the dented shape of the disk (which is suspected to be caused by the rotating movement of the galaxy's center), the regions at the outer edge of our galaxy are significantly bent upwards and downwards. I actually managed to find a three-dimensional map depicting the position of our solar system, making it possible to deduce the position of the Tikkun system in relation to it, which would most likely be located near the "raised" partition of the disk (see image below).

This 3D map of the Milky Way galaxy shows the position of our Solar system, and if compared to this Mass Effect galaxy map, we can conclude that the Tikkun system would be somewhere on the right, where the "ridge" is (Edited image; original picture source)

Still, that doesn't mean my speculations are completely off the table: In a more recent study from 2023, a team of scientists did a metallicity profile of the Milky Way's stars, starting from the galactic center all the way to the outer rim. During their survey, they not only observed a spike of metal-rich stars around 23,000 light years from the center (with 26,000 light years distance from the center, our solar system lies quite close to it), but also an unusually high quantity of metal-poor stars about 50,000 light years from the galactic center.

Granted, there is a correlation between the age of a star and metallicity, but as I already pointed out above, this doesn't always have to be the case. In fact, each of the three star populations - young, intermediate, and old - displays the trait of a higher metallicity near the center and a lower metallicity at the outskirts. Then again, the oldest, most metal-poor stars of the galaxy are also found in the center, and the research group has acknowledged that one reason for the steep decrease of metallicity near the outer edge might be that our estimates of the extent of the Milky Way's disk are off. Either way, a diagram from the study shows that old stars still exist up to a radius of 12 kpc (approx. 40,000 light years), with their luminosity decreasing the farther away from the center they're located. In the study, "old stars" were classified as those with an age of 8-12 GYR/8-12 billion years, so this would be my rough estimate for the age of the Tikkun system as well.

Another explanation for the rapid decrease of metallicity near the outer rim that has been proposed is the collision with a former, metal-poor dwarf galaxy. This galaxy would have been engulfed and later absorbed by the Milky Way, with its metal-poor gas being used as the building material for new stars. If this was true, perhaps the Perseus Veil might even be a remnant of this collision, consisting of gas formerly belonging to this dwarf galaxy. Going by the description from the Codex, the Perseus Veil is an opaque nebula in the colors of "purple and gold", suggesting that it might consist of a combination of emission nebulae (those that emit light in the visible spectrum, hence the striking colors) and dark nebulae. Dark nebulae absorb the wavelengths of light visible to the human eye, effectively concealing any stellar objects behind them (still, objects obscured by them can be observed with radio or infrared telescopes, which is a little curious considering that the Codex entry says "the Veil's total opacity prevents Council intelligence from surveying Geth activity"; however, it's possible that the Geth are using technology to disrupt those frequencies, not wanting organic races to spy on what they're doing). Dark nebulae in particular are also known to be the birthplace of many stars and planets, which makes them a likely candidate for the origin of the Tikkun system.

However, there is also the possibility that the Tikkun system might not be located in, but rather behind the nebula. The form of dark nebulae tends to be very irregular, with no clearly defined boundaries and far-ranging, serpentine shapes. In the night sky, they appear as dark patches, which is a phenomenon we know from the Great Rift, clouds of interstellar gas and dust obscuring much of our view from the Milky Way (for avid star gazers, this is indeed the dark band that stretches across the "bright band" of the Milky Way). This is due to the Rift being located between the inner edge of the Orion arm (which is the spiral arm where our Solar System is located), and the Sagittarius Arm, the next arm inward; thus, the Great Rift effectively blocks our view of the Galactic center. So, perhaps something similar might be the case for the Perseus Veil, with the Veil being located in-between the closest spiral arm and Quarian/Geth space. (This would also make sense considering that the Quarians/Geth occupied more clusters than just Tikkun, for example the Far Rim; the fact that multiple clusters are obscured by the Perseus Veil would support the theory of it being a more extensive interstellar cloud instead of a nebula that only contains the Tikkun system, despite Tikkun's cluster being labeled "Perseus Veil").

Also, keeping the 3D-perspective in mind, the elevated position of Tikkun (and probably the other systems as well) would mean that observers from other star clusters have to look "up" at them, which might indicate that the Perseus Veil is located slightly below the Tikkun system. (As an allegory, imagine spanning a dark piece of fabric between you and a lamp at your ceiling.) This allows for some interesting speculation what our galaxy might look like from Rannoch's night sky, as our position on one of the spiral arms also affects what we can see of the Milky Way. In that sense, Rannoch might even be in a more "ideal" location to observe the galaxy as a whole, its elevated position granting something like a top-down view of the Milky Way. From the northern hemisphere, you would have a good view at the stars of the halo and other galaxies, while on the southern hemisphere, you would look directly at the dark "rift" of the Perseus Veil. One might wonder what kind of influence this had on Quarian mythology - considering the huge significance stars held in human culture, we can assume that the same is true for the Quarians, if not more.

Organic life: a temporary phenomenon?

Anyway, regardless whether my theories are true or not, I certainly found it very interesting to think about how life could've developed on a planet like Rannoch, and I think the possibility of there being an extraterrestrial civilization which is much older than ours is extremely fascinating. Still, one thing my researches taught me is that on a galactic level, creation and destruction often lie very close together: When a star dies and goes supernova, all life on the planets around it is naturally extinguished. However, the gas and matter from the dying star go on to become the building material for a new generation of stars, thus creating a new chance for life to emerge on other planets. The interesting question is though whether this cycle will continue indefinitely, or if there is some kind of natural limit to it. (As a fair warning, this is about to get a little existential.)

What stirred this thought in me is the observation that with growing age, the universe will become increasingly hostile to life, as each new generation of stars will contain more heavy elements. As explained above, this will lead to the stars emitting more hazardous radiation, which at some point could reach an amount that prevents the development of life altogether. So: Does that mean that organic life is really just a temporary phenomenon, and is our existence nothing more than a tiny episode in the grand history of the universe?

Regarding Mass Effect specifically, I wonder whether the Reapers are actually aware of this - I mean, a universe without life might mean that they'd be potentially jobless at some point. xD On the other hand, perhaps this is precisely the motivation behind their harvests: If organic life is truly just "an accident", as Sovereign says, maybe this is why the Reapers were talking about the "ascent" of humanity when turning all of them into a giant bio-machine in ME2. Maybe they actually intend to bypass the pre-destined extinction of organic races by lifting them onto a higher evolutionary plane.

Before you ask, yes, I've played the Leviathan DLC, and yes, I'm aware what the Reapers' purpose is in canon - however, I couldn't help but feel that the explanation of "AI and organics are destined to fight" is a tad bit lame, and on top of that, it leaves open so many plot holes and loose ends that never get addressed. So, I guess I would've preferred if they went with a more philosophical approach like this. (Especially since it not only seems to be implied, but also fits the overall setting quite well.)

Anyway, that's enough talk for today - I hope you enjoyed this deep dive into Rannoch's astrophysical background, as well as my conjectures how it all may fit in with real-life science. I'm definitely planning to make this into a longer series, but I need to figure out how day and year cycles work on Rannoch first. In fact, if anyone of you has sufficient mathematical knowledge, I would be very grateful for any assistance in calculating how fast time passes on Rannoch - we do know that it has a slightly lower gravitation than Earth (0.89 g), and since theory of relativity exists, that means time passes faster on Rannoch than on our planet.

It might take me a while before I'll be able to continue this series (if simply for the reason that posts like these take a lot of time and effort to make), but still, thank you for your attention!

#mass effect #mass effect lore #lore theories #quarians #rannoch #science #astronomy #astrophysics #fictional astrobiology #I just reconstructed the hypothetical history of a planet that doesn't even exist #funny how real-life science is more helpful to me than BioWare's own lore #dang it I did NOT mean to go that existential near the end but I suppose I did lol

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pinkiepiebones · 2 years

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sorry i just. madly in love w your rain telepathy microfic and i hope this isnt TOO broad but maybe something with aether communicating telepathically?

Don't apologise every person who likes my nonsense gives me a +8 boost across all critical stats

Sometimes on the tour, there are rare moments where there is no driving or setting up or dismantling of sets, moments where the busses are parked and the ghouls can walk about unglamoured without worry of prying eyes and the road crew can stretch and make non-work-related phone calls. In these moments the doors of the busses are open and anyone can wander them.

A nameless ghoul, bigger than it's band siblings, elegant pronged horns shining like obsidian, long tail with a star-shaped tip floating oh so expertly off the ground, climbs onto the bus that houses the Papa and the ghoul called Special. The Papa is sitting in the kitchenette, reading a newspaper.

//PAPA// the ghoul says quietly- well, not so much 'says quietly' as 'gently projects a small amount of it's telepathic speech towards the brain of the human before it,' but 'says quietly' takes less time to write.

The Papa, a gangly, anxious old man once known as Copia, lowers his paper, dark and light eye looking not at the ghoul's black eyes, but to it's horns- for Copia, this was the quickest way to tell which ghoul was in his presence.

"Ah, Aether ghoul," he says with a tone of professional courtesy. He folds the paper and sets it aside. "Come, sit! How are you? What is, ah, up, as the kids say?"

Aether sits across from Copia at the kitchenette table. //MANY THINGS ARE UP.//

"Oh?"

//STARS. PLANETS. COMETS. EACH PULSES WITH AN AURA INDECIPHERABLE TO THE LIFEFORMS OF THE EARTH. I FEEL AND SEE THEM ALL, CASCADING AROUND US IN A CACOPHONY OF COLOURS AND SHAPES INDESCRIBABLE TO ANY OF THE HUMAN PERSUASION. I ALSO FEEL THE SATELLITES, MARCHING AS ANTS AND ACTING AS SHARDS OF GLASS, DILUTING AND DIFFUSING THE LIGHT COSMIC. MANY THINGS ARE UP, MY PAPA.//

Copia blinks a few times, his brain processing the input of the ghoul's speech. Even after decades of being around ghouls, it still took him a moment to fully parse and comprehend what the band ghouls were saying.

"Ah," Copia says gently. " 'What's up' is a figure of speech. It means more like, eh, 'how is it going,' it is not a literal question of what is up above." He ends with a smile to let the ghoul know he's not upset or anything like that. And really, Copia enjoys the times when he gets to teach. Usually, the education of the band ghouls is left to the one called Special.

Aether turns it's head slightly, bird-like, it's featureless face impossible to read. Then it rustles it's folded wings against it's back.

//OH! SO I MISUNDERSTOOD YOUR QUESTION//

Copia nods.

//YOU ASKED ME, ESSENTIALLY, HOW I AM THIS DAY, BUT I TOLD YOU ABOUT THE CELESTIAL DANCE OVERHEAD INSTEAD OF SPEAKING ABOUT MYSELF//

Copia smiles and nods.

//OKAY. I UNDERSTAND NOW. PLEASE ASK ME AGAIN//

Copia chuckles. "Okay, so... Aether, what is up?"

The ghoul shrugs.

//OH, NOTHING MUCH. I LEARNED ANOTHER ONE OF THOSE NONSENSICAL HUMAN PHRASES. WOULD YOU LIKE TO HEAR IT?//

"Of course!"

//WHAT IS UP?//

Copia grins at the ghoul before him. "The ceiling."

Aether shakes it's head. //NO, WHAT IS UP IS A QUESTION OF YOUR WELL-BEING, IT IS NOT LITERAL. YOU HAVE JUST TAUGHT ME THIS. ARE YOU-// The ghoul pauses and looks at the human again. He is making a face that the ghouls have learned means 'I made a joke, please laugh.'

Aether slaps the kitchenette table with a talon. //YOU HAVE MADE A JOKE! I SEE THAT NOW!// Copia shrugs but smiles. The Aether ghoul claps it's talons together, either in joy or in scheming, it is hard to know.

//I AM GOING TO GO JOKE WITH THE OTHER GHOULS NOW. THANK YOU, PAPA.//

~end~

#ghost bc #microfics #the nameless ghouls #aether ghoul #papa emeritus iv #I never know how to end my shit I'm sorry ;-;

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ben-the-hyena · 1 year

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More Katamari headcanons @papabirdurskeks and I had come up with :

The Stelliforms snores growls and wheezes which can be creepy as we hear with the King and the Queen because it used to be a threatening warning to prevent others from attacking them when the species was still feral and nomadic. In kids it sounds like purrs it's adorable

Several of the cousins are siblings

The King states in We ♡ Katamari that the antennae he is gifted that is too small for him but good for his son helps connecting with the universe. So we interpreted, since only minors wears one in the game, it is not part of their anatomy after all like we thought but a device to keep track of them or even call them back, like Mat said

Only the adult males have retractable fangs after all. They are not needed to eat stars and planets like the species used to before civilization, just a way to threaten and warn enemies or defend their youngs and spouses from other males who back when it was about being "dominant male and his females" instead of "a king and his queen and their subjects" would try to challenge

Opeo is mentally disabled, that's why he keeps hurting himself so easily and is so "stupid" in the comics he has to be explained meticulously simple tasks and will keep being proud and talking about any little exploit about being responsible he did over and over again as simple as it was and despite being confirmed to be the same age as his cousins still acts much younger and has to be taken care of by them. The fact most of his cousins (the Prince too sadly, but eh as intelligent as he is he is just 6, he must not fully understand) are bored and annoyed to have him around and why despite that the adults have him hang out with them (the King holding hil in good regards and encouraging him, it seems) was telling to me, a bit like "be nice to your cousin, children, he is special" "but he is so weird !..." "SHUSH ! Don't be mean, you'll understand when you will be older"

It is hard for the species to reproduce, siblings usually (depends of genetics tho ; the cousins who are siblings prove it is not often) have an age gap. A trick from nature not to have planet-eating titans destroy the universe. As if to compensate, thanks to the baby being eeny tiny compared to the adults, labor is usually very easy if not non existant. Mom's water breaks, she pushes once, boom, baby. It is done alone at home for a few seconds or minutes. The Queen however had complications leading to hemorragia hence why she was in a hospital, the King anxiously walking back and forth waiting in the corridor, and why they just are content with one

The Queen is chubbier as an adult than as a teen because pregnancy extra weight never left lol also she got HIT by puberty one day going from flat to medium-sized overnight much to the King's joy

The Emperor is the eldest of 12, all of them being linked to European astrology, initially owning the constellation they are asigned to (Mat's OC Pan is his youngest brother, Capricorn-related). He is Leo-related, and his name is Leonard. Their parents, father Cetus-related and mother Ophiuchus-related, were very strict and even if they did love their children never showing it which sadly ended up pitting them "against" each other and being harsher on their heir, resulting in them not growing up as siblings

The King is the youngest of 13 siblings and the only boy but only boyd can rule, they all were an adult when he was a kid hence why the Emperor was already old and why he grew up alone but why the Prince has first cousins. They were Asian-astrology related, and since he was a 13th sign he was asigned to the sign of the Cat which is an alternative 5o the Rabbit ; thus cats being mini lions his name is Leonidas (brilliant idea from Mat since it means "son of Leon/the lion"). Repeating what his parents did the Emperor was not a real dad to his daughters either which resulted in them and their brother not to grow up as siblings, with mutual resentment at that (them knowing he just wanted a son and stopped making kids now he finally got his goal done, and him seeing they never come to defend him)

