#I didn’t really deep dive the lore that much when it was the current obsession

[quintusbenedictus]

Fairly certain this happened in the lore of steam punk table top miniatures game “Warmachine” and it’s slightly more fantasy sibling “Hordes”. The whole thing for Warmachine are steampunk robots (called Warjacks) powered on magic coal that comes from the long dead husk of a slain dragon. If I remember right the dragons remains have a corrupting influence on the people who live near it who are themselves a faction in Hordes.

i think that killing a dragon should have catastrophic nuclear-fallout level environmental consequences tbh. their blood should scorch and wither the earth with fire and poison, the toxic fumes released as they decay should choke the land and all nearby living creatures, and the entire landscape where they fell should be transformed into a blighted wasteland where bleached leviathan bones loom upwards out of the ground as a warning that can be seen from miles away, the boundary markers of an exclusion zone.

[greyias]

Time to go Full Gravedrog

Hey guys. You know what we haven’t done in a while? That’s right! Put on our tinfoil hats, get tangled up in an entire spool of red string, and do a ridiculous deep dive on lore and make up wild insane theories about the upcoming story drop!

That’s right we’ve got some--

First up. If you haven’t watched it already, here’s the trailer for the 6.2 story drop, specifically for the storyline we’ll be doing our deep dive on, Echoes of Oblivion.

Are you pumped? I’M PUMPED. Let’s do this!

Okay, so there’s a lot to unpack here, and I’m going to state outright, that the chances of this being on the money like Gravedrog is... well. I’ve got no lottery numbers for you this time around. I can’t believe no one took me up on that offer.  There’s always the possibility the storyline has absolutely nothing to do with any previously established lore, and they create something wholly new. And hey, if that’s the case, this is just free fanfic fodder for the masses.

But Charles did mention, I believe on the forums(?), that he’s seen one person guess what’s going on. The real question is... WHO GUESSED IT. HMM.

So I’ve been wanting to actually do a post on this a while, at least since Arcann’s voice actor accidentally made the slip up about Thexan being in this story drop. A large part of this theory/discovery goes to the lovely @confettininjabean​​, who found this piece of lore when we were getting tangled up in red string back in the Gravedrog days, pre-Nathema Conspiracy. Let’s just say, there was a... certain interaction on Twitter that had us thinking this had something to do with NC, and when it didn’t pan out we were like “Oh, weird, guess that wasn’t on the right track” and forgot about it.

Well, sort of. Because we were like, “that really seemed significant considering”, but hey, sometimes you hit upon a Gravedrog, sometimes you think Indo Zal is an evil mastermind playing 4D chess. In other words, when it comes to red string theories, you win some. You lose some.

Anyway. I forget why, but I went perusing on Wookieepedia a few months ago, looking back up this sort of obscure piece of lore for some reason. And something about it was.... FAMILIAR.

The article in question: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Thought_bomb

May I direct your attention, to this part:

Hey. Where have I heard that before?

Aw. Aw shit. Well I mean, that can’t be right though, right? Because it’s Satele and a bunch of Jedi/like-minded Force users that are being possessed right? And besides this is an an ancient Sith ritual thought to be created by... 

Oh.

Oh wait.

But that’s a plague right? Not the same thing as a thought bomb. I mean it’s not like anyone in SWTOR has dealt with a Force plague--

Oh. huh. But you might say, “But Grey, that plague was invented by Terrak Morrhage, not Vitiate.” And you would be right! What I can’t seem to find confirmation of, thus far, is exactly when Terrak Morrhage lived, but by me and Jayde’s current reckoning, it seems like he may have been around possibly during the Great Hyperspace War, the end of which Vitiate used in his mad grab for immortality and power, manipulating what was probably a majority of the remaining Sith Lords into his brand spanking new ritual that he just needed a little help with.

Okay, and this is where we leave lore land, and enter into speculation land. I, um, just got sidetracked on Jedipedia (I’ll get to that), trying to find a codex entry regarding Vitiate I know I’ve read but I lost at some point. So, we’re going off memory here, but I’m fairly certain it’s stated in canon somewhere that prior to his ascension, Vitiate was obsessed with Sith alchemy and ancient Sith rituals. So if Morrhage pre-dated him, or was a peer, it’s possible Vitiate was able to learn about his plague, and adapt it to some of his other experiments.

Okay, back to the thought bomb for a moment. Full disclosure, I haven’t read the Darth Bane novels, so I’m going off of Wookiepeedia here instead of the source material (which is always a dicey affair), it says Bane adapted the thought bomb from notes on the ritual Vitiate performed. So, it’s possible the thought bomb is not a 100% Vitiate original, just a bastardization of it. But it’s interesting that the ritual itself gathers up and shreds the Force essence/soul of everyone in its path. Well, I mean, horrifying. But in this theory’s perspective, interesting in that when Vitiate used Zildrog as part of his ritual--where did all of the Force go exactly?

Because as you wander around Nathema, you hear the tortured whispers of every soul obliterated during that ritual.

