#And I need something that actually explains string theory in depth

[ralexsol]

I'm rly close to finishing Before the Big Bang by Laura Mersini-Houghton, so you know what that means. I need to go to Barnes & Noble to find random cosmology books that look interesting again

[actual-changeling]

I have written many meta posts and s3-theories, and read even more, but I got hit by an idea I have not seen before. (If there is another post, please link it!)

After vibrating for an hour and losing my mind in my dms, I have no scraped together enough brain cells to present what is probably my first actual 'main-plot meta'.

Welcome to another edition of Alex's unhinged meta corner, today with a title to honour Crowley's James Bond obsession and the possibility of another heaven heist.

I give you:

From Jesus with Love - You Will Live Twice

Now, let's get right into it.

I think Neil might have told us more about the main s3 plotline in the announcement article than we previously thought. We all got stuck on 'they're not talking'—for good reason—but it is the part before that which has been bugging me ever since then.

The plans are going wrong—and this time that is a problem for earth and humanity. Turning that around, it means that whatever that plan consists of would be the way to go and beneficial for everyone, the opposite of the main plot of s1.

"They need to prevent the Second Coming (SC)" is pretty much the only and most popular idea I have seen, hundreds of fics and metas and whatnot have been written about it, but I think there's a good chance we're wrong. If we're not, well, I will honestly just be happy to be watching season 3.

Whatever the Metatron is planning will have negative consequences for everyone, or as Michael puts it: "And so… it ends. Everything ends. Time and the world is over, and we begin Eternity… forever and ever."

It sounds very much like Apocalypse #1 - Same Old Plan, same expected result, yet if we look at different interpretations of scripture we find that the SC is not entirely about complete destruction and death for all of humanity—it is about creating a new world/migrating to the kingdom of God.

This is taken from the Wikipedia article about the SC

Resurrection and life in a world to come are a direct contradiction to the result Michael is explaining—total annihilation of humanity.

Now, I am neither religious in any way nor have I ever received any sort of biblical education. Luckily, Christians seem to love talking about the bible because there are dozens of bible website to wade through. If I get anything wrong, please point it out, I have never touched a bible in my life.

So, after reading many, many quotes by a bunch of different guys, I tried to create a somewhat coherent picture of what the SC might look like based on the assumption that the end result is positive. I will talk about how they can be interpreted more in-depth later, otherwise this would turn into a string-net very fast.

Additionally, we can also see where these points overlap with the statement Jimbriel gave in the bookshop in episode three.

What is Jesus' job description?

only God knows when and how exactly it will begin/happen, no one else does, including Jesus and the Metatron

a lot of different catastrophes are mentioned or quoted as something Jesus said, like earthquakes and storms -> Jimbriel mentioned a tempest and great storms

there is also the line "All these are the beginning of birth pains." Birth pains dictate that there will be a birth—birth of the world to come perhaps?

dead people will be resurrected/leave their graves so that they too can be judged (I'd say participate in it but that sounds like the Second Coming is a summer camp activity)

there are also mentions of stars and the heavens in general falling from the sky and the sun going dark -> Jimbriel also mentions darkness as one of the signs

great lamentations, as Jimbriel says, are also a part of many different passages, with humans mourning the world as it was

the Lord will descent with the voice of an Archangel and the sound of a trumpet/the trumpet of God; the grammatical structure of that sentence seems to be interpreted differently depending on who you ask, but the voices of angels/an Archangel and some sort of trumpet are common terms

once everyone is in heaven/wherever the 'main even' will take place, a judgement call will be made for every single person in relation to the book of life, which decides whether they will be punished forever or not (one passage talks about a lake of fire and mentions it several times in a row)

And this is where it gets tricky. To figure out what the SC looks like, we first need to understand a) what the Metatron's capabilities are, b) what he has to lose, and c) what exactly would be a threat to him.

If you ask me, all of this comes down to the Metatron wanting to stay and be in power for eternity with full control over angels so he can do as he please, aka keeping the system running as it is.

We know the book of life (bol) is a thing in the Good Omens universe, whether it does what Michael said is an entirely different question. So far, we have also only got confirmation that hell collects and tortures souls—in such large amounts that they are understaffed—while heaven looks completely empty.

The Metatron runs heaven as an institution, he seems to be the highest power any of the angels have access to and the one they defer to. He refers to himself as the voice of God and combines judge, jury and executioner, making him one great celestial dictator.

From what we know of hell, they do things a lot more democratically, having different councils, dukes, and ranks that are responsible for different levels of command.

We also know that that the Metatron wants the world to end, his goals can probably be summarized as the statement Michael makes, which would leave him in charge without any opposing forces.

We also also know that he sees Crowley and Aziraphale as a threat—why exactly remains a mystery for now—and that the success of his plan hinges on having a Supreme Archangel (SA) he can control. Gabriel decided to become princess of hell and Beez' sugar baby, so he was out of the equation, and after the Armageddon disaster, I don't think he wants to risk failing because of an unfamiliarity with earth (plus, y'know, getting our two idiots away from the plan).

It's interesting to me that right at the end, he says to Aziraphale "We call it the Second Coming"—call, not it is or it will be, CALL. We know that nothing Neil writes is a coincidence, definitely not with such an important line.

Just because you CALL something a specific name doesn't mean it IS what you call it, e.g. Aziraphale calls Crowley a foul fiend when we know he very much isn't.

The Metatron is selling his plan as part of the "Great/Ineffable Plan", so any questions can be blocked by saying it's God's will, it's ineffable. Whatever his plan is, he hides it behind the concept of the Second Coming, which angels know just enough about to understand the basics without having in-depth knowledge of what exactly it entails.

It is a good fucking strategy, I'll give him that, and it WORKS because angels—even if they have doubts—do not question. They simply don't; fear of punishment and millennia of conditioning have left them in a horrible place. When they encounter something unknown, their response is "I already knew that" as to not ask questions.

Crowley questions, we know that, and Aziraphale, ohhhhh, Aziraphale ALSO questions, but he does it in a less dangerous and obvious way. The Metatron is vastly underprepared for that.

(Side note: That alone would be its own meta post, but the gist is that he questions heaven's plans and then adjusts his assumptions of what God might want to what he WANTS God to want, e.g. Job, the Arch)

To summarize everything I just said, the Metatron wants to do what Armageddon failed to do—destroy earth and the universe—so he can be supreme dictator of all remaining celestial beings and gorge himself on power.

But instead of calling it his Big Evil Plan, he calls it the Second Coming, making everyone play along without resistance.

We cycle aaaaall the way back to the sentence I quoted—the ACTUAL plans are going wrong since the Metatron's would mean total destruction.

But what is the SC supposed to be if not the Apocalypse 2.0?

When I look at all the different aspects of the SC and assume a positive outcome, then the end result to me would be a new world that is pretty much like the old world, or maybe even literally the old world but with any destruction reversed. Heaven and hell get dissolved since now that everyone has been "judged", they as institutions are no longer needed, they have fulfilled their purpose.

No more judgement means there is no reason to keep track anymore, so why do you need to run celestial corporations whose only job is doing exactly that? You don't—and THAT is what I believe is the biggest perceived threat to the Metatron, losing full control over everyone and everything, losing his position, his title, and whatever else he has.

On top of that, Good Omens has told us again and again that God doesn't seem to give a fuck about good and evil anymore, and that without heaven and hell being all wrapped up in it, humanity would have 100% free will without any consequences.

Maybe the BoL is empty, maybe it isn't real, maybe Jesus stole it to straighten a wobbly table, who knows. There is a chance it is what Michael says, but I would admittedly find that a bit. too obvious and boring since it would boil the plot down to "they save their own asses again" and not "they save humanity at all cost".

Regarding Crowley and Aziraphale's role in this—I have Thoughts TM but those definitely need their own post. In short, they have to get the SC back on track, the real one.

-

If you have made it this far, thank you for working through what I hope are more or less coherent rambles. Any spelling or grammar mistakes are my own.

Questions? Thoughts? Corrections? Expansions and additions?

Feel free to add to this post however you like (and I can't believe I have to mentions this but if you clown on my post or behave like an asshole you will be blocked).

[plagueybirb]

Been thinking a lot about TOTK lately (because reasons), so here's MY take on the magic pebbles for whoever wants to hear it. Fair warning, this does get a little ramble-y but I gotta explain a couple things for it to make sense and I'm not just going crazy with the red string and corkboard here.

Okay, so. Whenever there's time travel shenanigans, there's a split in the timeline. So far, this has happened TWICE. First being the one most known and discussed from what I've seen: the OOT timeline split.

The second, that I haven't actually seen talked about before is in Skyward Sword. Spoilers for a like, 10 year old game. Go play it if you can, it's one of my favorites!

Anyway, the Skyward Sword timeline split. The timeline where Link and Zelda/Hylia stay in the present and thus the timeline we all know and love is created. BUUUT, then there's the past, where Demise was defeated not as a grumpy scaly jelly bean from a wish from the Triforce, but a good old fashioned smackdown in his true form. Where technically Link never needs to go on a journey to save Zelda and literally the entire plot of the game happens.

We never find out exactly what happened to that past timeline left behind. And yes, I know Old Impa waited about a million years or whatever but here's the thing. Whenever Zelda, and by proxy, Hylia is directly involved in time travel shenanigans, it creates a sort of stable time loop. Zelda will always sleep in the amber. Zelda will always fall and end up in Zonai era Hyrule.

So. Because of this, I think that simultaneously there exists a timeline completely parallel to the main one, but it's the past where Demise was defeated in his true form. The past that Link and Zelda/Hylia left behind. Here's where the magic pebbles come in.

They're only called the Zonai secret stones because the Zonai were the ones who found and named them. Like naming a dinosaur after yourself. And as people are wont to do in the Zelda universe, they build a society around it. But what ARE the magic jelly beans you ask?

They're pieces of Demise's body.

Yeah. You heard me correctly. You know how Hylia has Goddess Plumes? It's like that. In theory, if you eat a piece of a being like a goddess or even a primordial entity, it's gonna mess you up big time.

The fight with Demise was definitely a lot more brutal and bloody than the game shows, it's not hard for me to imagine pieces of solidified magical energy just firing off into the abyss whenever Link let lightning strike his sword and stabbed the hell out of the guy. We don't know how powerful Demise truly is, only that he was so powerful that it took a Goddess LEAVING her divinity and becoming a mortal temporarily to keep him sealed away, and even then Demise kept breaking out and needed to be sealed again. Probably more times than when Link had to.

Maybe the secret stones weren't always shaped like crooked tears (OR. Y'know. Possibly drops of blood), maybe when the Zonai found them in the Depths (because I refuse to believe the Zonai weren't originally from there, which I'll talk about another day), and perhaps put molded them to be shaped like something familiar. Perhaps a certain amber or dusk relic?

Mortals, even ones incarnated time and time again due to an ancient curse, aren't meant to handle pieces of a primordial entity so powerful it took a whole Goddess and a million year long plan to finally take him down. Of course swallowing one would change you.

There's a theoretically infinite number of magical pieces of the ancient deities and higher powers, they just haven't been found yet.

Demise would see a dragon as something incredibly powerful. It would make sense as to why his blood would turn you into one while robbing you of your memories. And really, it takes some DAMN COURAGE to look a Goddess who governs time in the eye and say basically, "Fuck you, I'm going to come back SPECIFICALLY to mess up your good time because I hate you"

After all, GANONDORF is the one associated with boars. Demise was never given the same association except by Ganondorf being trapped as the reincarnation of his hatred time and time again.

And hey. Perhaps the Goddess Plumes turn one into a massive owl sort of creature. No one's ever eaten one to confirm that we know of.

Who knows. Perhaps there's a third deity or entity out there whose pieces of themself turns people into boars when eaten. You never know. Perhaps one that even. Bargains. With mortals. :)

Anyway, that's my take on the Zonai secret stones. I'd love to hear what other people think!

[spacenintendogs]

rose's official essay on why pigma dengar is a good and interesting character and that doesn't mean he has to be a good person

if any character in star fox appears to be universally despised by the fanbase, it would have to be pigma. the sniveling swine's got a voice people find irritating and they hate him for betraying james mccloud and peppy hare, for possibly taking part in the actual death of james mccloud, and for his taunting towards fox, peppy, and everyone else, and he was so untrustworthy he ended up being booted off of star wolf by wolf o'donnell and then got infected by the aparoids and became no longer himself, and then there was a possible endings in command where falco ignores ROB's advice to join fox and he ends up coming across pigma and having to fight him and his forces OR wolf and pigma make a deal where pigma covers them on star wolf's way to venom and in turn, they would lead fox into a trap and pigma would have him

pigma is easily hateable and people express their disdain in ways that feel? more like acting like pigma is a real being who they hate seeing in the games and would be fine if he weren't there rather than a character who is a bad person serving a purpose for the greater story, at least that's what it feels like to me. it feels like people see pigma as a bad person and because pigma is not a good person, they assume he's a bad character and that just is not the case

and here's why :)

pigma's history prior to his betrayal of james is relatively unknown. all we know is that pigma betrayed james and peppy for andross and is possibly the reason james died (i'm not going with the "james is actually alive" theory, sorry)

what makes pigma so interesting is the possible depth he has, more that is very faintly alluded to that we don't see or know about. star fox is a very simple story and is not character driven like a lot of stories in media but that does not mean something isn't there at all! it's why i love little details like this in star fox zero

the ripped photo in peppy's arwing has the right side by peppy ripped off and it's very safe to say that pigma is the one that got ripped off the photo. i feel like if pigma were just another gun they hired to help out, peppy wouldn't have a photo of him, james, general pepper, and pigma in his arwing, that seems very personal. even in the reboot with star fox zero and fox in the introduction sequence saying pigma was "an honorless slime-ball who 'volunteered' for the assignment" that's fox's perspective and all he probably feels he and we as the player need to know. but pigma "volunteering" for the assignment... what was he doing before that?

in pigma's bio for star fox zero on the official english site:

"disgraced former member of team star fox"

why would pigma need to "volunteer" if he was a full member of star fox? it would be weird if he worked for andross the whole time and only worked with star fox on the one mission to venom. he would have to be trusted to be allowed to go on the mission to venom. in the star fox 64 3d book (japanese version) it explains that pigma is the one who designed the star fox logo!

so i think it's safe to assume pigma was trusted to go with, he'd volunteered to go with because james might have been originally going solo or smth and peppy and pigma were refusing to let him go alone, who knows? the mystery between them all is so interesting and it's no wonder a lot of people ask for a game just following that day when james died and pigma betrays star fox. it's just weird to think about all this knowing that pigma is racked up as a greedy uncaring bastard (which... yeah) but then he jabs at peppy about their old times and peppy has the torn photo... i think it adds to the drama if pigma had been a really good friend.

but what incentive did pigma have to betray star fox?? again, we don't know. was it money? was he really that greedy? did he see a point in andross's plans? why would he be pulling the strings for andross in keeping star wolf under andross and manipulating wolf (according to the star fox 64 manuals) for andross?? money?? is it all really money?????

bc tbh with what we got of pigma's personality and what is assumed of james based off the limited amount we got of him and then what we got of peppy's personality... i can see how pigma would be friends with the BOTH of them.

but in the end, it does not matter what or why pigma did what he did, even if it is fun to speculate about. because pigma, like every character made is, is a means to advance the story, and if anything, the most important part of the story for fox mccloud and the lylat wars.

there's a reason star fox 64 is seen as the "definitive" star fox game, and even if most star fox games (except command) are not character driven, the characters still serve a purpose. pigma serves the purpose of literally being the cause of the inciting incident for why fox reforms star fox and wants to get revenge. sure, andross killing james would've likely had the same effect, but the added betrayal of it being pigma, a former friend and star fox member, who was working for andross?? and they both serve as reminders for fox of what happened?? it adds more weight to the story, to fox's revenge, etc. there is an added tragedy and then even greater pressure on fox to be more like james or the added taunts pigma throws towards fox's way about his father.

and it's so easy to hate pigma from that point of view, because you as the player have fox's point of view. and his point of view of pigma is likely based off of peppy's point of view of pigma.