In fact Ace is a little shit because his mother is the eldest daughter, Tiger-related (because "tiger parents"), and never liked not to be queen because only men can rule and so anways was jealous of the King, therefore as soon as he becale a father she made Ace with a random guy and named him like that and filled his brain to be the Prince's rival in her place, compete both in hope to have him replace him and live her dreams through him or just to enrage her brother (doesn't work, on that point he is lore mature) through their kids, and sure as hell pressures her son to always be better repeating the cycle of abuse shamelessly and aware of it but not caring. Hence why Ace is an arrogant selfish jerk to the Prince and everyone else (the comics show he doesn't care for the other cousins either) since she always taught him he is superior and was taught to be jealous and envious of his title while he would be nothing but a Duke, but in a way it is also REAL jealousy and envy because deep down he senses he and his other cousins are more loved and treated better

The Empress died giving birth to the King because she was so old her body couldn't handle a 13th pregnancy anymore but also she just gave up ; she was tired of seeing her husband she loved always ignore her for king's duty or just to have her pregnant in hope to finally be a son (not even caring to ask her if SHE wanted to still have kids) and never listening to her whenever he was harsh on their daughters or in general, causing said daughters to even resent her to be "on his side" and "do nothing". She died depressed and silent giving up the will to live, and had she lived she would have been too depressed not to neglect her son. The Emperor who DID love her despite it being an arranged marriage and got carried away with his fear for the line to end with him did know it was his fault which only caused him to never stop feeling guilt and grief, but he was too proud to admit. If he did, he woule collapse and be broken. His one way to cope became blaming the son he always wanted and be even harsher he ever was on his daughters. Not even realizing it until he would finally punch him as a teen which would knock back some sense in his head

The King is a King and not an Emperor because even if he gave him his crown and gave up on ruling, he is still alive. Empires have kingdoms in which kings obey the emperor after all. When he will die, the King will be Emperor and depending if he abdicates or not for his son the latter woulf either be the new King or still Prince of all Cosmos

Lalala and Colombo are dating despite being cousins. But they are 6, it is just a phase and not actual love, just how they express really being close like when a very little boy says he will marry his mom one day because he loves her, it is not something to be worried. As adults they would just laugh it off (and their parents relieved)

As I had said once Lalala is not actually naked, just wearing tight clothes of the same color of her skin. People confuse her to be naked because it is said in canon her father is naked all the time so they assume she is too. Because HE REALLY STANDS JUNK OUT ALL DAY

The future King was already dating the future Queen for months if not a year or more when he punched his father. In fact he was very dreamy that morning listening cheerfully to their song because he had proposed her in secret, knowing he would be promised to someone else in an arranged marriage. When himself became King, his sisters all having married people they loved too, he abolished that law, you marry whoever you want. And yeah, as much as their family was torn apart, as harsh as he is with his son he did not want him to be as lonely as he was so he went to see his sisters (and his father's siblings and their children his age) and they all agreed the kids would grow up together to rebond the family together. Worked like a charm (Ace aside)

Because we imagine them as being EXTREMELY kinky we also imagine the King and the Queen as having already a sex life as teenagers, either at her cottage or when she was bold, she climbing up to his bedroom. Which was just why the Emperor was furious that day "YOU ARE THINKING ABOUT THAT HARLOT AGAIN !?! I DON'T WANT YOU TO EVER SEEN HER AGAIN"

The Prince will look just as buff as his dad worh the exact same head shape but unlike him would be much more modest and be very embarrassed/awkward by all the fan attention

Twinkle's family in the gif all look like kids. Because they all are depicted at the same age to compare here

That species having different anatomies some really have weird head shapes like Odeko, Honey, Johnson Havana and Foumin (in these moments the head extremities are very often prehensile) while other like the King (canon) and his direct family have human-like head shapes but as said before very long hair instead kept inside these headdresses

#katamari #papabirdurskeks #moi

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commander-quack-to-the-bridge · 2 years

Text

I posted 184 times in 2022

That's 184 more posts than 2021!

46 posts created (25%)

138 posts reblogged (75%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@crystal-mouse

@reffitt-blog1

@your-name-is-jim

@frogayyyy

@sleepingisgoodforthesoul

I tagged 148 of my posts in 2022

Only 20% of my posts had no tags

#star trek - 102 posts

#spock - 97 posts

#jim kirk - 57 posts

#starfeed - 51 posts

#star trek aos - 41 posts

#star trek tos - 32 posts

#bones mccoy - 32 posts

#leonard mccoy - 25 posts

#aos spock - 24 posts

#the original series - 23 posts

Longest Tag: 119 characters

#i know i've watched a couple episodes of tos now and i am actually wondering what the hell that was even supposed to be

My Top Posts in 2022:

Another iconic Beyond moment.

The fact that they are talking about Bones without having to name him. They just know each other well enough. They know him.

The fact that Spock is like, fuck it I spent the last several hours (days???) with him. His presence isn't so bad. I can handle it a bit longer. I already thought we were going to die together once. I can do it again.

Kirk being like, here we go again. Another southern gentlemanly rant about how he's a doctor not something else. These two idiots better know how much I love them because I am so fucking tired.

Bones screaming inside and trying to be marginally calm on the surface. You know he is cussing Spock and Jim up one side and down the other. You know it. We almost got to see it.

238 notes - Posted November 4, 2022

omfggggggg

not the way Kirk says, "Spock, it seems only fair to warn you that I have absolutely no intention of obeying Admiral Diegaro's order to abandon an entire planet of innocent beings to horrible deaths. Since this makes me unequivocally guilty of insubordination, I'll understand if you need to relieve me of command and put me in the brig."

And Spock responding with an arched eyebrow, "And who will put me in the brig with you?"

Excerpted from More Beautiful Than Death by David Mack

256 notes - Posted October 7, 2022

silly little headcanon time

since we get to see Spock basically quote Sherlock Holmes, it is now my belief that he's read the books.

Sherlock was Spock's first crush. He found his logic and demeanor interesting and flattering, appreciated the way he never had time for people that weren't willing to listen to him and/or some sort of asset to him. Appreciated that Sherlock plays violin, especially when he needs time to just sit and ponder some big mystery. Found his chemical dependency illogical but could over look it because he was amazing to read about. There wasn't anything Sherlock couldn't achieve with his logic and higher level of thinking. And then Spock grew a bit older and realized that wasn't a crush at all, it was more along the lines of representation. He related to Sherlock, he wasn't crushing on the man. With that knowledge he decided to spend his spare time rereading his mother's old books.

Only on his reread the only character he could seem to pay attention to was Dr. John Watson. The way he acted without thinking, how angry he would get with Sherlock for being so apathetic towards everyone and everything that wasn't the case he was actively involved with. The way Watson seemed to balance out the parts of Sherlock that were disliked by the vast majority of characters in the story. The head strong soldier who was willing to risk it all to help someone in need. He found his infatuation with John Watson fascinating. Eventually he finishes his reread of the old stories and gets caught up in growing up.

He recalls Sherlock Holmes from time to time, typically in passing, often when he looks at a fellow Starfleet officer and says, "Once you eliminate the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

And then he meets the hard headed, fiery, strong willed cadet who already - in his first two weeks in the academy - made a reputation for himself being quick to act, James Tiberius Kirk.

289 notes - Posted October 12, 2022

When the events of Star Trek 2009 take place Chekov is 17.

He is seventeen when he witnesses the death of almost six billion people.

Seventeen when he saves Sulu and Kirk from slamming to their deaths but minutes later loses Amanda as the surface of Vulcan gives way & he is unable to lock onto her signal. He's a child, the death of someone else's mother is on his hands.

Chekov watched as a few elders and Spock appeared in the transporter, saw the look of devastation on his face as Spock realized his mother was now gone. They returned to the bridge and watched as a planet died, knowing there was nothing to be done about it.

Chekov's calculations were correct and it must have been the worst feeling in the universe. He had to hope - even if it was just in the back of his head - that he was wrong. He had most likely never wished for anything more in his young life.

All of this... only to then be present when Kirk forced Spock into showing that he was emotionally compromised. Hearing Kirk goad Spock with, "It must not even compute for you. You never loved her!" only to see someone he most likely admires lose his mind. No one on the bridge, except his father, could have imagined Spock in such a state.

You can't convince me that Chekov didn't internalize that. He had to have been feeling poorly as it was - to run through the halls shouting, "I can do that I can do that!" and save two men only to lose someone a few moments later in a similar situation. I know I'm repeating myself here but I remember being 17 and internalizing all kinds of things.

The one break Chekov probably had was taken from him when Spock snapped. To see Spock react logically must have been a level of comfort, even if on some level Chekov knew it was probably a lie.

And then to be the one that came up with the plan to hide the entirety of the Enterprise??? To go through all of that and still be mentally present is a kind of strength that is unimaginable for me.

I like to think that after the events of that day McCoy is making his rounds, checking in on everyone. When he gets to Chekov the kid smiles and says, "Everything is fine with me, sir."

McCoy gives him a look before responding, "Ever eager, huh? You didn't even let me ask my question."

"What question is that?"

"How are you?"

Three simple words. And Chekov's illusion he built for himself shatters.

Seeing Vulcan destroyed was bad enough. But he hasn't been able to sleep without seeing Amanda disappear from the screen, seeing Spock hit Kirk over and over with displaced rage, hearing Spock's voice shake as he says, "Doctor, I am no longer fit for duty. I here by relinquish my command based on the fact that I have been emotionally compromised. Please note the time and date in the ship's log.", or waking up scared that Spock will blame him, because why wouldn't he?

303 notes - Posted September 30, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Can we just... Look at this.

The look Spock gives him 🙃 he knows in that moment he can't leave Jim, despite what logic might say is best for New Vulcan.

457 notes - Posted October 27, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

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lemonstars8583 · 2 years

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The Timothy idea was based on how almost nobody checks the drawers after the Seek chase and I wonder if Timothy can spawn there and how it gets ignored constantly.

I really hope that you never encounter The Eyes-Screech combo, I had and it WAS TGE WORST I NEARLY DIED TO THIS BULL. Halt-Screech would be fun as a concept but I am also scared (shaking hands)

---

Seek and Rush, divorced over plates dgdhdhdhhffh. Seek immediately pulled out divorce papers the second Rush walked into the room because it knows Rush purposely put them up there for its inconvenience.

These two are extremely hilarious together. In the relationship, they are so stupid. Rush's brilliant (not) mega brain chucks out the dumbest idea and Seek is like, "hell yeah lets do it." This is how everyone learned Seek is fireproof after they fell into the fireplace. Constantly would set up pranks for the player by setting up traps for adding fake keys.

Now that they're divorced, they (Seek) is so fucking petty against each other. They're pretty civil but Rush can't help it but bother their ex-spouse and Seek would purposely trip Rush over even if the player gets to live.

Constant soap opera worthy fights over the dumbest things, played up for dramatics since Seek can't resist pulling out the acting and Rush eggs him on with more taunts.

It looks like they're fighting, they are fighting, but in the end it's just a fun show and there's no hard feelings after. Except the collateral damage of things when they were busy fistfighting each other.

The Glitch as a non-canon entity is cool as a character concept. As you said, the game broke so that part of the code manifest to get anyone out as it resolves the problem.

Canonizing it would be dope but it's meant to exist outside of the game.

---

Anyway I should talk about Figure and Halt because they look cool as hell. Their designs are amazing, the roblox models are great with the limitations of designs.

Halt's blue being the same as Light's making Light' advice hard to understand since players would think that it's Halt talking to them when it's Light trying to get their asses out. For a moment too long, I thought Halt was a big cat-ghost thing since I only saw their north star looking eyes an went "yep thats a cat."

And when i actually dodged Halt's teleportation and saw how they actually looks, its just a moving disco head.

The way the light moves is reminiscent of a big ol' lighthouse at night and with the human looking head, hmmm...

Im not doing figure this ask as I am brain empty.

-----

My my, Screech was so annoying that your brain automatically nerfed them and you proceed to bring them around like a wet kitten being carried by the neck lol

-door not-anon

YES YES first of all RIP IM SO SORRY YOU HAD TO ENCOUNTER THAT AHAHA but like yesss i see seek as like. fairly level-headed, professional, chill, UNTIL something GREATLY frustrates it and it just blows a fuse, hence the very loud banging after you complete the chases. it is MAD. rush is like. constantly energetic and usually positive but also has a hell of a temper so its like. they both understand each others situation and relate to one another but. when they get mad at each other? good lord. hide the furniture or its gonna go flying HAHA, there's no real hard feelings harbored afterward but they just both need to Get The Rage Out. sometimes it even devolves into them just having fun and throwing things. seek doesn't like to show that side of itself to many (Hide is also an exception because its very grumpy too so they have Sibling Grumpy Time™ but rush's dumbass energy is like a planet's freakin orbit it just sucks everyone in.

also YES figure and halt are so cool i love them.. i like to imagine figure and eyes are friends because. well. figure's the only one who really cant look at eyes so there's hardly any uncomfortable incidents.

ON THE TOPIC OF FRIEND GROUPS!!

hide, halt, and eyes have their own little antisocial friend group. halt doesn't like having to stare at the wall the entire time they meet up to not upset eyes but it understands. they all want people to stay away from them and not violate their boundaries, Hide not liking people in the wardrobes too long, Halt wanting privacy in its separate domain, and Eyes hating to be looked at. They all get along well.

Rush, Ambush, and Seek all make up the Chasers Club (despite the fact i headcanon rush isnt actually going after the players at all, it just wants to run but if they don't hide in time it's just like "welp if theyre in the way what am i gonna do about it" but shhh) where they all hang out and talk about successes and failures in chasing down players. They tried to invite Halt but it declined. which resulted in Rush breaking into its home and forcibly bringing it. which wasn't fun for anyone (though maybe a little funny)

uhhh random jack fact uhhh he likes to practice magic tricks but is bad at it

ummmmmm that's all i have to say i love this little headcanon exchange tho its so fun sorry for the late reply this time my brain deflated

#lemon yells #doors roblox

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kwanamikaela · 2 years

Text

QUANTUM REPORT

Review of the global situation in relation to where Humanity is heading - March 2021 • 'Bubbles' that must be blown

March 6 arriving/arrived in the same intensity like month started; around midnight (eastern european time) March 5, concentrated Plasma was working with physical structure, and Human body absorbed quantities of the light. It can cause: exhaustion; white screen in front of the eyes; temporary weakness; blood pressure in the head; sensitive muscle groups; unrest in digestive system/tight stomach; full head and many individual sensations and expressions. Physical system and vessel usually request and takes rest itself in order to Absorb high vibrational energies, that ensures our body's Crystallisation.

Crystallisation is a Process in stages, where on carbon based dense physical Human body undergoes transition to on crystal based density body or Light Body, wich in its consistence has much more higher vibration; different way of existence in comparison with present way of living, eating habits etc. I has written about this theme during last two or three year period; yet, there is a new details add to, and Crystallisation will be mentioned also further.

REVIEW OF THE GLOBAL SITUATION IN RELATION WHERE HUMANITY IS HEADING

Small actions, public actions - all counts ❗And, the most those, where you are acting from Humanness, where you are not lowering yourself till the level of coldness and lack of humanness.

Definitely, it is not the time to live in fears, nor in Idyll, that somehow it will 'pass' or that 'all is in God' s hands'. These are those 'bubbles', I wil speak later about, that must be blown.

Hard work is put into an action, in so many levels it has not seen before. Here I speak not only about our Star Brothers and Sisters, but about real authentic living mankind. Brave man and women who are stepping forth during this year (March 2020 - March 2021), thousands of thousands, and numbers increases. We are becoming like a ONE UNIFIED FORCE willing to LIVE and BREATHE and CREATE. We do not consent to a thing that goes against Universal Laws.

Global situation will change and end, when we are changing it and ending it. This is exactly, how it is. When and how will be seen the result depends on everyday's actions and decisions you are taking, I am taking, Humanity is taking.

Did WE have this Understanding, that this on us depends.

