#maybe she comes from a planetary culture without them

[sith-shenanigans]

If your Jedi ocs had to disguise themselves as a Sith, how convincing of a job would they do?

👁 thank you for this question, anon!

Brakerre (Liminality/Discontent): Not convincing. It’s not that she can’t be scary, it’s that she can’t summon up any kind of reasonable “what would I be like as a Sith?” persona. The things she cares about enough to fall if she had to… aren’t Sith things. Her Bad End is “living weapon,” not Sith Lord. (Result: she waves her lightsaber around a lot and starts a fight, probably. Though she manages to fake still being brainwashed for a bit on the Emperor’s station.)

Velnira (Liminality/Discontent): Canonically does scarily well. She takes out the pigtails and she puts on Sithy clothing and does this thing with her voice and now Tharan is a little bit terrified, thanks. The good bean has a lot of… force of personality that usually doesn’t come out, and is also surprisingly good at lying to people. After all, she’s trained for diplomacy—understanding other people and figuring out how to present yourself to them is part of that! Controlling your reactions and not giving the wrong things away is part of that! Manipulation skills are part of that! This is why diplomats are also frequently involved in espionage! It’s the fact that she has a capacity for dishonesty that kind of blindsides people, and the fact that “pretending to be a Sith specifically, when she is Made of Shiny” is within her ability. (That said, she can’t shield her aura worth druk, so if a real Sith shows up… she’s basically out of luck. This is why she isn’t a Shadow-in-official-cover-as-a-diplomat.)

Hallen (stolen minor npc): Panicking inside, but does better than you’d think. Unfortunately, Iridonian zabraks aren’t common on the other side. She could pass for a very short period, but then people would get suspicious.

Ru (Liminality/Discontent): Whoops, we’re fighting now. Boring conversation anyway.

Nayan (Sunlight, but maybe not exclusively): She was trained as a Jedi Shadow. She never managed this kind of mission, having left the Order before her knighting, but she would have been judged psychologically qualified. (Before the metric ton of trauma, anyway.) She could do it for an extended period of time—and, in like a moth to you, sunlight, she does. Of course, she eventually gets caught…

[froshele]

compiling this for my own nefarious needs but any of you with fanventures may be able to appreciate it:

List of things in Homestuck that are direct results of Scratch or Caliborn's involvement and would not exist in AUs without them,

Or: A Fansession Worldbuilding To Do List

Please feel free to rb with additions!

1. The troll caste system and society as we understand it

What's pivotal to the fuchsia hegemony more than literally anything else? Their psychic resistance, which is necessary to survive proximity to their living alien god? Sure, but canonically Doc Scratch introduced her after the... well, the scratch.

Glb'golyb isn't organically part of troll society in all universes and didn't choose to come down all theophanic and shit one day:

I like to think of her as the pet I gave to their race, at the dawn of their species' evolution. Again, it's just the sort of thing a good host does.

-- Scratch, panel 5936

She is also probably one cause (next to the everything proceeding from her) of everyone's nightmares and thus the invention of recuperacoons.

So whattafuck was going on before? Well, based on troll biology's every canonical indication, probably they were chugging along fine in discrete non-child-exiling hive societies run by mother grubs (who were once also people to them).

In the Beforus timeline it seems the concept of an empress is still real and she still is more important than the colony mother, so that's a cultural shift that may have been contemporary with the beginning of lusii as commensals (basically, queens lost sway as they made more longer lived more specialized workers, and those outsourced childcare to lusii).

In such a scenario it is your choice whether lusii are still a normal part of life for the trolls in your universe, and how your troll society developed is in your hands anyway so maybe none of this is real.

As for the other, canonically spacefaring terrors and cherubim, your fansession trolls could probably worship them just as well as having any other type of religion. It depends on what you want horrorterrors and cherubs (and angels more generally) to symbolize and do in your narrative.

2. The moons

Derse and Prospit are defined in gameplay by contact with Skaia and the Terrors respectively. But the Terrors are only talking because Caliborn is massacring them, though the planetary orbit does take it into the Furthest Ring where they live, so... do with that what you will. What are they doing? My headcanon personally is that they eat the detritus of finished or failed sessions... but not everyone has a take nearly so ecological.

Also! Chess usually has two players, but what if the tabletop war metaphor of your session is some form of checkers, or three player chess, or ...? :^) Why then you would need another portmanteau moon... back in the day we called it Derspit and we liked it!

3. Troll nocturnality

This is specific to Alternia. If your guys evolve somewhere else they may not face such a terrible sun...

4. The Green Moon and Sun

Didn't exist on Beforus! The Moon was created by the B1 kids for Green Sun shenanigans, which are impossible without it. Also to do with LE (presumably) and thus a post-Scratch world construction; first guardians (which Scratch is, and which he makes fusion caliborn upon, um, hosting him) probably act very differently for most fansessions.

5. Scratching and the Denizen Choice

Doc Scratch inherently is somehow connected to it. It may not be supposed or able to happen in worlds without him and Sburb forks without universe cancer, and the price may be steep for the fact that it does. After all, he has never failed to summon his master, who is always already here...

You may want to consider a few rule changes to your SBURB game. :^) What'd be new for Denizens without all this?

6. Troll religion, generally

Scratch is their First Guardian and sent them Glb'golyb. He/English are also the Mirthful Messiahs somehow (don't ask, it has to do with Gamzee and Arquiusprite also being components of English along with Caliborn), and probably paradoxically connected to,,, all the juggalononsense, and maybe the Jewish parallels idk I don't want them to be and so that's my blind spot, I don't care if they caused The System and neither has anyone fun ever. But maybe they did. In that case we must consider how they could not do that, which is not hard. Just as it takes more muscles to frown, it takes less brainpower to just handwave stuff like this as cultural development coincidence.

I think it's funny because we live in ICP town and so I keep it in when I fuck around in here, because I think the entire signless thing is interesting and leads to heartwrenching implications, but you actually can define your purples however. My homestuck-hiatused partner has one who's coded sort of like a commedia fuckup court reporter.

7. The entire canon limitations

All of it loops back to make English, so the MSPA reader stuff goes out of its way to define that universe as locked away and separate.

This is possible in more ways, I think. I'm probably missing a lot, which only seems core because it's prominent in the anomalous session. I don't know! Does anyone else? Thoughts towards a world in which he is not already here, and the frog can hope for something?

[miekasa]

speaking of college boys, what do the college au aot babies study??

Okay, okay, I think I’ve talked about this in an ask before but I can’t find it 😭😭 but it’s okay, I love college aus, so I’ll talk about it again! Plus, now I’ve got more thoughts for more characters, so here we go

Levi — neuroscience and psychology of human behavior

He started out on track to do a bachelor of arts in psychology, but when they touched on the anatomy and biological parts of it during his first year lecture, he switched to a bachelor of science.

The focus is still psychology, but through a more clinical lens. Essentially, he gets the best of both worlds this way. He’s intuitive and analytical, so clinical and mental diagnosis is easy to dissect for him. He’s also canonically good at math, so the calculus and stats parts aren’t too bad, either.

This major also leaves him with a few options post-grad, which is a nice bonus for him. He’s likely going to medical school, but that’s not the only route open to him: law school, therapy, lab work, medicine and pharmacy, even teaching are all viable options without going to grad school.

Do not talk to him about Freud unless you wanna get punted off a building.

Be careful with him, because with a single glance he’s already got scarily accurate predictions about your parental and emotional attachment styles, your behavior in social settings, and the onset (or seemingly lack thereof) of your frontal lobe development.

He thinks he’s so smart making comments like, “I see those synaptic connections aren’t working so well for you today,” like mf come here let me lobotomize you and see how well your synaptic connects are working after that🙄

Eren — general health sciences

He’s interested in science and the discovery aspects of it, but picking a specific field of focus right now feels too final. He likes it this way, because his schedule and requirements are less restrictive, and he has more room to find out what really interests him.

He does best when he’s doing something he loves, so picking a major with a bunch of reqs that he couldn’t care less about would have sucked big time for him. It also would have affected his grades. There are still some classes he has to take that he’s not fond of (see: chemistry), but that’s to be expected. Science in general is cool to him and he hopes to make his own discovery some day, even if it’s microscopic.

He also plays a lot of sports, keeping his schedule flexible is important. The sports end up helping him excel academically, which is a nice bonus. Honestly, Eren uses his time at university to learn more about himself than anything, so having control and freedom to do what he likes the majority of the time was important to him. 

He uses his elective credits to take philosophy or history courses of his interest, or maybe even a course that you’re in just to spend time with you. He also uses you as a live model for his homework bye, congrats on being patient number one to him.

Armin — astronomy and physics

He’s still interested in marine biology, but unless he attended a school near a coast, or with a specialized integrated program for that, it’s unlikely he’d major in it during undergrad.

Space and ocean exploration aren’t all that different. Both are vast, largely unexplored domains that reel-in Armin’s interest for discovery. So, while studying astronomy, he still gets to study evolution and make his own predictions about what could be out there because there’s so much to know.

Physics comes with the territory of learning about planetary science, and he’s mathematically inclined, so it works out for him. Learning about the different physical properties of other planets and space masses is honestly pretty sick to him. Because math isn’t a struggle, he actually considered aeronautical engineering, but he didn’t want to be a part of the college to military pipeline; that is, he didn’t want any potential design of his to be weaponized. 

He still gets to study animal biology through his elective courses, and might even find a few focused on marine animals to satiate him. Plant and cell biology are also of interest to him, and are just further applications of his primary study anyway, so he’s got plenty of room to work with.

This boy is interning at NASA and still, with his whole chest out is like, “I don’t need to discover a new planet, you’re my whole world.” Armin, go check on the Mars rover or something please.

Mikasa — anthropology + minor in japanese language studies

Anthropology is virtually interdisciplinary in nature, and Mikasa is a pretty well rounded student, so she’s able to excel in a program like this. She gets to study history, science, cultural studies, and even a bit of art all at once.

She’s still debating between going to law school vs med school, so anthro this is a good in-betweener. She gets a taste of science through her anatomy and kin courses; and lots of practice with reading and dissecting texts through the historical and cultural lectures. So, when the time comes to decide, she’ll have some experience with both.

Don’t know whether it’s confirmed that she’s (part) Japanese or not, but either way I headcanon that she speaks/spoke some second language at home. She wanted to delve more into it, and courses were offered at the university so why not?

Cultural studies courses end up being her favorite. She likes learning about the history of people and their cultures, and it encourages her to learn more about her own family history and culture. It also propels her to apply for a study abroad opportunity, so she spends at least one semester doing an exchange program and absolutely loves it.

She would also encourage you to apply and go, too. You guys might not be in the same program, but if there’s an applicable program in the same country she’s going to, then she’d definitely want you to apply. Spending the semester away with you would be a dream come true.

Hange — bioengineering + minor in political philosophy and law

It’s almost self-sabotage to be in an engineering program and have a minor; the coursework for engineering alone is backbreaking, and bioengineering has the added weight of human intricacies, but of course Hange makes it possible. 

They’re nothing short of a genius, so of course they have time to work a completely unrelated minor into their schedule. It doesn’t surprise anyone that they go on to complete an MD-PhD after undergrad. Insane. 

Bioengineering is essentially the synthesis of chemical engineering and health sciences; Hange spends their time exploring biological sciences and applies the engineering aspects of their coursework to their understanding of (and interest in creating) medicine. Truly a one of a kind mind. 

They also have an interest in philosophy and justice, so when they found out they only needed a measly nine or ten courses to minor in, they went for it, of course. In honesty, they don’t find the studies all that opposing: both law making and medicine making both have some kind of philosophy or method to them in their eyes. 

Hange has... little to no free time pls. They don’t mind it, because they love their coursework, but this means you are essentially ducking into their labs or scrambling to find them in-between their classes during your time in undergrad. They appreciate every second spent with you tho, and will gladly rope you into long discussions about their work. 

Jean — biochemistry + minor in art sustainability

He was undeclared his first year, and took a little bit of everything: art, science, history, anthropology, english. Basically, anything that fit into his schedule. It was hard for him to pick one thing—he liked the science and lab applications of STEM courses, but not the math; and the obvious painting and creativity of art, but hated the pretentious air about art history.

What he wants to do is make a difference, which is how he ends up knowing that he wants to go to med school after, so he picks a science-heavy major, but uses his elective spaces to take art courses. When he mixes the two, he ends up on sustainability—and the complexities about it that are applicable to both science and art are what really reels him in.

Interdisciplinary studies end up being his forte. He can approach sustainability from a science perspective which impacts his art style and materials; and tuning into his creative side allows him to think about science not just from a purely clinical perspective, but from a human one, too—patients are people after all.

He believes that everything is connected somehow, even things as seemingly opposite as art and biochemistry. And he works towards finding the unique intersection where everything overlaps. His studies are pretty cool, and he’s very passionate about them, so ask him about it 😌

The art he makes is pretty sick, too, and often commentary about science; he’s proving they’re not so opposite. You also heavily influence his studies in both areas: caring about you so much inspires him to take the healthcare focus seriously, and your very nature is inspiration to his art. 

Sasha — nursing

She’s friendly and good at working with people, so nursing was an easy choice for her. She accredits most of her motivation to being around her younger family members, and learns that she finds a simple kind of joy in helping to take care of others.

She struggles a bit her first year when it’s mostly all grades and standardized testing, but when she starts getting clinical experience and working in the hospital on campus, things round out for her.

Patient care is her strongest point. A lot of people often forget that knowing everything isn’t everything; if you don’t know how to calm or even just talk to your patient, you’re not that great of a healthcare professional.

Pretty certain that she wants to work with kids in the future, but she’s open to public health and even being a travel nurse if she finds opportunity there!

Of course, she’s pretty doting when it comes to you and all her friends. She might want to go into pediatrics, but the basics of nursing and health care extend to everyone, so you’re guaranteed to be well taken care of with Sasha around. You might even have to switch roles and take care of her sometimes, because her coursework can get pretty out of hand.

Connie — computer engineering with a focus on game design

He might not look it, but Connie has a brain under that shaved head of his. Computer engineering is cool to him because he basically learns about how simple things he uses every day (ie: phone, computer, microwave) works.

Systems and coding are actually the easy part for him, especially when they get into the application of it and aren’t just stuck looking at examples. That’s how he gets into game design.

The part about math and electricity and magnetic fields… well let’s just say he needed to make friends with someone who likes math and hardware his first year to get through it. But the struggle was worth it, because by his junior year he’s found a professor willing to mentor/supervise him as he works on his game and other projects, so life is good.

His school work is definitely hard, which is why the lives by the mantra of “work hard, party harder.” It’s only fair. 

He makes you a little avatar so you can test out his games for him <33 best boyfriend things <33 He’d also… build a game about your relationship. Every level is a different date you guys went on, and he definitely includes something cheesy, like “There are unlimited lives because I love you forever babe <3”

Porco — kinesiology + maybe mechanical engineering

He’s pretty into athletics and working out, but didn’t wanna go down the sports psychology route; he wanted something that left him with a few more options, so he ended up in kinesiology.

He was surprisingly pretty good at biology in high school, so something stem-oriented works out in his favor, and it turns out he’s pretty damn good at anatomy, too. He’ll probably end up in physical therapy after graduation.

He’s also got a knack for cars, which is where the engineering comes in, but he doesn’t care so much for the math part of it (he doesn’t care for it at all actually, fuck that); he just wants the hands on experience of building/fixing things and working with his hands. So, if he can get a minor in it and not struggle through 4 years of math, then he’d do that. If not, he’d take a few workshop-like classes.

Because he wants to go into physical therapy, you are essentially his practice patient. Your back hurts? Not a problem, he’s basically a professional masseuse. Muscle aches? He’s got a remedy and understanding of why it’s happening. Don’t let him catch you hunting over your desk grinding away at your homework, because he will poke your neck and correct your posture (he’ll also massage your shoulders, but after the scolding).

Pieck — classics + minor in philosophy

Ancient studies interest her, but more than that, the language of ancient Greek and Roman culture fascinates her, so classics is the way to go.

Because her focus within Classics ends up being Greek and Latin language studies, she is essentially learning both languages at the same time. She gets farther with Latin that she does with Greek. For whatever reason, the former comes almost naturally to her, so her written and translated work is more complex in Latin.