pigma's purpose in the story is to add fuel to the fire and create a connection to the player to want to see through to the end of the star fox games where pigma is a vital player (64, 64 3d, zero, heck even assault). pigma's actions are what make the star fox universe orbit lol

and also?? fuck u, pigma is hilarious. he's a fucking walking, talking meme. every day i think about the starlink cutscenes and his dialogue i can't believe this bastard did uwu speak to lure star fox into a trap and they (and you, the player bc yeah u got no other choice) fall for it like COME ON HE'S CRAFTY!! HE'S SO SMART!!!!!!! him being smart is how fox says that "no one saw it coming" in the opening of star fox zero about pigma betraying them!! and then we see more of pigma's intelligence in starlink and assault!! yes assault!! you spend like, 3 out of the 10 mission levels in star fox assault chasing after him and those missions take up a good chunk of the game's time!!!!

he grates on your nerves. he pisses you off, he keeps getting away and it angers you that he keeps slipping from fox's, YOUR fingers.

you as the player, want to fight him.

and guess what you do in the game?

you fight him. multiple times. throughout the series.

pigma is supposed to be "unlikeable" because if you like him/care for him like you would peppy or james or hell even WOLF??? you wouldn't keep fighting him and being exacerbated by him like you do.

pigma is simply a tool for the story like all characters are.

but that also doesn't mean he can't have the "how can we make him feel like a complex being?" treatment like the fanbase does with the other characters. pigma is template for villain but tragedy perfection. he chooses to stick to what he's good at and what he's known for. but does he regret? in the assault book it says pigma sees star wolf as his friends still despite being kicked out by wolf for being untrustworthy, does he actually care for them? why would he stick with them after the lylat wars if andross isn't paying his bills anymore and not telling him how to pull the strings on wolf? does pigma keep manipulating wolf for his own personal gain after? what did pigma do that was the final straw for wolf to kick him out? did wolf actually kick him out?

pigma is a good character in how he serves his purpose and with a bit more thinking done by the player or reader or viewer or whoever, he's a bad person, yes, but even people who are bad can care, can ache, can regret, can have fun and find happiness. those aspects of pigma are just left up to us like a lot of sf characters are because those parts of him are not important to the story until they are.

and also if he were a hero, y'all would be going off abt how cute his design is do not @ me

tldr; it's fine if you don't like him, the games assume that you don't!!! BUT your personal dislike/hatred for pigma dengar does not mean he is a "bad character" or poorly written. there can be depth to him like people give to the other characters, y'all just don't want to, which is fine but you can not say he is a "bad character" only because you think he sucks. your personal hatred and his actual quality as a character with a purpose in the story are not the same

pigma dengar is one of the most well written characters in a series where it is not character driven in a typical way, y'all just don't want to apply critical thinking skills for him compared to other characters because you think he's ugly and smelly

tbh i'm not the best with words and i'm 100% i missed a lot i could've said abt him but!! i at least wanted to get the conversation started :')

[babiemingoo]

lollipop boy || jeon wonwoo

summary: greaser!wonwoo is only kind of your friend when he comes up with a stupid (but brilliant) plan to piss off your ex boyfriend and test just what person you claim to have become

genre: greaser!wonwoo, suggestive? || wc: 2.6k

a/n: this is actually a snippet of my next series I have planned, so I hope everyone enjoys reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

This was awkward.

As you sat there, thumbs twiddling mindlessly in an attempt of a distraction from the tension, you couldn’t escape how awkward of a situation you were in. When your friend Sien had texted that she was running late but someone should already be there waiting, you had hoped with every cell of your being that the someone wasn’t Wonwoo. But when you opened the front door of the diner nestled in the middle of your hometown, the only member of your newfound “friend group” that had arrived on time was, of course, Wonwoo. 

The diner was classic, with a neon sign hanging above the milkshake bar and a worn down jukebox near the corner window looking like it had survived every teenager in your town since the 1940s. The color scheme of red, white and gray made the boy wrapped in a shiny black leather jacket look even more so out of place than he already was. He never seemed to care, though, always sat in the exact same spot on a Wednesday afternoon, flipping through his auto vehicle magazine with a lollipop between his lips while his friends bustled about excitedly. Except, his friends were late, and now it was just the two of you together despite the fact that you had spoken more less 20 words to him since you met.

If silently sitting across the said boy wasn’t awkward enough, the diner was pretty dead for a Wednesday when most people your age tended to trickle in - except for, with your luck, your ex boyfriend. Him and your old friend group were huddled about in the opposite end of the diner, next to the jukebox that you knew they liked to hang around to play their favorite 70s songs while they loitered. None of them seemed to have noticed your arrival apart from the boy that you used to spend every Wednesday holding hands with. Now you two side glance at each other, looking away in the split millisecond when your eyes meet and pretend like it didn’t happen. You repeat the action probably five times before a deep voice pulls you out of the routine, “So much for hating his guts, huh?”

Wonwoo’s still skimming his eyes through the words printed next to a picture of a motorcycle in the magazine, but you know he was the one that had just spoken to you. “What are you talking about?” You question him, feigning ignorance. His deep chuckle cuts through the air as you observe the candy he has wrapped in his fingers, just an inch away from his mouth so he’s able to voice out his thoughts. One thing you had noticed about Wonwoo was that he always had a lollipop with him. Sometimes it was green, or purple, or even blue; but today it was his classic red shade. His usual soda was always red, all the candy he bought at the liquor store was red, and the chapstick that he would pull out every now and then was that of the same color and flavor; the one you have realized to be his favorite. Cherry.

“You tell everyone how much you hate him for what he did to you, but you keep making love eyes at him,” The boy across from you states in a tone that you’re sure is dripping with arrogance. “Not surprised though. I told Sien that you would run back to rich boy the first chance you got.”

You scoff at the audacity he had. The two of you may have been in the same friend group, and you’ve come to have a soft spot for a few of them - like Sien and Jun - but Wonwoo speaks as if he has a right to judge you or any of your past. Wonwoo was the only one out of the group of greasers that you felt hadn’t really taken to you and you’re certain it’s because of your old friends and boyfriend that he hated so much. Every part of you itched to prove him wrong about every assumption he had made about your life. “I’m not going to run back to him!” You say to him with determination, in a low voice. 

For the first time since you’ve met him, Wonwoo closes the magazine. He quickly folds the corner of the page he was on to not lose his spot, shuts it, and pulls the lollipop out of his mouth again before saying, “Everytime we meet up at a spot and he’s around, you both make puppy eyes at each other like you’ll run into each other’s arms in a flower field and sing love songs. Even I can’t ignore it and I make it a point to half ignore everyone. Just admit you want to make your boy toy miss you, get your job done and go back to your perfect little life. Don’t drag my friends into this.” The way his voice comes out is laced with venom and you feel it. You always had a hunch that Wonwoo held dislike for you rather than indifference, but this is the first you’re hearing of his theory that you’re just using your new friend group to prove something to your ex. 

“I’m sorry if the guy I was with for three years and had to break up with a few weeks ago still holds a little part of my heart,” You retort with sass. “But I’m not going to go back to him. What he did was so completely fucked up and even if I’ve been with him for that long I have more self worth, I know that I deserve more-”

Ding.

It was a bad habit of yours to leave your ringer on. A habit that had got you written up in class more times than you can count, one that got you caught during friend gatherings when you and Seungkwan were trying to sneakily talk behind the other boys’ backs. And now, it was a habit that had you caught up with Wonwoo. The brightness of your phone screen was almost mocking in the way that it illuminated the notification you had just gotten from your ex boyfriend standing across the room, letters sewed together in a text that said, ‘hey can we talk?’

You catch the text message in the corner of your eye and Wonwoo does, too. He laughs; a deep chuckle of satisfaction that matches his tone when he says, “Preppy boy is calling. Shouldn’t you go kiss and make up?”

It’s silent for a beat. Wonwoo is infuriating in the way that he’s never gone easy on you, even the first day you had met, Sien bringing you to their table with tears streaming down your face and his first sentence to you had been a tease. He’s infuriating in the way now that he’s fully expecting you to turn around and head in your ex’s direction to talk. He’s infuriating in the way that you consider actually doing it.

“Well?” He questions, head nodding towards the man who used to occupy all your time and all your thoughts. Instinctively you turn around and make eye contact with him for the sixth time that day and his eyes are pleading, waiting. Waiting. Just like you had been sitting, waiting for him all those days and weeks while he had been running around, betraying you, lying to you- 

“Aren’t you going to go talk to your lover boy?”

“No.”

The answer leaves your lips before he can even finish his question. Truthfully you were hoping Wonwoo would look impressed, or a little surprised in the least. He doesn’t. All he offers you is a smug grin as his tongue peaks out of lips, lapping at the red lollipop a few times before he speaks, “Bullshit.”

You want to counter his cockiness but he beats you to it, adding, “Don’t string it on, sweetheart. The others will get here and then you’ll have to explain just how weak you are for your ex in front of all of them. I won’t say anything to them; you can do that yourself later. Just go back to your preppies where you’d rather be.”

Sweetheart? Weak? Where you’d rather be? Gosh, the nerve Wonwoo always had with you. You roll your eyes before crossing your arms at him, vision narrowing, “I’m not going to talk to him. I don’t want to talk to him. He fucked me over and now we’re done.”

“Really?” He questions with his eyebrows raised, but you know he’s mocking you. The boy wants to test you because he still thinks he knows you and that all his assumptions of you are right.

You want to prove him wrong. “Yup! I hate him and I don’t want anything to do with him. If I could make him see that him and I are completely done, I would.” The tone of your voice made every word come out with conviction. You wanted to make it a point that you think - no - you knew that you were done with your ex. Whatever the two of you had was completely finished after how he had mistreated you and your heart, and you needed to show that to Wonwoo. You need to show that to yourself. You wanted to prove him and everyone else who doubted you, wrong.

Ding.

Another notification. Another text message. Another attempt of your ex trying to crawl back into your life, your heart, the letters on your phone screen now fitting together to create your name in question. From the corner of your eye you can see his gaze; no longer pleading but begging. He wants to talk. The deepest, darkest depths of your heart will you to get up and listen. Your brain says to stay put. Another chuckle from Wonwoo.

“You sure you’re done with him?”

With gritted teeth, you harshly grab your phone and flip it upside down so the screen can’t mock you anymore. “I’m sure.”

Wonwoo finally looks just the slightest impressed by your reaction. But not convinced - not at all. Strangely, he gets up, says nothing as he walks around the table and sits next to you before facing you with a glint in his eye. His lollipop is wrapped around his mouth until he pulls it out again to say, “Prove it.”

This day is a bunch of firsts. The first time you’ve had a conversation with Wonwoo (albeit a negative one, but still), the first time you’ve gotten heated since you found out what your ex had done, and the first time you’ve ever seen Wonwoo so up close. Your eyes follow the creases of his lips, across his laugh lines which are - surprisingly - fairly prominent, past his nose and cheekbones and to his eyes, small but fierce and shaped in a way that has you wondering if you would’ve enjoyed looking at them under different circumstances. You try not to get yourself too caught up in the intricacies of his features and distract yourself by countering, “Prove what?”

“Put your money where your mouth is. You said that if you were able to make him see that you two were done, you’d do it. You said you don’t want to go back to him, then prove it.” The leather of his jacket squeaks a little when he shrugs.

“Wha- How am I supposed to-”

“Kiss me,” His tone is so casual in the way he says it, like every other word that he’s ever targeted at you hasn’t been spoken with condescending undertones and haughty implications. You want to keep your sassy facade but you begin to gape at him like a fish out of water, gasping for some sort of clarity on the situation. There is no way he could be seriously asking this of you when the two of you had barely established a frenemies relationship. In fact, it was more of the enemies than it is friends.

He smirks at the way you’re caught off guard (because he’s a little shit) and repeats himself while scooting closer, “You don’t have to, but as a guy I’ll tell you - if I saw the girl who used to be my everything kissing another guy after I had texted her asking to talk to her? I think I’d get the hint.”

You can’t help the way the cogs in your head turn together to make sense of what he says, even if it’s a bit out of left field. Technically, you did say that you would show your ex he no longer had a chance with you, if you were able to do so. You wonder if doing such a thing like kissing Wonwoo would give the boy across the room a big old fuck you like he deserved. Your gaze travels to the said boy, who’s eyes have changed to hold something of confusion and wonder. Was he confused at why Wonwoo had come to sit next to you? In an attempt to support or debunk your hypothesis, you scoot closer to Wonwoo, your hand finding it’s way against his jean clad knee where the frayed rips let you two meet skin to skin. 

The emotions behind your ex’s eyes shift. They’re shocked now; angry. Hurt. Those were the same feelings you felt all those weeks ago when the world came crashing down at your shoulders and your relationship went with it.

You take your attention and put it back on Wonwoo, who’s breath you can feel against your face with how impossibly close you two have gotten. He’s smirking again. Similar to moments ago when your eyes scanned over his face, his gaze begins to do the same to you; memorizing the dip of your cupid’s bow and the tip of your nose. 

The boy lets out a breath when his eyes find their way up, meeting yours. Hand on your waist. Head tilting, “Kiss me,” He repeats.

You lean forward. Your lips touch. He might have just meant a peck, just to get your ex riled up. But the way your lips fit together implied so, so much more than a peck. They move together, slotting against each other in a way that would’ve convinced anyone in the room that you two have been captivated by each other with adoration and nothing but. The thought of how mad your ex probably is begins to get buried in the back of your mind when you start to focus on him, Wonwoo, and the way that he feels. The way his right hand pulls you just the slightest bit closer even if there’s no more room. The way his left hand reaches behind your neck to cradle you in place like he wants the two of you to keep kissing for hours.

All thoughts of everything else that had been going on in your life begins to dissipate in your head as you get caught up in him. In this moment you only think one thing: Wonwoo. Wonwoo Wonwoo Wonwoo. Wonwoo in his leather jacket, Wonwoo on his motorcycle, Wonwoo holding his magazine, Wonwoo looking at you, Wonwoo holding you- It’s funny, because earlier today you were dreading Wonwoo. Now it seems like your subconscious craves him, head leaning forward as if he was going anywhere. You want to remember this; even if the future version of yourself is going to pretend like you didn’t enjoy it. So your tunnel vision goes completely there to his lips, his kiss. You make sure to note the way he tastes just so you can brand him and this kiss with it for the rest of your life. You’ll make sure to associate this taste with him forever so that every time you have another lick of it you’re reminded of this day that Jeon Wonwoo stole your breath straight out of your mouth. You memorize what your taste buds feel when you kiss him. Cherry.

[whimsimmortal]

Plot Bunny

Wow, I’m alive! And posting fanfiction on tumblr, as if I have any idea what I’m doing!! Please check it out on AO3, where I am actually capable of navigating the website: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27441853

Plink. Another small, innocuous sound scarcely registered past Danny’s homework-induced stupor. It could have been a stray raindrop or a kamikaze bug. He had more important things demanding his attention; namely, the book report due tomorrow. This was at least the fifth time he’d rewritten the same paragraph. Words had lost all meaning to him by this point, but he was so close to finishing.

Tip-tap. Clonk, the noise emitting from the bedroom window insisted. He glared suspiciously towards the disturbance, envisioning ethereal arrows or blob ghosts intent on breaking in. He hadn’t sensed anything ghostly nearby, but given his luck, the paranoia was usually warranted. Emitting a groan from the depths of his soul, he rose from his desk to inspect the noise. He spared a second to stretch and shake the pins and needles out of his fingers, trying to wake up. Just in case it was something serious, y'know. Tink. “Alright, jeez, I’m coming,” he muttered, pulling back his curtain.

There weren’t any ghosts, of course. That was somewhat of a relief, even if going down swinging  was preferable to succumbing to a failing high school education. The early sunset gleamed amber off the windows across the street, and the sky was clear, except for— chink— the pebbles bouncing off his window. A lone kid was standing on the sidewalk below, no older than eight or nine. He looked vaguely familiar. He was pulling his arm back to throw more stones and bawling his eyes out.

Danny yanked open the window, sliding up the screen to fully stick his head out. His core vibrated, unsettled. There wasn’t any obvious danger, and the kid didn’t look hurt. Where were his parents? Why was he here? “Hey! What’s wrong, buddy? Are you okay?”

“You, you, you,” the kid tried to start, but great hiccupping sobs interrupted him. He scrubbed his face with his fists, obviously trying to regain his composure. “You’ve gotta send the ghost hero out!”