Do you have.

All deeds that has done to harm and experiment with Humanity, are seen by Karma Council. Law of Karma is Universal Law, and it will find its way to those Souls and entities, who are involved in creation of present scenario.

'BUBBLES' THAT MUST BE BLOWN

Do not hold anger, hate, despair in your Being and Heart. Every hour… day… week… bigger mass of Divine ones we are, are Rising ☀️💛☀️🌎

Hold in your Being and Heart TRUST

Shift yourself into seeing harmonious planet with waters and green areas, animals, smiling Brothers and Sisters manifesting real true Abundance for all.

Our New Earth is coming from our Hearts ❤️

"It will pass - all is in God's hands".

In the situation we are globally will not pass, it will continue in forced way with more and more rules, restrictions, limiting Human rights, till…

All is in… our hands for we are Source expression, for we are came to the point in our evolution, where we become aware of Divinity Within, and ourselves as Creators. All is in our hands with endless support from higher planes.

Channelings.

Where is found more worth, - in channeled information, channelings, or in our own deep inward Knowing?

I will leave here this question for each to think about, observe about, to feel about.

"Others reflects back to you, what is in you, what you must heal/transform in yourself".

You are the one, who Knows the best, WHAT is in you, what can need healing, what needs transformation, if you are enough honest and transparent with own you. Responses from those around you is linked with your common experiences with them in other Lifetimes or Timelines; responses also are following, when you are changing and they don't 'find' you on the same level you were before. Allow to others respond. Allow others to express. But do not take it too close, and continue your Path you feel is right for you.

"All Souls you meet in this Life, you must with work out karma".

Our basic task in present Life is to become conscious aware; to be aware of Karma like a concept, that response : response can create the energy, or positive charged or negative charged.

When you meet someone and there appears conflic between, in the moment, when you are changing your response, you are or creating karma energy or, you are evolving higher. With Ascension, when we are rising out of Karma cycle, and rising in awareness about Karma, we are also having no Karma by reaching within this Knowing, how this Law works and aligning our responses with looking at all through our Hearts.

This is phenomenal: to experience living, without Karma; first steps for Humanity to become aware of this opportunity and to experience.

With Love 💛

More Love 💛💛

Kwana Mikaela

Photo by hosokawatakuya33 (Instagram)

March 6, 2021

#energyreport

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gar-trek · 4 years

Note

please share what you have to say about food cubes!!

I was feeling a little apprehensive about releasing the TOS Food Document™ because it is so damn long…. But since you asked anon

DISCLAIMER:

This is focused solely on food as it appears in the original series. Whatever explanation of food synthesizer/replicator that may come in later series does to apply here. I am also not a Star Trek expert. I’m sure there is some super fan out there who knows everything there is to know about food in TOS, but that person is not me. This is just my thoughts as I’ve observed instances where food is shown or mentioned in TOS. If my thought process is flawed, or I make some claims that don’t really make sense, I am sorry. The food canon is very complicated and vague, so this is me just trying my best to make sense of it. I’d also like to mention I did not explicitly cover the meal scene in What Are Little Girls Made Of? Or the ice cream scene from And The Children Shall Lead, but I do make reference to them. I’m sure there are other food scenes I didn’t get to cover here, so if I’m missing a few pieces, I’m sorry.

Anyway… let’s get into it!

The original series, food, and other things that keep me up at night

I don’t care about continuity or plot holes in Star Trek: The Original Series, and if I did, I think the show would become rather unwatchable. It’s not about what happens to get us from plot point A to B, but more important that we do get there (ie, who cares how or why Spock’s brain has been removed from his body, it’s more important that we do get it back inside).

This being said, there is one aspect to TOS that baffles me to no end, and its something I just cannot overlook: the food. Food, the entire concept of it as it appears in TOS haunts me. Each time they show or mention food it makes less and less sense. It’s a never-ending nightmare and I spend every day trying to understand what goes on in the Enterprise Cafeteria. Today I would like to explore a couple food instances on TOS, and hopefully make a little sense of what is happening.

The first chilling incident: The Man Trap (S1E2) - Rand is a thief

In this episode, we see Yeoman Rand on her way to deliver Sulu his meal. She is carrying a tray of colored food cubes (which is what I will be referring to them as here, because there is no official name) and what we can assume to be some kind of alien variant of celery (earth celery with some red crap stuck on top). While waiting for the turbo lift, Rand eats one of the celery sticks intended for Sulu. My question is why. Like literally why does this happen. Sulu never mentions it (maybe he doesn’t notice). She never mentions it to him, which means we can assume she doesn’t want him to know. So why is Rand stealing food? Does she not get enough to eat? Is the limits for how much you get to eat on the Enterprise that strict you need to turn to thievery to get a proper meal? and if that the case, she’s shorting Sulu on his allotted food. In this same scene, we see Ensign Green (who is really a salt-sucking monster) make a grab for the tray as if he too is going to steal Sulu’d food. However, Rand slaps his hand away and asks “who do you think you are?”, a hypocritical statement considering Rand is also in the act of stealing food. So Rand, I must pose the same question to you. This scene has no resolution, so any interpretation is up to the viewer. Whether you think Rand's actions make her a girlboss or a thief, is up to you, however, one thing is undeniably true: Rand eats food off other people's plates.

Other food-related things of note in this episode is that Sulu sprinkles salt on the celery sticks. This means they are either bland or that's just his personal taste. Also, when Rand gives him his tray, he says “may the great bird of the galaxy bless your planet” and this has nothing really to do with food, I just thought it was kind of badass.

(Sulu’s food tray with 3 celery instead of 4 because Rand ate one)

Incident two: Charlie X (S1E3) - synthetic meatloaf

In Charlie X, we see Captain Kirk make this comment in passing:

“Today on earth it is Thanksgiving, if the crew has to eat synthetic meatloaf I want it to look like turkey.”

This statement leaves us with a couple undeniable truths:

1. Meatloaf is a meal option on the Enterprise.

2. It is synthetic, meaning the meatloaf may not contain any meat at all.

3. It is not shaped like turkey, but it is possible to do so.

if the meatloaf served on the Enterprise is synthetic, then it very well could be made out of the same stuff the colored food cubes are made out of. Also, (and this is pure speculation so take it with a grain of salt) since we never hear anyone refer to the colored food cubes by name, they could literally be the “synthetic meatloaf” that Kirk is referring to here. In this case, the term synthetic meatloaf would not mean a synthetic version of the popular American dish meatloaf but instead loafs of synthetic meat. Since we do not know exactly what synthetic meat looks like, it very well could be brightly colored cubes.

In either case, Kirk is asking them to turn synthetic food from one shape to another. We understand this is possible through the food synthesizer, however, if all the food they eat on the Enterprise is synthetic anyway, then why did Kirk specifically mention synthetic meatloaf in the shape of turkey? would the turkey not instead be made out of synthetic turkey? why must the synthetic turkey be made specifically out of meatloaf? isn’t every single food that comes out of the food synthesizer made out of the same thing? It would have made more sense for Kirk to say “it's thanksgiving so can you made the food synthesizers produce turnkey?”. However, Kirk is like, a really cool guy, so it is possible that the meatloaf comment is just a fun joke. Either way, we know that synthetic meatloaf is a standard menu item on the enterprise, yet we have never seen anyone consume it.

Incident 3: The Corbomite Maneuver (S1E11) - Green leaves

In this episode, Kirk goes in for a physical, and Doctor McCoy reports that the captain is 2 pounds overweight. In response to this, the Doctor changes the captain's dietary card to help him lose a little wight (🙄). We later see the captain served a “dietary salad” in place of his usual meals. The existence of dietary salad is interesting for many reasons. Most importantly, we understand that dietary salad is somehow better for you than what is usually served on the Enterprise. It most likely has a lower caloric intake than say, colored food cubes. However, as discussed before, most if not all the food on the Enterprise is synthetic. If the food is created, and not naturally made, then one can assume its caloric value can be controlled. Would it not be possible to make a lower-calorie version of colored food cubes? one would assume that the cubes are made to have the perfect amount of nutrients to satisfy yet keep humans a healthy weight if they are in fact a form of synthetic man-made food. How would the captain overeat, if portions are pre-determined by dietary cards? Is Kirk somehow going rouge and consuming food that is not created by the food synthesizer (the captain's secret cookie stockpile??).

The existence of this salad also begs another question: is it synthetic as well, or are they growing fresh salad on the Enterprise? We do know that they are able to grow things on the ship, however, there has never been any discussion of growing crops specifically for consumption. If this is the case though, it may explain why we often see crew members eating celery sticks. Perhaps things like celery sticks and dietary salads are grown on the Enterprise, but all other food is synthetically created. In which case, who’s job is it to harvest food and prepare it for meals? Did Rand have to put that dietary salad together all on her own?

One more interesting point about the Salad: When Kirk first receives it, he asks

“what in the devil is this? Green leaves?”

which prompts Rand to explain that it’s a salad. It is very possible that Kirk genuinely has no idea what a salad is. He may have never had one, nor heard of the food in his entire life. Later we see him eat the salad with his hands, which further proves the point that captain kirk doesn't know what salad is. Why captain Kirk would somehow have no knowledge of salad is up to speculation.

Incident 4: The conscience of the king (S1E14) - Cry over spilled milk

In this episode, Lieutenant Riley is served colored food cubes and a glass of what appears to be milk. There isn’t much of significance here, other than the fact we know it is possible to get a glass of milk with your meal on the Enterprise. Unlike Sulu, Riley doesn’t have any celery sticks but seems to have a larger serving of colored food cubes as compensation. We also learn that milk is served in a large glass, something that seems very impractical on a starship.

Riley proves my point moments later when he spills milk on a control panel and shatters the glass. This begs the question, who is going to clean that up?

Incident 5: Tomorrow is Yesterday (S1E20) - Chicken noodle soup

In this episode, the Enterprise accidentally beams a 60′s army man abroad their ship (for the second time). This random chad ensign asks the man if he’s hungry because he’s a troll I guess and he wanted to flex their cool future food machine. The army captain guy is like sure, I could go for some chicken soup right now (a very natural response to being beamed onto a spaceship for the first time). Chad ensign has like three cards in front of him, and I guess one of them just happens to be chicken soup because he puts it in the machine and the soup appears. Grant it, we never actually get to see the soup with out own eyes, but the army captain does seem to be pretty convinced that it is chicken soup just by the smell. This opens up a couple possibilities:

-The food synthesizer can make almost anything you want, and the card is maybe like a very broad category, like a dinner card, and when you put it in you can pick any dinner food you’d like.

-The food synthesizer can only make what is specific to each card, and the ensign just got extremely lucky and happened to have a card that was the exact food the army captain wanted.

More evidence, which we will go over later, points more towards the theory that one card is equal to one specific type of food. In this case, it is unclear how the synthesizer food cards are distributed, or how you get your pick of what food you would like. It is also more likely that options would be limited. This does make sense, however, it makes this scene very confusing, as, as I’ve pointed out, the ensign had a very limited number of cards, but exactly what the captain had asked for. Pure luck? what mind game was that Chad ensign trying to play with the poor man who was abducted from earth... we will never know.

One more very interesting thing is established here: The transporter room has a food synthesizer. Why this is is purely up to speculation. In my mind, having a food synthesizer in the transporter room would be like having a full kitchen where you park your car. Seems pretty useless, but maybe the guys in the transporter room requested easy access to snacks? Why the transporter room would get this special privilege is again, up to speculation.

Incident 6: Space Seed (S1E23) - Dinner with Khan

In Space Seed a special dinner is put together to welcome Khan onto the Enterprise. We see that they are being served colored food cubes and celery sticks. Doctor McCoy walks into the dining room and comments about how the display is “very impressive”. However, this seems like a very unusual comment considering we are shown the only food we have ever seen consumed on the Enterprise. What exactly makes this food “impressive” as compared to other celery sticks and colored food cubes? Is there some way to tell this particular food is better that we don’t know about, but is obvious to everyone on the Enterprise?

There is also a chance that Doctor McCoy is just very easily impressed with food, and upon seeing any food spread he is likely to comment in wonder. Note the way Scotty is looking at McCoy. His face is a mixture of confusion, judgment, and pity. Perhaps Scotty is thinking to himself “bruh, it’s literally just colored food cubes chill out man,”. There is no explanation as to why Scotty is giving McCoy such a look, so this very well could be the case. Even though it is a silly explanation, I don’t think it should be ruled out that one of McCoy’s personality traits is being overly excited about food of any kind.

Incident 7: Journey to Babel (S2E10) Party food

Much like in Space Seed, in this episode, we get to see a meal put together for a special occasion. All the diplomates are getting down at a mixer where a spread of food has been provided. These snacks seem very similar to colored food cubes, however I do think they differ. They may be the same type of food, but different in some way. In which case colored food cubes is an overarching category of food, and here we see two different types. The smaller more brightly colored cubes can be put in drinks, though if this is what you are supposed to do with them, or just the preference of that one alien species I do not know. Though I must point out, we have seen colored food cubes served in brown sauce in What are Little Girls Made Of? (S1E8) so it is not completely unheard of to have your colored food cubes served soggy.

The other type of colored food cubes we see are a lot larger and more pair shaped (in reality, they probably were just skinned pairs dipped in food coloring, but for this essay, it’s important that we completely ignore the fact there is another life outside of Star Trek). Now to me, these are very interesting, because the dull color and apparent texture are a lit more similar to standard colored food cubes we have seen thus far. I would even go o far to say that this is the same exact food, just sans the cubed shape. So really, standard colored food cubes are just the cubed version of whatever this food is. This, again, is just speculation, but it does point us to the fact that colored food cubes are not naturally cubed (I’m going somewhere with this is promise)

Incident 8: The Trouble With Tribbles (S2E15) The trouble with Chicken sandwichs

Here we see Kirk attempting to order a chicken sandwich and coffee. What he gets instead is a plate full of tribbles, hilarity ensues. I think this scene is interesting because we can add to our list of food items that are on the menu at the enterprise cafeteria: chicken sandwich. However, this is another food item we do not see. There is no way of knowing if the Enterprise's version of a chicken sandwich is what we would imagine a chicken sandwich to be. Much like the meatloaf and the soup, because we do not see it, there is no way of knowing if the food exists in the way that we as 21st-century people understand it. The events of TOS take place more than 200 years in our future, so to speculate that food could change a lot during that time isn’t a stretch. I don’t know, just some food for thought (lol)

Incident 9: By Any Other Name (S2E22) Living deliciously

In this episode, an alien taking the form of a human enjoys some colored food cubes. He makes a comment about how they are good they are while enthusiastically eating his food. This is a very important moment because it tells us that colored food cubes do taste good. In fact, they taste really good. Just before he eats, the alien comments on how humans could just take pills that give them all their nutrient needs and give up food completely (think the Jetsons cartoon). On the Enterprise, they do not eat just to live, but because they enjoy their food as well. This tells us that colored food cubes are at the very least, worth eating, and at the best, very delicious.

One more interesting thing: Spock is eating some kind of soup while everyone else enjoys colored food cubes. This could be a Vulcan preference, however, we know that Spock is vegetarian. This could be alluding to the fact that Colored Food Cubes are made out of meat.