However, she finds cultural studies relation to Greece more interesting than that of Rome, so it’s a give and take with both; better at languages for Roman studies, better at culture and history for Greek studies.

Her minor is a natural evolution from her primary coursework. Ancient Romans and Greeks set the foundation for a lot of modern day philosophy, so it comes up in her major classes, but she wanted to delve further into the philosophy, and not just look at it historically, so she takes more courses to fulfill the minor.

Can be found laying on a blanket in the quad on a hot day, with her books spread out all around her, highlighter in hand as she works through her reading. You’re always invited to sit with her, and more often than not, it ends up with Pieck’s head in your lap, a book in her hands, and your own schoolwork in yours as you both read in each other’s company.

Bertholdt — computer science and coding

He’s level headed, good at planning, and above all, patient, so he’s cut out for this. He doesn’t consider himself to be particularly creative, which is why he doesn’t pick a speciality with lots of design; but he’s good at streamlining and ideas to life.

The patience really comes in when his code doesn’t run. It’s frustrating to scroll for two hours just to find out that the issue is a missing semi-colon in line 273 that he overlooked, but Berty will sit there until he finds it.

He’s also good at fixing issues. That’s not limited to issues in the code itself; it can mean finding shorter ways to produce the same function or loop, or integrating new aspects into existing code.

Also, he’d just be so cute, coding away on his computer. Just imagine: Berty working on his homework in the library, he’s got his signature crewneck + collared shirt look going for him, his blue-light glasses, a cup of coffee nearly as tall as him sitting at the corner of his desk. Adorable.

He’d make little codes/programs for you, too, even if it’s silly. A simple code that helps you decide what to eat for dinner or where to go on a date, one that shuffles different reminders for you, hell he’ll even forgo the torture of design engineering just to build you a little robot that says “I love you” to you.

Reiner — english + minor in justice & political philosophy

Everyone expects Reiner, star quarterback of the university’s rugby team, to be a business student or communications student; but no, he’s an English major, and he loves it.

Just imagine a guy as huge as Reiner absolutely manhandling someone on the field, just to show up in his lectures with a tiny paperback of The Great Gatsby tucked between his fingers with his reading glasses on. It’s so precious.

He’s always running a bit late to class—either coming from the gym, or practice, or oversleeping from exhaustion—but he’s so sweet to his professors and genuinely interested in the literature that they don’t give him a hard time about it. They can tell that balancing school and sports is difficult, and they just appreciate that he takes his studies seriously.

Yeah he’s in a book club and he dog-ears his books. What about it. They’re doing poetry this month and Reiner actually likes Edgar Allen Poe. Who said jocks can’t be sentimental.

He also reads a lot outside of his classes, and has a soft spot for coming of age stories. He usually empathizes with the main character somehow. His ideal weekend plans after a week of grueling games and essays is taking a long, relaxing shower at your place, while you both share a bottle of wine, and maybe even get you to read a chapter or two of his current book out loud to him.

Annie — clinical psychology/neuroscience

Almost scarily analytical and methodic, so this major was calling her name. Localizing brain legions is… insanely intuitive to her it’s incredible. She’ll be an insanely impressive doctor someday, even if she doesn’t end up working with patients directly. 

She doesn’t care too much for the more philosophical/reading heavy parts of psychology. Even experiments and research closer to the social end of the spectrum aren’t all that interesting to her; but the brain science behind it it.

Nobody should be good at cellular biology. Nobody should be able to ace cell bio and neuro and calc and work towards their thesis proposal in the same semester, but Annie proves it’s possible.

Ends up working in one of her professor’s labs by her junior year. She was offered three TA positions working with first year students, but she swiftly turned them down. Teaching isn’t her thing.

She doesn’t bring up her studies to you unprompted, but if you ask her about them she’ll explain it to you. Her notes are color coded and it’s super neat, and very cute; coloring them is somewhat relaxing for her. She usually saves the coloring part for when you guys study together; there’s extra comfort in doing it with you around.

[canyouhearthelight]

The Miys, Ch. 149

So, I was super busy on my normal queueing day and wasn’t able to set this up. And by ‘super busy’ I mean ‘doing laundry, weeding flower beds, and taking several naps’, bc I have upwards of 24 niblings and a super-full time job that make me exhausted.

I’m not kidding, I recently told @baelpenrose “I had a birthday party to go to, yes it’s the third Saturday in a row, don’t worry about keeping track because there are SO MANY”. 

What doesn’t make me exhausted? Y’all. The likes, the comments, the reblogs, the ‘hey, this person reads my stuff AND Bael’s stuff’ ( @feral-possums-in-the-bog, @drbibliophile, looking at you in a very loving way). Also the speedrunners... all of you who have ever, at any point, found this fic and decided to read every single chapter as quickly as possible ( and have or haven’t shamed me for needing to update the masterpost or page links), you keep me going like nothing else. I, too, like a good binge read, so I know I’ve done something worth... something... when someone else binges like that.

“So the Ark is semi-organic?” I glanced over and resisted the urge to trail my fingers along the walls of the corridor.

“That would be the closest Terran approximation, yes,” they confirmed. “It is not sentient in any form, but all exposed surfaces, for example, are grown in-place of a material native to our home planet.”

“So cool,” I whispered. “Is there a benefit to that, aside from being more sustainable?”

Noah rubbed two liw alongside their sensory organs, and let out a soft buzz - essentially rubbing their face with a sigh. “It is very rare for any species that achieves sentience to reach a level of technology that allows for faster than light travel without what you refer to as sustainability being included in every aspect of their culture.”

“Oh.” I felt ashamed and focused on my feet for a few steps, paying close attention to the feeling of the deck plating through my soles, any uneven textures that I came across turning into canyons of perception.

“In the case of the material coating the surfaces of the Ark,” Noah continued, clearly picking up on my discomfort, “it serves a largely hygienic function, much as Else currently provides.”

“So, that’s what Xio was referring to when she said that Hujylsogox ships largely decontaminate themselves?”

“Indeed. Where my species absorbs impurities from the air and any surfaces we come in contact with, the lining of the corridors, rooms, and vents can purify the rest within a Galactic week.” That worked out to eleven and two-third days as we currently measured them on the Ark, or fourteen and a half days on Earth. “Biofiltration is a very common way to sanitize spaces that often house multiple species to avoid destructive interactions, although the coating we use is known to be the most efficient organic solution.”

Surrendering, I ran my fingers over the wall.  Even knowing that it was grown, it still felt like sandstone under my touch. “If it is so efficient, why don’t the Ekomari use it on their ships?”

Their fingers on both vomu clacked as they tapped them together. “In absence of another organism to ingest the larger particulates, sypo is what you would consider to be too efficient.”

“Feathers clog it up?”

“Like you would not believe,” they hummed deeply - a groan, clear as day. “It actually ends up starving the sypo.”

Unbidden, my mind’s eye flashed back to the nightmares that Else had shown me early on: large flakes of the walls falling away and littering the corridor floors. “So, that was a very real thing?” There didn’t seem to be any reason to clarify, given how clearly the images had blared in my head.

“Correct. We believe that Else understood the nature of the material and was trying to show you what was happening in a way they thought you would understand.” A heavy liw gently patted my shoulder. “They meant well, even if they did not realize that it would backfire.”

I was about to ask what the Ekomari use in place of sypo as a biofilter, but my databand signaled me. Judging by the fact that it chimed, flashed, and vibrated against the bones in my wrist, this was incredibly urgent. “I’m sorry, Noah, one mom - ah, fuck…” Pinching the bridge of my nose, I mentally braced myself for what I knew would be coming in the next several days.

“Wisdom, you are distressed.”

“Departmental notification from Pranav and Zach that they will be doing system security testing over the next week. Which means Derek will be doing his best to hack into our systems and take them out, while Pranav and Zach take notes of vulnerabilities and then fix them afterward.”

The face-rubbing sigh was back. “They are not including basic ship functions in this testing, correct?”

I shook my head, relieved that I could at least provide that assurance. “Negative. Only the systems that humans will be replicating on our own once we are on Von.”

“This is still terribly inconvenient. These tests increase tension across the Ark to quite difficult levels to be around.”

“I know, and I’m sorry. It’s mostly from what happened Before, at least for the older members of the crew.  I mean, we got a Global Parliament out of it, but… there were a scary few years before we got there. And then the End happened, and the hack felt like some kind of warning looking back.”

Noah buzzed thoughtfully. “You are speaking of the gap in data we found when we were trying to download your planetary database.”

A part of me wanted to laugh at the fact that Miys continued to refer to the internet as a ‘planetary database’, but the topic was so upsetting that any kind of joy felt obscene right then. “It was… another terrorist attack, honestly.  They weren’t unusual, as terrifying as that is - I mean, you admitted yourself that not all of us were worth saving.  There was a petrochemical hack maybe five years before this one, and the attacks had been ramping up slowly even before that.  But this one.”  I shook my head trying to clear the thoughts from my head. “What we were told is that this group knew we would never take action against climate change, something about how the rich corporate would never take it seriously until they had to actually live in the nature they were destroying.”

“You are doubtful of this.” Noah’s statement was far from being a question.

Couldn’t blame him, since I didn’t believe half of what we had been told, or maybe that it was only half the story. “I wasn’t old enough to remember, but it is a recorded fact that there were actual people on Earth who had more wealth than any single country on the planet, and one was particularly known for building his fortune on the backs of employees who were worked to death or nearly to death.  It’s hard to believe that had nothing to do with it, you know.”

“If being reminded of this event causes such distress among your people, why run so many tests?”

“The hack killed people, Noah. It destroyed entire small countries, caused a lot of violence and wars. The ultra-rich may have been the targets, but the casualties were mostly people who never knew what was happening.  We want to make sure it can’t happen again.  That’s why we warn everyone what’s going on, so they know it’s not the same thing, but still do the testing.”

More clattering of vomu signaled Noah thinking again. “Your global economy depended strongly on the concept of wealth and the concept of money.  But with the current economic model you exercise, such a data security breach would not impact it.”

I shrugged. “We still worry. Not to mention the fact that, at some point, someone may try. We can try all we want to avoid the catalyst of the original events, but some of our better qualities can be just as terrible with just a twist.  Curiosity, confidence, and justice and easily turn into pride, vindictiveness, and prying. Which can lead to blackmail. And that’s just one example. Still sure we’re worth it?”

Another thoughtful buzz with some mild clicking. “I have seen your people endeavor to save a species that could have destroyed you.  I have seen you, specifically, mourn someone who deliberately attempted to end not only your life but the lives of the entire Ark.  There is much evidence to give us faith in your compassion.”

All I could do was shake my head. “I’ll try to have faith in your faith,” I murmured with a weak smile.

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[etirabys]

The solution to “the lesbians I read about aren’t horrible enough” is, of course, to roll your own. Here’s what I’ve been dreaming up recently (warning: this story idea was simply formed by throwing together every lesbian fiction nutrient I currently feel deprived of, I have not designed it to be ‘good’ at all):

Frances Hareva is a military strategist for the ruling planet of an interplanetary civilization, Mars Delta. Actually, she’s not the military strategist – Zlanna is. Zlanna is the AI who takes input from a massive interplanetary surveillance network and provides most of the brainpower for the job. But the values and core decisionmaking is provided by a human hooked up to Zlanna, who is constantly trained for alignment with the collective will of her planet. Some three years into this extremely demanding job that's damaging her brain in certain ways, Frances orders a hit on a ruling family of a rebellious colony planet, Ftam Quedir. She leaves alive the adoptive daughter, Safi.

Safi is a product of heavy genetic engineering, and Frances predicts she will become an influential moderate representative of pro-gene-engineering, an ethical and material issue that's promising to be divisive enough to lead to interplanetary war. Frances has had very little meaningful human contact for several years, and while doing a job that involves spying on millions of people, some of the people she watches have drifted into the friend-shaped hole. Something that is not quite apparent to her superiors, or to Frances herself until she recommends/orders the assassination, is that she’s become very fond of Safi while surveilling the Quediram clan, and has clouded judgment about her.

Soon after making that call, Frances has a nervous breakdown that impedes her relationship with the AI, and is quietly shipped off to a university to spend all her efforts getting an art degree under a false name, which her superiors figure is a humane way of getting rid of her in a way that doesn't embarrass them.

Safi had an ambiguous relationship with her family, who took her in and gave her a very good life, but also were terrible in some ways. Several months into growing into an interplanetary activist of the exact type that Frances expected her to be, Safi realizes that someone meant to set her on this life path by killing her family, rage quits, and disappears from the public eye. She spends time tracking down everyone involved in the hit so she can ruin their lives. She's 18 and a hothead, more than Frances knew.

Frances is on the top of the hit list, so Safi enrolls in the university she's hiding out at as an undergrad (thereby, yes, making this a college fic – look, I've always wanted to write one), also in disguise. She manages to make contact with Frances by enrolling in a class with her. Frances obviously recognizes her but has no idea what Safi is doing here; Safi's first layer of disguise to almost everyone is "normal vaguely foreign student", her second layer of disguise to Frances specifically is "Safi, but she wants a normal life for a while and an education on the ruling planet, and has no idea who Frances is".

There's some dancing around for a while where Safi befriends Frances, maybe roping her into some intensive and actually interesting school project. Safi spends these months trying to ruin Frances's life in RELATIVELY MUNDANE, PETTY WAYS like guilt-tripping her, getting her apartment burgled, and outing her in a planetary culture where being a lesbian is mildly to moderately stigmatized because it's strongly associated with the semi-fringe monarchist movement, all while observing her to design a coup de grace optimized to make Frances as miserable as possible. Meanwhile, in normal life, they are forming a surprisingly strong connection. (They may make out a bit at this point, Safi arranging it so that Frances immediately turns her down but gets flustered and guilty about it, because Safi is playing a sexually inexperienced undergrad who'll be crushed if the first gay contact she tries to make goes badly.)

Safi quickly figures out that, after all that work tracking down her nemesis, Frances is a total wreck of a person who isn't at all satisfying to ruin because she’s already a huge mess. Lots of rage sloshing around with nowhere to go. Also by this point they definitely want to bang each other and are horrified by it. There's a big confrontation where they shed their secret identities, where Safi really lays it in and then leaves. Frances, in the aftermath, decides that her redemption lies in shaping up and being a satisfying enemy for Safi to take down, and so does everything she can to get herself together and become the perfect political rival...

("Eti, please stop, we get it, you kink on –")

With Frances taking the lead on the shape of their new relationship, Safi steps into the dance, into a Locke-and-Demosthenes dynamic where what they say in public is largely reflective of real personal differences in opinion, but also a deliberate partnership to optimize the debate between them itself to lead their civilization away from war. They do this without ever coordinating personally on their goals.

(They say things like "That said, Miss Frances, I cannot wait to take your argument apart. You have published a 35 page supplementary tract on your views since then and I have read it with interest. ... Attached is my 44-point list of objections, follow up questions, and what I believe to be convincing takedowns to the general Mars Deltan audience with an open mind.")

// At this point I lose conviction in what happens next – I’ve filled something out but it’s not inspired, the stuff I really care about is [gestures above].

This is the case for the next several years or so. They are completely and stupidly obsessed with each other and spy on each other. Safi goes and has a defiantly prolific sex life, hoping that Frances will be upset about it. Frances, incidentally, is not, but she tries to return the favor by going on some dates (which Safi does get het up about) although she's too demi to actually sleep with anyone. Eventually, they start a secret line of correspondence – probably Safi starts it after Frances misses too many therapy appointments and says something snippy about it – that over time turns into what's undeniably love letters.

At some point, one of them has a real personal crisis and the other one just materializes at their doorstep. The one who's having a crisis ignores everyone else, grabs their visitor's hand, and pulls her into the bedroom. They don't leave for a couple of days.

More faffing about Whether We Can Do This, which is rendered moot by the fact that they find it impossible to stay away from each other. Agony. Frances comes up with a long, multi-year plan for arranging their public lives to intersect in a way that naturally culminates in their getting married. Safi shoots off five emails arguing about the pre-nup and quibbling about the strategy, before belatedly realizing that Frances just proposed marriage and Safi... wanted it so obviously much that she never even considered contesting the premise of the plan.