Danny jerked back, unintentionally smacking the back of his skull on the underside of the window. Well, now he was awake. What? “Uh, a ghost? Here? No, there isn’t—I can’t—what are you talking about?”

The boy was right up against the side of the house now, sniffling loudly and staring straight up at Danny with wide, sad eyes. “Please?” He whined, winding his hands up in the fabric of his sweater nervously.

Well, now he was stuck. Some random kid was going to out his whole identity, but the urge to help was almost overwhelming. “I can’t—there can’t be any ghosts here, but give me a second and I can just come down?” He offered. “Do you want me to find your parents?”

“Noooo!” The kid wailed and stomped his foot, banging on the wall with his tiny fists. “Don’t lie to me! I’ve seen the superman ghost go in there! Let him out! I need him!!”

Oh, crap, someone was going to hear. This kid’s parents were going to freak out, or his own parents were going to notice, and what if they took that kind of claim seriously? Shoot. Literally. He chuckled nervously. “Hey, hey, shhh, okay! You win! I’ll, uh, summon him, or something! But you have to be quiet, or you’ll, y’know, scare him off.” The child nodded solemnly, wiping his nose on the back of his sleeve and stifling his sobs.

Danny ducked back behind the curtain, gracelessly crumpling to sit with his back against the wall. He ran his hands through his hair. He’d been seen? When? He’d tried so hard to be careful, and use invisibility whenever he was close to the house. Maybe he’d gotten lazy. Maybe, sometimes, he let the promise of sleep take priority over precautions. Stupid.  He smacked the palm of his hand into his forehead, frustrated. How long had this kid known? Who else had he told? He couldn’t just scare him into silence, he was too little. That was just messed up, he’d give him nightmares or something.

He wasn’t going to figure anything out by sitting here moping. He triggered the transformation, the familiar prickling electric feeling swiftly replaced by the soothing cold. He turned to peek over the edge of the window, checking for anyone else around. It was still just the same kid, kicking at a pebble on the concrete while he waited.

He floated down slowly, not wanting to startle his impromptu visitor, who turned and saw him as he touched down. The little guy gasped, forgotten tears slipping away from unblinking eyes.

“Hi there,” Danny prompted gently. “Were you looking for me?”

The kid kept ogling, mesmerized, and a few seconds passed by before he could shake himself out of it. “Wow, you’re the real superhero guy,” he whispered reverently.

Oh. That was pretty cute, actually. He couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah, that’s me. You can call me Phantom,” he offered.

“I’m Wyatt,” the kid mumbled, covering his damp cheeks with his hands shyly. He tipped his head down, still staring through his eyelashes.

A neighbor’s front door opened down the street, and Danny swiftly disappeared. Wyatt startled, blindly swinging his hands back and forth through the seemingly-empty space. “Wait! Come back!” He recoiled with a yelp when his blundering reach made contact with the specter.

“It's okay, I’m right here,” he reassured the kid. “But we can’t let people know I’m here, okay? They’ll—um. I’ll get in trouble.”

Wyatt squinted, reaching forward again. Danny offered his hand, and the little fingers gripped his glove tightly. He looked like he was offering the empty air a fist bump. “Right,” the kid agreed earnestly.

“Seriously,” Danny pressed. “You can’t tell anyone that I li-” he bit his tongue. Don’t say ‘live’. That’s so dumb. “Uh. Hang out here sometimes. Not even your friends, okay? Promise?”

Wyatt’s little dark eyebrows drew together, and despite his trembling chin and small stature, he looked profoundly serious. He shook the hand. “I promise.”

Well, that would have to do for now. “Thanks. Uh, what did you need me for?”

The kid’s eyes immediately started to well up again, but he squeezed Danny’s fingers and pressed his lips to put on a brave face. “C’mon, Phantom, you’ve gotta-” he sniffed. “You gotta save Fuzzy,” he warbled, turning and pulling. The ghost floated behind like a balloon on a string as the pair stepped down from the curb, heading across the street.

Oh, man, if this was about a dead pet, he wasn’t sure what he was going to do. That was closer to Jazz’s expertise. He swallowed his mounting dread. “Who’s Fuzzy?”

Wyatt’s face scrunched up. “He’s my bunny,” he explained, looking away. “I was just tryin’ to show ‘im to Audrey, and—and then,” he sobbed. “He went under the house! And he’s gonna get lost and stuck, and I’m-, never-, gonna see him ever again!” He let go, burying his face in his hands and howling.

Danny rested a hand lightly on Wyatt’s little shoulder, throat tight. He’d never had a pet like that, but he could understand the fear of losing loved ones a little too well, and empathy always felt more forceful when he was in ghost form. Probably something related to ectoplasm being shaped by residual emotional energy, blah blah ecto-science theory. “Don’t worry, we’ll find him.”

The unusual duo walked two more houses down the block and cut through a side yard to a modest backyard, strewn with outdoor toys and an overturned wire fence—likey an outdoor pen for Fuzzy. An even younger girl sat on the paved patio, chewing on the end of her braid. She leaped up as they drew close. “Wyatt! I told my dad about Fuzzbutt, and he’ll call the—um, animal people. But they’re not here yet. Did you find him?”

Wyatt glanced a little to Danny’s left with a guilty expression. Well, crap, so much for his secret. He bit his lip, trying to keep his cool. First things first. A cursory scan of the area didn’t show anyone else in the immediate vicinity, so he faded back into visibility. The little girl—‘Audrey’, he guessed—gave a muffled shriek. “Ghost man!”

“Hush,” Wyatt scolded, voice quavering. “He’s a secret.”

“Oh,” Audrey whispered back. “Hello, mister normal guy man. I think you’re cool.” She beamed up at him.

“Hello, small ordinary human,” Danny quipped, and Audrey giggled delightedly. Wyatt dropped to his hands and knees, crawling up to the house, where a gap between the foundation and dirt was evident. The other two peeked over his shoulder, but there wasn’t any bunny visible past the darkness.

“Fuzzy,” Wyatt choked out. “Hang in there, we’re gonna rescue you!”

Danny turned intangible, letting his molecules seep down through the dirt past the level of his nose. He drifted close to the base of the house, juicing up the glow from his eyes. “Just wait here, okay?” Two grim, round little faces nodded back, and with that minor assurance, he delved beneath the house.

The weight of the floor above loomed. It was claustrophobic, like being buried… well, half-alive. The musty, dank mildew smell was gross, even though he wasn’t breathing. He could taste it. “Here, bunny, bunny,” he muttered. Please don’t be hurt.

A tiny pair of eyes reflected green through the gloom. The little ball of fluff was backed into a corner, and it snorted like a tiny angry bull, stomping its feet. Danny hadn’t even known rabbits could make that sound. It probably didn’t like his creeping, unnatural aura, like most rational animals. “Shhh,” he cooed, reaching for the tiny, grubby ball of fluff and dimming his glow. “I’m not gonna hurt ya.”

Fuzzbutt wasn’t convinced. In a courageous move, it darted through Danny’s forehead, wedging itself under a crooked board and squealing. Danny reached easily through the plank and wrapped his hands around the unhappy creature, sharing his intangibility. It writhed and fussed, trying to bite through his gloves. “Stop that!” He clutched it close to his chest; if he dropped it here, the stubborn thing really would be stuck. He swooped back out into the backyard, startling the anxiously waiting kids.

Audrey shrieked and tipped over. Wyatt recovered first, leaping to his Velcro-sneakered feet expectantly. “Is he okay?”

Danny recovered a more solid form, holding up the wiggling rabbit. Wyatt gasped, fresh tears glittering on his eyelashes. He reached out for the beloved pet, unable to contain his joy at the reunion. “Fuzzy! You’re okay! I love you, Fuzzy!”

“Let’s go inside first, so he doesn’t get away again?” Danny suggested. The last thing anyone needed was an instant replay. Audrey darted to open the back door, and Wyatt led the way inside. He sat on the wooden floor with open arms, and as soon as the door was firmly shut again, Danny deposited the squirming animal into his lap. Fuzzy looked marginally more content to receive numerous sloppy kisses from his adoring owner. He was actually a pretty cute little guy, black and white like a panda.

Even footsteps padded around the corner. “Wyatt, baby? Did you find-” the woman’s question cut off abruptly as she noticed the glowing stranger in her living room.

Crud. At this rate, the whole block was going to find him out before the week was up. He edged back a little, rubbing the back of his neck. “Sorry, I was just, um,” darn it, wrong persona. He cleared his throat and squared his shoulders. “Doing my heroic duty, ma’am,” he finished in a falsely deep voice.

Audrey giggled (he didn’t sound that bad!), and the woman smiled nervously. Wyatt hopped to his feet, still cradling his bunny. “Mama! Look, he saved Fuzzy! I’m gonna rename him Fuzzy Phantom,” he declared.

Mama Wyatt dutifully stroked the bunny’s dusty ears. “Fuzzy Phantom needs a bath,” she commented, before looking back up to meet Danny’s eyes. She held out her clean hand, and it took him a second to recognize the offered handshake. He started to reach back, thought twice about his messy glove, and hastily peeled it off to shake her hand. Her fingers were delicate, but they didn’t falter at the chill. “You look taller on the TV,” she joked lightly. “It’s nice to meet you. Phantom, right?”

He nodded. “Uh, it was nice to meet you, too, Ms.-?”

“Sylvie Rosales,” she supplemented. Audrey snuck around her to flounce deeper into the house, taking the adult’s distraction as an invitation, and Wyatt started to follow her, but hesitated. He snuck a hand out around Fuzzy to tug on Danny’s arm, so he leaned down accommodatingly.

Wyatt stood on his tiptoes to whisper in his ear. “Can I come see you sometimes?”

Oh, heck, no. That would be truly asking for disaster. “No,” he quickly replied, but before Wyatt’s pout could evolve into a true objection, he added, “but if you really don’t tell anyone how to find me, I could drop by sometimes.” He looked towards Ms. Rosales. “If that’s okay?”

Wyatt looked over to his mom pleadingly, stars in his eyes. What have I gotten myself into, Danny wondered, but he couldn’t help feeling charmed. Ms. Rosales looked like she was thinking along the same lines, with her thin-lipped smile and folded arms. “As long as you don’t cause any trouble,” she hedged.

“Thank you!!” Wyatt hugged Danny spontaneously, smushing his face into his shoulder. Fuzzy grunted his objection.

Danny ruffled the kid’s mop of hair. “I should get going. Take care of Fuzzy,” he grinned, pulling away. “And stay safe,” he added in his false baritone with a mock salute.

“You, too,” he heard Ms. Rosales call after him as he phased through the wall. He looped above the street once cheerfully before disappearing to sneak back home. He’d left his window open; rose-tinted light and a handful of moths had spilled onto his bedroom floor. This time, he didn’t reappear or turn back until he’d stealthily drawn the window and curtains closed.

He still had an hour or so to plug into his homework. He hummed as he started back in on the paragraph he’d been stuck on. It didn’t seem as daunting now, even with the lost time and near reveal. He’d have to keep an eye on his nosy little neighbor, but in the end, maybe it was the moments like today that made the whole gig worth it.

[dragoler]

The Hollowness of the Knight

This is a theory post about Hollow Knight and contains spoilers, so if you haven’t completed the game you should probably not read this post.

There is a debate I see often within the Hollow Knight fan community and every time it comes up I ignore it. This debate is on the purity of the protagonist Knight as a vessel, and sometimes by extension the purity of the Hollow Knight at the time of its choosing. Here I want to explain why this is a fruitless debate, and how the topic may be better approached from a different angle.

Let's begin with the iconic lines said by the Pale King about vessels during the Birthplace memory:

No cost too great. No mind to think. No will to break. No voice to cry suffering. Born of God and Void. You shall seal the blinding light that plagues their dreams. You are the Vessel. You are the Hollow Knight.

The part that I am going to focus on here is 'No will to break' because it’s the point of hottest contention. It's no real secret that the Knight displays a will throughout the game, this is even referenced in NPC dialogue, such as when it refuses to trade with Steel Soul Jinn:

...It refuses to trade...? It has a will... all Its own. Can refuse. Jinn will keep waiting... until a gift comes.

This obviously runs counter to what the Pale King is saying, but the situation gets more complicated than this. Five other important characters (sorry Mask Maker) in the game have in-depth knowledge on the vessels, what they are, how they were created and what is needed for them to be pure - The three Dreamers, The White Lady and Hornet.

Let's ignore the Dreamers (they have little to say) and start with the White Lady. Upon first meeting her she will gift the Knight a White Fragment and then urge it to take over the duty of the Hollow Knight, believing it pure enough to succeed in the task:

I implore you, usurp the Vessel. Its supposed strength was ill-judged. It was tarnished by an idea instilled. But you. You are free of such blemishes. You could contain that thing inside.

Her perception is obviously not perfect as she didn't seem to notice the impurity of the Hollow Knight until it was too late (possibly she did but they were too far into the plan so ignored it, as the Path of Pain implies the king may have done). Though this could also suggest that all vessels start out pure and only lose their purity if something were to tarnish them later. The next part is more interesting though, if the Knight returns to her with the Kingsoul charm equipped she says this:

The Kingsoul... What is at the heart of it I wonder? If its curiosity wills it, it should seek out that place. That place where it was born, where it died, where it began...

Here she directly encourages the Knight to follow its curiosity, something which should be counter to what a vessel would feel and also insinuates a will. After acquiring the Void heart she comments this:

That pulsing emptiness... Truly, it has been transformed by the revelations it found. Does it... feel anything? Triumph? Or hate? If it does, I cannot sense it. The fate of our Kingdom, our Hallownest... that future belongs to you now.

This dialogue strongly suggests that the Void Heart has somehow made the Knight more empty than it was before, and yet the description of the Void Heart also directly references a will:

An emptiness that was hidden within, now unconstrained. Unifies the void under the bearer's will.

Now onto Hornet. When Hornet first fights the Knight she thinks it is weak and would kill her mother, only to fail at the Hollow Knight and unleash the Radiance onto Hallownest. After she is defeated she concludes that the Knight has gained resilience from 'two voids':

I'm normally quite perceptive. You I underestimated, though I've since guessed the truth. You've seen beyond this kingdom's bounds. Yours is resilience born of two voids.

The second void mentioned refers to the wastelands outside the Kingdom, known to rob bugs of their 'minds':

Higher beings, these words are for you alone. These blasted plains stretch never-ending. There is no world beyond. Those foolish enough to traverse this void must pay the toll and relinquish the precious mind this kingdom grants.

This seems to translate to bugs losing their memories, as Quirrel is shown to have lost his own memory when he left Hallownest:

Twice I've seen this world and though my service may have stripped the first experience from me, I'm thankful I could witness its beauty again.

So the Knight losing its memory has made it resilient and therefore more 'pure' right? Well, there are problems with this. To start with resilience =/= emptiness, you don't need an empty mind to have a strong body. It also seems unlikely that she is talking about physical strength here because the threats of Hallownest are more dangerous than those on the surface. From Quirrel:

Your nail looks a fine instrument, but it's showing signs of wear. I'd wager up there it would take you far. Down here however, I suspect you'll soon meet dangers the surface world can't match.

What Hornet is actually referring to is resolve - willpower. This is supported by the names of the achievements you gain after defeating her: 'Test of Resolve' and 'Proof of Resolve', she even makes reference to a will directly in dialogue later:

You could do it, if you had the will.

This weirdly suggests that an empty mind directly contributes to an increase in willpower, something running completely counter to the king's words. It also makes her very next move seem quite counter-intuitive; she encourage the Knight to learn the things it has forgotten about its past:

It's no surprise then you've managed to reach the heart of this world. In so doing, you shall know the sacrifice that keeps it standing. If, knowing that truth, you'd still attempt a role in Hallownest's perpetuation, seek the Grave in Ash and the mark it would grant to one like you.

If a lack of knowledge would make a vessel more 'pure' this goes against her own best interests, so we can also rule out the effects of the wastelands contributing to the purity of the Knight.

By now you will probably be saying that Hornet doesn't want the Knight to seal the Radiance, she wants it to kill her. Hornet doesn't actually consider the possibility of the Knight uniting the void until after it climbs out of the Abyss:

...It faced the void, and ascends unscathed... Could it unite such vast darkness?..

And even then considers the possibility as almost an impossibility:

...Could it achieve that impossible thing? Should it?