Conclusion:

Yes, I asked a lot more questions than I answered. There are some things that make absolutely no sense to me, primarily, the food synthesizer and diet cards. Some evidence points to the fact that the food synthesizer can make practically anything (see Tomorrow is Yesterday, And the Children Shall Lead). However, one dietary card is equal to one specific food, which would mean they would have to produce a lot of these dietary cards if there is many meal options. How these cards are distributed, and what their limitations are, we do not know. And although we do not know the limits of what the food synthesizer can create, we do know these food have been served on the enterprise at least at one point:

-colored food cubes (variety)

-celery

-synthetic meatloaf

-synthetic turkey (Thanksgiving Special)

-Dietary Salad

-Milk

-Chicken Soup

-Chicken Sandwich

-Mystery Soup

-Ice cream (variety of flavors)

All of this food (except for maybe the dietary salad and celery) are synoptically created, so what they are actually made up of, I cannot say.

And finally, I would like to make a point about the colored food cubes. I think upon first inspection one would assume colored food cubes is a dish created specifically for space travel (think the food created for modern-day astronauts to consume in space). However, we learned that there is possibly a variety of colored food cube dishes. Since there is such a wide variety of food on the Enterprise, why would they also need to create a food specifically for space travel? I think that colored food cubes are actually a common dish, not intended specifically for space travel. Perhaps it was an alien food that got popular on earth, maybe it was a dish developed later in Earth's history by humans. I can only speculate, but I do think it is more than just boring space food. Everyone seems to have a preference for it, so I think it’s a dish you can eat over and over again and not get sick of. What colored food cubes taste like is completely up to speculation, but I would assume they are a savory food, considering we often see people enjoying them for their main meal.

I still have more to say, but for the sake of everyone, I’ll end it there. This was a lot of thought dumping, so if some of the things I said made no sense at all, I’m sorry. I’d love to hear some of your thoughts on TOS food! please share with me what you think colored food cubes would taste like :)

#star trek #tos #star trek tos #the original series #anon reveal yourself so i can kiss you #please #whole ass ted talk #sorry this is so long #colored food cubes #kirk #james t kirk #spock #bones #leonard mccoy #journey to babel #space seed #yeoman rand #sulu #hikaru sulu

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vvitchering · 3 years

Note

I don’t suppose you’d write 28 for DinCobb?? :3 thank you for taking prompts!!

This is extremely late. I don't even remember when it was that I was taking these prompts but I definitely wanted to get to yours eventually. And it's eventually o'clock right now!

#28 "Mary me?"

Cobb doesn't pretend to understand the unique connection between Mandalorians and their armor. He knows next to nothing, aside from what he's learned firsthand: don't get caught wearing the stuff if you ain't one of them.

Then again, it's thanks to his unknowing armor-related sacrilege that he has the life he has now. The armor helped him save his home and his people. And it brought Din into his life; never mind that it brought him in guns blazing. That fateful day in the cantina and resulting battle against the Krayt feel light years away, now.

He remembers watching Din ride away out of his life as quickly as he had walked into it and feeling a peculiar sense of loss that only had a little bit to do with giving up the armor. Every glint on the horizon from then on set his heart beating faster and disappointment soured his stomach each time it wasn't the twin suns reflecting off polished beskar.

When the mandalorian did eventually return, helmetless and dead-eyed, it hadn't been a hardship to take him in. He's less the legendary mandalorian now and more Din Djarin, all soft brown eyes and shy smiles and dry humor.

He doesn't wear the armor like he used to. Most of it is packed safely away in a padded crate, traded in for proper desert attire. He still wears the piece that functions as a brace for his bum knee, for practical reasons, and the pauldron with the mudhorn signet, for less practical (but no less valid) reasons.

Cobb often wonders if it makes him a selfish asshole that he's the happiest he's been in decades because Din's misfortune lead him back to Tatooine. Back to him. They have a life together now. They're partners, in multiple ways. Din helps out defending and growing the town, providing valuable tactical and weapons knowledge as well as his skill with the Tuskan language.

He also does a damn good job keeping Cobb's bed warm at night.

All in all, things are good. Great, even. But there's still that nagging sense that Cobb is missing something important every time he catches the far away look in Din's eyes as he carefully polishes his few remaining pieces of armor.

Is he missing his previous life? Does he regret settling on this dust ball of a planet? Will Cobb wake up one day to find that Din Djarin has disappeared and the mandalorian has taken to the stars once again?

Cobb would never presume to tie him down. He's grateful for every day he gets to spend with Din, he truly is. He knows that when the day comes that Din packs up his box of beskar and leaves (and its most certainly a "when", not an "if"), more than a little bit of Cobb's tired old heart will go with him.

They're turning in for bed one evening when Din begins acting strangely. He's been fidgety and distracted all day, anxious in a way Cobb has never seen him be before. He keeps opening his mouth as if he wants to say something, then closing it again and turning away. He refuses eye contact and shies away when Cobb tries to touch him. He's constantly reaching up to rub at the mudhorn signit on his shoulder. Cobb suddenly feels like he's standing on the edge of a terrifying precipice. This must be it. This must be the night Din puts the rest of his armor back on and tells him he's leaving in the morning. This is the night the illusion of their happy life together finally shatters.

Cobb feels sick down to his core as he hears the unmistakable sound of beskar chiming as it's clasp is undone. He clenches his fist at his side and squeezes his eyes shut.

Only to snap them open in surprise as he feels Din approach and gently take his arm.

He's not wearing his armor. He's dressed in the same soft familiar sleep clothes he's worn to bed a hundred times. He looks resolved, determined, and only a touch nervous. He's holding his pauldron in one hand, the other still gently grasping Cobb's arm.

"What do you know about beskar?" Din asks, and his voice is quiet but steady.

"Not a lot. Just what you've told me. Mostly that's important to you. To, uh, to your people. Mandalorians." Cobb stutters out, confused by the strange question and unnerved by the entire situation.

Din smiles reassuringly and Cobb takes a breath.

"It is important. It protects us, strengthens us, unites us as a people, even scattered as we are. It binds us together. It's sacred."

The words sound strangely formal, like Din is reciting something.

"Sure," Cobb responds slowly. "'s why folks who ain't sworn your creed have no business wearing it. You made that plenty clear when we met that first time. What are you getting at?"

Din lifts the pauldron and presses it against Cobb's shoulder. It doesn't quite fit, it's made for Din's bulkier more muscular frame, but it feels warm with his residual body heat and Cobb can feel the weight of it through his thin shirt as Din holds it against him. Din is staring at him, a question hiding behind his dark eyes.

It protects us...

He can't be serious.

unites us...

This can't be what he thinks it is.

It binds us together.

"Cobb Vanth," Din says his name so reverently it makes tears spring into his eyes. His heart is beating so loud in his own ears it's a wonder he can hear anything at all over the sound.

"Marry me?"

Cobb feels like he's floating somewhere just above his body. He must be dreaming. He never wants to wake up, in that case. He'll just float here forever, replaying those two words endlessly.

The silence stretches on long enough that Din begins to visibly panic, curling his fingers under the pauldron to pull it back. Cobb snaps back to himself in an instant and slaps his own hand over Din's, stopping him from removing the piece of armor. Din is staring again, mouth slightly open, and Cobb loosens his grip slightly so they're both supporting the pauldron together.

The tears are flowing freely now, rolling down his cheeks in embarrassing streams because it's too much to bear, too much to keep inside. He's fit to burst with happiness.

"Yeah, yes, you son of a bitch. Had me worried sick you were gonna up and leave and here you are, making an honest man out of me."

Din looks a bit weepy himself as his panic morphs into relief and he laughs as he leans forward to press his forehead against Cobb's other shoulder.

"Huh, ol' Cobb Vanth getting hitched. It'll be the talk of the town."

Din's laughter is infectious and soon they're both laughing through their tears.

"Shut up or I'll take it back."

"Nah, see, this is mine now. No take backs. I got this the proper way, Mandalorian blessings and everything, and I'm holding onto it this time."

---

I wrote this all in one go without stopping so I apologize for any errors. Shout out to @chamomileteainabuttercup for being a good sport and listening to me ramble about dincobb stuff until I had ideas! And to @godtier1, I'm sorry this took 87 years!!!!! I hope you like it!

#dincobb #din/cobb #the mandalorian #mine #prompt fills #I'll clean this up and post it on ao3 maybe tomorrow if I have time!#yay first actual piece of fic in X amount of months!!!!

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darthkruge · 4 years

Note

Okay okay okay so imagine Reader is abducted by the separatists because she ( or nb reader ) is a very well loved member of the senate. So obviously Anakin goes to save her, but his idiot plan gets him captured as well so then it's up to Reader to talk her way out of this mess, get to her idiot boyfriend, free him and then both of them try to make it out alive. Bonus points for Obi-Wan looking very tired and sick of Anakin's ideas in the background. What do you think?

Anakin Skywalker x Fem!Reader ~ Rescue Operations?

Summary: After the Reader is captured by the Separatists, Anakin rushes to save her. When this doesn’t work out, the Reader has to get her and her boyfriend out of this mess.

Warnings: Language, whump, one scene where the Reader gets beat up, Reader is a badass, Anakin is completely in love with his badass girlfriend and we love that for him

Words: 3.8k

A/N: Catherine, my love!! I’m sorry this took me so long, I have nothing to say for myself other than my poor organization skills. But I’m obsessed with this request, I hope I did it justice <3

gif credit (x)

You groaned as you opened your eyes and attempted to shake the drowsiness that seemed to cling to your very bones. You blinked, trying to get your bearings and remember what had happened. You were preparing for your speech at the Senate, trying to pass a peace treaty between the Republic and some smaller territories that were debating joining the fight against the Separatists. You’d been fighting for support for the treaty for months and you finally had the chance to give one last speech before the vote.

You’d been pacing in your Coruscant apartment, practicing the speech for your boyfriend a million times. After you finished your recitation, you exited the room, needing to get your notes that you’d seemed to misplace. So you went into your office and… nothing.

Why couldn’t you remember after that?! You opened the door to your office, walked inside, and…

You sighed as you came back to the present, leaning against the wall behind you and looking around. You were clearly in a cell of some sort and the Separatists were almost certainly behind this. You were still in your Senate attire, although it had been thoroughly scuffed up, and they’d taken your datapad and other communication devices. You felt around your boot and smiled. Your knife was still there. They must have assumed you wouldn’t be carrying a weapon to your speech and not done a thorough enough check. Whatever the reason, you were thanking the Maker it was still there.

Back in Coruscant, Anakin was walking the Temple halls in a crazed state. When you didn’t show up for your speech, he immediately panicked. He knew how important this treaty was for you and the entire Republic; you’d been going over it for forever and there is no way you’d just blow it off without telling anyone. The rest of the Senate was also concerned. You’d grown up in one of the poorer districts and, thus, had a sense of relatability and humility that most were drawn to. Whether or not they agreed with your policies, almost everyone could understand that you always kept the interest of the people at the forefront of your mind.

When Obi-Wan walked up to him with a ripped piece of your clothes and your scattered and crumpled notes, Anakin felt his heart drop.

“It was the Separatists. They must have knocked her out in her office and escaped through the vents.”

Upon seeing his absolutely heartbroken expression, Obi-Wan added, “We’ll get her back, Anakin. I promise.”

Anakin could only nod, ideas for a plan to save you already running round his head.

You’d been in this kriffing cell for four days now. Or maybe it was five? You were desperately trying to keep your wits about you but it was so hard; they brought you a tiny ration of food and water once a day and it was not near enough to keep your strength up. You’d spent your time trying to carve your way through the bars but your knife was no match and you quickly gave up, not wanting to dull the blade. You’d found a loose brick hidden around the floor and used the knife to cut it out, allowing you to hide your weapon under it on the off chance they searched you again.

You tried to think of a plan to escape but they hadn’t even opened your door yet. There was no way you could get out by yourself and, until someone came in that you could attack, it was pointless to even try. They kept you in complete darkness and silence, no way to tell how much time had passed aside from the daily rations. You assumed you were on a Separatist base but that proved unhelpful; they were widespread and the cell held no defining features of climate or location. You had tried calling out to see if anyone else was around. Each time, you were met with your own echo.

You stilled, hearing footsteps approach you. A Separatist guard opened your cell door, roughly pulling you out. You yelped, legs not cooperating after so long of sitting in the cramped cell. He led you into another room that was barely brighter than your own. Sizing up the guard, you felt fear creep in. No matter how hard you tried to banish your anxieties, knowing they’d only serve to lessen your already shaken focus, it was sometimes impossible.

“Tell us which planets are deserting.” He commanded.

You met his stare evenly, refusing to let your fear betray you. There was absolutely no chance you’d tell him anything. As soon as the Separatists learned which planets were thinking about joining the Republic, they’d send armies to wipe them out immediately. You refused to let that happen.

“Fine. Be that way.” The man pulled his fist back and sent it into your cheek, the impact sending sparks of pain throughout your entire body. He brought his foot up, kicking you in the gut and you fell harshly onto the floor. He grabbed you by your hair, hoisting up your body as if it were a ragdoll. You gathered your strength and spit in his face, enjoying the way his smug look disappeared. In retaliation, he slammed you into the wall, the impact making stars cloud your vision.

The man released you and you fell, your consciousness already starting to detach from your body. You tried to reason with yourself, hoping logic would aid you. This is a trauma response. I’m not going to die. My body can take this. I will black out, but I will wake up again. They’re not going to kill me. They need me alive. I’m not going to die. I’m not going to die. Somehow, the hardest part is this was banishing the thoughts of that beautiful boy from your head. You knew that if you allowed yourself to think of him, to fathom how he would blame himself should this be your end, you would give in.

Instead, you focussed on the physical pain you felt, on the rage you channeled to this guard. You hated how weak you felt, how exhausted you were. You allowed your mind to hone in on all the ways you could hurt this man, given you had your full strength. You let yourself hate yourself, appalled at how you couldn’t even fight back. With every punch he threw at you, you went further into your head, into the one place this man couldn’t touch. Eventually, your mind started spinning from dehydration, pain, and overexertion. All you could do was curl into a fetal position and hope it somehow stopped.

“What do you mean you’re going to find her?” Obi-Wan said, running after Anakin.

“It’s been days, Obi-Wan, days. There are only so many Separatist bases in the galaxy and Y/N’s on one of them.”

“Anakin, don’t you think they’ve planned for a rescue mission?! This is Senator L/N we’re talking about! And they took her right before the vote, this was clearly a thought-out attack, stop acting like it’s simple!”

“It is simple! Those Separatist assholes have Y/N. And it’s been days. What if she thinks we forgot about her? What if she thinks we’ve given up? They could be doing fucking anything to her and I’m not going to let her stay there for another minute!”

“Anakin-” Obi-Wan began but Anakin waved him off.

“I’m sorry, Master. But if the Council won’t do anything, I will.”

“Anakin, the Council is trying! They just don’t have enough troops right now to send a full rescue mission after one Senator. They just want a few more days, then some troops should be back from their missions and you can have your full battalion.” Obi-Wan took a breath and lowered his voice, empathy for his friend clear in his words. “I know you love her. I want her back, too, you know. I’ve grown quite fond of her; her friendship is quite dear to me. All I’m asking is you be careful and think this through.”

“Believe me, I have thought this through. I wouldn’t do anything to put her in danger, we both know that. And while a few days doesn’t seem like much to the Council, we’ve seen the harm these Separatists can inflict in far less. Listen, it might not be the strongest plan I’ve ever made but, if it’s between a semi-formed plan and none at all, the choice is already made.”

With that, Anakin jumped into his ship and took off into the night. Obi-Wan sighed, leaning his head into his palm. He knew how much you meant to him and he knew of Anakin’s frustration with the Council. They moved slowly, wanting to figure out every angle before jumping into a decision. While Anakin was a brilliant strategist, he tended to act impulsively when someone he loved was in danger. As Anakin traveled further and further from Coruscant, the older Jedi could only hope that the both of you returned home quickly and safely.