There are some hiccups but they execute this fine and get married. Oh shit oh shit oh shit what now. Frances might be sufficiently neuroatypical that, Derek Parfit style, she can't handle actually living with her spouse and they largely conduct their relationship over the phone and meet once a week to talk irl, cuddle, and fuck.

[rotationalsymmetry]

Welp, I just finished Provenance by Ann Leckie.

1. There’s a fantasy trilogy that starts with The Tethered Mage that features the daughter of a woman who is a very powerful politician, and the story is largely about her coming to terms with power and responsibility. The things I thought were wrong about the way that trilogy ended largely went right with this book.

2. Gender? I don’t even know her: the culture we’re mainly exploring has three socially recognized genders, and kids basically don’t have a gender until they pick one at adulthood. (So I guess four genders, technically.) There’s an alien species where it’s common to change your gender over the course of your life, or at least your pronouns, and the Radchaai still have their thing going on where gender isn’t really a thing and everyone goes by she and they’re terrible at figuring out everyone else’s pronouns. (That’s much funnier from the outside I gotta say.)

3. The thing with the vestiges and authenticity is quite a theme and I’m not sure I’ve fully processed it but wow is that something. The thing where it’s a huge frikkin deal to the entire culture and basically everyone just collectively buys into a bunch of blatant lies without, often, having any idea that they’re doing that.

4. Families. Bad family dynamics. Leaving. Not leaving. Making peace, not making peace.

5. Deception, people and things not being what they seem.

6. The protagonist gets an adorable f/f romance. (Heat level nonexistent, cuteness level very high.)

7. Wait. We still don’t know who did the murder. (I mean it could be the person Ingray thinks it is, but…there’s some doubt and we didn’t get it absolutely confirmed. I was kinda suspecting there’d be a big twist on that front. Huh.)

8. Genuinely alien aliens. Different ones this time! R strategists even!

9. A planetary government apparently run on libertarian principles.

10. As with the Ancillary Justice trilogy, we’ve got theme of power and marginalization: like gender it’s more in the background than y’know dropping an anvil on it, but it is very much there. And the weird mental twists people use to maintain oppressive dynamics without admitting that’s what they’re doing.

11. There is a crime/punishment/injustice theme that was pretty central in the first part of the book and then kind of faded away with some “eh, maybe we can work towards some reform?” at the end which I found kinda disappointing. But I guess the themes are there? Meh. I mean, there’s a strong “political BS can distort justice” idea but not a “maybe certain ideas of justice are actually not just at their core, even without lies and political shenanigans” which is kinda disappointing tbh. And law enforcement generally comes across pretty positively.

12. Ok, Ray, but is it good as a story and as a sci fi novel? The world building is really good, it feels like you’re there, and like there is somewhere very different, without big exposition dumps. There’s multiple different cultures and not all of them are fully developed but they are clearly very different from each other. There’s a lot of mystery and intrigue and “wait, what is going on here?” which honestly is probably not really my thing but I know it’s some people’s thing. The main character is developed and believable: some strengths, some flaws, very much in over her head but gets through it somehow. There’s some found family or found family adjacent stuff going on which is always a nice trope. I don’t think the “how do humans interact with outer space” stuff is especially developed beyond the earlier trilogy…oh the mechs, there are these robots that can be “piloted” at a distance and have different capabilities and functions, I think this book got way more into the mechs than the trilogy did, and that’s pretty y’know sci-fi-ish.

13. Wait, whose boots are they and why does Ingray have them? Was that just a misunderstanding? Why would the person piloting the mech think someone going around in a frilly dress was wearing tough work boots when it’s normal and socially acceptable to walk around barefoot?

14. So many kids just in, what, orphanages? That’s really not good for kids. (I mean, granted. Clearly having parents is not always good either. But given that the kids who were most screwed over are kids adopted from the public crèches, and there’s a whole thing with the privileged seeing those kids as expendable, I’m going to say that’s part of the same problem. Why are there so many parents who can’t afford to raise their own biological children?)

The public crèche thing also feels extremely familiar in an extremely disturbing way — oh, school kids on a field trip, public crèche kids on a field trip. It’s not really the same, having that one on one attention from adults who are definitely (barring death or other extreme circumstances) going to be in your life for your whole childhood in the evenings and on weekends and when you’re home sick is a lot different from never having that at all. And also. *shudders*

15. I think the book said there’s a much higher population on the space station than on the planet, and I’m trying to figure out how that works. The space station we saw most in the previous trilogy seemed about city sized, not multiple planets sized. Maybe the planet is sparsely populated?

16. There is just something really satisfying about having a story where the main character is a woman and running around in a dress the whole time and some of the most important interactions are between women, and the female characters are neither sidelined nor fighting sexism in any way. There is no “women are sex objects”, there is no “women can’t be powerful”, there is no “leave the dangerous stuff to the men.” Gender affects their language, but as far as I can tell it doesn’t affect their roles in society, beyond maybe some expectations around clothing. (There may well be hormonal whatever: Ingray has all the feels and tries to keep from crying in front of people a lot, but that comes across more as wanting to seem mature and in control than not wanting to seem too feminine.) It apparently doesn’t even affect their names, since names can be passed along regardless of gender. (The ey/em “neman” characters aren’t that big for me on a personal level, that’s not how I do gender and I fundamentally do not get it, but I’m aware it’s a big deal for other people and there are a lot of them and they are in a variety of roles and yes everyone just uses their correct pronouns and gendered terms like it’s no big deal.) (and yeah — it’s very “blink and you’ll miss it”, but there is a suggestion that the love interest is uncomfortable with the “having to pick one gender for the rest of your life” thing, so it’s not presented as the one system to fix all gender issues forever, either.)

[hag-rambling-on]

Planetary Sistems and Other Dimensions

I WILL GO INTO MORE DETAILS IN THE FUTURE - EACH SYSTEM IN THEIR RESPECTIVE POST -maybe-

All these Planetary Systems are found in our Milky Way. The standard reference star map used is from the eyes of an observer of Hike (now Magix). Also the "common" language the Hikeinian language, although everyone calls it "common".

They're like ... 21 planets (and not really all are planets) habitables in 7 planetary systems (or 22 and 8, if we count Earth). THIS IS WHAT WAR DOES. This is why the Magic Realm Council has so much freedom and powers.

Like, there is even a rule that said the extent of space travel is limited to the galaxy itself as a precaution. Until all their internal messes become sorted out (never, are still dealing with the aftermath of the Ancestral Witches, per Arcadia!) or foreign civilizations contact first.

If there are two races on the same planet that markedly differ morphologically, it is most likely that one of them - or even both - are refugees from now places unsuitable for living.

Each planet has its own language and each planetary system has another one, so on average a person can know up to 3 languages. Ie: Stella could only talks solarian, hikeinian/common and reticulumian (well, as a coincidence she also speaks callistian). Yes, some races also have their own language, but at this points is considered a cultural treasure and a secret code between them.

Reticulum Solar System

Solaria. In same system are Callisto, Hoggar and Pyros (actually a moon of Hoggar.  It has three suns, Valeria, Lumenia and Atsukia* (That “sun”).

Hercules Solar System

Domino. In same system are Dolona and Oppositus. Their sun is Saulė.

Once a planet called Larisa was here.

Lacerta Solar System

Magix ( in the asteroid belt of the destroyed planet Hike)

As I’ve already said, Magix, it’s where the top schools are located, is an asteroid in a belt, in the remains of Planet Hike, from which it formed. It is a neutral location and home to the Magic Realm Council. Another place considered neutral is Lymphea which is the only other habitable place in that same Solar System after the Intergalactic War.

It has no moon, although the sadly now uninhabitable planet Marigold which Lynphea revolves around is near and looks like a moon if you don't know what you're seeing.

Lake Rocaluce It occupies 1/3 of the place and is where a great meteor was invoked and caused the fracture of the planet (and the end of a war, an interRealm war that Hika hosted, but that was long before even the Ancient Witches, Just after Legendarium times. The schools are placed around him in eternal memory it... Although... most of the people no longer remember...

Magix (the city) was founded by the weary survivors of this war and they too formed the Magic Realms Council, with their sede in the Fortress of Light that hangs above Lake Roccaluce.

Lymphea 

Actually a moon from a planet called Marigold because their yellowlike coloration. Marigold has four others moons. In the whole system, once full of life in all their planet an most of their satelites via terraforming, only Lymphea, which started as a colony, remains prosperous.

Their sun is Arinnitti or Arinna for short.

Phoenix Solar System

Terra (Earth). In Magix, their/our sun is called Phoebus.

Eridanus Solar System

Melody. In same system are Ohm and Espero. Their sun is called Teruama.

Bootes Solar System

Eraklyon. In same system are Romulea, Thordal, Karunda, and Isis (Diaspro’s home and Eraklyon moon). Their suns are called Mitra and Surya.

Monoceros Solar System

Titania and Zenith (two moons) around an uninhabitable planet called Xemia with its sun called Maeva.

Is this a joke to the Comic-Animation contradiction? Yes it is. No shame.

Cassiopeia Solar System

Andros 

At least eight moons! A moons for each royal in Andros or maybe I must add more???? Oh, and there are Androsians colonies on the moons. Especially terraformed for farmlands.

Omega

A planet that who says its dead says its Hungry, where ley lines for some reason absorb magic instead of generating it, perfect for locking magic people up. And cold because it is farthest from the sun in their solar system. And it has hardly any atmosphere, in fact, prisoners are recommended to stay in the tunnels.

In same system is Serenia. They only have one sun, Utu.

OTHER DIMENSIONS

Golden Kingdom AND Relix/Realix are the same, I’ve already talk about it.

Light & Dark Dimensions are cancelled.

The Wishing Star come from the Ethereal Plane of Magic.

Omega is a planet, read above.

Oblivion, Obsidian and Limbo are the same, now called: Boundless Oblivion

It is a fine liminal dimension superimposed on ours full of "nothing", which is used as a prison for the worst criminals. There is no concept of time or space or, well anything in it. Here you go crazy, and you can not use magic, but you are not hungry or thirsty, there is only you and your thoughts.

As it is superimposed on ours, it could theorically also be used to go from one place to another but like move through that dimension without someone pulling you from the outside? Impossible.

You prefer that the Magic Council send you Omega, not mention Rocaluce Fortress.

Infinite Ocean

Where there is black, there is white, where there is nothing, there is something. The Infinite Ocean is the opposite liminal dimension of the Boundless Oblivion one. Full of life in their neutral form, therefore of water, connecting the entire universe in an almost pocket dimension, with the right magic, you can use it as a bridge to go anywhere... or damage anywhere.

It was from here that the Old Witches destroyed Domino and managed to curse the Mermaidix, which was the form Daphne was using when she confronted them because she was still learning how to use the Nymphix that had just been given to her.

You can enter with any aquatic transformation -freshwater or salty-, but people didn't know what transformation was cursed and no one was going to risk themselves to know it.

MiniWorlds and Legendarium as dimensions are cancelled, I’ve already talk about them

Planes or Dimensions of the Ethereals: Plane of Magic, Plane of Death, Plane of Dreams

[meteorstricken]

Sephiroth Week, Day 7 Prompt: Rebirth

“Assimilation”