She is perfectly accepting of the fact that it could chose to seal the Radiance instead, and doesn't voice any concerns about its fitness to do so:

Ghost of Hallownest, you possess the strength to enact an end of your choosing. Would you supplant our birth-cursed sibling, or would you transcend it?

Even if killing the Radiance was the only possibility she considered, shouldn't the Knight becoming an avatar of the void itself make it as empty as it could possibly be?

The conclusion here is that the evidence is incredibly contradictory. Multiple knowledgeable characters encourage the Knight to exert its will despite the Pale King saying vessels shouldn’t have one, and even a loss of memory isn't considered better for purity.

Onto the second part, what can we say for sure DOES contribute to purity? It should be safe to assume that everything else the king mentions about vessels still holds true. Vessels do not speak and have no voices, whenever a vessel roars with a voice the sound comes from the Radiance and not themselves. They do not think. This is an odd one because there is Dream Nail dialogue for the Hollow Knight and Pure Vessel, but because it isn't accessible within the game it can't be taken as canon (though that is a debate in itself). Ignoring these outliers, there are five creatures that give Dream Nail dialogue of '...' which are Broken Vessel/Lost Kin, Fool Eaters, Gulkas, Shadow Creepers and Nosk. The Fool Eaters and Gulkas are plants so naturally they have no minds, Shadow Creepers are found near to and within the Abyss where it is strongly suggested they are inflicted by the effects of the void:

Found only in deep, dark places. Has never been observed to eat or drink anything.

The Broken Vessel is a vessel so it makes sense for it not to think, even when inflicted by infection. Nosk however is an interesting case, and I theorize the reason for its lack of thought is in its nature as a mimic:

In the deepest darkness, there are beasts who wear faces stolen from your memories and pluck at the strings in your heart. Know yourself, and stay strong.

Nosk does not only mimic the body of the Knight but also its mind, so when the Knight Dream Nail's Nosk it is seeing its own empty mind reflected back. Interestingly, if the Pure Vessel and Hollow Knight's Dream Nail dialogue are to be taken as canon, that makes BOTH the Knight and Broken Vessel more pure than it, supporting the theory that all vessels start pure until tarnished. So what causes tarnishment? An 'idea instilled' is rather vague, but the existence of the Path of Pain strongly suggests that the idea instilled into the Hollow Knight was an emotional bond with its father, supported by cut Dream Nail dialogue:

"...Father?..."

Perhaps the king should consider replacing 'No will to break' with 'No bonds to break’? Maybe then he wouldn't have messed up his plan as badly as he did.

[jacksgreysays]

Determined Clairvoyant, Misguided Knight brainstorm, (2020-05-29)

A/N: So I had a weird sleepless brainstorming/outlining binge last night, passed out and woke up to this chunk of nonsense...

I’ve been reading a lot of DCMK (Detective Conan and Magic Kaito) fic but also I am always a little bit thinking of DoS so my brain went:

Hey, Shisui and Shikako have very similar personalities to Kaito and Shinichi...

But Shisui is the detective and Shikako the thief.

And on the one hand, I was considering just translating it into the in Friendship Is A (Mutual) Con 'verse, such that Shisui is Interpol/FBI and ends up helping the crew because what they do is morally right even if it's not legal...

But it just wouldn’t be the same!

Also, for those who don’t know anything about DCMK, I’m not really using the Detective Conan premise (in which a famous teenage detective gets shrunken into a 6 year old and has to keep his identity secret while finding/dismantling the criminal organization that did this to him. In their defense(?) they were trying to kill him but used an “experimental poison.” They’re not going out of their way to randomly turn teenagers into kids... although there is another teenager that got turned into a kid by that same poison) 

But it is interconnected to the Magic Kaito ‘verse (in which a teenager discovers that his dad didn’t die in an accident but was murdered by a mysterious criminal organization (possibly the same one as in Detective Conan? we’re not sure) because he used to be Phantom Thief KID who was searching for a magical jewel called Pandora that supposedly grants immortality because said mysterious criminal organization wants it for nefarious means. Also the teen and his dad are stage magicians and make their heists very flashy and fun)

Anyway, personality wise I was really feeling the Shikako = paranoid/logical Shinichi vs Shisui = flamboyant genius Kaito contrasting with their arguable respective roles as Shikako = chaotic neutral regular rule breaker and Shisui = lawful good believer of systems if not authority.

I was considering whether or not I wanted to transplant the characters into the DCMK setting, but seeing how that’s just (arguably) modern day Japan I was a little... the adapting would be more work than its worth when really all I wanted was thief!Shikako and detective!Shisui and I also, as previously mentioned, didn’t want to just insert Shisui into the Fia(M)C ‘verse.

So then I remembered this ficlet in which Danzo successfully became Hokage but a mysterious figure (ie Shikako) is working against him and I was like. Okay, but reluctant detective!Shisui having to try to capture insurrectionist thief!Shikako is hilarious. And I know Shisui isn’t actually KMP in canon, but Danzo is Hokage which means the situation is bleak and I kinda explain everything below anyway, so...

Enjoy?

~

shisui is one of the oldest uchiha in the village because everyone older than him was executed by danzo for their (supposed?) attempted coup

doesn't particularly want to be a detective, but he's the only one left

sharp-eyed shisui? it is both mocking his singular eye but also he does end up being pretty good at investigation

Itachi is clan head and also one of danzo’s busiest anbu (because danzo is creepy and weird) and he’s being run so ragged that shisui stepped up to do it since he vaguely remembers the KMP’s protocols and also, with one eye short, his combat effectiveness isn’t as reliable

He hates not being able to be back up for itachi, but until he figures out the depth perception thing, he’d be a liability

Itachi is the only one with both eyes (again, because danzo is creepy and weird)

every time one of his younger cousins activate their sharingan, they are forced to undergo surgery because danzo harvests one eye from each of them

sasuke is the next upcoming kid

hikaku/sai was the most recent

Shikako is working reverse chronologically to restore eyeballs because they’re not exactly labeled but she knows the newest eye goes to the most recent activator.

This is how she gets hikaku/sai’s immediate loyalty (he has both eyes, but still hides one under his eyepatch/headband because if you can’t passive aggressively use danzo’s tricks against him then what’s the point? )

((also, it’s a real good dramatic reveal of how shikako gets shisui to trust her because he’s like “you’re stealing my family’s eyeballs and turning my little cousin into your spy” and then hikaku/sai just flips up his eyepatch and blinks both eyes at shisui and he just. “well, that was literally the only argument i had”))

Oh, the age of graduation is lower in canon because danzo doesn’t believe in coddling kids and also “back in my day” nonsense, so sasuke is maybe around 8?

kakashi is, like, a weird sticking point. he's the only non-danzo adult that has a sharingan and, hey, he's also only got just the one, but shisui also remembers the elders being a little weird about him so :shrugs:

I should figure out what to do with him, tbh

i mean, i know Shikako helps Naruto escape/evade ANBU capture because Danzo was going to turn him into a “proper jinchuuriki weapon” so maybe she throws him at Kakashi and is like “BABY SITTING DUTY FOR YOU, SAD STRING BEAN”

and there’s also Tenzo/Yamato to consider here

at first the thefts are random but escalating: old mission reports, the sandaime's novelty(?) crystal ball, the hokage's hat, the sword of the thunder god, etc, etc

then it becomes directed: sharingan eyes

Shadow Thief Shikako is here to make things real difficult for danzo

while shisui is trying really hard not to get smitten (even though she’s stealing his family’s eyeballs! but he guesses better than in danzo’s possession? he’s very conflicted emotionally and very stressed and also a teenager), shikako is recruiting allies for her coup

She needs to make a deal with the devil… Kabuto? For the medical expertise in how to re-implant all the sharingan she’s stealing?

He does spy on behalf of who he thinks is the strongest, and shikako is v strong by this point

Although, the whole concept of “you were the first person i ever wanted to murder” “you flatter me” is kind of funny

What is going on with orochimaru in this timeline?

For that matter, what’s going on with the other sannin?

hyuuga have weird feelings about the whole one eye stolen thing, branch family in particular because on the one hand: DOJUTSU/BLOODLINE THEFT is literally their big nono. But they do like being the strongest clan in the village now.

Is neji’s dad still alive? When did danzo become hokage? Is it before or after Hinata’s near kidnapping?

Ibiki, anko, aoba -- gotta figure out what’s going on there

Does aoba not have the crow summons since shisui is still alive?

Is aoba a surprise half uchiha?

Unsure how bleak i want things to be for the Nara clan. They definitely don’t like things, but i’m not sure if they’re also largely killed off, just shikaku, or just yoshino…… unless Shikamaru has been taken as Danzo’s apprentice/ROOT?

Something also has to have happened to the akimichi and yamanaka tho, in order to justify/reflect it

Team 10 is essentially being held hostage. Shikako has to “steal” them from Danzo in order to get the ANY clans’ cooperation

they’re allowed to visit their family once a week in order to get clan training, but it’s on different days from each other so the other two are still within ROOT’s grasp and the one who is visiting their family knows not to step out of line

Shikamaru has been trying really hard to help him and his teammates escape, but he’s only eight years old. I’m but a boy. I’m just a boy

There is a war.

I’ve decided this.

It’s the only way to make sense of why danzo is still in charge without him having killed a ludicrous number of people (more than he’s already killed, that is)

There is a war and that’s where the majority of the loudest dissenters are sent (inuzuka, aburame, gai, etc) and because they are always out on the front lines they don’t know how bad it actually is at home

Mist rebellion peeps?

Zabuza and Haku are still alive at this time, i guess

Terumi Mei--is there even a mist rebellion at this time or are they too busy with the war, too?

… Gelel/Sand?

look, magical gems are the crux of Magic Kaito and I know I’ve replaced them with Sharingan eyes, but still. If there’s a magical gem I feel like I’m obligated to at least mention it

also, Shinichi in Detective Conan ends up with, like, the most ludicrous allies over the course of the series. He is a--as far as anyone else knows--a 6 year old Japanese boy with connections to the American FBI. That’s nuts! So Shikako having allies with Mist or Sand isn’t too far outside feasibility in comparison

~

A/N: So... in theory I would like to come back to this and actually write it--because as far as sleepless brainstorming sessions go, this one is fairly coherent--but just in case I don’t, I figure people would enjoy this mess of an outline anyway. And it’s nice to have notes for later.

Title is, unsurprisingly, my attempt to make the letters DCMK apply to Shikako and Shisui. On the one hand, I know the quote is “and angry Aburame, a focused Inuzuka, and a motivated Nara” but I kiiiinda misremembered wrong and thought it was “determined,” fell in love with Shisui as the “misguided knight” and then only after went back to check and realized that it should’ve been “motivated”

Ah well

[isaacdian]

hope you don't mind me asking, do you have any Isaac and Miria headcanons? i'd love to read some from you. you appear to have a good grasp on the characters, and great love for them. :)

aw thank you so much for the ask, sure thing!

some of these will probably get into theory territory as well, because i’ve had the novels sitting in my mind for years now, and there are a few details i’d like to mention (beware of baccano light novel spoilers, just in case).

this could get a bit long, so you can read it below the cut:

i’ll write my headcanons/thoughts in no particular order. more people might have come to similar conclusions, but i don’t think i’ve seen any posts or had any discussions with anyone regarding these (at least in depth), so!

- i like to think that miria and isaac ran away from their then (seemingly) unhappy lives after they got to interact with each other for quite a while, and not spontaneously upon meeting for the first time.

there isn’t much evidence to back this up beyond some characters commenting that they “were probably runaways” or that “maybe they eloped”, so they might have escaped together on the spot, since we already know they can be very impulsive. however, i get this feeling that their bond took some time to develop, and i’d love to see some of their interactions as isaac dian —and— miria harvent before they ever became isaac & miria, if that makes sense.

i doubt they met too long before their string of robberies, though? this is such a weirdly specific and probably meaningless thing to pinpoint, but in 1935 miria asks isaac if he’s ever been to the circus, and he responds that he does remember animals, but he doesn’t remember if that was the circus or the zoo. this hardly means anything, but their circumstances overall don’t really make me think that they’ve known each other since they were too young.

- whatever optimism and general exhilaration regarding life isaac has is innate. on the other hand, miria has mostly acquired her own sense of hopefulness over time, with isaac’s help.

miria is a 100% confirmed literal ray of sunshine and this indisputable. it just hasn’t/doesn’t always come to her as effortlessly as it may seem. bloody to fair isaac and miria magic show color page.png

this is somewhat related to the next one (and also the last point i’ll mention at the end of this post):

- when isaac gets arrested and he and miria get separated in 1934, they’re both having an equally hard time dealing with this.

okay this one is like. obvious ksjksk. but i wanted to talk about how they deal with this situation, because at first glance it looks like miria got the shortest end of the stick here. and in a way, that might be true! i’ve already mentioned that miria herself has been shown thinking about how much isaac helped her to be happy, and narita has been deliberately vague regarding the nature of their silliness, on top of hinting at the possibility of their shenanigans being a kind of mechanism to escape the harsh realities of life from the rolling bootlegs (very first novel), if i recall correctly.

(btw:

i recall that somewhere in the 1935 arc, graham starts talking with the usual “let me tell you a sad, sad story” prelude. however, isaac and miria are upset by this, and they tell him that he shouldn’t tell sad stories, because if you do it, your happiness will run away. meanwhile, this part in cloudy to rainy living rent free in my head:

i have to laugh..........)

that being said, i couldn’t help but feel like isaac was having an equally bad time, even if he displayed it in a different and not so blatant way. while i was rereading the novels after i got to buy the official english release, i felt very strongly that something was definitely wrong about their separation, which, again, is obvious to us readers and to the characters who know isaac & miria. but it extends beyond that. there was this general feeling of knowing that whoever came across an unaccompanied isaac would magically feel like there was something missing. i don’t know how else to explain this. he’s still full of energy and optimism and he’s fueled by his desire to reunite with miria, but every time he’s shown hesitating or doesn’t reach a satisfying conclusion while thinking about a frivolous topic, it hits you like “oh... right” (firo didn’t help much on that last front, either, so miria and isaac must have had to discuss what exactly happens to fellas who don’t believe in fairies after their reunion... lol)

in short, he needs miria just as much as she needs him. this is something i’ve seen other people mention as well: isaac might be the “force” factor in their relationship, but that force won’t amount to much without miria’s “direction”, and viceversa. the lift each other up, and they keep each other grounded, too.

i’m also remembering isaac and sham’s conversation and just. there’s a self-esteem/confidence factor in there. Fun Game of Spot the Difference

and this is getting ridiculously long, so i’ll spare you from having to read my dumb thots about isaac’s (possibly real) fear of miria not liking him, as the narrator implies, which i subconsciously ended up linking to that one impossibly crack ending in the ds game, where you pick the option of him not knowing frankenstein’s monster’s real name, so miria leaves him after realizing how “cheap and uncool” he is LMAO

- isaac’s father might have been an academic of some sort, as well as a stern man who disapproved of his son’s flighty and childish tendencies.