Anakin looked at his ship’s display and cursed when he realized he was low on fuel. He’d been piloting for hours and there was still no sign of you. He was searching out for you with the Force and, still, nothing. Finally, he felt a faint energy pulse through the Force. He followed it to what was supposed to be an old abandoned Separatist base, concerned by how weak your lifeforce felt.

He parked the ship and got out carefully, trying not to alert anyone to his presence. He pulled out his lightsaber but was careful not to ignite it. He saw an open door and ran through it, relief blinding him as he felt your energy grow stronger with each step he took. He turned the corner and saw a crumpled body on the floor of a tiny cell.

No, Anakin thought, it can’t be her.

Without thinking, Anakin ignited his lightsaber, wanting to use the light to discern if the figure was truly you. The noise bounced off the walls and startled you awake. He mentally cursed himself and instinctively turned off the saber, not missing the even louder noise it made with it turned off. He inwardly facepalmed, realizing if he hadn’t alerted the guards before, they sure as hell knew now.

You blinked groggily, wincing at your immense injuries and bruises. You remembered passing out while that asshole beat you and now you-

Wait, You thought, is that a fucking lightsaber?

You knew you must have heard it wrong, there’s no way the Council would have approved a relief mission this quickly. Further, there is no way it would consist of just one Jedi.

Suddenly, the lightsaber re-lit, illuminating your boyfriend’s face. His determined expression grew stronger as he noticed the 10 guards surrounding him and pointing their blasters directly at his head. You smiled. He could take out ten guards with his eyes closed. You called to him in shock, hardly believing your eyes. He looked at you and immediately widened his eyes as he saw a guard come up behind you and point a blaster directly at you from outside your cell.

“Lightsaber on the floor, Jedi, or the girl dies.” The guard growled.

He looked at you in anguish and you could tell he was already beating himself up for “messing up” your escape plan. You shook your head, hoping he understood your message: this isn’t your fault.

“Anakin don’t-” You couldn’t even finish the sentence before his weapon was on the floor. He put his hands on his head. As they grabbed him, you stood in helpless silence as they threw him in the cell beside you. They locked the doors and, once again, you were in darkness.

You desperately crawled to the edge of your cell, trying to reach out to him. He was doing the same and when you felt his fingertips against yours, you almost started sobbing. You weren’t alone anymore.

“You came for me.” Your voice was soft, disbelief lacing your words.

“Of course I did, my love.”

Then, as if everything finally registered in your brain, you reached out and tried to slap his arm. “Anakin, what about the Council? They’ll kill you when they realize you went on a rescue mission, alone, and without approval! Ani, the only thing keeping me going in here was knowing that you were safe! And now you’ve gotten yourself thrown right next to me, no weapons, no light, no food, no water, no escape! What the fuck are we going to do?!”

Anakin had opened and closed his mouth multiple times throughout your speech, trying to find a way to plead his case but was left without one.

“I just wanted to save you.” The grief in his voice made you sigh and take a step back. This was your Anakin you were talking about. Your safety was his priority, always. Besides, doing all this because he was afraid for you? You couldn’t possibly stay mad. You smiled, despite yourself. Anakin. You thought, slightly shaking your head.

“Fuck, I love you. Is it selfish that there’s a small part of me that’s glad you’re here with me?” You said, breaking the silence.

Anakin breathed out a sigh of relief, glad you weren’t upset with him anymore. “Not at all, my love. So long as it isn’t bad that my least favorite part of this is not being able to see or kiss you properly because of this damn darkness.”

You chuckled, lacing your fingers with his once again. “You wouldn’t want to see me right now.”

Anakin froze. “Y/N? What are you talking about?” His voice was serious, clipped. He knew you would try and make it seem less than it was. You winced, realizing there was no way to lie your way out of this one.

“Just what the Separatists would call aggressive negotiations, I presume.”

“How bad?”

“It’s fine, Ani, I promise. Let’s just focus on getting out of here, okay?”

Anakin took a deep breath, collecting himself. “Alright. But as soon as we get back you’re going to a medical droid.”

You groaned. “Anakin I hate-”

“I know you hate the medical droids. But that’s only because they always rat you out when you try and lie to me about the extensiveness of your injuries.”

“You lie about how bad your injuries are, too! Remember that one time you came back from Kamino?!”

Anakin laughed, despite himself. “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?”

“You were literally bleeding from the head! And you said, and I quote, ‘it’s just a scratch’” Every time you thought back to that day, you were incredulous.

“Alright, alright! Let’s just focus on getting out of here.”

“That’s my line!”

“Y/N,” He warned.

You smiled. Maker, you missed him. You honestly didn’t think that anyone else would have you laughing while you were beaten and captured.

“Okay. What’s the plan?” Anakin said, back to the matter at hand.

You lowered your voice, leaning toward his cell so you could talk without being heard. “I snuck a knife in with me and I’ve been able to keep it a secret. Now that you’re here, it might actually come in handy. The problem was that I couldn’t stab anyone because no one would come into the cell. I need you to get them here. Push them against the side of your cell, the one closest to me, and I’ll stab them. Then while they’re hurt, you run out, unlatch my cell, and we’ll go.”

“I’m dating a fucking genius!” You could just about hear the smile in his voice.

You smirked. All things considered, you were pretty proud of yourself.

“When do you want to do this?”

“They bring daily food and water rations in the morning, I think? I can’t exactly tell what time it is, they’ve kept it so dark and isolated. Regardless, the next time they come by I need you to get them in here. They normally just leave the food outside and push it under the door.”

Anakin could hear the disorientation in your words and wanted nothing more than to be able to see you, to be able to hold you and reassure you that it would all be alright.

“Okay, angel. Got it.”

“Anakin?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you for coming to get me. It’s really good to hear your voice.”

“Always, my love.”

Both of you silenced when you heard those footsteps. You smiled for the first time as you heard them. We’re going to get out of here.

“Yeah, that’s a great idea, Y/N! This brick in here is loose!” Anakin announced loudly. You bit your cheek to suppress a smile as you watched Anakin catch the guard’s attention.

“What did you say, Jedi?!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Anakin responded, dramatically feigning innocence.

The guard huffed and you internally cheered as he roughly opened the door. He walked over to your boyfriend, keeping the blaster pointed at him. As soon as the guard’s attention shifted to the “loose” brick, Anakin used the force to knock the blaster out of his hand and push him against the wall of the cell where you slashed his Achilles tendons.

The guard howled in pain and you knew you had to work quickly if you were to get out of here before the rest of the Separatists found you. Anakin fumbled with the latch on your cell, the immense darkness making it difficult. Finally, he got it open and ushered you out. The both of you took off in a run and he gripped your hand with his metal one as you did so.

You immediately stopped as you felt his hand roughly pulled from yours.

“We’ve got you now, Skywalker” The guard said.

“Y/N, you ready?”

You blinked, unsure what he was referring to. Then, you heard an object whipping through the air and on instinct shot your hand out, catching it. You ignited Anakin’s lightsaber that he had summoned to you with the Force, it’s signature buzz making you feel powerful beyond words.

The light caught you off guard and you squinted until your eyes adjusted. You saw Anakin held back by two guards. Hearing faint footsteps, you took off in a run. Anakin ducked as you swung wildly, hitting and taking out both guards.

“You done holding us up?” You said, extending your hand toward him once more and passing him his lightsaber.

Anakin smiled, accepting it. “My sincerest apologies.”

You both ran, hand-in-hand, until you finally made it to the exit.

“What?” You said, as Anakin stopped abruptly and looked at you, panicked.

“The ship! It’s out of fuel!”

“It’s what?!”

“I-” Anakin and you stared at each other, flickers of doubt coming into your gaze. You can’t believe that you’d been able to escape for nothing.

“Anakin! Y/N!”

You whipped your head around at the sound and were met with another ship a few meters down, Obi-Wan piloting it.

“Well? Are you coming, or what?” You and Anakin looked at each other in shock before taking off in a sprint, one guard now close behind you.

He started shooting and Anakin pulled out his lightsaber, deflecting some of the shots. As he focused on that, you pulled your knife back out of your boot and sent it flying into the guard’s chest, effectively stopping his pursuit.

Anakin smirked at you, awestruck. You shrugged before jumping into the ship, extending your arm to Anakin and helping to pull him up with you. You entered and immediately leaned against the wall of the ship, relief coursing through you. You laughed and Anakin joined in. He immediately pulled you into him, kissing you hard.

He broke away from the kiss, looking at you with adoration. “You are a fucking badass!! You’ve never even held a lightsaber and between that and your fucking tiny knife you took out four guards!! I didn’t even get any! I’m not going to lie, Y/N, I’m a bit jealous.”

You laughed, leaning into him but wincing. As the adrenaline wore off, your pain was suddenly quite palpable. He noticed and pulled back, scanning your face and body.

His smile fell as the extent of your injuries sunk in. Your busted cheek, scratched face, and ripped clothing that exposed some of your many bruises across your torso and limbs were overwhelming.

“You kids alright in there?” Obi-Wan said, walking in from the cockpit. His smile died on his face as well as he took in your form.

“I’m alright, guys. It’s not as bad as it looks.” You said dismissively.

“That doesn’t look like nothing!” Anakin shot back.

Obi-Wan looked at you apologetically. “Anakin’s right, Y/N. Please, rest. We’ll be back to Coruscant soon.”

Coruscant! The Senate! “My speech!! Fuck, I had to present my speech! I’ve been gone, what, a week? They’ve probably already voted, Kriff.”

Obi-Wan shook his head. “They decided to suspend the vote until you were back, Senator. They truly care for you and your policies.”

Your heart swelled at Obi-Wan’s words. You looked into Anakin’s eyes and saw that he agreed with the statement full heartedly. He took your hand and gently ran his thumb up and down its back.

“Rest, my love.” He whispered to you, coaxing you to lie down on the coach and pulling off his Jedi cloak. He wrapped it around you as a makeshift blanket, smiling as you pulled it closer to you and drifted off.

Obi-Wan walked up to Anakin and placed his hand on his shoulder. “Let’s leave her be, okay?”

“I don’t want her to wake up when I’m not here.”

The elder Jedi nodded in understanding. “She’s exhausted, she won’t awaken until we get back to the temple, I assure you. And if she does, you’ll just be in the other room.”

Anakin looked at you once more before smoothing the hair back from your face and gently placing a kiss on your forehead. He let his palm run down your cheek before he finally pulled himself away and walked into the cockpit with Obi-Wan.

“So, how did you plan pan out?”

Anakin looked at his former Master, unamused. “I think you already know. How’d you know to come get us, anyway?”

“Well, when you didn’t come back or even attempt to contact the Council for over a day I assumed something had happened. I tracked your ship.”

Anakin nodded. “If not for Y/N, we’d probably both be dead.”

Obi-Wan laughed. “I heard! Four guards?! You’ve found yourself a good one.”

Anakin smiled. No words were needed, everyone knew that was completely and utterly true.

------

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lockhartism · 3 years

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Aerith and Tifa as Sephiroth’s Foils

There are a lot of moving pieces to Final Fantasy 7--something that has historically contributed to its infamous reputation of being confusing. But one consistent thematic pattern that FF7 utilizes is duality. Life and death. Meetings and partings. Loneliness and togetherness. Many of the main themes presented in FF7 fall into this same format. Even the characters can be considered dualities in and of themselves. One of the most obvious dualities in the game is that of Aerith and Sephiroth. However, in varying degrees, all of the main characters are in some way antithetical to Sephiroth.

Like in many other classic hero vs. villain tales, you’d think that Cloud is the perfect foil to Sephiroth--after all, they’re at odds, so it would make sense that they’d be opposites. However, what makes Cloud and Sephiroth’s conflict so fascinating is that they actually have a good amount in common. Both Cloud and Sephiroth struggle with their identities. They also experienced trauma and loneliness in the past, and tended to isolate themselves from others. It’s this commonality that actually makes them compelling rivals, as Cloud not only has to battle Sephiroth, but also the aspects of Sephiroth that Cloud himself struggles with.

The real foils of Sephiroth are Aerith and Tifa. While there is some debate as to whether Aerith or Tifa is the real heroine of FF7 (mostly spear-headed by weird LTD-pushers), the big-brained answer is that they’re both the heroines. This is evident in concept art from an older FF7 Ultimania, pictured below:

As you can see, the concept for the story’s heroine started out as a hybrid of Tifa and Aerith. The character’s design resembles Tifa, and the name below the sketch reads “ティファ”, or Tifa. However, the character’s role was very different. She was intended to be both the childhood friend of Cloud Strife and a Cetra, the sister of Sephiroth (who originally looked more like Vincent). Eventually, the idea to kill off one of the main characters was introduced, and the role of the heroine was split in two: the Cetra, Aerith, and the childhood friend, Tifa. There is some evidence of the original concept still present in the series; Tifa’s iconic red eyes match Vincent’s, because originally, the two characters were designed to be siblings before eventually going to separate roles.

Based on this evidence, it would seem logical that both Aerith and Tifa retained their dualities with Sephiroth. And, indeed, even in the final product, both characters provide a foil for Sephiroth to balance the scales.

To exemplify the dynamic that Cloud, Tifa, Aerith, and Sephiroth have with one another, I’ve drawn a (crude) spectrum:

Obviously, Aerith and Tifa play different roles and have different importance to the story. Aerith’s role is more “big picture”, so to speak. She is responsible for the Planet and for protecting it from Sephiroth after discovering his plans to destroy it. Tifa’s role is more fine-tuned and detailed. She is the rock and the only stable element of the Nibelheim story, a key part of Cloud, Zack, and Sephiroth’s backstories. To understand how each of them foils Sephiroth, we have to look at them individually and analyze how they interact with both Sephiroth and Cloud.

Part I: Aerith as Sephiroth’s Foil

As stated above, Aerith’s role as foil is a little more obvious. Sephiroth and Aerith are both “Cetra”--or, at the very least, they both claim to be. For Sephiroth, his identity as a Cetra is tied to his belief that Jenova, his “mother”, was a Cetra who was betrayed by humanity when humans left the traditional Cetra nomadic lifestyle in order to colonize the land and the Planet.

However, Jenova was not a Cetra at all--she was actually a “calamity from the skies” that crashed down and created the Northern Crater two thousand years before the events of FF7. After encountering the Cetra, the creature known as Jenova began infecting and killing the Cetra one by one. These killings only stopped when the Cetra banded together to seal Jenova in the Northern Crater; but, by the time it was done, the Cetra were dying off.

So how did Jenova become known as a Cetra? That seems like more than a clerical error to me. It was actually Aerith’s father, Professor Gast, who uncovered Jenova from the Northern Crater and mistakenly identified her as a Cetra. The Shinra Corporation, desperate to find the Cetra’s “Promised Land” thinking that it would be rich in Mako energy, enlisted the professor to find a way to create a Cetra from a human specimen. Using the cells extracted from Jenova, Sephiroth was created, and after reading Shinra’s archives, he discovered his relationship to Jenova and embraced his identity as “Cetra”.

Aerith, on the other hand, really is a Cetra. Her mother, Ifalna, was the last Cetra--making Aerith, by relation, half-Cetra. Her connection to the Cetra race is real, unlike Sephiroth’s.

This give her declaration in the final chapter of FF7 Remake all the more important:

There’s a duality between Aerith and Sephiroth in truth versus lies. Aerith’s heritage as a Cetra is founded in truth. She is connected to the Planet in a way that is real. She is a Cetra, in covenant with the Planet to protect it that was passed down to her by her mother. In contrast, Sephiroth’s claims to be a Cetra are lies--whether he’s aware of it or not. Jenova, Sephiroth’s “mother”, is not a Cetra. She is not even from the Planet, but rather from somewhere beyond it. Jenova acted as a parasite of the Planet and is actually responsible for sending it into chaos and draining it of its life. He has no real obligation to protect the Planet, and he is not truly connected to it the way that Aerith is.