"Let me give you one last piece of advice, Ancient. No matter what you do, it's futile. It's all part of this Planet's system. Many foreign entities from the skies fall into the Planet's life cycle unknowingly and now Jenova’s in there. So where does its soul go? Even if you try to destroy it, it will never disappear. It has merged with the Sea of Mako, drifting through every part of the Planet through the Lifestream. One day, you will all have to live as part of Jenova. Hahaha... It's only a matter of how soon that will happen."--Professor Hojo to Aerith, 'Maiden Who Travels the Planet'

~~~~

Spring

The planet's personality was changing. Spring brought forth flora in vibrant, unnatural colors--purple spiny fronds where long, gentle gold and green waves used to grow. Giantism emerged in some of the smaller creatures. A house kitten born the previous winter might be confused with one of the big, feral carnivores, because that's what it had become. Chocobo teeth were novelty for country fairs, once their keepers learned how not to get bitten. And, incidentally, once they figured out that the birds no longer craved greens. A herding dog or two was lost to that discovery.

Although the change brought fear, for the most part, people learned to live with it. Smaller villages put up fences. Hunting became a popular pastime once more, granting some of the elderly a renewed sense of purpose as they trained their grandchildren. Cuisine and medicine transformed by leaps and bounds. At times it was a struggle, but adaptation allowed everyone to continue living their normal lives for the most part.

What had brought on this change? What had so influenced the planet's idea of itself? Most--from the subsistence farmer to the W.R.O. expert reporting directly to Reeve Tuesti--believed that it was simply the growing pains of a world that had been through way too much in too little time. Jokes of planetary puberty abounded.

No one could say for sure, but there was also no evidence to the contrary. Wily though the world was, there seemed to be no deliberate villainy afoot, and the last Mako reactor had been disabled years ago.

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

Summer

They were once members of Shinra-endorsed fanclub called the Silver Elite, which also served as an arm of the old company's propaganda efforts. Although long since disbanded, many remained friends, and they journeyed together to Icicle Inn that Summer to get away from the abnormal heat that had cloaked much of the world, binding it into one shared season. It was unusually warm here as well, but pleasantly so.

Under a full moon they gathered around a fire, black-cloaked and nervous. All at once, they'd felt the urge--no, the need-- to dress that way. It was comfortable, they said to one another, but they couldn't define it any further than that, and they didn't try to. A hush fell over them. One woman began to hum a directionless, unknown tune. Two more joined in with her. Then, all together, they somehow achieved a perfect, united harmony.

"Do you remember Sephiroth?" one of them spoke when they'd ended the mysterious song.

There was laughter at first. Of course everyone remembered. The only reason most of them knew one another was because Shinra had convinced them to lust after its prided SOLDIER. Not that much convincing had been needed--the man had been a living masterpiece.

"But he was more…he became more than that, didn't he?" the eldest voiced. There was something desperate and pleading in her tone, as if she was trying to remember part of the doctored tales they'd all been fed that perhaps wasn't so made up.

"If Chairwoman H was right…maybe?"

"Whatever became of her? Did anyone ever actually meet her? Who was she?"

"Probably just another company shill."

Another long, drawn out silence descended over the group. The fire snapped and crackled, and a chilly wind blew down from the Great Glacier--a rapid-melting mass that was said to have flooded the ancient ruins nearby. Small runoff streams had turned to pregnant, raging rivers. There was one they could all hear nearby, roaring as it raced out to the ocean.

"He's alive. I can feel it. We were lied to."

"He can't die. Not truly. He will always return."

Fearful glances rounded the flames. Some nature of spell had come over all of them; something far more potent than raving, pop culture-promoted thirst. What had started as a get away to remember the bad old days had turned to an impromptu cultish conclave, though not one believed they were making anything up. The words and tunes and rhythms surged through them from without--something magical and terrible.

There was no time to think twice. They had heard the call, and they'd all obeyed. What more was left to them?

"The Crisis and Solution, beginning to end to beginning again. Become now the cycle and the meaning, the life and the death, in aeternum, forever and ever," raised up an overlapping chant.

There was weeping. There was trembling. They all shouted the name. And they all threw themselves into the fire.

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

Autumn

When Fall arrived, it brought with it dying, pretty leaves and a stilted harvest time--the world had not yet adjusted to living the same season all at once. Supply chains were strained, but attitudes remained upbeat. The planet was healing, everyone agreed. They had to follow its lead so that it could complete the process. For all humanity had taken, a little sacrifice for a couple of years was a small price to pay to be able to witness the planet at full strength--something only the Ancients would have last seen. To live in such a time was a privilege.

And that remained the message, even as Rufus Shinra, his Turks and W.R.O. operatives in Midgar and Junon convened over video calls in darkest hours before dawn. It had now become mercilessly clear that the planet was not acting on its own.

"Yes, degradation, like SOLDIER," Tseng confirmed. "It was first observed in the Junon area forests."

"Which life forms appear to be affected? Is it a danger to humans yet?" Reeve asked.

"Everything our people have tested has come up positive, including crops and cattle. Anything that eats has it," Rufus broke in.

Reeve crossed one leg over the other, wiped his brow, and loosened his collar. "But degradation comes directly from…" He couldn't bring himself to finish.

"Jenova cells. The late Professor Hojo's Reunion theories never accounted for something of this scale, however," Tseng supplied.

"Reunion suggests a gathering together of infected organisms. This is just…it's a take over!" Reeve exclaimed. "How do we stop it?"

Eyes darted between one another. Heads bowed. Of course, there was no stopping it now. It was something that, if they'd not been distracted with everything else over the past several years--Sephiroth's second coming, Deepground and Omega, and the sheer labor expenditure it took to try to keep society stable and rebuilding through those setbacks--should have been researched and addressed immediately following Meteorfall.

But no one knew enough. No one even knew to ask if there could be such all-consuming consequences for the SRD's environmental failures like this. It was beyond imagining.

"We don't. We stay the course," Rufus finally answered.

"Accept that adaptation is necessary, and everyone has to do their part to live with it…" Reeve said, defeated.

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

Winter

Sephiroth opened his eyes. He could sense that a frigid cold had overtaken the surface world in its entirety. Mother's essence had at last permeated all things, causing the ecosystems to assimilate and the seasons to act as one. All plant life had returned its energy to the planet, and there its cycle had ended with him; one with him. He was the new living thing they were all to become.

The planet itself was a second skin for him now, one that he was gradually peeling back with each new death.

All fauna was at his fingertips to do with as he pleased--he needed only reach out. Whales, bloated and transformed beyond their bodies' functioning, beached themselves. Fish devoured one another in a feeding frenzy, each one poisoning the other. Bears that would have hibernated crawled out restless from their dens, fierce and hungry. They waded up streams to feed, restrained to the instinct that would have prepared them for the Winter months, freezing to death overly-gorged. House pets turned on their keepers, content to feed on the hands that had faithfully provided for them.

Spirit energy surged and surged into the planet's core, into him. He was rising, becoming…

Bleak despair shrouded the humans' domains as the months crept onward, and Spring failed to arrive again because he did not ordain it so. Some of them killed themselves; others relished blame and murder. Most of the time, they were inspiration enough for themselves, but that did not stop Sephiroth from amusing himself, pushing where hesitation plagued them. Riots and mini wars broke out.

A select few names, he withheld from the end until the very last. Cloud, Tifa, Nanaki, Vincent, Cid, Barret, Reeve, along with some who remained with Shinra were to see the world in its total desolation.

When that day came, he drew them together at the ocean's crimson-dyed shore and announced his presence in their minds. Yes, it was him all along. He had done this, and they'd accomplished nothing but to watch and wait. They'd allowed him to infect all things, and for a time, had taken joy in it. Now, all that was left of the surface was them, the corpse-littered ice-encrusted landscape, and its bloody waters.

As one, they fell to their knees, and he placed a weak, breathy proclamation on their frost-bitten lips--"The Crisis and Solution, beginning to end to beginning again. Become now the cycle and the meaning, the life and the death, in aeternum, forever and ever."

At last, he sent a tidal wave to crush them, and their souls were his.

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

Rebirth

A dead planet spun erratically off its axis, breaking orbit from its sun, and flung itself into the depths of space. Fragments broke off from the old husk until all that was left was the green orb that had incubated inside. Brilliantly glowing, it shattered into a million gleaming shards, and a living entity full of wings and eyes--the summation of all life that had ever lived on that world-- unfurled from it.

A god was born.

[ichayalovesyou]

Broken Bow parts 1 & 2 (Live Reaction):

Ah, so we’re kicking off with smarting up Archer’s prejudice against Vulcans that I know from all my Vulcantology research he grows out of. Neat.

Oh shit Klingon on earth?? Look at those glorious locks! Who are these weird squishy bendy dudes?? Oh that shiz EXPLODED. I’ve got my yeehaw phaser rifle and I kills a Klingon- fuck is THAT how the war started?! Whether or not that’s stupid remains to be seen.

Wowwwww this theme song... is... a lot. Star Trek, bruh, since when??? No. Just... no. Oh hey it’s Archer & Trip a lil’ light fantastic! Ngl Trip’s actually cute. Oh wow they really don’t know Klingons. Oh hey Phlox is here! I get where Archer is coming from about the plug pulling thing, even if Klingon culture is very “HONOR!!” and stuff. Even then, wouldn’t it be detrimental even to a warrior race for them to die when they can be healed?

Vulcans just love acting like everyone else is stupid don’t they? Wow everyone is racist at like, everybody (aliens wise) this definetly has established itself as pre-Federation. Ope! More new characters! Baby ensign dude (Travis!) and British ship’s engineer(?) oh hey it’s Hoshi Sato!! Oh look they’re acknowledging that aliens speak more than one language on their workds finally!! Behold T’Pol! She doesn’t sound like I thought she would? (Idk what that means lol but yeh)

Ohhhh man Trip, Vulcans don’t do haaands my dude, didn’t you get debriefed? But also would it have killed her to explain? Communicate damnit! Give us a speech elderly white boy! Yeehaw warp engines!! Cool speech call back or really it’s Kirk (& Picard and prob Pike soon) Doing the callback to Cochrane!

Oooh shady time travel aliens are back!! Phlox is here! I always got good/fun vibes from him, like, a lil’ creepy but in an entertaining way! Travis is adorable and I love him already, space station boyyyyy. THREE, THREE WHAT?? Travis’s generation are called Boomers?? LOL it makes sense that we’d have a baby boom after planetary colonization became possible but that’s practically a derogatory term now 😂

Time for a dinner chock full of microaggressions! Yup I was right, wowwwwwww everyone is being secret awful (T’Pol not so secret awful) but yeah I can see where all that VHS racism stuff comes from. Lol, oooooo Hoshi & T’Pol having a lil’ cat fight, Archer is such a dad lol. Poor Sato is so fucking stressed it’s okay gf! The ship is just not working and you’re learning Klingon and there’s an invisible alien aboard its FINE!! OH SHIT THAT KLINGON GOT KIDNAPPED!!!!!

Oh so the engineer’s name is Reed okay, oh this is the one with the Suliban. Wow T’Pol is kind of a bitch! She is just belittlement after belittlement, she’s like Spock but WORSE. Like, I’m definitely starting to understand Archer’s resentment toward them is coming from, not that it’s right, but it is understandable. Especially Vulcans have been having this sort of attitude toward humans (and other species) this whole time. Both races clearly have a LOT to learn.

Oh so this Suliban dude is a GMO, I actually freaking love Phlox. Good job Trip tryna bridge the gap between T’Pol and Archer but ooof still too salty. Oh wow! We’re going to Rigel for the first time okay?! Neat! Oof our Klingon boy out here getting interrogated oh shit! It wouldn’t be an earth 2000s scifi without a skanky bar and funky alien strippers. Uh oh Trip is about to make a mistake, oh thank god T’Pol stopped him *big exhale* everything is so new to us! It’s so interesting!

Ew creepy lady why u kiss him??? Oh it’s the “alien woman has to do (explicit/romantic action) to do (thing)” trope 🙄. Oh so there’s time travel shit going on??? Okay!!! What?! Okay! Man the GMO Suliban can do some seriously freaky shit! Okay I love Travis & Reed they’re cool, Reed is suave and Trav is adorable! OOp ARCHER GOT SHOT THE LEG! Close call close call!! Oh ffs T’Pol don’t take command, everything you’ve shown us so far is that you think humans are shit, hey maybe she’ll surprise me.

Ugh this is about to be- aaaaand it’s unnecessarily sexualizong T’Pol 🙄🙄🙄🤮🤮🤮. Trip can you please not call T’Pol out and be racist in the same sentence, I’d rather you just do the former please. OH YAY! T’Pol did surprise me! Good job T’Pol (and Trip... kinda... I guess). “One good turn deserves another” good line, but “doesn’t sound very Vulcan” is proof Archer really doesn’t understand Vulcans! Or at least not what they aspire to. Ohhhh Kay NOW we’re working together! Good! Good!!

I wonder who creepy time lord dude is. Sato THANK YOU why, WHY don’t starships have seat belts?!?! Makes no goddamn sense. Oh I was wrong earlier! Reed’s a pilot and Tucker’s the engineer, okay! I wonder what happened between this episode and Discovery (being the next closest in the timeline) that makes us enemies with the Klingons? Travis out here teaching Tucker how to drive I’m sure this will end well. I’m low key starting to get Bones-Spock energy from T’Pol & Archer. FURST PISTOLS WITH A STUN SETTINH HELL YEAH!

Alright alright, T’Pol is growing on me, awww Archer is soft! “U okay?” I can vibe with that! Hell yeah! I kinda wish I knew Klingon so I knew what this dude wa saying (but I’ve already got my hands full with Vulkansu). Archer why in the fuck are you wandering around?! Do you want to get caught/not found!??! Stay put dummy! Aaaand there’s the BBEG, oh, and he’s Suliban! Oh good thing that laser pistol is set to stun (oh and he dodged). Oooh scary transporter lmao.

Uh oh, was it al for nothing are these dudes gonna kill him anyway? Oh, no! Good so they just cussed Archer out lmfao. Thus the saga begins! Abandon yo grudges and pride Archer my dude, vouch for T’Pol hell yeah! Alright! I hope these two become friends hell yeah hell yeah! Time to boldly go say hi and introduce yourself to all these new aliens! Heck yeah!!

God I’m sure there were plenty of annoying ass Trekkies who were like “iT’s nOt rEaL sTaR tReK” like, how?? Because the costumes look different and they’re exploring a new time period and themes?? 🙄🙄🙄 gimme a BREAK with that shit, honestly. So far it’s been pretty interesting! Every Star Trek is Star Trek!

[ash-trash]

🍄 🍂 🌸 for Ruya Starchaser

🍄 What are your OCs favourite snacks? Their favourite comfort food which always cheers them up when they’re down? Favourite meal to make? Do they enjoy baking and cooking and are they any good in the kitchen? 

Ruya was never much for it earlier in life, but now that she’s away from Ascalon all the time, she’s really grown to love cured meats. They remind her of home and they’re easy to get just about anywhere, although she’s not a big fan of some of the Elonian styles, and prefers to pay the import fees on Charr made ones when she can. Plus, they’re quick and easy and convenient!

As far as comfort food, Ruya’s favourite dish to perk her up would definitely be a good hearty barbecue. For her, it’s less about the meat and more about the sauce, and a good sauce has been hard to find. For her, the best she could have would be a pile of meat just dripping with thick, spicy, rich barbecue sauce, with some hearty beans on the side and maybe even a small ginger-pear tart for dessert...

As far as making, Ruya’s never had too much of a head for cooking, and certainly would rather be working than cooking. If she had to answer, she’d say she likes making cookies. They’re easy, fairly low-maintenance, and although she doesn’t much care for them, everyone else seems to, and they won’t complain if they’re a little burnt!

🍂 Does your OC enjoy hugs? What do they do as a show of affection for: their friends, their family, their significant other(s) or for strangers? Over all what are they like with recieving affection from others?

Ruya is definitely still Charr enough to be quite awkward with hugs, but she’s spent enough time in the Priory to know that a lot of people (usually Sylvari) find Charr fur irresistible, and like getting quite personal. She doesn’t exactly enjoy them, but she tolerates the occasional hugging or petting, chalking it up to one of those strange cultural differences.

Towards friends, Ruya’s affection usually takes the form of little things, not necessarily noticeable unless you know what to look for. She’ll stop what she’s doing to listen to you, and actually pay attention instead of fidgeting. She tries to help people with their problems, and does her best to take care of her friends. As far as more casual expressions, she likes to create little illusions, like planetary rings around their heads, or comet trails soaring over them, just for fun.

With family, or what passes for it in the Priory, it’s very similar, though among other Charr she feels a little more comfortable with physical affection. Not worried she’s going to hurt someone or be misunderstood, she’s okay with brushing her tail against them, or clacking horns together, things like that.

Ruya doesn’t have a significant other or partner, but if she did, her biggest sources of affection would likely be being physically outgoing, in ways she can’t really do with anyone else (especially non-Charr!) like licking, grooming, nuzzling against... Otherwise, she’d just absolutely gush about her work to them, talking about what she’s discovered lately, or what new thing happened that day, no matter how boring or mundane.

As far as strangers, Ruya isn’t exactly affectionate, leaning more towards the dismissive side of things. Unless they grab her attention, she tends to only give them some of her focus, while still working, or if forced to pay attention, she’ll be fidgeting, and it’s clear her mind is elsewhere. If a stranger tried to initiate affection with her, like a hug, she’d be very uncomfortable and awkward but wouldn’t necessarily do anything to stop it.

In general, Ruya isn’t exactly “great” with receiving affection from others, but she recognizes the intention behind it, and is happy to tolerate it, and appreciate it for what it means from them. She may not find hugs comforting, but she understands what they mean and is more than accepting of the gesture.