???????? besides miria’s implied tragic backstory, the most we know about both of their pasts is that isaac comes from a wealthy family with whom he seems to have a bad relationship with, so even though i’ve tried to work out other details (his parents’ provenance for instance?) i can’t really elaborate on this. even if isaac’s knowledge on the topic is pretty scrambled (to put it nicely lol), he knows a lot about “the orient” as he puts it, and the “dian” surname is pretty unique so who knows!👀 i’ve only mentioned his father because isaac, too, has only mentioned his "old man” twice so far in the novels, if i’m not mistaken. in my opinion, it also speaks volumes how flustered isaac got when molsa apologized to him, because it was the first time someone older than him has done this. and this is pretty arbitrary, but if isaac started robbing and getting into trouble before he and miria even met and/or before he got kicked out/ran away from home, that whole deal about “being used to dealing with policemen” (in the unofficial translation i read back in the day it was something along the lines of “this isn’t my first time being interrogated by the police”) in 1934 would make sense, i guess, considering that miria didn’t realize what was going on at the moment even though she’s a fairly perceptive person.

anyways it’s too bad we don’t know that much about miria on this front, also!! i get the vague feeling that she might have also come from a wealthy family (probably not a good environment, though), since in 1935 it’s mentioned that the closest they’ve ever gotten to working/having a job was when they were digging for gold, apparently. that’s why i can’t really think of anything too specific regarding miria’s past and upbringing... i have a feeling that she might have felt alone, trapped and/or overwhelmed. let’s just hope that when she said her bruises would heal up fine with ice in 1935 it had nothing to do with this “i should have died” business :(((

- even though isaac and miria love their friends and would do anything for them, they aren’t particularly attached to anyone (or any place) besides each other.

this is more of an observation than a headcanon, but i find it really interesting: they would definitely do anything for their friends, and they do enjoy life very intensely, but that’s precisely why they don’t seem to be fixed in one singular spot? basically, i feel like they’re the personification of “home is where the heart is” taken to the extreme. they could go anywhere and do anything as long as they have each other, and they will never make any attempts to actively do things that make it easier to label their relationship, such as getting married, which is heavily implied by firo (i think) in 2002 bullet garden (i think!!). that’s also part of the reason why i’m sure they’d never find themselves commiting to things like taking care of a pet, or a child; it’s more like they instantly “adopt” everyone they run into, as if they’ve always been friends, even if they won’t meet again for months, years, or ever again. anyway, isaac and miria are extremely good and they are literally going to be happy together forever and ever! they don’t need to prove that.

that doesn’t mean they’re not sentimental, though! i like to think that they keep some meaningful objects that remind them of fond memories of their friends. and this is hardly canon because it shows up in the anime And in a background at that, but shoutout to the rocking toy horse in their california mine lol.

- miria knew about her own immortality (as well as isaac’s) before the 2000s.

THIS IS PROBABLY MY SPICIEST TAKE and i tried to back it up in the next point of this list. i still keep thinking i’m reading too much, into this but

i can’t stop thinking about the implications, folks

which brings us to:

- miria is smarter than isaac is and actually has a fairly good idea of when he’s making stuff up, but is happy to let him take the lead.

i won’t deny that isaac and miria dedicate a huge chunk of their day to doing moronic stuff, and they are pretty dumb, but i feel like people don’t give them enough credit for how perceptive they are. even though that’s true of the two of them, i feel like this mostly applies to miria.

among other things, we’ve learned that she knows ronny isn’t human and has supernatural powers (wow), which is why she comes to him for help after isaac’s arrest. she’s very good at paying attention to small details, such as the kind of programs ennis watches on tv, or chané’s feelings, when the two talk in 1934. miria also “really knows her way around japanese” and has been shown to --apparently?-- multiply large numbers in her head in 1935... while isaac was talking about how good of an idea it would be to use the martingale betting system. not to mention how isaac stated he “doesn’t know how to count money” earlier in this arc. my god ksdjgjks. i want to know what’s up with this, if anything.

so, yeah! there’s probably more stuff that i could mention, but i am exhausted lol. thank you for your patience anon, i have no idea how long this has been sitting in my inbox. always happy to get baccano questions <3 i apologize for any typos/errors and the like.

bonus headcanon: miria grabs ennis with one hand and chané with her other hand and they go out with their arms linked and excited and they learn more about having fun, as friends do. no printer just fax

[supremeprince-bensolo]

The Rise of Skywalker thoughts/review

I’ve now had two weeks to process my thoughts on the movie. Immediately after, I was actually feeling quite okay (but mostly sad due to the fate of my favourite character). But I didn’t hate the movie, I actually loved most of it after the first initial viewing. I went with my family who are casual fans. My dad said it’s his favourite SW movie, my mum loved it too, and my brother thought it was a satisfying ending to the saga. My feelings were a lot more complicated. There were things I loved, but also things I absolutely hated and thought should have been done differently.

First off, I had a bit of a memorable experience at the cinema. The projector stopped working twice (only in Australia will the temperature cause the projectors to malfunction!). But it meant they rewound the film a little so I got to see the scene where Rey shoots lightning to take the transport ship down (and Kylo strutting up looking like a prince) and Dark Rey/Kylo showing up on the Death Star twice. So, thankfully they stopped during Reylo scenes so I got to see them again (but if only it had stopped right after the kiss and they couldn’t get the projector working again…).

I was actually looking forward to Palpatine being back. He is the ultimate evil and the person who seduced Anakin to the Dark Side which started this whole saga. I could buy that he was behind everything. And as much as I’d hoped to find out how he survived, it didn’t bother me too much that they didn’t tell us. The Sith use the Force in very unnatural ways so it doesn’t surprise me that he somehow managed to cheat death.

“I have been every voice (Palpatine), you have ever heard (Snoke), inside your head (Vader).” The entire time it was Palpatine. It was him pulling the strings, wanting revenge on Vader by ruining the Skywalker legacy and grooming Ben into becoming a stronger and more loyal Vader. He made Snoke, literally (the jar full of Snoke clones was creepy). Kylo believed he was talking to his grandfather when he talked to the Vader mask, but it was really Palpatine feeding him lies and manipulating him. This entire sequence was unsettling and really worked for me.

‘The dead speak!’ In theory, Palpatine’s return could have worked very well. But it’s between movies that it all happens. There is a lot of exposition in the opening crawl, perhaps a bit too much. It was overwhelming. There was no build up, he’s just back and no one questions it and we’re straight into the action.

And also Kylo finding out that it was Palpatine who had been this voice in his head, that should have had huge ramifications. He should have had an identity crisis and started questioning everything. But there wasn’t time, there was too much plot to get through, no time to sit with a huge reveal like this I guess.

I was actually very surprised how well all the Leia scenes fit in. I can only imagine how limiting it must have been with only old footage from TFA, but considering the circumstances I think they did a good job. Having her training Rey and the reveal that Luke had actually trained her to become a Jedi, and she even made her own lightsaber. I did enjoy that. And it was very impactful to have her final word be ‘Ben’.

I hate that Rose was completely sidelined. She had one minute of screen time and had absolutely nothing to do. She was a important character in TLJ and this movie completely ignored her. She literally saved Finn’s life in the last movie and he didn’t even acknowledge her.

I enjoyed the trio adventure! It was just a lot of fun! Great to see Rey and Finn together again. And I loved how Rey and Poe were constantly at odds with each other couldn’t stop arguing. I love how they disagreed on everything. It made for a fun ride. Fun, but ultimately devoid of any real depth.

I didn’t like the whole thing of Finn constantly wanting to tell Rey something. He loves her? He’s Force sensitive? Who knows because we never find out. Poe was looking jealous (because he thought he loved Rey?). And Finn completely ignored Rose (which was awful). And Jannah being yet another love interest for him? I wasn’t a fan of any of that at all.

I actually like the idea of Rey being Palpatine’s granddaughter. I would much prefer her to be a nobody, but I do like the concept of her being a Palpatine. In theory, it is the basis for a great story. Vader’s grandson and Palpatine’s granddaughter falling in love and bringing balance to the Force. It could have been great. All the set up was there for it to be a compelling story that tied everything together. But the way the movie dealt with it was a letdown.

So I guess they didn’t completely retcon Rey’s parents reveal from TLJ. Her parents were nobodies, but by choice. To protect her. So… they sold her for drinking money to protect her? They apparently cared about her yet they left her with Unkar Plutt?

What didn’t work about Rey being a Palpatine is that it was essentially to explain that she’s only this powerful because of her bloodline. But what that does is undermine her. Why can’t she just be powerful on her own? I guess it also gave her a reason to want revenge on Palpatine, but that should have been Ben. You know, the actual descendant of the bloodline that he tried to corrupt.

The MacGuffins. The cave where they encounter an injured snake which Rey heals by passing on some of her life force to it, showing off her healing abilities which come into play later. Conveniently finding the Sith relics and an abandoned ship where Rey’s parents were killed. The dagger, which is map to the Wayfinder on the wreckage of the second Death Star. And it’s also the dagger that was used to kill her parents. The Wayfinder which leads them directly to Exegol. All these things that are necessary to get from point A to point B in order to further the plot. But there were just so many of them.

And all the fake out deaths. We thought Chewie died, but he didn’t. C-3PO’s memory was wiped, but R2-D2 restored it. Zorii Bliss may have been on Kimiji when it was destroyed, but she wasn’t. Either kill them or don’t. It just felt like there were no stakes because they weren’t bold enough to actually kill anyone.

All the Force Bond scenes were great! Kylo sensing where Rey is and SNATCHING THE NECKLACE!! First time they’ve connected in this movie, and possibly the first time in months?? There was a lot of tension between them. It showed how much stronger their bond has gotten. This is a long way from touching hands. The lightsaber battle through the bond in Kylo’s chambers causing damage to each others surroundings. Loved that!

Basically all the Rey/Kylo scenes were great! But the one thing I couldn’t believe that these two idiots were still so at arms with each other. I know they felt rejected from everything that went down in TLJ, but really Rey? She didn’t seem like herself. I guess this was to show us her dark side and the extent of her power. I LOVED Kylo strutting over to her on Pasaana like the prince he is. She was obviously a little impressed (and relieved!) that he managed to survive her little backflip/slice trick. The tug of war over the transport ship, neither could overpower the other because they are equals. And then Rey shoots FORCE LIGHTING OUT OF HER HANDS and he just looks on in awe at her. She can’t believe what she just did, and damn, just imagine how amazing would it have been if she’d accidentally killed her parents by bringing their ship crashing down. She looked absolutely traumatised by what she did to that transport ship. Missed opportunity.

Kylo repairing his mask did mostly work for me. I love the symbolism of it. He destroyed it in the last movie so he couldn’t hide anymore, but now he decided he did want to hide again. The obvious red cracks in the repaired mask representing how torn he is inside, and if there are cracks it means the light can still get in. I did like that. But I do feel like they just repaired it cause it looked cool and not for the symbolism but I’ll take what I can get.

Crushing the Wayfinder in his massive hand was something. The power he has. The lightsaber duel on the Death Star wreckage was EPIC! With the waves plummeting around them. Very visually stunning. And as always, Rey is the one who is angry. Kylo blocks her attacks and defends himself, but he never makes the first move. He wants Rey to join him. He wants them to team up and defeat Palpatine together. He wants her to take his hand and and he knows she will one day.

The death of Kylo Ren. His mothers voice distracts him, Leia uses the remainder of her life force in the hopes of bringing him back. All she wanted was for him to come home. That’s all she ever wanted.

“I did want to take your hand. Ben’s hand.” After Rey stabs him, symbolically killing the Kylo Ren persona, she heals him. This moment was so sweet, and emotional. After everything, I’m sure he doesn’t feel that he deserves to be healed. He looks on at her in awe, the only person who has ever showed him this kind of care and compassion. She looks so sad and regretful of what she did. And his scar is also healed.

That moment is important because that is when he realises he wants to come back. He does want to become Ben again. After trying so hard to kill that identity, the realisation that the woman he loves wants to be with Ben, not Kylo, is the motivation he needs. It’s love that brings him back. Love from from his mother and the love he has for Rey. Kylo Ren is dead. Ben Solo is reborn. I LOVED that moment.

I also loved when Han shows up to Ben. He shows up as a memory (I assume it was only a memory although it’s not entirely clear). Han tells him to come home, but Ben says he can’t. Leia is gone, but Han points out that her cause isn’t. He can go to the Resistance. He can still choose to do the right thing.

“I know what I have to do but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it.” He has the chance to replay this moment in his mind, and this time, he does what he wishes he had done back then. Instead of killing his father, he throws his lightsaber away, completely shunning the identity of Kylo Ren and chooses to be Ben Solo. He calls him ‘Dad’, and the way he said it is so fragile and so broken. And then his father puts his hand on his cheek, where his scar used to be. I loved that scene. It hit all the right emotional beats and was a huge turning point for Ben.

Hux being the spy was hilarious! I couldn’t help but laugh. We all suspected he’d try to overthrow Kylo, but this was just ridiculous. His character turned into a joke and then he was killed and the new officer took over just like that. What a waste.

Force Ghost Luke appearing to Rey. And only to her. After TLJ I thought he’d be haunting Ben, his nephew, and try to knock some sense into him. But he only appeared to Rey to give her Leia’s lightsaber and his old X-Wing. Oh, and he and Leia knew that she was Palpatine’s granddaughter and yet they helped her anyway. I’m sorry, they helped this evil’s offspring and completely neglected their own blood?? And Leia gave up becoming a Jedi after foreseeing Ben’s death at the end of her training. If she was scared of him dying she should have actually tried to help him, instead of neglecting him and sending him away. They all failed Ben and it just hurts.

“It’s not a navy, sir. It’s just people.” When everything seemed hopeless all these ships suddenly appear at lightspeed. But these aren’t armies, it’s the people. They were never alone in the fight. They never were. Good people of the galaxy came to help them fight. I loved that moment!

THE RETURN OF BEN SOLO!! He was wearing this crew neck sweater (which even has a hole in it! Adorable!). That little ‘ow’ when he lands on the structure (his final word, sob). The moment when Rey senses him close and their bond opens up. They relief on her face at seeing that someone came back for her. The look in her eyes and the blue illuminating her face. That was amazing!! And then passing the legacy lightsaber behind her and BEN TAKES IT and does this Han Solo shrug and obliterates the Knights of Ren!! The power of their bond. That moment was INCREDIBLE!!

Palpatine wants Rey to kill him so his spirit can be transferred into her and she can ascend as Empress. So lets get this straight, he wanted to kill her as a child, and he wanted Kylo to kill her, but now he wants her alive and wants her to kill him so she can take his power? What was his plan? I don’t even know. I was very unclear by what he was trying to do.

“The life force of your bond…a dyad in the Force. A power like life itself. Unseen for generations.” As Rey and Ben stand together with the lightsabers ignited, Palpatine senses their bond. They are a ‘Dyad in the Force’. Essentially, they are two halves of one soul. They explicitly give an explanation as to why they are so deeply connected to each other.

When Palpatine throws Ben down the pit, not gonna lie I was worried. The last Skywalker, gone. Rey hearing all the voices of the fallen Jedi was a powerful moment. Anakin, Luke, Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, Mace Windu among others. With their help, she single handedly defeats Palpatine. But after they blatantly told us that Ben and Rey’s power combined is a power like life itself, they should have defeated him together. She shouldn’t have been able to defeat him alone. And after everything that Palpatine has done to the Skywalker’s, Ben should have been a part of his downfall.

And do not even get me started on the fact that the voices only came to Rey. They completely forgot about Ben who was down in the pit. He had to pull himself out and he manages to crawl over to Rey and cradles her in his arms. And he looks around for help, for anyone to help, but he’s all alone.

He uses his life force to revive her, because he can’t bear the thought of her dying. When she takes his hand, I swear my heart almost stopped. She takes Ben’s hand. She’s stunned, like she’s waking up from a nightmare, and then her face softens into a smile when she sees him. When she sees Ben. This was who she wanted all along. And the kiss WAS EVERYTHING!! She kisses him, and he kisses her back so desperately. And BEN’S SMILE!!! That lit up my entire world. He felt loved. He’d found his belonging. For a fleeting moment he was happy…

And then he falls and dies. But this whole scene was incredibly moving. He gave his life for her. He succeeded where Anakin failed and saved the woman he loved. He made the ultimate sacrifice. But it was cruel to have him finally find peace, to finally be on the path to a better life, and then take it all away. Ben never had the chance to really live. And now he never will. He chose to come back. He did the right thing, and he should have had the chance to keep making good choices. But instead they took the easy way out and killed him.

After all the fake out deaths I was waiting for him to show up at the end very much alive. But there was nothing. Rey didn’t mourn him. She didn’t tell anyone what he did. He didn’t come back as a Force Ghost. He was just forgotten. He was neglected, as he had been his entire life.

Rey’s new lightsaber. The hilt looks to be made of her staff and the blade is yellow. Neither light nor dark. It signifies that she’s found balance. I liked that.

Rey Skywalker. I get the whole sentiment of rejecting your bloodline and choosing your own family, but in a saga that has been about this one family to kill them all off and then have someone else take over their name? It’s insulting. The Skywalker family were all defeated. How is this a satisfying end to their story? And if anything, she should be a Solo, not a Skywalker. Or better yet, just Rey. Why does she even need a last name? Why can’t she just be Rey?

And she ended up alone on a desert planet, which is exactly where she began. She ended up in the same place she started. Except now she’s been on this adventure and she did find her belonging. But it was all taken away and now half her soul is dead.