This is talked about a little in the Revan novel, and it’s been a few years since I read it so I’m kind of going off memory again, but he basically created a void in the Force there. And remember... in the KOTET chapter we went to Nathema, he was actually visibly afraid a few times. Hmm... now why would that be? Was it Vaylin he was afraid of? Was it something else?

If memory serves, there wasn’t an actual explosion like as described with the thought bomb--because he wasn’t using the ritual as a weapon. He was using it to gather power, to shuffle off this mortal coil and live eternal as an annoying spirit who you just can’t quite squash out no matter how many mind mazes you build to keep him locked up. So, and again, this is speculation land, but all of that swirling Force and dead energy had to go somewhere right? I mean, Zildrog had his snack and went omnomnom, but where did the Force power go? And why was there a Void that constantly pulled at him and sapped away his power on Nathema?

Is it because the Force didn’t explode? Is it because he bound it up in his old disgusting decaying old man flesh? And the only reason he was alive because he basically made himself a little flesh horcrux that was destroyed at the exact moment we sent him off to the Void that he feared so much?

Hmm. Interesting.

Wait. Wait a second... I think there was something else he mentioned. Now, what was it?

You know, I had always assumed he was talking about Gravedrog being unleashed, since the whole reason he went to Zakuul was likely to find the Gravestone so he could pair it with Zildrog back on Nathema, and enact his galaxy-wide extinction event.

And maybe he was.

Or was he talking about his failsafe.

The one he knew would happen if someone destroyed his old, withered, icky body?

So... if the ritual/plague is some take on the thought bomb, and it infects any Force user like some prescient, who could have realized this is what 2020 held in store for us pandemic that spread rapidly and consumed everyone who touched it, until it made manifest what was once just thought...

Is the whole entire point of this to bring Valky back from the dead? Or is it just his last revenge? And what on earth would that last revenge be? Well... and just hear me out. Say there was this guy. Kind of an asshole. And he had this whole schtick about killing every single living thing in the galaxy and liked to consume whole planets in a single gulp just for funsies. Wouldn’t it be so funny if he, say, in the unlikely event he possessed some Outlander who happened to go “get out and get a job loser!” and booted him off to the beyond, and at the same time his old indentured servant and that chick he once possessed found his horcrux and destroyed that, wouldn’t it be a kick if that somehow kicked off a plague that consumed every single Force user in the entire galaxy until it had enough power and then exploded and completely wiped out all life in the galaxy, so that if the asshole who’s name totally isn’t Valkorion couldn’t live forever then neither could any. single. thing. in. the. galaxy.

I mean, that or it’s just a ploy to get him into one final boss fight.

But i dunno... I kind of just found the entire cast list of who’s in the Echoes of Oblivion storyline (warning, major spoilers and datamining on that link, and yes, that’s what distracted me on Jedipedia) and I’m kind of thinking. Having to keep the entire galaxy from being consumed by a sociopath’s final revenge kind of sounds like a pretty epic finale, don’t you?

And hey, if not. Free fanfic idea for anyone who wants it.

Oh yeah, also predicting the following:

We’re going on another mindscape adventure like in KOTET Chapter 9, but it’s Satele’s mind we’re in

It’s not actually Valkorion/Vitiate/Tenebrae, but a remnant/essence of him that’s made manifest by the ritual. Also he needs a combo nickname because I’m tired of having to pick one of three names. I shall call you Valkiatebrae. It’s a beautiful name. I know he’ll love it.

Vaylin and Thexan who we see in the trailer are probably also manifestations conjured by the quasi- Valkiatebrae

We’re going to Ossus? Or Ossus in Satele’s mind?

The Knight and crew missed a few of the death cult back in the storyline, and that’s who was either watching Tenebrae’s body, or who hijacked Satele’s ship OR they have some part in the ritual (perhaps the part to physically manifest  Valkiatebrae). We see them in the trailer above.

Regardless if any single one of these predictions is right I’m going to die of feels

Because I think Satele and Theron may have a scene together????? OMG

I’m screaming again

I’ll stop now

I’m sorry Charles I hope I didn’t do it to you again I couldn’t help myself, but hey at least I kept it in this long

EDITED TO ADD: Okay guys, I’ve been looking more at Jedipedia. I think I can safely hazard a guess that a LOT of fans of different characters are going to be super happy with this update. Just saying.

[yournewlodger]

O and Z for the fandom alphabet meme?