Aerith and Sephiroth also represent the original duality between the Cetra and Jenova, with both parties continuing to be at odds with one another even two thousand years later.

Tying in a more overarching FF7 theme, Aerith and Sephiroth also personify the duality of life and death, respectively. With Aerith, her “domain” of sorts, the Sector 5 church, is bursting with life. It is the only place in Midgar where flowers will grow. Even gameplay-wise, she is a healer, and is constantly giving life to other characters in the party. Sephiroth, on the other hand, only destroys. He set fire to Nibelheim and killed the townspeople, including Cloud’s mother and Tifa’s father. Cloud even notes his strength while recounting his version of the events in Nibelheim.

Cloud: “Sephiroth's strength is unreal. He is far stronger in reality than any story you might have heard about him.”

Therefore, Aerith and Sephiroth represent two different dualities: life versus death, and truth versus lies.

Part II: Tifa as Sephiroth’s Foil

Tifa’s role as foil to Sephiroth is more understated but nevertheless important, especially in the latter half of the story. Tifa, Cloud, and Sephiroth are the only survivors of the Nibelheim incident, wherein Sephiroth burned the town of Nibelheim to the ground and killed the townspeople after discovering his “Cetra” heritage. However, Cloud’s memories are clouded due to his trauma and the Mako poisoning he endured during the five-year gap between the Nibelheim incident and the start of FF7; and Sephiroth purposefully twists the truth in order to weaken Cloud’s already-fragile mental state. Therefore, the only one who can decipher what’s true and what’s not is Tifa.

Like Aerith, Tifa also represents the truth, while Sephiroth represents lies and deceit. This is very evident in this scene that takes place in the Northern Crater, and again in a scene during Tifa’s journey into Cloud’s mind. In the Northern Crater, Sephiroth tries to convince Cloud that he was never real, and that all of his childhood memories, even the ones he shared with Tifa, were fabricated.

Sephiroth: “You are just a puppet... You have no heart... and cannot feel any pain... How can there be any meaning in the memory of such a being? What I have shown you is reality. What you remember, that is the illusion. [...] Five years ago you were... constructed by Hojo, piece by piece, right after Nibelheim was burnt. A puppet made up of vibrant Jenova cells, her knowledge, and the power of Mako. An incomplete Sephiroth-clone. Not even given a number. ...That is your reality.”

Sephiroth, at first, succeeds in convincing Cloud that he is not the “real” Cloud but rather someone who never existed, who never grew up in Nibelheim, and who clung on to fake memories as a means to cope with that fact. However, later in the Lifestream, Tifa expresses a different sentiment:

Tifa: “Sephiroth once said... Cloud made up his memories by listening to my stories... Did you imagine this sky? No, you remembered it. That night the stars were gorgeous. It was just Cloud and I. We talked at the well... That's why I continued to believe that you were the real Cloud. I still believe you're the Cloud from Nibelheim...”

By reminding Cloud of a memory they both share--a true memory--she is able to provide a solid ground, wherein Cloud can begin to rebuild his true self after falling for Sephiroth’s deception.

Obviously, Tifa’s relationship with the truth is complicated, and she herself suffers from her own self doubt throughout the story. But in this defining moment, Tifa finally realizes without a doubt what the truth is, and together both Cloud and Tifa are able to reconstruct what really happened in Nibelheim and solve the mystery once and for all.

But this duality isn’t simply about truth versus lies. It’s also about hope versus despair. In deceiving Cloud, Sephiroth strips him of all his hope. Cloud is filled with such fundamental despair that he can’t see the truth and believe that he is indeed an experiment created by Hojo. Tifa, in contrast, provides him with hope when she affirms his memories with her own. Separately, Tifa’s resolve to continue the team’s journey without Cloud is another example of her hope in the face of Sephiroth’s despair.

The idea of hope versus despair in Sephiroth and Tifa is exemplified in Kingdom Hearts (although KH is not canonically related to FF7, I think it’s a neat little call back):

Tifa: “Cloud, you can have my light.”

In Kingdom Hearts II, Sephiroth represents Cloud’s darkness, while Tifa represents Cloud’s light. This is a similar dichotomy to truth versus lies, metaphorically, where Sephiroth is “casting shadows” on the truth, and Tifa is “shedding light” on what really happened. (Okay, sorry for the puns!)

Another duality that Tifa and Sephiroth represent is the dual meaning of reunion in the context of FF7. It’s common knowledge among FFVII fans at this point, but to everyone who’s playing for the first time or who has recently picked up the franchise and not gotten all caught up yet, Sephiroth talks a lot about “the Reunion”. Like, a lot. Sephiroth’s “reunion” is a reference to the Reunion Theory, a scientific theory posited by Professor Hojo that states that Jenova’s cells--once separated from their host, i.e. Jenova--will seek out the main body. This makes everyone who has ever been injected with Jenova’s cells essentially part of a massive Jenova hive mind, with the primary goal to eventually reunite with Jenova.

Obviously, this is a bad thing for Cloud, who was exposed to Jenova cells and is thus connected to Sephiroth.

However, Cloud and Tifa also have a reunion at the beginning of the story--a reunion between friends who haven’t seen each other in a long time. Unlike Sephiroth’s reunion, this is a positive thing. Cloud and Tifa, on multiple occasions, discuss “meeting again” and “finding each other” after so many years apart. Even after they reconstruct Cloud’s memories, he says:

Cloud: “Yeah...... Tifa...... We finally...... meet again......”

Sephiroth’s reunion with Cloud leads him astray from the path; Tifa’s reunion with Cloud sets thing right again. One reunion destroys Cloud’s perception of what’s real, and the other helps him to find the truth once again. Reunion changes meaning with Sephiroth and Tifa, and these opposing definitions of what “reunion” is make Tifa and Sephiroth perfect foils.

Part III: Final Thoughts

Part of what makes Sephiroth such a compelling villain are the striking similarities he shares with the protagonist Cloud Strife. In the original storyboard for FF7, Tifa and Aerith shared a role as the main heroine and the perfect foil for Sephiroth. But even after the role was separated into two distinct characters, the characteristics that made each one of them a foil to Sephiroth remained. For unique reasons, they balance the scales, providing an anchor of “good” to counteract the badness of the story’s main antagonist.

That’s all I have to say about it! I’ve been thinking a lot about Tifa and Aerith’s unique roles in the story as deuteragonists, or dual heroines, and how they both represent antitheses to Sephiroth. I figured I share my thoughts!

#final fantasy #final fantasy 7 #final fantasy vii #ff7 #ffvii #final fantasy vii remake #ff7 remake #ffvii remake #remake #tifa #aerith #sephiroth #cloud #tifa lockhart #cloud strife #aerith gainsborough #theories #mine

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kryptsune · 4 years

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World Building Wednesday!~ Etherium

🌼 I decided to share one of my AU worlds that is not Fell based. Yes... I know... what is the world coming to? Etherium in essence is my stab at an Outertale based universe though the story and the designs are very different. I really enjoy this one though I don’t talk about it too much. Let’s get started!

Etherium AU

Classification: Outertale Alternate “Nicknames” Info:

Sans: Nova- Nova is the trickster though he is mostly associated with that of Loki. Loki is described specifically as “Playful, malicious ( ok maybe not that one), helpful, and nihilistic.” He helps others in a kind of goofy over the top way. He just doesn’t take much seriously. Nova is one of the youngest. He acts very childish at times coming to question how long he has been among the pantheon. Some argue his many centuries gave him a nihilistic outlook on life or that he is too young to understand the true ways of the world.

Not to say that Nova can’t be serious but he is pretty laid back. It’s one of the reasons unlike the others he doesn’t really keep his cultural ties in his design. He should have more Norse in it but nah… varsity jackets are cozy right? I mean he is wearing star shorts for stars sake. When asked about his job he mentions, “Hey, there kiddo. Nice of ya to drop by. Been up to? Heh well got a “new” job which is pretty cool. Not as cool as Pollux but I help arrange stars. Ya know, like the ones you see in the sky you can make pictures out of? I think you humans call em… constellations. One time I made this giant whoopee cushion one. “Then I lost ma job. Got a second chance though. Andromeda's constantly watchin me. hehe no harm done though.” Both Pollux and Nova refer to each other as brothers but it is unclear if they are biologically related. Their abilities and strengths are nearly opposite and their mythos even more so.

Papyrus: Pollux- The presumed older brother of Nova. Pollux is associated with Egyptology specifically wisdom. Pollux tends to be the opposite of Nova in that he takes his job very seriously. Once on earth he was known as Thoth gracing humanity with a mechanical and architectural knowledge that astounded the world. His mind and intellect put him at the forefront of innovation making him one of Capricorn's best and most trusted advisors.

He enjoys testing the mental prowess of others using puzzles and riddles of his own design. Unlike canon Pap Pollux cares more about balance in life. Something his younger brother seems to lack. Not all work and not all play. He is kind, helpful, and willing to give advice to anyone that is looking for it. To the little human Frisk he is a good mentor and teacher. (Pollux has made it his pastime to create a series of challenges to prove a humans worth. If they pass then they are able to speak/ see them. No one has managed to prove themselves.)

(more characters and info below the cut)

Undyne: Andromeda- Andromeda is not different from canon Undyne as she embodies the Mayan mythology. She is mostly closely associated with the feathered serpent Quetzalcóatl. A deity of wind and rain. Also known as the life giver. Though Andromeda tends to harken back to her more aggressive roots she has a deep respect for the King and acts as his guard. Just like Pollux she too acts as an advisor, though more on matters of security than strategy or mechanics. Such a position is where she first met Elara and to this day the two are inseparable sharing their very different cultures. Her favorite kind of anime to watch are mech based.

Alphys: Elara- Very similar to canon Alphys just as this version of Undyne is. Alphys is based off of Sukuna-Biko-Na (少名毘古那) or the shinto god of medicine and rain. Elara is still very much a scientist and one that has a unique fascination with living things. Everything from the planets, to humans, animals, and plant life. She particularly enjoys spending time in her private greenhouse creating and taking care of all of the plant life. Before the monsters were forced to leave their place among the humans she was able to collect all the DNA of the plants and animals on the planet.

They are stored in a kind of ark in which to preserve them if anything threatens their existence. Elara is very traditional in her work as her medicines are derived from her magic as well as herbal substances. She is very curious however as she is not allowed to interact with the progress of humanity but rather watches from afar. This is where her love of anime takes hold. Her favorites are ones like Sailor Moon or any type of magical girl anime. She will sit with Andromeda and watch them for hours. Her demeanor is very shy at first but once she opens up she will be a friend for life.

Asgore: Capricorn- The head of the cosmic pantheon he is the King as he is in the original. He is associated with Celtic mythos though he has taken on many pantheon roles in his lifetime. Ambisagrus, a god of thunder and lightning, Ancestor God, Sky God, God of Wind, Rain & Hail is what he is based off of. One such role is that of Zeus who’s main symbol is that of lightning and thunder. Just like the Zeus of mythology Capricorn is constantly debating his involvement with humanity.

Whether that be to stop their technological advances or aiding in their lives. A large portion of his time was spent with his subjects not so much his wife Aurora who is the jealous type. Capricorn is not a ruthless leader but he does know that sometimes hard decisions must be made. Just like UT Asgore he is kind and benevolent, however, he has a temper if you make him angry enough. His magical abilities lean more toward lighting then fire but he has that ability as well. He tasked Elara to watch over human development should a problem arise.

Toriel: Aurora- The Queen to Capricorn she is known to be easily jealous. It would explain why Zeus wife Hera also shares these traits. Her Gaelic deity tie is that of Arianrhod a goddess of the moon and stars. She creates life from the stars she creates sometimes causing them to take a form of their own. They are almost like living constellations. Some say that the Queen made such life to combat her own loneliness which her Son and Husband spent time away. In addition to the stars she is also known for being a loving mother and caregiver. In her time on earth she used to watch over and protect children and their families. Aurora though previously jealous of her simple in the universe has come to accept and embrace it. She is kind but rather over protective. Anyone that forsakes life will feel her wrath.

Muffet: Umbra- Umbra is associated with Hindu mythology as a goddess of wealth and prosperity. Though earthly riches do not concern Umbra she still has a taste for the fine silks and gold that she once had on earth. A little about the goddess that she represents: Lakshmi's name comes from the Sanskrit word laksya, meaning an aim or goal. She is the goddess of wealth and prosperity, both material and spiritual. Unlike UT Muffet, Umbra also focuses on a spiritual wealth. A peace of mind.

She is ever the optimist even when things do not turn out to go her way. In times of need she is called those in the struggles of self worth trying to bring them into a different understanding. There have been many a time when Umbra calms Capricorns quick and rash judgements, much to Auroras displeasure. Just as with the rest of the pantheon she is kind and helpful even with her yearning to return to the people she so loved before they were forced to the outskirts of the galaxy.

Grillby: Helio- Helio derived from sun is my OT Grillby. He out of all the characters could care less about either being a deity or an observer. He is known to be at a middle ground. He would rather live his days running a social establishment but during his time on earth he was known for his magic. Originally he was the right hand of Capricorn being depicted as a war deity for his fiery nature. He was the general of grand armies. His armor is something he hung up long ago but if called into court he will wear it once again. It’s design is very reminiscent of Roman centurions.

Though depictions of him are curious since his name back then was referred to as Merlin. He was best known for him magic and alchemy and the concoctions he made during a period of time far lacking in imagination. Just like Nova, Helio, tended to interfere far too often in the affairs of man though noble in purpose. He tends to be outcast among the pantheon for his past conduct but he is content in his lab mixing crazy concoctions. Everything from love potions to disguises. His forte is all about alchemy and magic.

Asriel: Azicree (Azi)- Azicree or Azi for short is the Crown Prince. By monster standards Azi is still very young, however, he has lived for far longer than any human can fathom. His mother used to shelter him until he begged for his father to let him prove himself. He still acts like a child always curious and desiring some form of exploration. Much to Capricorns dismay Azi enjoys spending time with Nova and the two become pranksters in general. He tends to not do as he is told, which is why they are in this mess in the first place. His reckless behavior had him appearing to a human that begged for his salvation.

The matters of life and death are ones that are not to be messed with. Those that do find their souls being tainted for all eternity turning them into something other than just a monster. 9X is an example of such tampering. Azi does learn his lesson and begins to try and shape up to be a worthy successor to his father if such a thing ever did come to pass. He studies off of all those he knows especially Pollux who is more than happy to share such knowledge. His associations are non existent since he was born after the times of gods. His abilities seem to be mimic based.

He is able to learn about abilities and use them at will. It is rare that monsters have children and as such Azi is the little prodigy child even though there are many times he just wants to be a kid. He makes friends with Frisk very quickly and learn a lot from the human visitor.

Gaster: Nero is the Gaster of this universe. He is Capricorns pantheon counterpart. In essence the Hades to his Zeus. He is the monster that everyone thinks about when darkness takes hold. He is the one that associates with apocalyptic events such as ragnarok. He is however not evil by any stretch of the imagination. He would be better suited to be called a god of chaos. He tends to reject the laws placed upon the rest of the pantheon regardless of repercussions.

It’s speculated that both Pollux and Nova were a part of him and crafted into the monsters that are known today. Nova being his more devious side which Pollux is more his intellect and drive. He has been locked away for a very long time in a prison aptly named Tarturus. His abilities are space and time oriented very similar to Nova which makes him difficult to imprison. He of course has been in his cell for quite some time and it is unclear if he actually has had a change of heart or using it as a manipulation tactic.