So, I certainly have a lot of issues with this film but I didn’t hate it completely. There was a lot I loved. But it seems that they cared more about the spectacle and nostalgia rather than writing a cohesive conclusion to the saga. The seeds were all planted for them to nail the ending, but they didn’t. This movie was one big action packed mess with no clear vision.

This was supposed to be a fairytale but it ended in tragedy. How the hell is this satisfying? I do not understand. The last Skywalker died. Rey ended up alone with half her soul dead. This was not a happy and hopeful ending. This is not the ending the Skywalker Saga deserved.

[tenjouu]

mozart x reader; cadenza

“I once asked Mozart for lessons too, back in the day,” Arthur reminisces.

You instinctively clutch the violin case closer, waiting for him to continue.

“He told me I’d make a terrible student and point-blank refused,” he concludes cheerily. “Good luck.”

/

Actually, Mozart agrees immediately. He’s actually even more driven about it than you are.

He says you’ll meet three times a week. He’ll be going over the basics of music theory, then playing technique, and then have you master one piece by the end.

You didn’t expect to get this far. You just thought of the idea because you wanted to spend more time with him without being too obvious about it.

The determination in his gaze makes your stomach flutter in ways both good and bad.

“Put that aside for now,” he says, nodding at the violin its case. “We’ll see how soon you can play.”

You really hope…that you don’t disappoint him.

/

Mozart is easily disappointed, you see. When inspiration doesn’t come his way. When the melody isn’t what it should be. When the voice doesn’t fit in the ensemble.

It’s music that helps him feel so vividly. It’s music, his world, that you’ve decided to step into, without even knowing if you fit.

You took three works of piano lessons in the far past. You can recognize basic lullabies. You can maybe carry a tune. That sort of thing.

Mozart lays out the basics.

“Since you’ve taken lessons before, you’ve probably learned various scales in various keys. But the truth is, anyone can subconsciously pick up on the patterns,” Mozart is explaining. “The distance between one note and its neighbor. This is fixed in every piece; it was standardized before my time. This is why any person who listens can tell what follows in a scale.”

To demonstrate, he sings aloud to you.

His voice has a sunny, bright tone. It just sounds like Mozart. It’s beautiful.

“It’s important to know the distances between notes that aren’t adjacent either.” Mozart demonstrates on the piano, thumb against middle C, pinkie somewhere else. “Otherwise, the only melodies we’d ever have are flat scales going up and down. It would be boring.”

“So I need to learn the distances?” you confirm.

“You need a good ear for the violin, because most people can really only play the absolute pitch eighty percent in tune,” he replies. “If you know the distances between the notes, then you can find their precise physical distances on the violin’s fingerboard.”

He watches your expression carefully, and smiles a little when he sees you still puzzling over it.

“Okay,” he says. “That’s all for today.”

/

You ask Leonardo for books on music theory. Though puzzled, he hands you an entire stack. He throws in some blank parchment for good measure.

“For Mozart?” he asks knowingly.

You have to show that you’re serious about being his student, because he’s serious as your teacher. You take the books.

“For Mozart,” you respond softly.

/

“Going well, I hope?” Arthur asks you after the first week.

“Have you started playing?”

“Not yet,” you admit, a little nervous.

According to Mozart, your foundation was adequate enough to move on. That was probably thanks to the tuning forks Isaac had on hand. You played them for hours in your bedroom, thinking that you would go mad.

“He mentioned we’ll be working on posture,” you add.

Arthur beams reassuringly at you. “You have great posture. You’ll be great.”

/

“Your elbow is far too low. With that angle, your bow won’t make proper contact with the strings, and then you can’t draw out the full sound of the instrument. Also, your shoulders are slightly slouched. Widen your stance, your feet are too close together. And raise your left hand—the scroll of the violin should be at least parallel to the line of your shoulder, not pointing at the ground.”

You look to Mozart, panicking a little. That was a lot of things at once, and you elevate the violin, but your mind draws a blank everywhere else.

Mozart sighs, which makes you shrink a little—but he walks over to you anyway. He leans in close, placing his hands firmly on your shoulders, molding your form like clay to fit his liking. (His palms are warm.)

His gaze is solely focused on you. He moves your right elbow up, turns your upper body slightly towards the left. Uncurls the death grip of your left fingers around the violin to rest comfortably instead against the neck. 

His hand travels to your waist to keep you steady when he forces your feet farther apart with his boot.

It lingers there, on you, branding you. Your cheeks are probably red now. Mozart only smirks when your eyes meet.

“There,” he says.

“How do I look?” you manage to get out.

“Flushed,” he replies in amusement. “Now, let’s practice scales with pizzicato.”

He plucks one of the strings as an example.

You try not to let your disappointment show. “Not with the bow?” 

“Absolutely not,” Mozart says. “When a beginner plays, they should never start so early with the bow. It’s for the sake of your ears just as much as mine. Now, scales.”

/

You practice those scales for hours after you finish helping around in the mansion. You make sure you know the distances between on the fingerboard. You make sure your fingers are relaxed and fluid so that the skin doesn’t peel from pressing too hard. You try your best on posture and hold your violin as upright as you can.

Sebastian catches wind of your lessons, of course.

“Broadening the mind,” he says approvingly. “Music is shown to help with concentration and complex thought processes.”

You can tell. Mozart’s hyper-focus lasts for days. And complex thought processes for sure—you can never tell what he’s thinking. (You hope that you’re doing all right.)

/

Shifting proves to be a little bit of a problem. You hadn’t realized there were several ways to play the same note, but on different strings.

“Paganini was rumored to be able to play some pieces on only the two lowest strings,” Mozart says knowledgeably, but also sounding a bit like he’s personally offended. “The man had freakishly long fingers.”

It figures that notes don’t end beyond the so-called first position. But then, shifting smoothly is practically impossible considering you have to stop to actually move your hand up the violin while keeping it upright.

He watches you struggle for maybe ten minutes, radiating misery and shame, before he realizes something.

“Ah,” he says, gesturing for you to stop.

You meekly lower your hand.

“This won’t do,” he announces. “We’re going out tomorrow. Bring your violin.”

/

“I want a shoulder rest for this one,” Mozart says to the luthier, gesturing to you. “Nothing too hard or firm on the shoulder though. Maybe a thick cloth?”

“We have sponges,” the old man says.

Mozart stares at him uncomprehendingly. “Sponges?” he repeats, skeptical, but makes you try them anyway.

“How is it?” you ask.

“Don’t ask me,” he replies, lips quirking up. “Does it feel like the violin will slip off your shoulder now?”

“No,” you say, pressing your chin down against the chin rest, inclining your head toward the scroll, lifting your right hand experimentally to the string.

When it’s been quiet for more than a few seconds, you find him staring at you.

“Mozart?” you ask, breaking form.

He blinks and then shakes his head, reaching for your hand. He smiles.

“I’ll take two,” Mozart calls over to the luthier, and when he turns back to you, it’s all fondness in his violet eyes.

/

So you completely understand now why Mozart had started you off with pizzicato. You move onto the bow in the fourth week. He compliments you on your bow hold.

And then you play.

It’s abysmal. It’s actually horrible.

All of the confidence you’d slowly built up from Mozart’s soft gazes and casual touches topples the moment you drag the bow across the strings, right into the fiery depths of the deepest hell. To his credit, he doesn’t even flinch. You cancel your attempted seance with the underworld as soon as you realize.

“That was…” you say, at a loss. “I don’t…”

“The bow may need more rosin,” he offers. “But it’s mainly due to the force. You’re not pressing hard enough.”

You feel like you could snap the strings. With uncertainty, you search at Mozart. His teasing smile is already ready.

“It can’t be helped,” he says. “Stay still.”

He comes up behind you, raising his arms, fitting himself over you. With his right hand, he envelops yours over the bow. With his left, he places his fingers between yours on the fingerboard. His chest is firm and radiates warmth against your back.

This is the world’s most awkward hug.

“Relax. Let me,” he says somewhere behind you. The warmth of his words puff against the shell, burning you.

He’s the one in control now. Of the violin, and of you. He guides the bow, with our hand, over to the violin. He drags it across the string.

Two people playing one violin doesn’t sound good. It’s loud and garish, and you make a face.

“Like this,” he says, and you feel the vibration of his words in the contact between you. “This amount of force is good.”

“It doesn’t sound very elegant,” you say, a little dismayed.

“Was Rome built in a day?” he replies, leaning over to inspect your expression, arms still wrapped around you. After he makes sure you’re holding onto the violin, he slips them around your waist and places a soft kiss to your forehead to smooth the lines. “When I started, I sounded like this too, you know.”

“Liar.”

“Don’t believe me?”

“How could anyone?”

Mozart presses his nose to your hair and exhales quietly. “It takes patience and determination. Both of which you possess.” And then, playfully: “And an excellent, benevolent, kind teacher. Whom you also possess.”

You charge up your battery with Mozart’s affection, resolved to resume this battle anew. You can’t let him down now when you’ve come this far. And he almost sounds…proud.

“Ready?” he asks when he senses the shift in your posture.

“Ready,” you confirm, and brace yourself for the next two hours of absolute cacophony.

/

You practice until you can feel your arms shaking, until you can feel the ache in your upper left arm. The joints of your fingers don’t fare any better; they’re almost as sore as your neck is.

Arthur takes one look at you—and laughs.

“Someone’s been busy,” he says, gesturing vaguely at your upper body.

Practicing, yeah. You agree. “It’s been tiring,” you say honestly.

“Then you should just tell him, you know?” Arthur says. “I’m sure Mo-kun can restrain himself for a few days.”

You don’t exactly understand what Arthur is talking about until you reach the piano room. Mozart takes one look at you—and then takes a second look, blinking.

His fingertips reach out to the underside of your jaw, just below the chin, on your neck. His cool touch is sweet, sweet relief—but also dangerous, dangerous temptation.

“It’s awfully red here,” he says. “You shouldn’t be pressing so hard against the chin rest. Part of the violin’s weight should be supported in your left hand.”

“Oh no,” you gasp, thinking back to Arthur. And literally everyone else you’ve passed in the hallway today, including Napoleon who had blinked, Isaac who had fled, Dazai who had smiled, and Sebastian—who stayed blank as ever.

Mozart tries to reassure you over the sound of your dignity departing forever. “It’s still early for you, so it hasn’t become a habit.”

/

Mozart starts cutting practice shorter and shorter. 

And you’re not getting any better. 

The more you play, the worse it seems that you sound. And though you’ve been practicing bowings and shifting like your life depends on it, you can hear when it’s out of tune, and it kills you.

Maybe Mozart is getting frustrated with your lack of progress too. Because over the course of three months, you two went from three times a week, two hours a day to twice a week, thirty minutes a lesson. At this rate, he might not even assign you a piece to play.

Usually Mozart would have told you by now, very bluntly, if he thought you were beyond hope. But even if he doesn’t, you can take the hint.

All those books you borrowed, all those scales you memorized, all those positions you learned—you don’t want it to be for nothing. Mozart’s time, that he spent on you, teaching you, being patient with you—you don’t want him to feel like he wasted it.

So before the first rehearsal of the next week, you practice ten hours a day. You go over three octave scales until your right arm refuses to stay above your waist. You practically go over the fingerings in your dreams, shifting in your sleep.

“Let’s hear it,” Mozart says at the next lesson after tuning your violin. He hands it back to you and sits expectantly on the piano stool, observing.

You take in a deep breath and place the bow on the string.

He doesn’t comment when your B goes sharp, but you and he both know.

Then comes the legato. You pray for smooth shifting as you work your way up. His eyes don’t leave your fingers.

But when you shift into fifth position, your body refuses you.

A stab of white-hot pain sheets up your left arm and hits your neck, leaving you still, not daring to move. Your shoulders lock in self-defense. You suck in a sharp breath, curling in with the violins till on you—the bow comes to a jerky stop on the E string.

Mozart has become deadly quiet. When you dare to look, his gaze is unreadable.

“What was that,” he asks. The fury in his voice is basically unmistakable.

“Sorry,” you quickly rush to appease. “Let me—I’ll start from the—“

Mozart takes the violin from you. And then the bow. And he looks right into your eyes and says, “No.” He says firmly. “No more violin for today.”

“But—“

“You were going through the material so quickly… How did I not notice?” he mutters to himself. 

And then he pins you with a glare and spins you right around, ushering you to the sofa. What you didn’t notice earlier is now clear in the way his voice trembles—he’s worried and upset.

“The way that you’re playing—the amount that you practice—is just asking for a chronic injury. You would benefit more from rest than practice at this point.”

“But,” you protest as he sits you down, “I don’t sound good.” Miserably, feeling disgraced with your shoulders and neck aching, you look down at your fingers and curse your body for betraying you. “I can hear how bad I am, Mozart. I don’t want to disappoint…”

Mozart kneels down in front of you, forcing you to look at him.

“You’ve improved every time we’ve met,” Mozart tells you earnestly. “You have consistently impressed me with how fast you learn.” He cups your face with his hands, pressing your foreheads together. There’s nowhere to hide from his words. “How can I be disappointed when I have such a hard-working student?”

“But…I sound worse than before,” you say in a small voice.

“That’s what you think. But in reality, your ear has simply improved. You can hear yourself better. Your standards are higher,” he says simply, facing off your insecurities just like that. “Now.” He frowns. “I was reducing our lessons because you were going at such a breakneck pace. And because I wanted to spend more time with you outside of violin. But that evidently backfired.”

“Sorry,” you murmur, genuinely remorseful.

He smiles gently and then releases you.

“The one who should be sorry isn’t you,” he says. “To think I let it get to this point. Lie on your front. I’m going to work out the kinks in your back.”

You acquiesce, meekly maneuvering onto the sofa.

“Where did you even get the idea that I would be disappointed?” Mozart remarks, carefully digging into the sore muscle.

“I didn’t want to—ah—waste your—time—“

Mozart’s fingers draw firm circles into the juncture between neck and collarbone. You tremble under his hands, feeling your eyes sting with pain and pleasure.

“I agreed to teach you,” Mozart says slowly, “because I wanted to spend time with you. How would that be wasting it? Silly.”

/

Mozart’s a bit of a worrywart. So some days later, after he stops fussing over your shoulders, you try your luck again.

“I’ve gotten this far. Won’t you still teach me something?”

Mozart looks thoughtful. Then he smiles at you, and leans down to place a soft kiss on your cheek.

“I’ll compose something,” he says. “And I’ll be your accompaniment.”

His hand rests confidently against your hip as he plucks the bow from your fingers. Then the violin.

“But what really comes first to you now?” he asks, pulling you close and frowning. “Don’t tell me you like the violin more than me?”

Seeing his almost-pout, you reach up to peck him on the lips. He makes a content sound in the back of his throat and keeps you there against him, tilting his head to deepen the kiss. Letting him have his way, you reach around him. He releases you, looking satisfied with your answer.

Your fingers close around the violin and bow.

“I like the violin,” you say, laughing, and make a run for it out the piano room.

“Wha—get back here!”

[jessetheadventurer]

SO THE SONGS I LINKED IN THE LAST ASK

i’m going through each one individually and explaining why i like them because if i’m gonna hyperfixate on any one aspect of a video game, it’s gonna be the sound design

Jitter

alright this one is a favorite of mine for admittedly personal reasons, namely that it reminds me a LOT of the game Spore. which is a game i have been playing for twelve years now, and love to absolute bits. (one of the music beats from spore, for reference)

Spore’s soundtrack was actually partly composed by brian eno. if you don’t know who brian eno is, he’s more or less considered the father of all modern ambient music. he’s a BIG deal. and jitter honestly sounded like something he would have composed.

Soren’s Theme

soren is honestly my favorite of the old order of the stone. he’s eccentric, inspired, talented as HELL with building, and is an excellently multilayered character with a lot of depth. even though he’s an oddball, and even though he made mistakes, he cares a LOT for his friends and felt very guilty for what he did (or perhaps what he encouraged them to all do). 

his theme reflects all this perfectly imo. it’s strange, the chords don’t seem to quite play as they should, and there’s a hint of wisdom and experience behind the bass and almost static-y sound of the out of tune instruments. it sounds like someone who’s been around for a long time, who maybe doesn’t have themselves all together, but are still full of life and energy.