🌸 What are some of their favourite things and why? List as many as you can think of!

STARS. Ruya is an absolute nerd for all sorts of celestial bodies. Mostly stars, because they’re so many of them and there’s so much variation, and they do such interesting things, but she loves it all and will happily talk your ears off for weeks if you get her started.

Little bits of machinery/tech, especially watchwork! Ruya’s suuuuper fascinated by a lot of the specialized engineering, but she’s always amazed at how people can work so accurately in such small things and make these precision devices.

Ruya likes “convenience” things - getting to sleep in so she can stay up later, meals brought to her, someone else doing the tidying, etc. It means she can spend more time working without getting distracted by mundane life details!

She’s really come to appreciate Elonian architecture, and has gotten fascinated by how they deal with the yucky parts of the desert like sand and heat!

Lastly (for now), Ruya really enjoys the smell of aspens, and does her best to make her workspace smell like them, with limited success. She’s always trying some new mixture of incenses and fragrances to get it juuuuust right...

[cassatine]

Chapter Three finally! Although I toyed with the idea of doing one post for the whole chapter I decided not to in the end, because it’s turning into a monster but also because it’s just easier for me to go over bits of interest one by one. 

After Padmé’s Tatooine Plan, it’s back to regular Naboo fuckery for a bit, and Chapter Three brings a rather generous helping - in fact I went excUSE mE in record time, because we get into election results, and of course it’s an occasion to remind us the Naboo Do Democracy Best before anything else:

Theed was the last region of the planet to vote, and once time zones were taken into account, they were always finished by noon. The Naboo had more than mastered efficient democracy. (Queen’s Shadow, Chapter Three)

I swear I’m like ‘maybe I should tone it down’ and then the book throws “the Naboo had more than mastered efficient democracy”, which is one of these things I’d love if only I was supposed to take it as bias from Eirtaé, handmaiden and Naboo POV, rather than as a statement of fact. Also it’s the kind of thing that should have been fixed at editing - and I don’t mean fixed to conform to my take on Padmé and Naboo, but to EKJ’s, because I very much doubt she wanted Eirtaé to sound like a sanctimonious ass here. More than mastered efficient democracy? Come the fuck on, even if Naboo actually was a democracy that’d just be grating, and it doesn’t have to be - Eirtaé can think her planet’s system efficient without sounding like she’s quoting from some propaganda-filled guidebook.

But also, since apparently I’ll die on that hill, Naboo’s still not a democracy. Yes, Naboo monarchs are elected. They have a constitution that at the very least limits monarchs’ terms, in length and number, although it’s unclear how much latitude they have to modify the constitution. The Royal Advisory Council’s role seems limited to, well, advising, but there is a legislative assembly made up of elected local representatives that we don’t know much about yet. So the Naboo government does have some features in common with contemporary representative democracies - short of term limits, monarchs’ powers don’t seem much limited, however, and ideologically what they do is rule by the wise. The notion that children have a sort of pure wisdom that makes them more qualified to lead isn’t a 1:1 for Plato’s philosopher-kings, maybe, but the fundamental idea remains that exceptionally wise people should be in charge; and lbr that’s about as anti-democratic as you get. Ironically enough, Padmé’s pretty quick to shut down Anakin when he himself suggests someone wise should make people agree in AOTC, with seemingly little awareness that it’s literally been her job description for four years. Then again, it doesn’t seem like political philosophy in the GFFA ever got to the difference between elective and democratic.

I swear I will get to the election results someday, but I wanted to go back to another, previous passage:

The gears of democracy were well oiled, and centuries of tradition made the biennial event run smoothly, even with the inclusion of Gungan voters for only the second time in the planet’s history. Though few of them chose to vote, Padmé knew her efforts to include them were appreciated because Boss Nass had told her as much. Loudly. (Queen’s Shadow, Chapter One)

*cracks hands* AND NOW THE GUNGAN SITUATION. And more specifically, Padmé’s answer to it once they turned out instrumental to saving her own people, ie “her efforts to include them”, ie giving Gungans voting rights. I was a little too brain-stuck on Lucas’ garbage colonial fantasy from the TPM commentary when I first went over that passage (see Chapter One notes), but I’ve thought some more about the voting thing, and since my conclusion is that it’s one of these things that’s supposed to sound good - and to make Padmé, who made it happen, look good - but that kinda breaks down if you think about it, now’s as good a time as ever to go over the details. 

Going back to the situation in TPM, the thing is that Naboo and Gungans are basically separate societies, each with their own government. We’ve touched upon the Naboo, but the Gungan have a High Council, presided by Boss Nass - unlike the Naboo, however, the Gungans do not have space-travel capacities, and since they live separately, it means only one of them has representation at the level of the Galactic Republic. That’s the underlying problem of the Gungan Situation, not whether they get voting rights within the Naboo government. 

In fact, depending on how you look at it, the voting rights are skeevy - again, the Gungans have their own government. The Naboos don’t have a say in choosing Gungan Bosses, whatever the process for that, which leaves us with the question of, should the Gungan vote in Naboo election, actually? Or, put differently - if they vote, they acknowledge that the Naboo monarch’s authority extends to them, because the social contract goes both ways; they become a part of the Naboo polity, rather than remain a separate one. Which is what they are in TPM, and I don’t really see why they shouldn’t want to remain one. After Padmé’s speech and the Battle of Naboo they’re in a pretty good position to ask exactly that, but also to be that on equal standing with the Naboo. To make something like that work you’d need planetary joint institutions, because there will be aspects of local planetary policies of concern to both groups, a legal framework to work out for cases with shared jurisdiction between Naboo and Gungans - basically a bunch of common institutions to smooth things out wherever and whenever there’s the need at the local (planetary) level because of different ways to do things - they actually have it pretty easy, compared to Earth. And finally, representation in the Galactic Republic would be shared; that one’s kinda tricky, because Naboo’s seat in the Senate is for the Chommell Sector - if I remember well some Core planets have their own seats but most seats stand for a conglomerate of planets, Sector or otherwise - also some corporations have seats, which is probably Elon Musk’s wet dream since money can’t buy that yet. AnyWAY, the equivalent of regional capital gets a seat, and everyone else gets Junior Representative, standing for a planet or a specific cultural group. 

Which is what the Gungans get! Jar Jar Binks as Junior Representative. In the hypothetical scenario outlined above, that could work within a rotation system to ensure fair representation for both Gungans and Naboos within the system as it exists - one group gets a Senator, the other a Junior Representative and every so often they switch. I mean, the Naboo are supposed to care about democracy, and the GFFA only knows representative democracy, so you’d think they care about representation and fair systems and the like. 

Buuut this all a hypothetical scenario, since the Gungans vote in the Naboo election! And thus surrendered their sovereignty because Padmé handing voting rights sounds like she cares a lot about democracy so she used her queenly powers to make some more of it happen. That’s some prime fuckery, right there. 

Now, unsurprisingly, we don’t have a lot on specifics on what exactly Padmé did with her queenly powers wrt the Gungan Situation, but the voting rights do imply the Gungans are now her citizens - and there is, I suppose, an argument to make for that scenario, which is that the Naboo are the ones with Republic-level representation, and if you reform their government to ensure that constitutionally it ensures equal participation and representation for the Gungans within it, specific provisions to protect their culture, semi-autonomy as a previously independent polity, etc etc this be the best of all possible worlds… we can come up with something pretty similar to the first hypothetical scenario I went over; instead of preserving the two polities and building a bridge between them, you’d merge them, with a mind to preserve their specificities. Might sound like splitting hairs, but policy and organization-wise the differences aren’t small. For example, the bridging of different legal frameworks would be done differently - you can create a legal body expected to rule over cases implying two different legal systems, which comes down to a system built in great part on precedents but also that treats each case on its own, which does sound complicated, but go retooling a legal framework so it accounts for both Naboo and Gungan systems without privileging either and tell me which is option is actually easier. As far the basic, easier-to-figure-out stuff goes, you’d have a Royal Advisory Council constituted of Gungans and Naboo, in equal numbers or proportional to the overall population, or with double representatives for each post since they’re kind of like ministries, with known posts centering on urban planning and The Arts; the local representatives of the legislative assembly would number both Naboo and Gungans, and again you’d have to chose between different modes of representation: do you have Naboo and Gungan regions, or does each region have a representative that could be Naboo or Gungan, maybe with some constitutional provisions in place to ensure everyone gets their turn? And of course, the office of monarch would also be open to both, again with some provisions to ensure everyone gets their turn, same for the office of Senator. 

Alas, nothing points to that. For now there’s literally nothing to tell me the Gungans get to participate into Naboo politics beyond voting - all the candidates and the people they’ll replace that have been mentioned so far are humans, and the bigger hints to tractations between Naboo and Gungans was a quick mention of treaties in the context of environmental conservation, mainly to make a point that the Naboo cared about the environment before those treaties anyway. Just like the voting thing, the only reason it’s even mentioned is to have yet another ‘Isn’t Naboo/Padmé Great’ moment.

I should reserve judgment, because more info might be revealed, but if the narrative makes a point to tell me Padmé gave voting rights to the Gungans, then I think it could also make a point of telling me whether that’s all they get - and that wouldn’t take an organizational chart. It wouldn’t even take actual Gungans. It could take as little as two words, not even kidding on that one: “centuries of tradition made the biennial event run smoothly, even with the inclusion of Gungan voters and candidates for only the second time”, there you go. 

I wouldn’t even insist that much to be given something substantial to know for sure the Gungan Situation isn’t just a new kind of fucked up post-TPM if the novel didn’t read like an attempt at a panegyric. Admittedly I wasn’t the target audience in the first place, since I’m rather attached to Naboo fuckery for thematic reasons. I don’t exactly expect brilliant political commentary from Star Wars novels either, and this one is YA coming-of-age, the politics an aesthetic more than anything with actual substance. But like, there’s a wide range between brilliant political commentary and accidentally robbing the Gungans of sovereignty because you thought Padmé handing out voting rights has good democratic vibes.

Previous notes: Chapter 1 / Chapter 2.a / Chapter 2.b

[rebelsofshield]

Star Wars: Shadow Fall-Review

The second installment of Alexander Freed’s Alphabet Squadron trilogy is a character driven story of survival and personal growth that ranks among the best novels to come out of Star Wars in years.

(Review contains minor spoilers)

For the first time in the Galactic Civil War, both sides are in equal footing. With the death of the Emperor and the cataclysmic events following the Battle of Endor, The Empire has fallen into disarray and chaos. No central leadership exists and the once terrifying fascist force has split into different factions vying for survival. The New Republic fairs no better. Caught between mopping up between Imperial holdouts and trying to establish a government of its own, the former Rebellion is stumbling as well. All sides are scrambling to make sense of a new galactic order. Caught in the middle of this mess are the ragtag starfighters of Alphabet Squadron. Lead by a guilt ridden Yrica Quell, these five war weary pilots make a new desperate ploy to capture the still elusive and dangerous forces of Shadow Wing, a deadly TIE Fighter regiment that remains one of the Empire’s strongest remaining assets. However, Shadow Wing faces its own test of survival, now under control of Quell’s former mentor, Soran Keize.

Alphabet Squadron was one of the biggest and best surprise hits of last year. While Alexander Freed had already cut his teeth on writing Star Wars with the mostly underwhelming Battlefront: Twilight Company and the novelization for Rogue One, the first in his starfighter trilogy kicked off with an emotional and character driven drama that proved compelling from the getgo. Freed’s prose is dense and detailed and arguably more so than any other current prose writer working for Lucasfilm has the ability to make the world of the Galaxy Far, Far Away feel lived in. There’s an attention to on the streets storytelling. Our characters are fleshed out, flawed, and emotional characters, but they are far from the larger than life icons we see in much of Star Wars. They are part of the galactic swell of millions caught in the middle of a conflict that will change the shape of their society for decades to come.

It’s this feeling of upheaval and cultural shift that gives Shadow Fall much of its success. Freed paints the last year of the Galactic Civil War as a transitional period and while Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath trilogy may have been about the end point of this transformation, Shadow Fall concerns itself with the tough growing pains of societal metamorphosis. As Alphabet Squadron and their fellow New Republic allies attempt to liberate a planetary system orbiting a black hole, they have to contend with their own spread thin forces but also with their place as galactic liberators. They are no longer scrappy rebellious underdogs, but representatives of one government ousting another. Similarly, Soran Keize finds his leadership of Shadow Wing borrowing more and more from the Rebellion, with strategy shifting from wartime to success to the physical and mental health of the men in his charge. Freed creates a general feeling throughout of shaky footing and unease. The end point of the war is well in hand, but nobody is quite sure what it might entail and that proves to be something that drives introspection not only morally and politically, but also spiritually.

Freed’s ability to layer the Galaxy Far, Far Away with detail and nuance remains a strength, but the overall success of Alphabet Squadron proved to be its cast of compelling characters. By the end of its page length, we left the first novel of this series with a dynamic central cast, each with their own wants and weaknesses, and even a collection of memorable supporting characters. Shadow Fall continues that trend here, and while some standouts from the last novel such as Kairos and Nath Tensent (the former in particular) don’t get enough time in the spotlight, Freed digs in deeper with many of his cast than ever before. Following the likes of The Empire Strikes Back, Shadow Fall takes the middle chapter route of separating its heroes and putting them through the emotional ringer.

Yrica Quell remains the most complicated and compelling of the bunch. With her New Republic intelligence handler, Caern Adan, now aware of her secret participation in the genocidal Operation Cinder, Quell finds herself at risk with her fellow pilots. Freed fills her chapters with a sense of hesitancy, tension, and guilt ridden trauma as Quell tries to navigate the comfort of her new life with the looming atrocities of her past. Shadow Fall takes Quell on a twisting and harrowing journey and she ends the novel in an unexpected place that is sure to shake things up for the final installment likely coming next year.

In contrast, Soran Keize makes for an interesting new take on the sympathetic Imperial antagonist. It’s rare that we see a member of the Galactic Empire written with this amount of emotional depth and empathy. There’s a rightful hesitancy to paint representatives of sci-fi fascism with humanity and typically once a Stormtrooper or officer starts to show a hint of light, it means they are redemption bound. Keize makes for a fascinating inversion of this. We first met him having already deserted the Empire, trying to eke out life under a new name and purpose. Keize ended Alphabet Squadron with a decision to rejoin the Empire, but his role in Shadow Fall is far from fanatical patriotism. Instead, Keize becomes a steward for Shadow Wing, attempting to protect the men and women under his command from death and despair. It’s a more humanistic approach than we’ve seen from an Imperial before and it gives the battles at the novel’s climax an additional weight.

Other standouts prove to be Wyl Lark and Chass na Chadic. Lark made an impression and quickly became a fan favorite out of Alphabet Squadron due to his unshakeable moral character and optimism. In a series that approaches being dour in its chaos and bloodshed, Freed strongly balances out the ensemble with a character that feels as attuned to the light as Lark. Shadow Fall maneuvers him into a leadership position that he finds himself taking on  maybe a bit too much responsibility and complicated even further by the intense empathy he feels for the empathy at every step. Freed paints Lark as a good man that isn’t made into a bad one by the horrors of war, but finds himself struggling to find the right thing to do at all times. It makes for compelling and hopeful conflict.

Chass na Chadic, the music spewing B-Wing pilot, was a colorful addition to Alphabet Squadron, but she more than any other character feels like she comes into her own here in Shadow Fall. The last surviving member of multiple squadrons who met their end by the hands of the Empire, Chass has never expected to live through to the end of the Galactic Civil War. She doesn’t actively wish for death, but has more so accepted a reality that her survival isn’t a part of. Combined with her own sense of sardonic humor and multi-species discography, Chass constantly feels like she’s hiding layer upon layer of emotion but remains entertaining all the same. In a smart move, Freed puts Chass in a place that challengers her nihilism in startling ways and it makes for some of the most interesting subject matter of the novel.

If anything proves a little shaky with Shadow Fall, it’s that the overall uncertainty of its world and characters bleeds a bit too much into the plot as well. Freed’s characters feel concerned with moment to moment survival and while it makes for a thrilling and at times emotional read, it’s easy to leave the second installment of Alphabet Squadron feeling a tad unmoored. It’s unclear what exactly this trilogy is building to outside of another conflict between our titular starfighter team and their elusive enemy. I will find myself picking up the next installment in order to catch up with these characters that I have become so attached to and not necessarily because I’m waiting with baited breath for the conclusion of this winding story.