The only one he speaks with on occasion is Azi wanting to learn more about this planet they all used to call home. It is information that the others tend to not speak of. His father more so as he is afraid it will instill a yearning in his son. Nero’s genius is on par with his godly abilities such as creating artificial intelligence. Something that is not considered life. He uses Azi as a template for this new program...

FLOWEY:

F- Friendly

L- Life-like

O- Operating system

W- With

E- Earthbound

Y- Yearning

F.L.O.W.E.Y was created by 9x and Nova with Azi as a template. He is a charismatic AI who was originally created as a helper as well as to teach the Prince about their planet of origin. Unfortunately Flowey does not have the same reservations about disobeying his father as Azi does. Even going so far as to integrate with key and vital systems in The Capital. He even manages to intercept a human vessel that he finds exploring. Flowey is not evil he just is driven to be the best help he can without regards to any type of consequences. He helps Frisk meet and learn more about their existence. He acts as a companion.

However when Frisk becomes friends with Azi Flowey's AI goes haywire. He begins to feel emotions he is not technically allowed to such as jealousy. This causes him to try and eliminate those threatening him which in this case would be all the monsters. Eventually Azi attempts to program himself into the interface changing it’s initial programming.

Blookie: Nebula

Riverperson: Omni

Gerson: Quasar

The Ursas: Ursa Major/Minor

Greater Dog/ Lesser Dog: Canis Major/Minor

MTT: Gigabit

Character Origin/Mythos:

Sans- Norse (Trickster) Papyrus- Egyptian Undyne- Mayan Alphys- Japanese (shinto) Asgore- Celtic Toriel- Celtic Muffet- Hindu Grillby- Medieval (Merlin) Asriel- Celtic through lineage Gaster- Greek/Roman Blookie- Western Guard dogs- Constellations (Native American) Riverperson- Greek (Charon) Gerson- Chinese (Divination/ wisdom)

Background and Context:

A long time ago there lived beings of great power. They could bend space and time with a simple thought and bring life to their creations. These were the gods. Ones of great benevolence but also great and terrifying power. Humanity, a primitive race just starting to understand life itself, became their focus. At first their interaction was very rare only occasionally appearing to help but as time went on those interactions became more drastic. Their assistance and knowledge was seen as godlike to this humans.

They would bring gifts and offerings to their new deities in hopes that they would look favorably upon them. That they would impart their wisdom and magic if they were pleased. In time this became more and more tradition. A religion built upon pleasing these deities so that their lives would be far improved but this became a conundrum for the beings. Some remained benevolent and helpful while others becomes greedy and wrathful. The power began to go to their minds corrupting their souls. These instances were written down in variation by the humans making up grandiose stories of fiery chariots and jealous gods. Thus mythology came into being for humanity. A way to explain the things in which they did not understand.

As with each religion and deity the monsters each became associated with a specific culture or mythos. Some being pinnacles of their pantheon and others being lesser deities molded to suit a specific task. These monsters rarely interacted with ones of their own kind but as power shifted some of them took on roles of others. One monster could have been the god of war in Greek mythos but end up also as the god of thunder in Norse. There were no limitations to their influence. One such “deity” was that of the trickster. A monster that tended to be rather childish in his ambitions jumping from pantheon to pantheon looking to lighten up his other “deities” stern demeanors.

The monsters began to pull away leaving their presences in name only and occasional help but this was short lived. It caused problems, war, destruction, and feuding powers sadly began to use their civilizations as almost pawns. Their meddling almost destroyed that which they wanted to originally protect. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. The “gods” faded from existence only being remembered in myths and legends. The great prophecy of the Norse. The architectural marvels of the Egyptians. Now they reside in the furthest reaches of the galaxy. They spread out among the stars but a group of them resided in a Capital of sorts. A station at the edge of the Universe. One which no human could ever reach.

The Humans Impressions:

When the monsters left the humans to their own devices they worship continued long after. Eventually the magic and the miracles that had once been performed faded into history. The monsters were all but forgotten unless mentioned in mythology or scary stories. The humans never harbored any animosity toward them since they no longer believed in their existence in any form. They only understand what their ancestors depicted them as. The monsters as well don’t really have anything against humans either. All in all, they just go about their jobs and enjoy the universe, helping from time to time discreetly if need be but never showing their faces.

Main Plot Synop:

The plot to Outertale is very simple as it is more based around the world than it is the actual plot. It is very similar to that of the regular UT timeline with some notable differences. Once the humans reach an age of technological advancement they begin to spread out and search the stars. Some of them encounter monsters which they mistake for aliens (hilarious enough. I mean Jerry looks like an alien.) They begin to build colonies living more and more outside the reach of their own galaxy. Humans however tend to turn on their own creating factions within the space colonies. Some more prosperous than others.

Frisk’s colony was one such beast being cut off from the other colonies as a drifter. Unfortunately Frisk’s family was nearly non existent and being stuck on a space colony was little to be desired. After seeing a streak of fire slamming into the outskirts of the colony. Frisk decides to investigate. They have always been the curious type disobeying orders and questioning everything. The colonies outer and more dangerous regions became their playground finding old pieces of technology. Eventually they stumble upon a crashed ship. One that It seems to damaged to be used but it’s nothing like they have ever seen before. Everyone else on the colony consider it to be cursed.

The strange runic language is confusing but Frisk finds that there is one lone computer onboard that seems to still function. It flickers with a bright yellow light showing an almost pixelated Flower with a =) face on the screen. Over the next few days Frisk returns to decipher the runes with the help of their new friend which they find out is called Flowey. It is a project that the curious human enjoys and for once it is nice to have a friend. Eventually the runes are deciphered claiming some sort teleportation capability. Once Frisk is close enough the system fires up on its own sending the human straight to the monster Capital on the farthest reaches of the universe. A place that no human has ever been.

The rest of the story is an exploration of this new environment. Frisk befriends the monsters who don’t attack first. They actually mostly want to engage with the human showing off their ability a little bit. A part of them misses the previous worship. Nova seems to take a particular interest in this new human especially when they befriend Azi. They work to help shut Flowey down only for Azi to impart his knowledge on the interface helping it understand. Frisk has nothing to return to so they stay with the monster and become Azi’s human tutor so that one day maybe the monsters can return and live side by side the humans once again. Both Azi and Frisk are almost like siblings coined the star children.

#undertale #sans #outertale #Etherium AU #undertale au #kits multiverse #friskys multiverse #concepts #my au #pollux #nova #mythology #WBW #Worldbuilding Wednesday AU edition #fun fun

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out-of-this-dimension · 3 years

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Hypothetically Rewriting Assault’s Story + Some General Assault Opinions

There’s a game my husband and I like to play when we watch a movie, play a game, or read a book that has a story that we don’t really enjoy or we enjoy certain parts of but not others. We look at things we’d keep and things we’d change and we build a story from there-- sort of like an AU but we don’t really go into the writing part, we just stick to theorizing and mapping a general story.

I decided to play that game with Star Fox. Not because I think Star Fox has a bad story but because sometimes I think the stories could have been handled better. Note: for the rewrite game, I only really look at story, even for video games, I don’t really look at gameplay mechanics, but I do understand those have a lot to do with story potential so I do take it in as a factor... I just don’t bother to “rewrite” the mechanics, if that makes any sense at all. Some of my list today will include boss encounters but I wouldn’t necessarily say those are mechanic-related... more like “event-related”.

I’ve mused a bit in the past about rewriting Adventures and Command and I do have plans to do a mock up of an Adventures remake eventually. However, today I was thinking about how I would go about handling an Assault re-write in particular. Much like Command and Adventures, I don’t have any beef with the core story but I do think there’s a few things that could’ve been better about Assault’s storyline-- like they had good ideas rolling but they didn’t quite refine them.

Under the cut because SUPER long.

My basic feelings on Assault are pretty positive. I think the game is generally just fun and I like that it feels like the natural progression from SF64. I liked getting to see planets we haven’t seen since the N64 era in better graphics and I liked seeing Star Wolf return. I also just thought the aparoids were neat enemies.

Generally speaking, though, when it comes to Assault, I think it suffers from the thing it tries to push the most-- the story. I think a lot of people get caught up in thinking the story is better than it is because it’s the first game since SF64 that really follows the same Star Fox vibe without retelling the Lylat Wars. Don’t get me wrong, the overall plot is great but the execution and pacing are... wonky. Certain characterizations also take a hit in some regards but no one really talks about that when Command exists. That’s something we’ll talk about later on with this post.

That being said, Assault really does have a lot good going for it. An absolute banger of a soundtrack, some great dialogue, a neat story synopsis, the introduction of cool characters like Panther and Beltino (who existed but was always off-screen), and just good levels.

So, here’s what I would add, I suppose, if I were to somehow have the ability to rewrite Assault. Originally I had this in paragraph form, but I’ve made it into more of a list under topic segments with main points bolded for your viewing pleasure. Some of these points might be considered nitpicky and while I do understand that yes, this is a game about space animals, I do hold the developers in high enough regard to make a game with a continuity that makes sense.

The Story Changes

- Reduce Pigma’s storyline in Assault. This is the biggest one for me because a bulk of the plotline feels like a giant chase to just get at Pigma and it feels like it derails from the actual plot with the aparoids. We only go to Sargasso because of Pigma. We only go to Fichina and then back to Meteo again, because of Pigma. That’s 3 levels in a 10 level game devoted to just tracking down Pigma and chasing him. While it makes the build up to fighting Pigma kind of nice, I personally feel like the plot could be reduced to 2 levels. If Assault overall was a longer game, I could see them making it 3 levels. Overall, though, in its current state, I feel like the side plot overstays its welcome and the aparoids promptly get shoved to the side in favor of “Oh no, we gotta get to Pigma!” And I get the main motive here is to show how the aparoids affect people and because of the build up, it does a good job at showing how utterly terrifying the aparoids are. But it’s still too long given the length of Assault’s story. The only alternative to this is make Assault longer, which... honestly, it should be.

- Revise the scene with Tricky. I’m obviously not well-versed in dinosaur biology but I’m pretty sure dinos didn’t grow that fast from what studying I HAVE done. And why is he suddenly king now? Did his parents die? He seems not affected by this at all? Like it’s a funny scene with him, Fox, and Krystal, but it’s odd if you really look at it. Give us, as players, more context because I’m still not even sure what happened to make Tricky suddenly the leader and... big. As a note, you’re gonna hear me gripe a lot about the Sauria level in this post.

- The Star Wolf + Peppy sacrifice is a low effort way to raise tension/stakes and then cop out. Oldest trick in the book, imo, is to act like you’re going to kill off important characters only for them to be alive miraculously. And let’s face it, as an audience we all know they aren’t going to kill those characters because it’s Nintendo and those characters are too beloved. I would’ve forgiven them for only doing this with Peppy or Star Wolf, but when you tack them both together and throw in the fact they make it seem like you’re going to have to kill General Pepper too... yeah, it’s just a bit much of the same trope over and over again. I wanted to put a note in here about how I’m fine with the Great Fox being “sacrificed” but overall, it needed to return to the series because of it’s icon status, but I think that’s more of a gripe at Command instead of Assault.

- Keep Pigma alive. This will conflict with a point I have later on about the game consistently having characters cheat death for easy drama points but with Pigma, I would’ve kept him fully alive... but maybe with some physical damage from the aparoids. I understand he’s semi-alive in Command and tbh I don’t know where I stand on that. Why keep Pigma alive, you might ask? I feel like his character has a lot more potential than being “just the greedy guy”. Like he’s got good potential future villain material for future games and... if I’m honest? I just don’t see Nintendo wanting to keep Pigma dead so why even bother killing him off? They couldn’t even commit to him being dead in Command anyways so it seems very moot.

- Bring Bill and Katt back. Assault is acts a bit like a big reunion of all of our SF64 favorites but our two favorite side characters are suspiciously missing. Wouldn’t Bill be out on the front lines fighting against Andrew in the beginning? Or maybe back in Katina? And wouldn’t Katt inevitably show up in the midst of the invasion, maybe to pointedly check in on Falco?

- Bring Andrew back for the final fight. I think Andrew being defeated early into the game is fine overall but I think bringing him back in for a reunion final fight against the aparoids would serve to really solidify that it’s really everyone vs the invading aparoid force. It would show that not only is Star Wolf willing to put aside their differences but so is basically everyone in the Lylat System in the name of survival. Imagine the Venomians and Cornerians working together against an aparoid fleet, giving Star Fox and Star Wolf time to attack the queen? I just think it’d be neat and it’d open up the potential for some fun banter mid-mission. I do understand that quite a few people consider Andrew canonically dead after Assault but personally, I feel that his defeat left his fate questionable (I’m a staunch believer that unless there’s a body, they’re probably alive, especially for Nintendo games because, again, they never like to kill people off) so him returning in Command never really bothered me.

- In general, reconsider some of the character portrayals. Unfortunately, when a series has a different studio for each game, character portrayals will inevitably have inconsistencies. While I give Namco a lot of credit for putting in oodles and oodles of detail into the game (particularly the levels), I think they failed in their portrayal of Fox, at the least, and Wolf is a considerable offender as well. While it’s obvious that Fox in Adventures was effectively modeled off of Sabre even in terms of personality, Rareware was at least able to justify Fox’s newfound jaded attitude with the passing of many years and a distinct lack of steady income, resulting in the team being in disarray. Assault’s Fox is a stark contrast to his cynical interpretation with seemingly no explanation other than maybe “Oh, I have more money and a gf, maybe I should behave myself”. As if the sudden change in personality wasn’t random, Fox also just seems very blah, like a blank slate stereotypical shooter game protagonist dude with little to no emotion. Wolf is less obvious but gets slated into a mentor-like role midway through the game and ends up in a respectful rivalry with Fox... which there’s nothing inherently wrong with that except for it happening abruptly (and, I mean, Peppy is right there). But I take less issue with this and more of an issue with the fact that there’s an entire level establishing that Wolf now runs a crime den with effectively what seems to be an army and no one bats an eye at this. He doesn’t even call on them to help with the aparoids. Did they all die when the aparoids attacked Meteo? Are they safe somewhere else? Where do they go? How was Sargasso able to operate without the CDF being on their doorstep with warrants for arrests?

- Don’t kill all the dinosaurs. A bit of a dramatic statement but the ending screen that showed all the damage to Sauria really bothered me. While I understand that the dinosaurs had less of a chance against the aparoids than a more technology-focused society like Corneria, I was a bit disappointed that the decision was made to just state that a lot of tribes had been wiped out. I know this could easily be retconned in a future game and I feel like it should be. “But why, Amalia? Why are you disappointed by that?” 1) It’s a little too grimdark for my tastes. 2) The fact it all happened off-screen felt very hand-wavy. And 3) It brings into question the entire point of Adventures. Why did we bother to save this planet if it was going to be reduced to rubble and ash 1 year later? Where were the Krazoa in all of this? Why did they not make an appearance at all to try to stop the invasion with their alleged powers? It just raises too many weird questions and I feel like Namco didn’t think it through too much. Which I mean, sure. Family, kiddo game. I’m not asking for bigbrain plot and lore but I’m squinting at this bit because it does feel very contrary to the lore from the previous game.