How Bright Your Life Could Be / How Dark Your Life Could Be

my theory for how this came about was basically telltale approaching antimo and welles like “alright you guys, we need a character theme for a slightly antagonistic character who is in charge of an excessively organized city but is pretty manipulative” and all antimo and welles heard was “antagonistic,” “organized,” and “manipulative” and proceeded to create the most UNHINGED pseudo-villain theme in the entire goddamn game.

how bright your life could be is excellent for champion city: the whistling sounds like birds straight out of a disney princess movie, WAY too cheerful and fantastical to be realistic. everything is pristine and beautiful on the surface.

and then how dark your life could be begins and the melody devolves into an absolute HORROR SOUNDTRACK. the background strings start a crescendo and go absolutely nuts, making for extreme tension and outright FEAR. stella is fucked up and antimo and welles will make sure you know this.

not to mention in how dark your life could be, the soundtrack gets so distorted it literally sounds like something out of marble hornets (flashing visuals & general creepiness warning on that link).

Ivor’s Theme

man this one should be self-explanatory dfksljfds

the main theme of season 1!! the menu music!! ivor’s leitmotif!! it drew inspiration from C418′s Aria Math, an absolutely gorgeous and classic minecraft song. it helped mcsm feel even closer to traditional minecraft.

i’ll be honest, i was charmed by episode 1 of season 1 when i first started playing it, but it wasn’t until this theme started and we saw ivor for the first time that i actually got really invested. the scene in endercon did an EXCELLENT job establishing real tension and plot. and the fact that the song continued into the freewalk through endercon, one of the best freewalks in season 1?

Mush Room

season 2 episode 3′s entire soundtrack is phenomenal (the synth instruments that reminisce of stranger things, whose telltale game antimo and welles ALSO worked on, are one of my greatest weaknesses), but this one is by far my favorite.

this is the song that says, “you’re trapped here. and you’re not getting out.”

i believe this is the one song in this episode’s soundtrack that has the beacontown leitmotif (you can hear it at 0:32 and again at 2:32), which. i am nothing if not a sucker for recurring leitmotifs. 

not only that, but the beacontown leitmotif in particular is extremely effective for this freewalk since radar and nurm are there with you. a small piece of beacontown, a reminder what you’re fighting for. you may be trapped, but there’s still hope.

Ellegaard’s Theme

i didn’t think i’d ever hear a harpsichord going into minecraft story mode, but BOY AM I GLAD I DID

the clock ticking like a redstone circuit? the gorgeous string instruments over a subtle background hum? 

it’s refined. it’s calculated. it’s hard at work, as brilliant and beautiful as the glowing redstone circuitry creating complex machines and new solutions to every problem.

and yet, there’s a hint of sadness behind that piano. regret? loneliness? we didn’t get to know ellegaard very well during the time we had with her, and i wish we did.

Harper’s Theme

i’ll be honest, if soren’s theme didn’t press all of my buttons, harper’s theme would be my #1 favorite.

i talked about how much i adore episode 7 of season 1 before, and this song exemplifies ALL of my points.

harper, who had been alone for years, maybe even a decade or longer, finally finding hope in strangers who appeared out of nowhere from the portal network she helped build. 

harper, who battled guilt every day for creating pama and letting it get out of control, to the point where she had to build statues that would give her pep talks and advice, which she named after her friends in crown mesa.

harper, who slept underground, reading to pass the time and trying to come up with a plan that would only have a slim to zero chance of working.

harper, who was proud of her work but horrified at what it had become.

harper, who was a genius and an inventor, intrigued by complex redstone creations and determined to do good in the world.

harper, who never gave up, not on herself, and not on the people of crown mesa.

harper.

[chiseler]

Unfunnymen

Sooner or later one has to face El Brendel, in the same way that sooner or later one has to face death.

But by way of working up to the grim task gently, let's start with Joe E. Brown. This vaudevillian, graced with an unnaturally wide mouth, which seemed on the verge of separating cranium from lower jaw, and giving him the flapping head of a South Park Canadian, spelled fortune to the exuberant, hearty, not particularly funny man who had been applied around this yawning abyss like lipstick.

We tend to remember Brown more fondly than his moderate talent deserves, because he delivers a classic closing line in a classic comedy. The line is "Well, nobody's perfect," and the film is Some Like It Hot (1959) and it's a good demonstration that great dialogue is often great because of context rather than because of the brilliant assembling of words. Here, the phrase is a commonplace one, but nobody can forget it when they've heard it used to cap the film's closing scene. Perhaps it was the prosaic nature of the line which caused its writers to doubt it: Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond wrote it the night before filming, and turned in saying "Maybe we'll think of something better in the morning.”

Joe E. Brown says the line the way he said about every line of his career, enthusiastically, with a goggly stare and an effort to draw the corners of his rubbery mouth as far apart as possible. Stretching his elastic features like a chest expander was basically all he did. He was blessed with a funny face, but what was under it? A perfectly ordinary skull. No funny bones here.

Brown starred - actually starred! - in a whole series of pre-code comedies which prove that not everything made at Warners in the thirties was forward-looking, funny and challenging. He played "lovable" losers who win in the end. Like Harold Lloyd only with his face gashed open. His leading ladies included Joan Bennett, Ginger Rogers, Olivia De Havilland, Ann Dvorak. To contemplate any of those films proceeding beyond the final clinch-and-fadeout is to consider bestiality. One feels Bette Davis was lucky to escape his all-consuming maw. Every other Warners contract starlet was engulfed.

It's safe to assume Wilder gave him his great late role because Brown brought with him associations of a bygone age. Brown would remind audiences of the kind of stuff people used to laugh at. He isn't precisely used as a butt, more as a threat. He seems so genderless, acceptable jokes can be made about him marrying a man. Now that dream is a reality, but Some Like it Hot still seems just a little transgressive, or at least a rare film from its period which manages to imply a questioning of gender roles. Maybe Brown's earlier work would have been improved if he hadn't been required to show interest in girls. He would make a perfect speculative fiction hypothesis of what the third sex might look like. And his best quality as a comic is his alienness: like Harry Langdon, he seems to have beamed down from another world, some kind of asexual clown planet.

Warners had plenty of unappealing comic actors, but they didn't tend to make them leading men. And in small doses, mugs like Guy Kibbee or Hugh Herbert could work. H.H. had one bit of schtick, to say "woo-woo" and giggle inanely while flapping his stubbing fingers in nervous benediction. He did that for about twenty-five years and was never fatally shot or bludgeoned to death. Those were, in many ways, more tolerant times.

Woo-woo Hugh and "the Clown Prince" Brown appear together in Warners all-star A Midsummer Night's Dream, as rude mechanicals, which is perfect casting. A crowd of unfunny funnymen, delivering Shakespeare's less clever material, as background to Jimmy Cagney. The world has acquired some kind of order. But one film later, Brown will be in the lead again, baffling us.

It's bizarre that Brown played leads, since his equipment seems to better suit second banana roles. But its not as mystifying as the career of dialect comedian El Brendel, which requires the aid of a conspiracy theory to make it in any way intelligible.

The story is told that when studio boss William Fox was in a car accident, Elmer Brendel was the only one around with the right blood group to save his life. In gratitude, Fox disfigured his studio's entire output by thrusting the smirking, talentless goof into film after film.

El Brendel was in some good films, like the Oscar-winning Wings. But he's always the worst things about every film he's in, whether it's a classic like Wings or a schlock snooze like The She Creature (1956) at the far end of his career. A farrago about sea monsters and hypnosis, it's hilarious except when El is doing his comedy relief.

El Brendel's schtick was to play a fake foreigner - the Synthetic Swede was his sobriquet. With his little quacking voice he would play naive malaprops, garbling the English language. But he couldn't help smiling in apparent self-satisfaction at each of his would-be funny lines. For a character who's not supposed to know he's funny, this was a terrible mistake, and may explain why I want to murder El Brendel whenever I see him. There's a special circle of hell for comedians who act like they think they're funny. At its centre lies Red Skelton, encased in ice. But I like to think El Brendel is nearby, forced to listen to Red Skelton laugh at how hilarious he thinks he is. For eternity.

Asides from his tight little quarter-moon smile and his twinkly little quarter moon eyes in his punchable face, El Brendel is the comedian without qualities. To see him in what passes for action is to be reminded how much more than a mock accent Chico Marx brought to the screen. Chico was an incredible actor - the Brando of atsa-no-good. El Brendel couldn't even gesture at being funny. In William Wellman's You Never Know Women (1926), the clown makes his debut, playing a clown. It's all there, or rather it isn't, from the start. He is born fully unformed. Wellman resorts to putting him on a wire to try and make him funny. He doesn't even make a decent puppet. The presence in the film of an angry knife-thrower has you praying for a severed artery, but it never comes. Brendel would hang on to his eight pints until William Fox needed one of them. He wasn't talented, but he could marshal his resources.

El Brendel is not an actor, he's not a comedian, he's a gimmick in a flesh suit.

If Joe E. Brown was popular because people with an undeveloped sense of humor require comedians who look like clowns even without facepaint, and El Brendel was successful because movie executives need blood like everyone else, Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry, who used the stage name Stepin Fetchit, is a different case.

Fetchit only appeared as a supporting player, but his effect was striking, slowing any scene he was in to the pace of coastal erosion. For that alone, he deserves acknowledgment, whether you welcome his derailment of fast-talking thirties movies or not.

The discomfort Fetchit produces today qualifies him as an honorary unfunnyman, since he was a black actor specializing in playing servant characters of awesome slow-wittedness. Sloping apelike into a scene, his lower lip hanging like the rear flap on a truck, as if the energy to raise it were missing, Stepin Fetchit seems to embody every negative stereotype of his day. Billed as "the laziest man alive," he melded lethargy with ignorance to create a perfect simulacrum of stupidity.

But Perry was very popular with black audiences, who understood something white viewers missed. How much fun it would be, to act like Fetchit in front of white authority! They can punish you for disobedience, but not for your failure to understand an order. Nobody was going to get any meaningful work out of this man, sunk as he seemed to be in the depths of psychomotor retardation. It seemed to be all he could manage to raise his head above chest level. His voice issued in a reedy rasp, painfully stringing words together like an infant assembling building blocks, with the sentences liable at any moment to falter, turn back on themselves, or fade out altogether. Will Rogers, embodiment of the benign white master, could demonstrate his saintliness by finding Fetchit's stream-of-unconsciousness monologues interesting, enlightening.

It is questionable whether even John Ford, who cast Fetchit regularly even after liberal embarrassment had rendered him largely unacceptable elsewhere, understood the subversive side of the comic's character. Probably he just found him funny, and a useful modifier of the generally rambunctious Ford comic scene. Fetchit had the legendary minus factor: entering a scene charged with high emotion, he could make it feel as if someone had left. Where other actors are praised for presence, he had absence. Looking around him in bewilderment, he forced the narrative to its knees, to proceed at the slothlike pace of his dull comprehension.

Of course, the joke cut both ways, since the Fetchit character made white audiences feel comfortably superior. But it's hard now to look upon his schtick without feeling racial shame, an inward cringe. The last laugh is Stepin Fetchit's: no one else is laughing.

by David Cairns

[octaviadblake]

Ὀδύσσεια + τό ἑκᾰτόν part 2

OR The Odyssey + The 100 part 2, an in-depth look at parallels to Homeric canon in season 6 (specifically 6x12 & 6x13), and how the themes and motifs present on Sanctum mirror Odysseus’s return to Ithaca.

You can read the original meta here, where I explore how season 6 mirrors Odysseus’s 10 year journey back to Ithaca. In today’s meta, I’ll be talking about how the last two episodes of season 6 reflect Odysseus’s return, as well as looking into the events that occurred on Ithaca while he was gone.

DISCLAIMER: As I mentioned last time, I was a Russian Lit major, not a Classics major, so I’m not an expert on this. I studiede Ancient Greek and Ancient Greek Drama for 6 and 2 semesters in college, respectively, but my expertise is more on The Iliad than The Odyssey. Fellow Classics nerds, feel free to jump in with your thoughts/commentary!

Ready? Let’s do this.

So, last time, we talked a bit about the theme of “cunning over strength” and discussed the motif of “disguises,” particularly in Odysseus posing as “Nobody” in order to blind the Cyclops, and how this reflects Clarke posing as Josephine in order to “blindside” the Primes.

But wouldn’t you know, upon Odysseus’s return to Ithaca, he again disguises himself. With the help of the goddess Athena, Odysseus poses as a beggar in order to make it into the palace. While he was gone, the palace has been overrun by suitors, hoping to win over Penelope (Odysseus’s wife) because her husband, who has been gone for 10 years at this point, is presumed dead and she is expected to remarry. 

Of course, we see this in 6x12 when Clarke returns to Sanctum. 

(gif credit: @clakregriffin)

With Gabriel’s help, she has been disguised as Josephine. Here is where we see her using cunning rather than strength. Rather than storming the palace with the Children of Gabriel, Clarke plans to infiltrate the Primes and defeat them from the inside. 

In The Odyssey, there are only a couple of people who see through Odysseus’s disguise, one of whom is Eurycleia, a housekeeper who recognizes one of his scars. Where most of the maids have betrayed Penelope or pursued sexual relationships with the suitors, Eurycleia has remained loyal. Odysseus’s dog also recognizes him, but that’s...kinda sad bc the dog gets so excited that it dies and that hurts my heart so I don’t like to think about that. 

So anyway. 

Guess who sees through Clarke’s disguise? Murphy. 

(gif credit: @shialablunt)

Even while she is still fully in character as Josephine, he puts the pieces together without needing to be told that it’s actually Clarke (unlike Abby and Raven, who have no idea until Clarke tells them). Murphy and Clarke have always understood each other on a fundamental level, and in season 5, even Murphy calls Clarke out on being a cockroach, like him. The two of them share a proclivity for survival. They understand one another in a way many others don’t.

Earlier in the season, in 6x02, we saw Murphy protecting Clarke from herself, also. We’re supposed to be seeing these parallels, seeing that Murphy does truly care for Clarke in his own way. He’s the only person who sees through the Josephine ruse without being told. And not only does he not reveal her, but he stays behind to save their people because Clarke can’t.

So, it looks like Murphy is Eurycleia.

Many of the maids/housekeepers have betrayed Odysseus’s legacy. While Penelope is doing her best to stave off the advances of the suitors, the maids are busy laughing and making merry (and yes, sleeping with them, too). The maids are the ones who force Penelope’s hand by telling the suitors she has been stalling so as to not have to marry one of them.

Eurycleia alone remains loyal. She cares for Penelope. She keeps the house in order. She does what she can in order to care for and protect Penelope. Also, if Penelope remarries, someone else will become king of Ithaca, meaning the people of Ithaca will suffer. Eurycleia protects Penelope so that she may protect her people. Sound familiar?

(gif credit: @stevenrogered)

I’m not defending Murphy’s actions mid-season but...at the end? He got what he wanted. He could’ve gone to space with the rest of the Primes, become one of them, taken the easy way out. But he doesn’t. He stays behind to help fix what they broke, to keep their house in order, to save their people. He is Eurycleia maintaining order and trying his best to keep the peace, while Clarke is Odysseus, going off to win the war. 

(i dont mean to imply Murphy is Clarke’s servant or anything like that, bc he’s very much not that, but this seems a fair parallel to draw)

Anyway.

The past ten years, Penelope has managed to put off selecting a suitor by telling them she is weaving an honorary funeral shroud for her husband. Upon its completion, she says, she’ll choose one for her new husband. However, she’s been unravelling the knots so as to prolong the process. The other housekeepers have revealed her secret to the suitors and now they’re insisting she make her choice. Athena tells Penelope to pose a challenge to the suitors: she will give them Odysseus’s bow, and whoever is able to string it and fire a single arrow through a dozen axe heads will win her hand and become her new husband. Unbeknownst to the suitors, Odysseus is the only one who is able to do this. 

Frankly, I don’t remember if it’s bc he was the only one who was strong enough or if there was some trick to it or whatever, but Odysseus is the only person who can string this bow. So he does. And then he throws off his disguise and reveals his true identity, before slaying every single one of the suitors.

I....don’t feel like rewatching the episodes so I don’t have perfect comparisons right off the top of my head, my apologies, hoping some of yall will come to my aid in the replies but....

Remember how Clarke is Odysseus?