As was the case with Alphabet Squadron, Freed’s prose knows how to oscillate in tempo and focus with ease. His descriptions are detailed and dynamic. His character prose is insightful and personal without feeling overbearing. His action scenes feel kinetic and explosive. It’s impressive just how thick and dense Freed’s prose can feel when it needs to, but how quickly it can shift to something quicker and more action oriented without sacrificing the detail that defines the rest of the novel. It represents a clear evolution from the sometimes leaden Twilight Company that builds upon the style but makes it much more emotionally and narratively engaging.

With Shadow Fall, Alexander Freed’s solidifies Alphabet Squadron as the new Star Wars trilogy to watch for. It’s characters are just as haunting and compelling as ever and Freed’s writing feels more lived in and organic than anything else offered by Lucasfilm Publishing at this time. Pick this book up and savor the read. I’m going to miss these lost souls over the next year.

Score: A

[pigeontheoneandonly]

Snowstorm

For Throwback Day of Kaidan Week (@spectrekaidanalenko), I decided to excerpt one of my favorite scenes from my first long fic, Discovery, which was the project that brought me into the ME fandom.  

Set in ME1, Shepard and Kaidan are on Noveria, the day before departing for Peak 15.

“Shepard?” Alenko asked, breaking into her musing.  His brow was furrowed.

She blinked.  “Sorry, what?”

“You were off in your own world there.”  He smiled. “I asked if you wanted to tag along, or if there was somewhere else you were headed.”

Shepard abruptly realized she’d followed him halfway across the port, leaving her rather chagrined and grasping after the conversation.  “Just thinking about tomorrow.  Sure, I’d love to come.”

He was surprised, but pleased.  “Hey, great.”

“Don’t look so shocked.” They resumed walking towards the garage, the location of the service access.  

“You do have strong feelings on weather.”

Which was when she remembered exactly where he was going, and recognized that she’d just agreed to go stand in a full-scale blizzard ‘admiring the view’.  Shit. But now it would be awkward if she backed out, so she mustered what she hoped seemed like enthusiasm.  “Maybe we’ll get a glimpse at this Peak 15.  It would be nice to know where we’re going.”

By the time they reached the service ladder, she was almost enjoying the notion.  He was reminiscing about great storms of the past in Vancouver, and it was hard not to find snowed-in days filled with steaming mugs, cancelled obligations, and neighborly company a little charming.  

“Heavier in the interior, of course,” he said, continuing his rambling monologue without breaking stride. “We usually spent winter holidays at my uncle’s farm.  Well, orchard.  Letting a couple chickens roam through the trees isn’t really a farm.”

She didn’t mind.  She liked listening to him go on like this, about a home he loved and a land-bound culture of sorts she didn’t fully understand. It made her feel warm, almost like some of the heat from his glowing descriptions got inside her despite the cool hallways.

They entered a room no larger than a walk-in closet and found a broad-shouldered man shrugging into one of the parkas lining a rack against the wall.  In cubbies above them sat protective goggles, thick gloves, hats, and scarves.  Boots in a variety of sizes were arrayed below.  All of the equipment was an eye-watering shade of neon orange— the better to see against the snow, she guessed.

“Hey, Owens.” Alenko gave him a wave.  “Got room for one more?”

He glanced back at Shepard. Owens’ face was a stripe of ebony punctuated by two dark eyes between the hat and the coat’s neck flap.  He opened it to speak freely.  “You didn’t mention you were working with the spectre.”

“Is that a problem?” Shepard asked, mildly.  She wouldn’t be sorry to see the excursion canceled, but she felt badly for Kaidan, who was looking forward to it.

Those deep eyes studied her for a prolonged moment.  “Not for me.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Your management didn’t send out a persona non grata?”

“They sent it all right. I just don’t give a damn.”  Owens shrugged, his mouth a hard line of disapproval.  “Seems like you’re the only one around here who doesn’t see this war as an opportunity. My brother was a marine on Eden Prime. So if you want a look at the roof— all I have to say is, yes ma’am.”

She paused, and nodded her respect.  “It was hell down there.  I’m sorry for your loss.”

“That means a lot coming from you.”  He gestured at the gear and re-sealed the flap, muffling his voice.  “Get kitted up.  Grab whatever fits— it’s all open season here.”

Shepard sat on the floor, removed her shoes, and started pulling on a pair of snow boots.  “What was your brother’s name?”

“Sergeant Wayne Owens, 232nd Brigade, SAMC,” he recited with a touch of pride.

“I’ve run into my share of 232ers.  Good men all.”

“Yes, ma’am.”  Owens watched them finish outfitting themselves, and made a few expert adjustments to their gear— a few more, perhaps, to Shepard than Alenko, she noted sourly.  Her lack of experience pricked at her ego.

They followed the burly man up the ladder, a significant climb in its own right, and onto a suspended walkway hanging from the ceiling.  It swayed as they walked its length to an access hatch, no more than 150 centimeters tall, and held shut by a vast wheel like on the submarines of old. Owens spun it with the ease of long practice, ignoring its rusty squeal, and shouldered it open against the wind. A gust of snow smattered over the walkway as he held it open.

Both marines ducked through the hatch and out into a world of swirling white punctuated by brief lances of sundown light and glimpses of distant hills.  Shepard had only a moment to wonder at it before the wind smacked her against the wall and scoured a patch of cheek exposed by her climb with razor-sharp ice crystals.

She yelped and tugged the scarf back into place.  Naturally, this exposed a new area, and by the time she was through, the whole thing was altogether too loose and strands of copper hair were flying free of her hood with an electrostatic crackle.  Shepard caught the laughter of her companions on the wind.

“To hell with both of you,” she said crossly, which only invited more laughter, so she ignored them and crossed the scant meter to the catwalk’s railing.  It hugged the side of the Port Hanshan main building like a wedding ring.  If she reached up, her fingers could curl around the lip of the roof, crusted with cakey ice.  

Once she got used to the driving snow and the white film it put over her sight, her curiosity stood up in unexpected awe.  It reminded her of the earthquake back on Therum, if a pale imitation— an ancient and wholly natural, unthinking phenomenon that nonetheless defied every human attempt to tame it.  Their starships could cross the galaxy in a matter of days but they remained as helpless as ever in the face of planetary wrath.  Her feet strayed closer to the guardrail and she shouted over the storm. “This is incredible.”

She couldn’t see any of Alenko’s face behind the goggles and the scarf and the rest of it, but she got the sense that he was grinning as he joined her, looking over the side as much as could be dared in the high wind.  Owens’ chuckle carried.  “We get about ten of these big mothers a year.  It’s not so bad towards the ground.”

“This is my first,” she yelled.  “I’ve lived in space my whole life.  Never been snowed on.”

‘This is a hell of an introduction.”  He withdrew an electronic instrument from his pocket and flicked it on.  “I need to complete my inspection.  Feel free to poke around.”

Owens ambled down the catwalk and was soon lost behind the wall of white, leaving them quite alone in the world.  

She expected it would feel cold and dead and dark, this kind of storm, and certainly through the massive panes of Port Hanshan’s windows this was the case as it thrashed in silent fury.  But out here it was the furthest from dead a thing could be.  The wind rolled her back and forth like an oversized dog sniffing at a new toy, its tendrils tugging at her hood and hair with open mischief. Currents of snow floated on eddies in torrents at turns soft as dew and unrelentingly hard.  The setting sun’s reddish-yellow glow backlit the snowfall and made it all seem warmer than it was, reflecting off the occasional glimpse of the mountainside far below.  And the sound!  It sang and whistled, moaned and screamed, as if it were having a conversation with itself, or perhaps with the square stubborn building it embraced.

It made her want to take readings, capture its playful fury, find new ways to test its strength. Though rationally she was aware it would eat her alive, a part of her could not help but wonder if there was some means, some apparatus, that might allow her to drift on the currents as easily as one of its snowflakes, to really feel it in her limbs and bones…

Shepard could feel Kaidan watching her despite the swirling snow and the massive gold-tinged goggles they each sported.  They stood out like parrots in their orange parkas.  He leaned closer, at once muffled by his gear and loud to compensate for the wind.  The quality wasn’t unlike talking helmet-to-helmet during a comm blackout, touching your neighbor to communicate through vibrations.  “Well?”

At a loss to describe it, she flashed him an elated grin, high on the storm’s own energy, and leaned as far over the rail as she dared, trying to see all the way down the slope. The snow spiraled in one cascade after another down into the depths of the valley.  It was almost dancing.  

A particularly nasty gust tore off her hood and for a fractional second questioned her balance. She felt her stomach drop out even as she knew there was no real danger of capitulating over, and then there were hands at her back and shoulder, pushing her firmly back to the ground. Her face turned towards him, amused, as her rapidly-unraveling braids whipped about her head.  “I’m not going to fall.”

“No,” he said firmly, not removing his hand from the small of her back.  “You’re not.”

The slight show of protectiveness should have grated, but for some reason did not, perhaps because it wasn’t in the least bit patronizing.  She had been gaping over the railing like a lemming in mid-leap. Shepard shifted closer to him and he did not move away.  “Is it like this in Vancouver?”

“Not like this.  Never seen one of these from the top of a mountain.” His tone reflected the same wonder she was feeling, not a thought for the cold and only half of one for the risk of standing so high and exposed.  “You really never felt snow before?”

She shook her head. Crackly bits of ice were beginning to form around the seals of her mask, irritating her skin with cold fire.  “Not a lot of precipitation on Mars.”

“Shame.  No sledding as a kid, no skiing.”  His volume rose with the wind.  “While you’re here, you should eat some of it.”

“Eat it?”  Shepard was certain she hadn’t heard him right.

“No water tastes better than freshly fallen snow.”

“It’s Noveria snow. It’s probably radioactive.”  But she pulled down her scarf and opened her mouth to the wind, feeling the flakes drift onto her tongue and trickle under it in cool streams of crisp water, just warm enough to swallow.  She shivered despite herself as it hit the back of her teeth.

Her omni-tool beeped, a fifteen-minute warning ahead of her strategy session.  She frowned her disappointment, but held it up so Alenko could see.  He nodded, and they turned back inside.

With the hatch shut behind them, the absence of the groaning storm seemed as quiet as a tomb.  Every clanking step against the metal walkway sounded impossibly loud.  Her face and ears burned in the sudden heat, quickly beginning to prickle and itch with the temperature adjustment.  She rubbed them mercilessly.

Alenko raised his mask to his forehead and lowered the scarf clear of his chin, brushing off the snow clinging to the parka.  As he turned towards her, he was unable to keep from laughing.  

She stopped scratching and eyed him.  “What?”

He swallowed, gestured towards her, let out another chuckle, and was finally able to speak.  “You look like a snow witch.”

Suspicious, she activated her omni-tool camera and aimed it towards herself.  It showed an image of a woman with furry snow and the occasional chunk of ice clinging to every strand of hair on her head, streaky red where it began to melt.  There was a snow line clear around her goggles and her cheeks were rubbed raw. Her ears were so bright they were nearly a brick red, no natural color.  

She removed the mask and tried to shake off most of the snow.  Mostly, she succeeded in dislodging a few icicles and striking herself with the remnants of her braids.  Kaidan leaned up against the wall, hands stuffed in the parka pockets and a small smile on his face that made her warm and shy all at once.  

“Thank you,” she said, stumbling, for lack of anything else coming to mind.  “That was… exhilarating.”

“If I’d known you’d like a snowstorm that much, I’d have asked you along in the first place.” There was a hint of teasing, as if he were goading her for her preferences.

“Not that I want to do it often,” she quickly added.  “It’s good to experience new things.  No need to live in them.”

“Hey, I’m not the one who got so carried away that I’m dripping all over the floor.”

“I did not get carried away,” she said, grinning because she had, and it was wonderful.

“Adrenaline junkie,” he grumbled.

She raised her eyebrows. “Are you really that shocked?”

“No, I kind of got that from the way you make bats out of hell look like restrained, conscientious drivers.”  He gestured towards the ladder, allowing her to head down first.

All the way to the ground, she kept remembering that last gust, the brief instinctive fear of falling with all its terrible freedom, the wind singing in her ears, the pressure of his hand against her spine just where it started to curve through all the layers of her parka, and even as sour shampoo-tasting water ran from her hair down her face, she couldn’t keep from smiling.

[a-dauntless-daffodil]

Spop magic and classifications and stuff but honestly the main point of this is the thing with Glimmer at the end

also this is mainly based on season 1 since i can’t really watch s2

Etheria’s got, as far as I can tell, two basic kinds of people who can do magic in some form or another

There’s the Sorceresses like Glimmer’s dad and aunt who’s magic we haven’t really seen much in action yet, but who I’ll have some BIG guesses for anyways, and then there’s the Princesses like Queen Angella and Mermista/Perfuma/Frosta

And there’s also Razz, but I lowkey get the feeling Razz is a category unto herself

- Let’s start with Sorceresses

Shadow Weaver counts as a Still A Sorceress since she’s using a Rune Stone but doesn’t seem to have a normal connection to it, has trouble forcing the connection sometimes, needs her nifty red mask control gem thingy to access it, and could probably pick someone else to draw power from if she had to. She’s just draining it like a giant magical mosquito, fitting since she too is annoying as hell

Castaspella is a Sorceress who currently leads Mystacor, like both Light Spinner and Micah also used to do, but the way the hall of former leaders is set up-

(non-linear I presume and more of a memorial to the fallen/dead Greats)

[I like to headcanon Micah installed Light Spinner’s statue after he became a leader, in monument to the good that she used to be, and Castaspella later wrecked it sometime after he was killed]

-and the little I’ve heard of Light Spinner’s fall flashback in s2 makes me think Mystacor is ruled more by a council than by one single person, even though the council might have an unofficial leader who most of them trust and defer to. And this council is probably made up of masters of magic or the equivalent of teachers- People so good at magic and guiding others in learning how to use it and be responsible with it that they are given a say in how Mystacor as a whole is run  

This would mean there’s another class of magic user, Sorceresses lite, that aren’t at that level yet and haven’t been accredited as experienced enough to lead/teacher others. They’re main job is to keep studying magic until they are, OR leave Mystacor and start their own lives once they’ve learned enough to not cause mayhem with their powers

THIS would ALSO mean there are people who have magic or the potential to use magic but who haven’t yet or choose not to be trained as a sorceress. Once again going off my very limited s2 info, I’d guess Adora fitted into this slot before becoming She-Ra, and it was her potential for magic that Shadow Weaver was drawn to. Maybe she was hoping to steal it or could tell it was linked to a Rune Stone or some other power she’d never felt before. Maybe she just likes collecting powerful people and brainwashing them. Whatever  

And then there’s Razz. Razz might be magic. Razz might be friends with a magical broomstick that comes to her hand when she beckons. Razz has lived longer than the immortal queen of Bright Moon, long enough to know the previous She-Ra was disappeared/died over a thousand years ago. Razz is a beautiful mystery and I hope she’s stays that way

- So that’s the sorceresses, but what about Princesses?

The classic Etherian Princess has a natural connection to one Rune Stone that seems to be passed down genetically from parent to child. The Rune Stone on a global scale is important to keep Ehteira the planet alive and habitable, and the Princess’s main job is to correctly maintain, use, and protect it, which on a local scale means the area near the Rune Stone would ALSO be protected. This makes for pockets of safety and stability that people would over time flock to and populate, and the Princess’s power to protect that land would then make them the protector of the people now living there to, and thus Princesses as rulers comes to be  

She-Ra is a Princess but can’t be a ruler since her whole point seems to be acting as Etheria’s referee/IT troubleshooter for all things Rune Stone related. She needs to stay impartial and has to be able to move around freely, so her Rune Stone is small and portable and has some powers but gets its real importance from how it can boost and heal the other bigger Rune Stones

On the other hand, Entrapta is a princess, a sovereign ruler, without a Rune Stone and frankly I can’t imagine what kind of Rune Stone her family would have anyway. Maybe one linked to earth and metal or magnetic force? Their land is in the mountains and does operate mines- Point is though, she has no such Rune Stone and doesn’t mention having lost one, so I’m going to assume that Entrapta at least has never heard of Dryl having a Rune Stone at all. She ‘rules’ because her family ruled, though there doesn’t seem to be much left to rule and she mainly just does her own tech related stuff anyway. But she IS considered a ruler by Bright Moon and her family has a big throne thingy at the rebel council table

Considering the crowd at the Princess Prom and the ridiculous number of Rune Stone that’s translate into, I’d bet most of Etheria’s princesses are like Entrapta, princesses without and uppercase ‘P’ or a Rune Stone. They’d be more like normal royalty or officials who use the term ‘princess’ thanks to cultural tradition made by the actual Princesses  

Oh and Spinerella and Netossa don’t have thrones in at the rebel council table and don’t seem to represent any sovereign lands like Entrapta would have, so I’m assuming they either aren’t the direct heirs to their Rune Stones OR they’ve lost both Rune Stones and homelands to the war (explaining why they never left the Alliance, since they have nowhere else to go and nothing else to do but fight the Horde) OR they fall into another category of princesses, in their case meaning “someone with no Rune Stone who isn’t currently a ruler but who might come from a royal line and does have powerful magic and may have trained at Mystacor so back off”.    They might be princesses in title, but i think that magic wise they sorceresses- Sorceresses who chose to focus all their skill on one thing, or have some weak blood tie to a line of Princesses which makes them more attuned to one kind of magic over all others. Could also explain how they met, with both of them going to Mystacor for training and getting put in the same ‘class’, maybe under Casta, seeing as how she likes knitting so much and their powers have to do with nets and spinning.... or maybe that hobby came after she had to figure out how to teach them.. i dunno. To paraphrase Bow, I still have no Idea what they do 