- Make the aparoids more relevant. As nice as it is to have a random bad guy from another galaxy, I feel like there was more that could be done with the aparoids in terms of their origins. Tiny things, mind you, not huge revelations. Off the top of my head, they could have been tied into Krystal’s backstory to help alleviate some of the complaints that she was too random to be added to the series’ main cast. Alternatively, they could have been a product of Andross or even a weapon prototype from Corneria that fled the lab (I actually thought the game was leaning in that direction for a bit then just Nothing Happened). I get that the vagueness of their origins leaves room for people to speculate and speculation is nice but... when you leave too many things unknown, it starts to feel less like giving fans room to interpret and more like just doing random things for the sake of it. I think a lore tidbit here or there would work wonders for the aparoids instead of leaving them as just borg/zerg clones.

Level-Based Changes

- Add either Aparoid RedEye or Aparoid General Scales as a boss to Sauria. Given that this level mysteriously lacks a boss, which is just weird compared to the other levels, I think that they had the opportunity to add something cool to go along with the cinematic feel they were going for with Assault. Assault’s cutscenes do play in a movie-like fashion and it’s clear they’re trying to make the game as epic as possible. It’s a shame they had so much fodder for a great boss here but they failed to go through with it. Alternatively: Add a Krazoa-Aparoid fusion. Why? Because Star Fox is about cool epic sci-fi and that would be cool epic sci-fi incarnate.

- Add a boss to the Aparoid Homeworld Level, aka the penultimate level. Another one I felt was personally weird that there was no “final defense system” to challenge the team. Would be cool to do an aerial battle over the aparoid planet with some giant flying aparoid.

- Be kinder to Sauria. The level had some good homages but overall was incredibly small and incredibly short. It felt like a bone tossed to Adventures fans but was not entirely true to the setting built by Rareware. I’m... not even sure where the Sauria level is supposed to take place? I presume it’s Walled City but it doesn’t really have the same color scheme or aesthetic? Also where is my revised Adventures music? Why do all the other levels get it but Sauria doesn’t?

- Put some of those funky items from the multiplayer into the main campaign. I don’t know why some of these things, items especially, were omitted unless it was purely due to time constraints. I remember having missile launchers and jetpacks in the multiplayer and was a bit sad that they were not in the main campaign. Retuning the levels and adding those in would be a nice breath of fresh air for the more tedious on-foot missions.

- More levels. Self-explanatory. Still sad we didn’t get the Zoness or Titania levels in the single-player mode.

I think all of the above changes would improve the game, though I recognize all of this is being said 16 years later after lots of time to contemplate Assault’s weaker points. I’m not entirely certain how long Star Fox Assault took to develop but given that there’s obviously quite a bit scrapped from the game (an entire arcade mode was scrapped as well), I’m going to assume that the studio felt pressured to shove the game out the door and into the hands of customers. It’s a shame, really, because I think a little bit longer in the oven would have done a lot of good. Still, the product we got was good in its own right and a game that many people look back on fondly. I haven’t gotten to replay it in years but I hope to quite soon.

You might wonder why I bothered typing this all out and I guess my point was this-- Assault was great but it wasn’t perfect, and while a lot of other games fall under a crushing amount of scrutiny, Assault seems to dodge it. And don’t get me wrong-- I adore Assault. But given that not many takes exist out there about rewriting it, I decided to give it a shot. For variety’s sake.

I do want to a mock up of a revised Assault story, which I think I will get to work on after completing this while all my ideas are still fresh in mind. So stay tuned for that sometime in the near future. I will also be doing my Adventures mock up at some point but probably not for a little bit as I do wanna focus some of my free time on actual fic-writing.

Anyways, if you stuck around this long, thank you for reading! Have any changes you’d like to see to Assault if you could time machine your way back to the early 2000s? Feel free to post in the comments, I’d love to read your ideas!

#star fox assault #starfox assault #super long #queue'd

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earthbased · 4 years

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Making Your Own Correspondences for Plants

Disclaimer: This post is about magical and spiritual use, not medical, and medical use is mentioned only for historical examples. Don’t mess around with medicine unless you know what you’re doing, or consult someone who does. I’ve previously written about where the majority of magical plant correspondences tend to come from in modern pagan & witchcraft sites and books. If you decide to DIY some or all of your correspondences, how you do it will depend on what your beliefs and practices are. Some things to consider:

Do you believe the magical properties are already in the plants, are unchangeable, and need to be discovered? Or that they depend on your beliefs and associations?

Do you value individuality and personal significance, or having shared lore with your community and culture? Or both?

Do you value the process of relationship-building with a plant or spirit?

Do you value receiving lore through ancestry or lineage? Does it matter to you how old it is?

I’m going to delve deeper into 3 main sources: existing lore, physical characteristics and the plant itself.

===1. Building upon existing lore===

Learning the history and folklore of a plant, even if it doesn’t have existing magical uses, is likely to give you ideas and a deeper understanding. Some potential sources of lore: recorded folklore and common names, oral tradition, fairytales and nursery rhymes, etymology, flower meanings, appearances in mythology, appearances in well-known books or poems, pop culture and fiction.

Whether or not you want to think about it, the greater story of your practice includes the story of your lore and how it came to you. Oftentimes that story involves violence, theft, deception and ridicule. BIPOC have written at length about cultural appropriation [link, link, link, link] & cultural genocide as one of the ongoing harms of colonisation and racism. If you’re not part of a culture that traditionally stewards a certain plant or body of lore, listening to (whether literally hearing or by other means) and respecting those people’s voices is your ongoing responsibility when engaging with it. Navigating these issues as a member of an oppressing group often involves ambiguity and discomfort. This is also part of the path. Remember that we’re blessed to have the opportunity to listen to these voices today. Others did not survive.

Practical uses, both modern and historical often include medicine, but there’s much more, e.g. thorny plants’ association with protection - not only because the thorns protect the plant itself, but because thorny hedges have been grown in many times and places to deter large animals or trespassers from crossing a fence. More recently, I suspect the modern-day association of lemon with cleaning products has led to its current use in magical cleansing. In any case plenty of common correspondences have arisen fairly recently from modern-day uses. Whether you place special value upon ancient or pre-modern lore is up to you. The reasons behind old magical lore were often related to practical use, so I see it as a continued tradition.

===2. Looking at physical characteristics===

What you see depends on how you look (and think). Many plants have heart, star or crescent-shaped leaves. What do these things mean to you? A crescent usually reminds me of the moon but you could also see it as a claw or a smile, two things with very different connotations. Sympathetic magic (a phrase from anthropology) is the idea that things can magically affect each other based on their similarities. But beyond the obvious, there are also symbolic meanings. Many unrelated trees across the world happen to have dark red oozing sap, often earning them a name like "bloodwood". A straightforward use of sympathetic magic would mean it can affect blood, e.g. to stop bleeding. But symbolically, blood often means vitality, death, birth or rebirth, so that oozy tree could be thought to represent any of those things too. Learning observable facts about a plant can be a rich source of inspiration and understanding. Some things to consider: habitat, place of origin, endangered or invasive status, the wild form of a domesticated plant, gardening information, close relatives, lifecycle and seasonal cycle, and parts of interest (leaves, roots, flowers, seeds). For example, a plant well known for its flowers could have something interesting about its seeds which are usually overlooked. The internet is a bountiful source of information, as are books. Your local community likely includes many people who might be willing to pass on their knowledge, for example in local gardening or nature enthusiast clubs, nurseries, environmental groups, and cultural organisations.

You can apply a traditional method of Western astrology to make brand new correspondences to use for sympathetic magic, even with plants that have never been used this way before. This involves comparing the physical qualities of plants (shape, colour, smell, texture etc) with a list of qualities associated with each planetary energy. You might pick one or two features that stand out and concentrate on those. The planet it matches best is considered its ruling planet and will determine its magical application. It's possible for different parts of a plant to have different ruling planets, but not necessary. Common references for planetary qualities include Renaissance philosopher HC Agrippa and famous herbalist Nicholas Culpeper, but your associations may differ, or come from another system of astrology entirely. In any case, once the plant is connected to the planet, it’s also connected to everything else the planet represents. For example, if I determined that a herb in my garden had Venusian qualities, I’d consider it useful for any magic involving love, beauty, harmony or comfort. By a similar process you can assign herbs to a list of deities, zodiac signs, tarot cards, or whatever you want.

===3. Asking the plant itself===

What this looks like depends on your personal beliefs and practices. It might mean asking an individual plant or a spirit representing the whole species. It may involve trance or ritual, or be as simple as listening inwardly for an internal voice in your thoughts. Will you seek out a living plant, contact it through its dried leaves, invoke its spirit into your space or meet it in a non-physical plane? Additionally, not all communication is about sound and words. Among humans some languages are signed and some people communicate with picture boards. Images, emotion, gesture, touch, music and body language are things to consider.

In some belief systems listening to plants may be interpreted more metaphorically, involving intuition or imagination. Using intuition-enabling practices such as dream work or trance may help you to connect your accumulated knowledge to a spiritual or magical meaning. Imagination and roleplay is also a way of gaining a new perspective, such as the deep ecology practice of a psychodrama called the Council of All Beings (note that the original form was heavily influenced by misappropriated Native American practices and stereotypes).

“What [something/someone] is telling me” is a phrase that can be used literally or figuratively in English. In other languages, especially Indigenous ones, such a distinction may not exist. This use of grammar can reflect a way of thinking and relating that considers humans as one part of a whole. If you were raised in a colonial mindset, asking the plant about its correspondences (whatever form that takes) and considering the plant’s priorities can be a way of challenging that mindset by reframing the interaction as one between two beings, rather than a human acting on a passive object. To me this way of thinking invites respect and reciprocity. How you can act upon that is a topic for another post, or maybe another author.

#advanced witchcraft #green witchcraft #paganism #magical correspondences #witchcraft #magick #Herbal magick #herbal magic #wicca

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entertainment · 4 years

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Entertainment Spotlight: Genneya Walton, #blackAF

Genneya Walton came to acting through a passion for dance and performance. Once on screen, she starred as Bryden Bandweth on Project Mc², as well as taking on roles in The Resident, 911, Criminal Minds, School of Rock, and Extent. Up next, Genneya will be playing the role of Chloe Barris, daughter to Rashida Jones and Kenya Barris, in his new mockumentary #blackAF. Loosely inspired by Barris’ irreverent and honest approach to parenting, relationships, race, and culture, #blackAF uncovers the messy and often hilarious world of the fictionalized Barris family. We had the opportunity to chat to Genneya about her character on the show, experiences on set, and what it means to be a young woman of color in the world of film and television. Check it out:

You wake up tomorrow as the character you play. What do you do first?

If I were to wake up as Chloe, I would freak out first but I think that’s a given. Secondly, I’d go through her closet and try everything on because her style is incredible and I can only imagine what her full wardrobe looks like.

In #blackAF, you have a lot of siblings. Do you have a large family IRL? If so, were there any similarities to your rapport with your on-set family? If no, did the experience make you glad or sad you don’t?

In real life I only have one older sister -- far less than the 5 siblings I have on the show! My parents' style of raising kids is not at all the same as Kenya and Joya’s, so I can't say there are really any similarities between my real and tv family in that aspect. Although with both of them I am lucky to be able to share my honest thoughts and feelings with them even if it’s hard at times. Even though growing up I did want a baby brother, I wouldn’t want to change anything about how my family functions now, but it was definitely an experience to almost live another life in a household that’s run so differently.

Describe the premise of #blackAF to a five-year-old?

#blackAF is about a teenager that is filming her family’s everyday life to send in to her favorite college in hopes of getting in. With parents like ours and six kids, things can get crazy at our house. We act a little more “out there” than a typical family so I don’t think it would be appropriate for a five year old, but you can tell your parents to watch it ;)

What’s the first thing that you remember being a fan of?

The first thing I remember being a fan of is Barbie. It was one of my favorite toys growing up and the movies are actually what inspired me to perform. Second, I think it would be Usher’s Confessions album. I had no business singing his songs as a child, but those songs are certainly timeless!

Can you tell us about a funny experience you had on the set of #blackAF?

When you’re working with Kenya and Rashida something funny is bound to happen everyday. We had a moment of downtime on set and Kenya was showing off some dance moves and Rashida hopped in and it turned into an impromptu dance battle. All I’m gonna say is they both can do a mean robot. Certainly a sight to see and I’m happy to say I’ve witnessed it in my lifetime.

You began your career dancing before you moved on to acting. Has dancing taught you any valuable lessons for your acting career?

Dancing has certainly shaped who I am today and I’ve been able to apply those lessons to everyday life. I used to be the most sensitive person on the planet, and although I still have my moments, the tough love from teachers gave me a thicker skin that is necessary to have in this industry. Particularly from being a competitive dancer I learned the value of teamwork and trust. A scene is a collaboration, not a solo, and when you have a scene partner you have to put your full trust in that person in order to let go and be vulnerable. Also, in competition you can’t win them all, and that’s certainly the case with this industry, and I learned from a young age to come to terms with things not always going as planned and to push on and work harder. The long rehearsal hours and high expectations to perform well every time prepared me for work days on set that could sometimes be 14+ hours. All of the hard work that goes into finally performing a 2 minute dance piece is similar to the endless preparation before a new project only for the final cut to be x amount of minutes long and that’s all people get to see. After all it’s about the journey not the destination right? Being a dancer instilled a lot of important lessons within me and I owe my current position to dance aka my first love.

Without spoiling anything, did you have a favorite scene in the show that was fun to shoot?

While on vacation things got a little heated between Chloe and Drea and we really had the opportunity to take it there. Both Iman and I have sisters and were able to relate to our characters in that moment. We were both completely understanding of the situation and each other's emotions that it almost made it feel as though we were truly sharing that moment together as sisters. It was a special moment for myself and it definitely brought us closer. It was a very fun challenge and I’m so happy to have been able to share that with her and portray the ups and downs that siblings have.

How do you embody the mission of #BlackExcellence365 in your everyday work?

I think that black excellence is our drive and ability to go for, and accomplish the great things we do despite the boundaries that have been set in front of us. We have so much power within ourselves and such a great ability to impact lives. As a kid, I only had a handful of young women of color to look up to and I am grateful that they have paved the way for young actors like myself. I am now in the position to possibly be that for today’s young girls, and it is truly a dream and a huge responsibility that I am thrilled to take on. I hope to take part in roles that can positively impact and inspire young girls to be the best versions of themselves that they can be. Representation on screen is so important and the media has the ability to shape young minds. So far I've had the honor to play a past role of a teenage genius who is a master at coding and is not afraid to be herself or speak her mind. I now get to play a young adult who attends a great college and is setting up her future. Those characters within themselves are what I believe to be some great representations of black excellence and if they positively affect at least one person I am proud of that. I’d like it to be known that it took almost two years of being unemployed before I landed my current role. At times it was tough and I honestly had a fleeting moment where I considered giving up, but I kept pushing and would have never gotten to experience being Chloe if I didn’t hold faith in myself! As my career goes on, I intend on using my platform to be vocal about things that matter most to me and inspire and pave the way for those after me. This is all bigger than myself and each accomplishment and even failure on the way to success that we share is an embodiment of #blackexcellence.

Do you have any advice for young women of color who are looking to get into the acting business?

When wanting to accomplish anything in life it requires hard work, resilience, and genuine belief in yourself. You will get more no’s than yes’s, but you cannot let that discourage you. When you know you have something special to share with the world, you have to keep pushing on. I’d highly recommend surrounding yourself with people that are like minded so you can uplift and push each other towards your individual goals. An African Proverb that I think describes this well is, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” So finding a strong support system whether that be within your family or your friends, I personally find to be helpful during the journey. When things get tough it is easy to get lost or caught up in this all, but remember to stay grounded and true to yourself. There is no one else like you, and that alone holds so much power!

Thanks for taking the time Genneya! #blackAF is now streaming on Netflix.

#entertainment spotlight #blackexcellence365 #genneya walton #blackaf

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