(gif credit: @shialablunt)

Clarke reveals to the Primes her true identity because she refuses to let them hurt the people still in cryo on the ship. Then, she pulls the lever, and she kills the Primes, “the suitors,” those who would take her kingdom, her people, her family from her. 

Odysseus and Penelope reunite and live happily ever after.

I...don’t think I need to explain that parallel ;)

(gif credit: @clarkgriffon)

A lot of scholars say that’s the end of The Odyssey, but Homer does go on briefly. Odysseus and his son go to visit Odysseus’s father and the citizens of Ithaca follow them to confront the king. They plan to avenge the deaths of their sons, both the suitors and the soldiers who accompanied Odysseus to Troy and perished before they could return. 

Odysseus has effectively wiped out two generations of young men (indirectly in the sailors case, but the people still blame him). Just like how...so many people...in this show...blame Clarke for everyone dying...without considering if she had other options. 

Odysseus feels guilty for killing the suitors, despite the fact that it was the only option in his situation. The Ithacans blame him as well. Only Athena’s divine intervention is able to assuage the vendetta and return things to some semblance of normalcy.

(gif credit: @clarkegriffinblake)

Clarke feels guilty about killing the Primes even though they gave her no other choice. It was her people or it was them. And she did what she had to do, just as Odysseus did. But she still feels guilty. 

(gif credit: @clarkgriffon)

And along comes Bellamy “We Did Do Better” Blake. Bellamy “I Have To Believe That Matters” Blake. Bellamy “Will Always Forgive Clarke Griffin” Blake. Bellamy Blake who gives Clarke some degree of solace, offers her what redemption he can, just like he always has and always will.

Of course, there are other characters who played pretty big roles in the finale that I haven’t looked at here, and I have my own theories about them. 

I could see Jordan becoming a Clytemnestra type character. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if season 7 looked a lot like The Oresteia, particularly Agamemnon, especially since this would continue with the Homeric themes we’ve had on the show thus far.

I honestly could see Octavia as Agamemnon in the way that Clarke is Odysseus. Both kings, but Agamemnon certainly had a bloodier reputation. And that would definitely go along with @bellarke-addict‘s theory that the “He” in the anomaly is Jordan. Clytemnestra kills Agamemnon. This mysterious man wants Octavia dead. Could be something to that.

Although, Jordan and Octavia are as far from romantically involved as we can possibly get so there’s definitely a wrench in the works there lol. Who knows? I’m not one for theories as much as I am one for analysis. I’m excited to see where season 7 goes, though. 

I know this was rambly and it kinda got away from me, but I hope you guys enjoyed! Come yell about Classics with me!!!

Tagging a couple people who I know wanted to see this once it was up: @absolutelynotclassicusernam-blog @oh-bloomin-heck @little-oxford-st @tainted-ones-stuff  and some folks i think will enjoy: @braveprincess @itsyagirlkath @charmaine-diyoza @daddyperun

[nimblermortal]

Why Is the Universe 10-, 11-, or 26-dimensional, and Not Some Other Number?

This is in response to @kittydesade​‘s post questioning why those numbers, and the rough answer is: because it is referring, respectively, to either superstring, M-theory, or bosonic string theory. In any of these cases, the answer is “because that’s what makes the math work”, but I want a refresher on the distinctions. 

Cookies to me if I reach the end of this post without typing “Strong Theory” and failing to correct it.

Oh, and string theory is the idea that - well, you know how E=mc^2 which means that mass and energy are equivalent? Well, to link those, atoms are made up of subatomic particles like electrons, which are made up of sub-particles like quarks, which are made up of vibrating packets of energy in the form of strings, which may or may not form loops like hair ties. The mathematics of this is complex and it’s a generally questionable discipline of physics (or it was when I was a kid and first learned about it on PBS) but it’s Neat. It’s one way to understand gravity at a quantum level. Because despite its intuitiveness, gravity is really one of the most difficult forces to understand (which I am not actually sufficiently steeped in physics to understand, more’s the pity; I thought magnetism was at least as bad? but to some degree the more intuitive an idea is, the easier it is to ask why about, and therefore the less we end up understanding about it).

Bosonic String Theory is the oldest version, and so called because it includes bosons.

Bosons are not fermions; fermions are particles that, if identical, cannot occupy the same quantum state, whereas bosons can. Another way this is described is that fermions have half-integer spin (1/2, 3/2, etc) whereas bosons have integer spin (0, 1, 2). Exactly what this means is another discussion. This paragraph exists because I always forget the distinction, so there we go.

Bosonic string theory only covers bosons and does not cover supersymmetry, so in fact it is an outdated model and we can ditch the 26-dimensional option, which is nice because that’s a lot (as Caduceus Clay would put it)*. I want to go in more depth and reading about open/closed, orientable/non-orientable systems, and what a worldsheet is, and explain to you guys things about D25-branes (and branes in general), and work through the actual math in the Wikipedia article linked above, but this is supposed to be an overview of the differences between string theories, and I need to go grocery shopping. So I shan’t. For now.

Superstring Theory is the update to bosonic string theory. Apparently there have been multiple “string theory revolutions”, which is a fascinating statement to make and I want to know more. Superstring theory is nice because it incorporates supersymmetry, which we want to be true because it makes math elegant.

Elegance essentially means ‘small formulas, simple relations’. Historically speaking, the more elegant an equation is, the more likely it is to be at least broadly correct - think F=ma (Newtonian equation for force) or E=mc^2. Very short and nice! As opposed to our current Standard Model for particles, which requires more than one sheet of paper just to write down, and almost as John Mulaney* would put it, nobody likes that.

But we don’t have any proof of supersymmetry, we just want it really badly. If you are a (Christian-raised) atheist, you probably think of Christians as wanting there to be a God the way I am thinking of physicists wanting there to be supersymmetry. It makes everything easier, simpler, nicer to think that there is supersymmetry out there, and if we can just find proof then so many things will be more straightforward. (For the record, this is not how I think of God or theists.**)

Supersymmetry says that every boson has a partner, opposite fermion in mirror to it. In typically cute physicist fashion, they have decided that the partner for an electron is called a selectron. This solves all sorts of problems that I don’t have the space or time to go into here. The problem with this is, of course, the Fermi paradox: if these aliens* (particles) exist - where are they? And so far, we have not been able to answer this question, about either aliens or particles.

And the Fermi paradox is an ongoing problem with all of these theories. If there are these particles, where are they? If there are strings, where are they? If there are all these extra dimensions, where are they? The stupidest explanation I have heard for this last is that they are curled up very small inside each other. I have no idea how that works (fractals maybe?) but it seems much less intuitive than the simple answer “outside”. Referring back to A. Square’s perception of a sphere: Where is the sphere when A. Square does not perceive it as some form of a circle? Outside A. Square’s plane of perception. So that is what is intuitive to me, but maybe I am missing something.

M-theory unifies various superstring theories and apparently precipitated the second string theory revolution, which I think deserves capitals but sometimes we can’t have nice things. And apparently what happened was, we had about five major string theories, and then people started poking around and pointing out that if we used various dualities (situations in which two seemingly different things turn out to be the same in a nontrivial way) then several of these major string theories look to be the same thing.

One of the major dualities was S-duality, which says that strong couplings and weak couplings are the same thing, if you translate them into a different space (probably by something akin to Fourier analytics, which I am not going to explain here). And that’s... a lot, as Caduceus Clay* would say. First off, what is a coupling? Well, you know how if you are fitting data you can fit it to a polynomial? And if it’s random data, well, maybe a line (polynomial to the first power) doesn’t fit well, but a parabola (polynomial to the second power)is a little better, and if you keep raising that exponent you can get better and better fits, even as it becomes a meaningless fit? Well, some things are expressed better as polynomials of infinitely many terms. For example, Taylor series. And as long as the thing you are raising to a power is less than one, this gets more accurate without exploding (because, for example, 1/2^1 = 1/2, 1/2^2 = 1/4, 1/2^3 = 1/8, and so it keeps getting smaller and less significant). Those are weak couplings. Whereas if that term you are raising is greater than 1, it gets bigger and bigger (because, for example, 2^1 = 2, 2^2 = 4, 2^3 = 8...). Those are strong couplings, because naming convention is terrible.

But! There are ways and ways of looking at things. Because, say, I am looking at things in Cartesian coordinates, I plot something as being a units from the center on the x axis and b units from the center on the y axis, and it is at point (a, b). But if I switch to polar coordinates, I plot that as being c units from the center in straight radial distance and d degrees from the x axis if you rotate a line of length c from the x axis, and then that point is (c, d). And this is still the same point, but we are starting with different base assumptions for how we plot it. And if we want to move it, in Cartesian coordinates we might go a few units on the x axis, which is very simple, but in polar coordinates in order to do the same thing we would have to move some units on the radial axis and then some more rotations in order to get to the same point, and it is much more complex; or vice versa. And we can do that (not plotting, but changing how we look at things in order to make the problem we are working on simpler) in a lot of different ways, depending on our assumptions about how things work; the one I am most comfortable with is Fourier analysis. So if we do something akin to that to a strong coupling, it might start to look like a weak coupling - and then we have S-duality, and we start looking askance at just how different our major string theories are.

The other major duality was T-duality, which is an equivalence between quantum field theory and string theory. The simplest example has to do with strings propagating around a circle of radius R being equivalent to strings propagating around a circle of radius 1/R. Another example (or an example of this? my understanding is breaking down here) is that momentum is inherently particulate, a word I am using to mean ‘comes in discrete quantities’ because quantum is taken, and equivalent to the number of times a string wraps around one of these circles (which are the same circle). In terms of this being particulate, it makes sense in the same way that individual grains of sand become a beach, or Xeno’s Paradox - and again, it puts a floor on how finely one can divide something, which is something that humans a) keep trying to do and b) keep getting dissatisfied with and trying to break the smallest particle down again, most recently into strings. Anyhoo. In terms of these two circles being the same circle... well, Christians ought to be comfortable with that anyhow.

In general, T-duality relates two theories with different spacetime geometries - e.g. our two circles being the same circle. And now we really start looking askance at our different string theories, and asking questions, because both of these dualities apply to different options.

So one fellow, a Mr. (or more likely Dr.) Edward Witten sat down and looked at these two dualities, and he looked at something called eleven-dimensional supergravity, and he said, “What if there were in fact sufficient dualities that all of these string theories were the same?”

And physicists, presumably, went nuts trying to make this happen, because 1. it was elegant 2. it made things seem like they might make sense again 3. it was only 11 dimensions 4. he said that the M stood for “magic, mystery, or membrane” depending on what we eventually learn about what this theory actually is, and physicists love that sort of naming.

Personally, I like to think that M is the number of dimensions it takes (presumably 11), or theories (presumably 6), or physicists who die trying to make it happen (presumably infinite).

Every description of string theory I have ever seen has included a physicist who says something along the lines of, “String theory is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow; it’s the Philosopher’s Stone. People keep devoting their lives to making it happen, but there’s just no evidence that it should. So it’s lovely to read about, but it’s such a waste of effort.”

But then - so is all art. Art is elegance, art is beauty, art is making a point about the nature of the world we live in; and so is string theory, whether it is true or not.

*See? I’m making this approachable by putting in popular culture references. Nyah.

**It is representative of how I think of (Christian-raised) atheists, because a lot of (Christian-raised) atheists are assholes about it.

Additional posts to make:

-What does spin mean, in a quantum sense? -What is an open, oriented system? What does it mean for a string to be closed and non-oriented? -What is a worldsheet? -What does the math for bosonic string theory mean, in terms of giving it a simple description? -What is a superstring theory revolution, how many were there, and what did they mean? -What are the following problems and how does supersymmetry solve them: the hierarchy problem, gauge-coupling unification, dark matter, “other technical motivations” -What is eleven-dimensional supergravity?

[factoriostuff]

Military Science 0.17

Next we look at the ingredients for the military science. You need two walls, a grenade and one round of piercing ammo. That's three different items you need to put into the machine, which is easy enough with two input belt lines and some long-handed inserters.It's finally time to show some more science pack builds. In the past I already showed a simple build for the first two science packs. Since their recipes haven't changed in the new update, I will start by talking about science pack three, aka military science.

Instead of just showing you the finished assembly line, I want to explain how I go about building these things a little bit. So first, I'll explain some theory and then take you through the different step of building the assemblies. And yes, don't worry, at the end there will be a blueprint string with the finished assembly. I would advise you to try building it yourself first, though. It's a lot more educational than just using somebody else's blueprints.

As explained in my post about red and green science, I usually approach building these things by looking at the crafttime of the science pack I'm trying to make. If you build one assembly per second of crafting time you will get sixty science packs per minute, assuming a crafting time of 100%. There’s no proper reason to go for one science pack per second. Designing the production for these numbers is simply convenient. And for an early to mid-game base, one science pack per second should be more than enough to get you started!

The different levels of assembly machines actually have different crafting time multipliers, so the ratios don't quite work out. As I've mentioned before, in the new update you can use assembly machines level one for any number of ingredients, which we will do for the relaticely eary sciences like military.

With a crafting speed of 0.5 this means you need twice as long for one science pack. Sooner or later you should upgrade the assembly machines. For now, let's just use the level ones to save on resources though.

But enough theory, let's go through building the military science step by step.

You start by looking at the crafting time of the science pack you're making. Military science takes ten seconds to make, so that's ten assemblies for one pack per second. Ah, but you get two packs per craft! So let's start with just five machines.

Next we look at the ingredients for the military science. You need two walls, a grenade and one round of piercing ammo. That's three different items you need to put into the machine, which is easy enough with two input belt lines and some long-handed inserters.

When choosing what item to put on which belt you should pay attention to the number of required items. Items you need a lot of should go on the belt closer to the machine, because you might need fast inserters or even stack inserters to get the necessary throughput later on. Since military only needs very few of each item, this is not an issue in this particular build.

Alright, now how many items do you need? Since five machines are enough to build make one science pack per second (at 1.0 crafting speed), it's very simple. You need one grenade and ap-ammo per second. And we already know how to make one item per second, don't we? And making two per second for the walls won't be a problem either!

So you look at each item and build one assembler per second of crafting time for each item (except for the walls). That means eight machines for grenades ...

and three for ap-ammo!

Walls only take half a second. If you wnat to craft one per second, you would only need half an assembler. Luckily walls are the only item we need two of, which adds up to one whole assembler.

Now it's just a question of getting the required materials into the assembly lines. The necessary smelting etc. is not part of this build and I'm assuming you will have all of the basic materials being made somewhere in your factory (maybe transported with a main bus system?).

The only ingredient you probably don't have is basic ammo rounds, which is required for the armor piercing ones. But since we know we're making one ap-ammo per second and each round take a single basic ammo, it is super easy to know how many to build! Just like before, you look at the crafting time and see that the basic rounds take one second each. So one single assembler for basic ammo can supply all three of the assemblies for the ap-rounds.

Once you supply the assemblies with the needed materials  you will get something like this:

After hooking all the assembly lines up to the correct materials, you just have to get the products to the military science assemblers and they will start producing a nice steady supply of grey science packs.

As I've mentioned above, this is all calculated for a 1.0 crafting speed. Since none of the different levels of assembly machine have a crafting speed like that, this will never quite work out perfectly. But it's a good way of thinking about these kind of things and get you started.

Since assembly machines level 1 have 0.5 crafting speed, your five military science assemblers are really slow and can't actually handle one science pack per second. So you can either double the number of science pack assemblers or cut the number of assembler for the incoming materials in half. Since I would argue you can never have enough science, let's double the science pack assembly line!

Later you can upgrade all the level ones with better assemblers. This will screw up the ratios because of the different crafting speeds for level two and level three assemblers. You can either add a couple more machines to each assembly line or just leave it as is. Unless your labs are constantly running, there's usually a bit of a backlog of materials anyway. The important part is to keep all your production lines on the same level of assembler, to keep the ratios close enough together.

---

That's it for military science! I hope this hasn't just taught you how to make grey science packs, but also how to even approach building a production of any science packs you want.

I will also show the other types of science packs in the future, but probably with a less in-depth explanation of how to build them. Instead I will show the finished design and talk about what's special or important about each type of science pack.

You can find the blueprint string for the basic military science build after the cut! I have indicated what materials need to go on the incoming belts with constant combinators. You don't need to actually build them, though! As long as you have alt-mode activated they should display what item is supposed to go on the respective belt.

"Science 3 -Military" blueprint:

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