Lastly we’ve got Scorpia who has the potential to link to her family Rune Stone but that link was severed/never activated, she doesn’t seem to have any other magic, and she comes from a royal family but neither she nor her family are in rulership positions anymore. She’s a princess in title only at the moment

- To sum up, Etheria may have:

Princesses (rulers with Rune Stone)   Angella, Perfuma, Mermista, Frosta, various unknown others 

/Princess/ aka the current She-Ra (not a ruler but has a smol and very important Rune Stone)   Adora, formerly Mara

princesses (rulers with no Rune Stone)   Entrapta, most of the people at the Princess Prom

?princesses? (not a ruler and no Rune Stone but still titled and has magic)   Spinnerella?, Netossa?

‘Princesses’ (not a ruler and not currently connected to family Rune Stone but has Princess lineage)   Scorpia

High Sorceresses (a ‘ruler’/teacher who co-leads Mystacor and has magic)   Castaspella, Micah formerly, Light Spinner formerly

sorceresses (someone who has magic and is trained in its use)   ^ plus Shadow Weaver, most of the background characters at Mystacor, and (spoiler character)

mage (untrained person with magic potential)   Adora formerly

Razz (has magic? Probably?? Maybe the magic’s different or she just as her own style of using it???)

everyone else (people with none of those things)    Bow, Seahawk, Catra (unless she turns out to be a Princess), most of the Horde and Etherians

-

Okay so that’s a lot but pretty simple! Sure would be a shame if something flipped it on its head :D :D

Hmm

- Princesses ARE sorceresses. Kinda. It’s complicated

What is a sorceress? Someone who has magic and has been trained to use it. But what does it mean to ‘have’ magic?

Well considering how the Rune Stone system is set up-

Rune Stone: (im guessing) Crystalline structure apparently anchored to a fixed point that contains vast amounts of ‘elemental’ magic capable of manipulating/generating a narrow range of Etheria’s natural features, such as it’s water, it’s moons, ice caps, forests etc. Rune Stones seem to located at, and draw from, nexus points in Etheria’s magical ley lines, which means they are also linked to and capable of drawing on each other if a certain genius should happen to get her hands on First Ones’ tech and decide to try hacking the entire damn planet for fun (thanks Entrapta)

-and if we don’t want to make a magic system that is silly, overpowered, and broken, then I’d say having magic means being able to sense the power innate to a world and potentially being able to harness it to create all sorts of neat effects, depending how you train and how much you can stand to pull into yourself at a time without exploding or fainting from pain

The main difference between a sorceress and Princess in that scenario?

Specialization

- So in the beginning there were NO Princesses or Rune Stones on Etheria

Either A: Etheria was a barren rock floating in the middle of nowhere that the First Ones decided to terraform and inhabit- Or B: Etheria was a normal planet before some First Ones’ related event caused it to start dying and the First Ones felt bad about that and made the Rune Stones as a sort of planetary life support system, which was super convenient when Mara ended up banishing the place to the empty pocket dimension of Despondos for whatever reason

In any case, if there was once no Rune Stones or Princesses naturally aligned to them, then how were the Rune Stones used? How were they maintained?

By sorceresses of course. And with the help of the only Princess of any kind at that time- She-Ra, Princess of Power and Castle Greyskull, who made/helped to make the Rune Stone system based on her own portable Rune Stone, and who the other later Rune Stone users titled themselves after, because mimicry is the sincerest form of flattery  

When Glimmer’s link to the Moonstone is disrupted and when the link between the Sea Gate and the Sea Pearl is on the point of breaking, She-Ra’s powers are able to fix it. Makes sense that she was also the one to originally forge the links between certain sorceresses and Rune Stones- Sorceresses who gained control over incredibly powerful magical storage tanks and refineries, but at the cost of being able to use their magic for anything BUT accessing their one Rune Stone

Basically I imagine a Princess’s magic being shaped like scaffolding or pipe system, compared to sorceresses having hammers and pillars

- Princesses can hold and channel a lot of magic, but not change what kind of magic it is or it’s general effects (Water, moonlight, plants, ice, ?storms?) and effectively have NO magic without their Rune Stone

- Meanwhile sorceresses have less power to work with because no Rune Stone but can change it into this or that as needed and draw it from potentially any source EXCEPT Rune Stones (usually, see Shadow Weaver’s painful shenanigans for how trying to force a connection to one works out) though they normally just get it from the smaller branches of Etheria’s ley lines

To use another analogy- They drink magic out of a straw, can change what flavor they’re drinking when they like, and would passed out if they tried chugging a whole keg like how Princesses can do

The Princesses can only chug one brand though and no one else can afford to buy it

But wait!

If She-Ra can make sorceresses into Princesses, then why isn’t THAT how new Princesses are picked?

Why not choose from a pool of trained and vetted adults, rather than pass the power down through a family via blood and end up with kids and teens in control of the whole world??

Maybe making Princesses comes at a high energy cost/and or needs both She-Ra and He-Man working together to actually do, meaning it was more of a one time deal thingy when the whole Rune Stone network was being set up

Maybe selecting each new Princess WAS the old system, and imprinting it genetically was just a safety measure in case anything happened to prevent new Princesses from being picked….Something like…. She-Ra vanishing for a thousand years… or Etheria getting cut off from the rest of the universe and Eternia… for example

So yeah, one way or another, some people who could use magic had their magic permanently keyed into just the Rune Stones and managed to pass that trait down through the generations, and the other magic people stayed normal sorceresses

Now to the whole point of this long meandering mush of headcanons and speculation

- Magic and Glimmer -

I must talk about Glimmer

(i love you Glimmer)

Glimmer doesn’t seem to be a normal or ‘proper’ Princess

Her powers are two things and those are fairly small in scope, self-teleportation with a buddy and sparkles. Not exactly on the same level as generating whole forests or summoning giant tidal waves or holding up a castle of ice while it tries collapsing on your heard

Princesses, when their Rune Stone isn’t sick of busy trying to prop up a dying defense system, tend to have pretty large scope powers 

Glimmer? Not so much 

She’s more like Spinnerella and Netossa than Mermista or Perfuma. Powers more narrow, with both her and the Spinnet couple having to get creative with how to use what is basically the same one or two spells. Meanwhile the other Princesses have very fluid control over their one element, basically moving it as an extension of themselves in whatever way they like and on a big scale

So why’s Glimmer’s magic Like That?

Could be that only one person can have main access to a Rune Stone at a time, meaning Glimmer won’t become the real Princesses of the Moonstone until/unless her mom gives up HER link to it and passes one the admin password, meaning Glimmer is stuck with just some really limited powers for the foreseeable future

Could be, but while that makes sense in some ways, like why none of the other Princesses have anyone in their family help them use their Rune Stone-

(though that could also be explained by stuff like, Mermista’s dad being tried of fighting or incapable of using the Rune Stone because he married into the family, or not wanting to risk ending the line by having everyone in it out fighting, or former Rune Stone users being able to sever their connections when they step down and doing that as part of the official transfer of power..)

-but the idea also really doesn’t mesh with a lot else about Glimmer and her relationship to Angella

There’s no resentment between them, not in the ‘Mom why won’t you give me moar powar’ way, and not in the ‘im not sure this person can be trusted with a magical nuke’. There’s no talk of Glimmer training her magic to prepare for someday maybe having to take full control of the Moonstone. Glimmer is scared of not living up to the same level as her mom, yeah, but she’s talking about things like being a good leader, not leveling up magically

So I don’t think her mom being Princess is keeping Glimmer’s magic stunted

Instead, thanks to her dad’s genes, I think Glimmer isn’t actually a Princess. Not in the total sense. Not in the traditional or official sense

Because a traditional Princess, going by the rules I’ve laid out above, WOULDN’T have been able to ‘switch’ from Moonstone to Black Garnet, even partially, the way Glimmer’s escape in ep 9 and resulting glitches make it look she did 

(more on that in a second) 

So. What if Glimmer is a sorceress?

A sorceress who, through sheer will and stubbornness and her desire to help people and make her mom proud and not be a failure daughter, managed ON HER OWN what Shadow Weaver needed a forbidden spell to get

What I’m saying is, Glimmer unknowingly figured out how to feed off the magic of the Moonstone

Just like with Shadow Weaver, staggering to the Black Garnet to recharge, this has made Glimmer dependent on its power in a dangerous that way other Princesses haven’t shown to share yet. Angella’s fear when Glimmer comes back nearly drained of magic in ep 3 is very real, very much a parent scared their child might be about to drop dead if they don’t get them treatment in time, mirroring Bow’s fear when Glimmer runs low on magic in Thaymor

They were both scared she could die if she got too low on magic. Maybe she would, maybe she wouldn’t, but running low on it definitely does seem to be painful for her, just like it is for Shadow Weaver

Glimmer can drain magic and specifically knows how to do it from a freaking RUNE STONE

A skill she used to pull the Black Garnet’s power INTO herself and her teleportation in ep 9, creating a paradox that made impossible for it to imprison her, and accidentally overwriting her link to the Moonstone with a new one with the Black Garnet

And her Glitches? If she linked with the Garnet, then why the Glitches?

Her glitches were caused by two different Rune Stone links bleeding into each other, something that isn’t supposed to be possible and they aren’t set up for and turns out doesn’t work so well when the person dealing with this has never even TRAINED to be a sorceress

Speaking of the Glitches, that’s the main reason why I think Glimmer could have figured out the whole Drain Magic spell on her own without realizing it

During the battle for Bright Moon in ep 12, Glimmer fights with Scorpia on her way to protect her mom. In that fight with Scorpia, Glimmer has a lightbulb moment

She has a moment when Scorpia has her pinned, keeping her from her mom who is need help right now, which makes Glimmer pissed enough she starts Glitching and somehow SHOVES Scorpia back with brute force (pls rekt me Glimmer)

Then Glimmer, who’s still Glitching, looks down and sees how her Glitches and red lighting are now running up her dad’s old staff

and she goes ‘OH’

and smiles

And she deliberately uses her Glitches, the Black Garnet’s red lightning, to blast Scorpia away

also look. The last frame after she zapped Scorpia. Glimmer isn’t Glitching anymore, but the red lightning? The Black Garnet’s magic??

it’s still there

and that could be animation wonkyness but hey this is speculation, and also also- Compare the first time she stabbed a Horde bot at the start of the battle, before she learned her new trick, to the one she stabbed right AFTER

The electricity on the first bot is blue. Maybe it’s normal and just a sign Glimmer managed to hit the right spot to make it explode. Maybe it’s the last drops of magic her dad stored in the staff when he was a alive

but when she stabs the bot attack her mom? the electricity's a different color

this time it’s red/orange  

So maybe she didn’t just stab it that time. Maybe Glimmer had figured out how to zap things even when she wasn’t Glitching, and hit the bot with everything she had

Glimmer took new magic, magic she has no experience with and no training in, magic that has been HURTING HER, and in the course of one battle, she found out how to use it to her own ends anyway

She harnessed the damn Glitches and weaponized them

Now imagine her as a kid going to the Moonstone day after day, lying under and glaring up at the Rune Stone who’s magic she can’t use yet. Imagine her promising herself she’d prove herself worthy of it, as any daughter of Angella the immortal queen, in Glimmer’s mind, should and NEEDS to be worthy

Especially during a war. Especially with the Alliance broken and the Rebellion left on the defensive against the Horde. Especially when Glimmer is already unsure if she can be a good enough leader or Princess in any other way, and needs every tool she can get if she’s going to help save more innocent people from dying like her father did

I can totally imagine that princess-slash-untrained sorceress breaking a few magical traditions without even noticing it

plus think of the drama if she ever found out that, not only is she not a ‘proper’ princess, but she’s actually been using the same spell that let Shadow Weaver rise to power 

mmm.... delicious angst.... 

or Adora figures out how to She-Ra correctly someday and now Glimmer has to choose if she wants to lock her power to the Moonstone permanently or keep the magic she’s scraped together herself 

and maybe that’s also a choice of gaining ‘immortality’ & wings like her mom, or staying mortal like all her friends and probably someday leaving her mom behind just like her dad did when he died     

anyway yeah, both canon and headcanon Glimmer own my heart and soul and i cannot stop thinking about her 

[kemetic-dreams]

                                           HEAVEN & HELL

By Nora Amrani September, 1998

Most religions preach about heaven and hell, and how those who either do or do not believe in one thing or another will inevitably end up in one of these two places. What are hell and heaven? Are they real? Where are they? And who gets to go where?

Christianized Hell is portrayed as such a real and frightening place filled with monsters and Satan, where one is punished for their sins and suffers eternally. There is no way out. Oh, you know the pictures that have been painted by Dali and other artists depicting the burning pit where those not worthy of being recognized or loved by God are tossed, abandoned and tortured. Damned for eternity.

Heaven, on the other hand, is supposed to be eternal bliss. And only the very worthy end up in Heaven. With the stringent demands made on humans to be everything but human, (never mind seeing human as divine) while being constantly reminded that they are sinful and unworthy of heaven, heaven must be very under-populated. In fact, with all those rules to be met, I can't imagine one person being successfully led through those pearly gates! Can you? (No, not even Mother Theresa - she believed that she was less than divine, herself.)

FUN WITH ETYMOLOGY

Hell and heaven are very dramatically presented, aren't they? But do we even know what these words mean? Could it be we have all been fed non-sequiturs for centuries to the point where we no longer remember what these words really mean, therefore we live in constant confusion (like the Tower of Babel) because we don't properly use our language? Wow - just imagine what that does to our communcations on all levels with one another!

Hell: Prepare yourselves for a possible shock: The word 'hel' means 'light.' It also means 'earth.' Check your Germanic dictionaries if you don't believe me. In fact, check many languages and find the meaning of the word 'hell.' Some will say it means 'cover.' If hell is such a negative place, then why do we refer to the sun, who gives us life, warmth and nurtures us, as 'helios?" Perhaps the thought of diving into the sun would be hell, itself. Maybe that's how it all originated? But, realistically, you wouldn't even make it that close without first disintegrating. Ah, but then you'd become pure energy, pure light, just like the sun, itself! Your real essence, in other words. Why, we even used to worship* gods representing the sun's energy - Ra, ApolIo, for example. So, why would it be something to be feared and avoided, at all costs?

A 'demon in hell' can also be called a 'genius in the light.' Demon, or daemon, has conflicting meanings. It can mean our inner genius, divinity or genie. It is a word sharing the same root thing as 'diamond!' Some dictionaries say demons are inferior divinity or evil spirits. How can they be both? Both divine, genius and evil? Think about it. Do they not cancel one another out? Or, can we put all under one divine umbrella? What definitions have you been taught?

The horns on the devil are also used to depict great divine light emanating through the individual. Same thing was shown with Hathor, Moses, White Buffalo Woman. It is a positive symbol of higher consciousness and knowledge, not evil.

Devil comes from the Sanskrit world meaning 'deva,' which relates to the good angels of the Hindu pantheon. Were you taught that Satan means adversary or plotter? 'Adverse' meaning 'to turn towards?' After Zoroaster and the Persians conquered Hindu territory the conquerers miraculously transformed the Hindu gods into devils! So, the Hindu devas became the Persians devils.

If we look at the pattern of religious manipulation through language, the word "daemon" was changed into having a evil implication. "It was just more Christian propaganda used to brainwash the followers of the Greek and Roman religions into rejecting their old gods in favor of the newly created Christian character," as one scholar explains. This old ploy cunningly used good timing to coincide with the burning of millions of books; books which had they not been burned would have allowed people to see the truth of how they were being lied to. And the word 'evil' actually comes from the same root as the word 'apple,' which is 'upfel.' Who decided that apples were evil? The apple itself isn't evil.

Rabbi Ahron Lopiansky explains that Judaism talks of "Satan/devil," but it sees Satan as "...an agent of God, testing the sincerity of man's deeds, the strength of his convictions, and the stamina of his moral fiber. Although this so-called devil seems to entice man to do wrong, he is not inherently an evil being. Rather, he is conducting a "sting" operation; overtly enticing to bad, but in reality working for God. A cursory reading of the beginning of Job conveys that message: God sends out Satan to test Job's righteousness. Just as a dentist or doctor tests the firmness of a bone or flesh by probing it, just as the army tests the integrity and trustworthiness of its intelligence agents by tempting them, so too does God test man. A test reveals the inner worthiness of a person's deeds, demonstrating what they are really made of."

Heaven: Could this word come from 'heave' - meaning to toss, lift or raise? Those lofty ideas. No doubt it does. And what about 'heavy,' meaning 'weighty.' This can get to be lots of fun, eh? 'Ven' means 'air.' 'Ven' can also be 'van,' which means 'sail,' 'wing,' 'basket,' and it can be a shovel used in testing ore; and of course, it now means a type of large vehicle capable of transporting many people. The more accurate root of "heaven" comes from "haven." The word "heaven" also has its roots in Hebrew in "ha'shamayim," which means "the skies," " high places." Maybe you can come up with some other meanings for it. See the conflicts over and over in modern language?

Worship...another interesting word. "War" means literally "war," or "where," and "ship" meaning a "state" or "condition." The word religion is interesting, too. "Re" means "back," or "again," or even "in reference to." "Legion" is "a body of infantry in the ancient Roman army"; or "vast host." Re-legion. Armies of God in a war ship? Is religion about war? Or hosts of God?

Now that the brief etymology portion is over, let's get into the other areas of what these words have come to mean to a great many people in the religious and social sense. In fact, they have come to dictate and control much of our beliefs and lives.

AN ANCIENT STORY OF THE FALLEN ANGELS

The ideas of Satan and fallen angels are our own planetary collective consciousness' idea of viewing things negatively. One explanation is that it represents the fall of ourselves into this dimension of materiality and polarity, forgetting our divine selves and our spirituality. Satan is backwards for "natas" - which later became "nahash" the serpent. So, what everyone THOUGHT was evil, is actually the opposite. That term is related to the Sirian-Anunnaki being, Enki, in the following:

The archetypal, mythological concept of fallen angels originated approximately 450,000 years ago when the last of the extraterrestrial beings from a satellite planet named Nibiru, known on Earth as the Anunnaki, (a group of Lyran off-shoots who stemmed from one of their more infamous members, Anu, Enki, Enlil, Inanna, etc.), had their final expedition to Earth and, in a sense, left one group "stranded" here. Since the Anunnaki were known as "the gods," and these "gods" came from the heavens and were seen as being angels because of their amazing abilities and longevity. There were conficts between the Anunnaki themselves. Nefilim, or "those who came down," is another way of talking about this group of the Anunnaki. Some of the Anunnaki wanted humans to see them as God and did not honor free will. For this they were punished and expelled from certain galactic federations. This is where the idea of the fallen angels originally came from and various accounts of it are found in the Bahgavad Gita, the bibles and other cultural origin stories.

Enki was known as the serpent of wisdom, healing and life who had a great hand in creation, the waters of life (sperm, DNA, etc.) i.e., the Garden of Eden. Enki was frequently humanity's supporter. Biblical writers called the healing serpent Nehushtan. The Hebrew word for serpent is "nahash." The root of the word are the Hebrew letters Nun, Het and Shin, which means "to guess." This was translated into other languages as "satan," which some say mean "enemy," or "adversary."

Enki's identity, as Lord of Earth or In Earth (EN.KI), and EA (whose house is water) is reflected in other names, as well: Adonai, Aton, Aten, Adom, Adam, Amen. (Linguistic paleontology is a marvelous and vast area for proving these connections.) The name EARTH also comes from EA/Enki. Actually, the name "human" can be traced to Enki (a.k.a. EA) and his half-sister and wife, the chief geneticist Ninti (the mother goddess of all life). HU is a transliteration of the ancient Sumerian EA (Grimms' law of interchangeable letters and sounds). HU was also Horus, by the way. So a human is an EAman.

In India, the "nagas" were the serpent gods/goddesses. In the Americas there was Quetzlcoatl (Enki/Thoth). The entire world has worshipped the serpent for its wisdom, but ironically, it was not really about snakes at all - unless you feel you have to "guess" what a snake is up to! Why was the snake chosen? For its cleverness, ability to survive in the harshest of environments, and again, its shape resembling the flow of energy up the spine - to the crown chakra, and the third eye. And perhaps because it naturally instilled a bit of caution or awe in people. Was Enki really a snake? No, not literally.

THE REALITY

Both heaven and hell are places created with those of like mind and emotions - thoughts and feelings so intense that it creates a vortex of bioelectomagnetic energy so concentrated that it densifies and materializes. This material form can be ectoplasmic or physical. It takes on the form of the creator's beliefs. This form resonates with like energies, drawing them to one another. (Like attracts like.) This, then, creates a larger vortex of the same energy. And it keeps growing and building and desiring it's life to be continually fed. This, then, becomes a real gathering place.

Yes, heaven does exist. But it is a very complex dimension with many options. Many people experience it with the smell of flowers, with music, and always with lots of love. There is a gathering place for souls getting ready to make their transition from their physical form into spirit, and for those who have just crossed over. There are healing rooms. There are educational rooms. It offers freedom of choice to wherever your soul wants to learn and you plan your next move there.

Hell actually is a dimension of energy that is created by self-judgement and condemnation, ergo punishment. Its essence is fear and forgetfulness of love and light. It's energy contains fear, anger, powerlessness, (including guilt, martyrdom, pain, sadness), and it is a very difficult place from which to escape because it builds on itself. It is a very sad and dark place and even though there are many souls there, it feels so lonely. Ironically, the fear of being in what people believe to be hell may actually create that kind of hell, itself.

In the case of "hell," the only way these energies can be nourished is by having more of the same energy filling it up, adding more fuel to the fire. In order to stay alive it seeks out its food in many ways. Finding a weakness, such as addiction, within a person to attach itself to is one way. Attaching to the little bit of belief in that individual it can use for its own survival. And it can also be utilized by people performing certain rituals to get a life force that can be manipulated and directed. You see, the life force, the energy, never dies. It changes form, and its form can be intentionally changed. These energies will seek out others and build on itself unless we become conscious of them and choose to release them through other avenues. There are ways out of hell, but it often requires help from the other dimensions helping a soul remember love and personal empowerment, choice, freedom.

Be it heaven or hell, we create our reality through our experiences, our thoughts, beliefs, imagination, words, and our desire, and will. One way we can become conscious of how and what we create is through meditation, or going within and contacting the God within ourselves. We always have the choice whether to create our own heaven or hell wherever we are. And that creation begins nowhere else except from within ourselves.

[sometimesrosy]

total long term speculation here. I’m just picking up on some clues here about the new story, the old story, and where it might go, in terms of the spiral of their story, and some foreshadowing I might have caught. I always make my speculation too soon, because this is a long term story, so I think this will be developed this season but NOT finished. I’m looking for THIS story, this BOOK, to finish up, at the earliest, in season 7, so two years. OR possibly season 10, which would be even with book 1. OR they could reach this storyline conclusion in season 7, reach the new plateau I see here, and finish the grand themes by season 10, which would be the end of Book 2.

Okay. I’m going in. 

Be prepared. There are TWO theories here. One which I’ve been considering for a while and another which I just came up with while writing it. Take the stories we’ve already had on earth, and make them BIGGER. 

UGH. Be prepared again. This baby is long. Scroll to the end for a vague Bellarke theory about JR’s intentions for Bellarke romance and a happily ever after.

SOO long.

Spec: Alien Theory

  IF the new planet has the “peaceful” society of eligius colonists, which is based on the subjugation (slavery? attempted genocide? both? like the history of america,) of the native population. Then that means that Clarke and Bellamy are obliged to not only give up their own privileged status as humans who are entitled to the new planet, and “superior” to the aliens, but they have to STOP the colony of humans from taking the planet from the natives. They have to fight for the people who are NOT their people. They have to fight AGAINST what’s best for their people.

Because “their people” are not those with the same genetic background or history or homeworld, but the people who want to live in peace and BUILD a world instead of control or destroy.

Okay, so, this is the same basic premise and struggle as we saw in Mount Weather. They HAD to be stopped. They wanted to enslave and torture the natives of the surface because they believed the surface was their birthright. They WERE what was wrong with humanity. If L had not betrayed them, they could have done it right and destroyed only those who were actively trying to hurt everyone, but in the interests of power and self interest, Clarke and Bellamy and Monty were required to eradicate the whole people. 

It is not a coincidence that Monty is the one who woke up Clarke and Bellamy and then told them to Be The Good Guys. This is the legacy of that action. The lessons learned from Mount Weather are going to come up again. Because I am speculating that Eligius 3 is going to be very much the same people as Mount Weather. First off. They are the same culture. They FLED the earth before it was destroyed, BECAUSE they had used it up, and they wanted a NEW planet to use. MW already had all the treasures of humanity IN the bunker before the bombs ever dropped. There was no time to save them. They ALREADY had Starry Night by Van Gogh? How did they do that? These are the same people. That’s my theory. They had the power. They set up their escape routes. One on earth. One in space.  Hmm. Maybe. 

But, JR said the planet had a mythology deeply rooted in the mythology of The 100. It can’t be the grounders, because they were formed AFTER the apocalypse. But it CAN be Becca, Eligius, Mount Weather (who were the american leaders) and Diyoza... who was a traitor AGAINST the american leaders. I doubt there will be time travel, and I doubt we’ll MEET the people who did all this hundreds of years ago (there is a slight possibility we will, through cryo stasis or new tech,) but the society WILL be based on the society that used up all the resources of Earth and went looking for a new planet to take. 

THIS IS OUR COLONIALIST NARRATIVE THAT WE’VE BEEN ON ABOUT SINCE S3. Not refugee. Eligius three was not a refugee ship. It was a colony ship with, I’m guessing, superior technology to whatever is found on that planet. 

OKAY. So that’s my guesses for Eligius 3 and the new planet.

Spec:  Return to Earth

My spec for what part Clarke and Bellamy and our heroes will have are crystallizing around THESE concepts.

Be The Good Guys, Monty Green

Doing What’s Right For Your People Is Not The Same Thing As Doing The Right Thing, Marcus Kane

I’m Making Sure Humanity Deserves To Survive, Abby Griffin

“If we didn’t take the blood treatments, we’d die. What were we supposed to do?” Maya Vie. “Die.” Monty Green.

You Are Responsible For Your Monster, Lincoln kom Trikru

Just Once I’d Like To Take Off From A Planet That Wasn’t On Fire, Raven Reyes.

1. If Clarke and Bellamy need to be the good guys, when faced with a situation that would benefit them, eligius 3 colonists, they have to make sure their choices are not just about benefitting them.

2.I suspect doing what’s best for their people would be to accept the evil of Eligius 3 and just benefit from it. But if they’re being the good guys, then they can’t accept the evil, just because they benefit.

3. Abby was willing to sacrifice the stability of the Ark to do the right thing. Maya was willing to sacrifice the stability of MW to do the right thing. Making sure humanity DESERVED to survive, after blowing up their own planet, means not letting them do it again.

4. If Humanity can’t be successful and peaceful on the new planet without causing pain and damage to others and to the planet, then they don’t deserve to have the planet... or to live.

5. Even if the new society is not Clarke and Bellamy’s fault, as humans, it’s their responsibility to make sure humanity doesn’t continue to destroy the universe in their greed and xenophobia. They need to destroy all the people who are trying to dominate the new world, to stop the spread of humanity’s illness. I suspect there will be freedom fighters on that planet who do not accept what their people are doing. This time, I think Clarke and Bellamy will be able to save them. What Clarke and Bellamy and humanity ARE responsible for is what happened to their planet. You CAN’T JUST DISCARD A PLANET YOU HAVE TO CLEAN UP THAT MESS. They’re going back to earth. If it takes another 75 years to travel back in cryo that means it will have been 200 years before they get back to earth. 200 years is the original prediction for how long it would take earth to recover from the first apocalypse, back on the Ark. When they get back to earth, it will be livable again and they can start rebuilding the world they lost. This time better. 

6. This was the realization that made me finally write up this spec, because I’ve been ruminating on it for a while. Raven said she wanted to take off from a planet JUST ONCE without it being on fire. She’s only done it TWICE. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is a pattern. She’s going to do it AGAIN. She’s going to lift off from a planet, and this time IT WON”T BE ON FIRE. They will have made their change on the new world and whatever they are leaving behind it will be, for once, better than what they started with. Because they were the good guys.  Clarke’s hero’s journey fulfilled. (my guess by season 7.)

extra spec: Madi

 i just thought about while writing this: They will all need to be nightbloods in order to survive the radiation on the planet, so that will no longer be special. But only Madi has the flame in her head. The flame is an AI supercomputer. Eligius 3 was prepared by Becca, that’s why the nightblood, so it is conceivable that there’s another ALIE on the new planet. Because she would have sent it to help the colonists survive without contact from earth. Madi will be able to connect, on one way or another, with the new AI, because she’s a freaking cyborg. (cybernetic organism, hybrid of computer/human.) Knowing Slytherin Clarke, she will keep that tidbit a secret form Eligius 3. Madi’s super human abilities might very well make her the savior of the planet. Madi might be the one to ascend to a higher plane of existence, not Clarke, but Clarke will have to deal with SERIOUS emotional and spiritual and psychological transformation to deal with this, especially if she’s back to being the leader of people, some of whom are not her own species.

Okay. So. I do not know how on target I am with this speculation. It’s so far in the future as to be almost crack, but the ideas came together because I combined the story we already have with the reading/watching list that JR suggested (The Sparrow, Annihilation, Interstellar, Battlestar Galactica.)

Extra extra spec: AI Theory

Oh my god. What if the colonists are a planetary version of the City of Light, and all the peaceful citizens are being controlled by ALIE? Oh my god. It could happen. They wouldn’t have the personal agency of the commanders, because the flame is ALIE2 which she developed to fight ALIE1. HOLY SHIT, not only possible, but very likely that this fight is coming back. If ALIE is connecting all the colonists, then that would explain the peaceful society. And she NEVER would consider any aliens to be “her people.” Or wait. If it’s ALIE and another City of Light on the new planet, then you don’t need aliens. You just need people who have rejected ALIE and fought their way out. Oh. shades of The Matrix, yo. And Wrinkle in Time. Can we call ALIE on the new planet, IT?

Okay, Alien theory went down in possibility. AI theory went up. 

Ugh. So if it’s a COL situation, when Raven takes off from the planet for the third time, it might not be on fire, but it will still be leaving a global catastrophe behind, as the destruction of ALIE would, possibly, cause another genocide. I was always surprised that shutting down the COL didn’t kill everyone in it. This could be a different program, and could kill them all. 

If it’s a COL situation, then we COULD meet the original settlers. They would still be inside ALIE. ALIE would have taken their consciousness when they died, like she did in the COL. The new planet would essentially be run by the people who destroyed the world once before. HOLY SHIT. 

HUH. Interesting. If you were writing The 100, which one would you pick? Alien Slavery or AI mind control? They haven’t done aliens or slavery yet, but there’s still room in the AI story. Was it ever really explored all the way? Could they have BOTH? oh no. i want both. 

WAIT I HAVE MORE.

Bellarke spec: It’s A Comedy Bitches!

Okay, so the above spec is NOT about Bellarke. It is about their partnership and them as leaders and heroes and being the good guys and humanity.

But now I’m going to address the Bellarke romance.

Because there is one other main philosophical survival theme, that belongs WITHIN the apocalyptic science fiction genre, that is NOT being addressed by all this political and psychological and heroic stuff.

Life should be about more than just surviving.

The ONLY ones who have managed this so far are Harper and Monty. This is a concept that started with Wells in season 1, and travelled around with lots of other characters, but no one’s ever found this purpose and peace until Marper’s happy ending.

If Book One was about bringing opposite sides together (Bellarke) and breaking the cycle, I believe that Book Two will be about those two opposites transforming the world and creating something new, LIFE. 

Ahh. Because of that, let’s keep an eye out for Octavia. She is the symbol of the trinity, which is the symbol of fertility and new birth and creating something new, and LIFE. She is the soul, and she was tainted in the last book, (just like can happen to people when they face trauma after trauma) but like the earth, SHE GETS TO COME BACK. Watch for Octavia’s redemption in book 2. 

Okay. So Bellarke in book two are already soulmates, and canonically love each other. So the story now is about how they explore their love within the constraints of their world. The obstacles (b/e which I suspect will be settled in the first half of s6,) the new way of relating, how they are seen by the new people, their goals which are now on the same track. How they work together to BUILD a life for their people instead of just always being desperate to survive. 

This is about HOPE. “We still breathing?” 

Okay, there’s less spec here than just a vague direction. But it looks to me that while Book One was a tragedy, Book Two might end as a classical comedy. Not a romance, that’s different, but a comedy, which DOES indeed have romantic elements.  If Book One was Dante’s Inferno, then Book Two might be Paradiso. I mean. Okay there are three books to The Divine Comedy, so is Purgatorio its own book for us? Or is it the end of Book One, with s4 and 5 which definitely felt like Purgatory, middle ground, holding pattern of the second apocalypse and its aftermath. It felt like purgatory to me, so I’m going with Book Two as moving from purgatory into paradise. 

So. JR is moving out of the darkness of seasons 1, 2 and 3, and into purgatory, with 4, 5 and maybe 6, then on to PARADISE, with I don’t know how many chapters. 

He GAVE us our happy ending with Marper. I think The 100 is no longer a straight tragedy. And it’s hinging on this parallel of Marper with Bellarke. They passed the baton to Bellarke. Not just to be the good guys, but to LOVE and to BE HAPPY, and to RAISE A FAMILY. They GAVE HIM THEIR SON.

I dont’ know how they’re going to tell this story. But I’m making my prediction. By season 10 (if they get it) Bellarke will have a baby. And be married. Marriage is the way classic comedies end. The heroes win. There’s a marriage. Life succeeds. The 100 isn’t the story of The Inferno. The 100 IS THE STORY OF THE DIVINE COMEDY. 

THIS BITCH TOOK US THROUGH HELL AND HE’S LEADING US INTO PARADISE.