O - Choose a song at random, which ship or character does it remind you of. I did a few randomizations on my main playlist until I found a song that I had an association with. For me it chose Do You Realize?? by The Flaming Lips. This song unsurprisingly has a lot of association for me. Most recently this song was used in my Data/Riker playlist, but the song gives me huge Star Trek vibes in general. It was also used in an AMV I made last year with Doctor Who! The AMV was mostly about the Doctor, like... in general, and their companions, and all that. So I always think of the AMV when I hear the song. Z - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go. You know, usually people would use this spot to talk about their current hyperfixations or whatever else they’re thinking about in relation to like, a character or how much they love a show, but mine’s a little different. It’s fan-related as in related to fandom. So basically, I joined tumblr in the wake of Superwholock. I saw the Mishapocalypse happen in real time. Tumblr University, Dashcon, in and out of all kinds of fandoms. Although my url was originally theofficialblogofofficiality (I know) my primary username on most websites was what it is here, yournewlodger. So, as you might have guessed, I came to tumblr thinking primarily about everyone’s favorite science fiction television series (not really.) The ‘who’ in Superwholock. I was obsessed, as most people were, from middle school to early high school, only really dropping out when the Ponds left and Clara came in, and completely fizzled after Matt Smith regenerated. Not necessarily because of Peter Capaldi, but I was thirteen so this old guy in a young man’s shoes certainly didn’t help. Now the Whovians certainly got up to mischief back in the day. We were always the first to hijack posts with *jumps into the TARDIS and flies away* on posts we didn’t like. We had infighting about ships and showrunners and all that. But it was all really lowkey compared to the Super and the Lock in my opinion.  After the video essay about The Johnlock Conspiracy and the re-awakening of Destiel, we’re all remembering our days in old fandom, namely Superwholock, with a much more critical lens. But I’ve joked with my friends for awhile now that Doctor Who ‘won’ the Superwholock race, because while it definitely had its faults, the fandom never got as intense as it did with the other two. Or did it? I really want somebody to do some deep diving. What were the trials and tribulations of the Doctor Who fandom during the Superwholock Era? Were we more subdued because we were steeped in much older lore and a much more mainstream show? Or was there something I missed because I was thirteen and didn’t understand the internet? Obviously I’m not asking you. This is a rhetorical call to action to any of us involved back then. It’s just something I’ve been thinking about recently with all the old tumblr nostalgia floating around. This was horribly long, but I hope you enjoyed regardless.

[lunias-takes-on-homestuck]

My Classpects Through the Years

I started getting into Homestuck in late 2012, about a year after [S] Cascade dropped, and like most of y’all I got pretty interested in the system of Classes and Aspects.

...Okay, I got obsessed with it. Who wouldn’t? A highly-flexible system of essentially taking an aspect of reality and interpreting it through the lens of a key verb or idea, creating unique and self-determined power sets limited only by your own imagination? That’s wild. And when I say I got into it, I mean I really got into it. I dove deep into Homestuck’s lore, reading up on popular and somewhat fringe theories about what each Aspect related to, how the Classes utilized them, what the potential Active/Passive pairings were, and how certain Aspects seemed to oppose each other. I even went so far as to contribute to a theory regarding the future of Tavros Nitram, which... didn’t exactly pan out as expected... but it was a ton of fun! And of course, while I was certainly interested in what this all meant for our cast of characters, I was also interested in how it could be interpreted and/or applied to real people.

People are, of course, far more complicated than a simple personality test could possibly explain, but I still got a lot of entertainment out of trying to pin down the classpects of characters or people I knew irl. Which naturally included me. Looking back on it, I think it’s very interesting to see the progression in ideas that led up to my more recent musings, so I figured it would be cool to dive into that and share my past and current classpects here!

Credits:

All images are pulled from the Homestuck Classpect Chart Updated posted by JosiahR94 on DeviantArt.

Artists: Zynchilada (compiled, partially drawn) and Owyn (updated at original resolution). Both blogs listed on the artwork have since been deactivated.

2012-2013 - Knight of Breath

This one is the byproduct of some test manipulation on my part - the fan test I was using was based on MBTI and Jungian archetypes, and honestly I’ve never found them to remain accurate for longer than a couple months at a time. I’ve wound my way around four different MBTI results over the years so I’m not inclined to use them as the basis for much, especially since the original test included fan-created classes and aspects that I really didn’t understand or jive with. But even once I narrowed it down to strictly canonical classes and aspects, I still wound up going with the 3rd-most accurate one. At the time I saw the Knight as the Active Exploiter class, the type to jump into action and wield their aspect as a weapon. I really related the idea of a detached loner who was fiercely protective of their friends, and John had shown off very, very recently (for me, anyway) just how powerful wind could be. The powers were sick, the outfit was neat, and it was absolutely wrong in nearly every way. Nearly. But we’ll get to that.

2013-2015 - Seer of Doom

You’re probably a little familiar with this one if you’ve been keeping up with Homestuck theorists lately, as there are two prolific content creators I know of who identify as Seers of Doom. For some time, I did too! The change was largely brought about because I thought my initial Knight of Breath result hadn’t been accurate enough, and also because I wanted to try my hand at classpecting myself without the aid of tests. At the time I was really feeling the Doom aspect and I saw myself as a guide (or maybe a teacher?) so it felt like it fit. There was just one sliiiight problem - I was entirely focused on how the Doom aspect related to the problems I was having in my life, rather than how I viewed the world around me and interacted with it. I still felt like I was sort of onto something with Doom, but it took some major life events to give me the nudge I needed to see things a little more clearly...

2015-2020 - Sylph of Life

For me, 2015 felt like the year I was finally coming out of my funk and figuring my shit out. It’s the year I started taking college courses (well, a college course), getting into meetups, making new friends, and reinventing myself. At some point I decided that the issue with my initial Doom analysis was that I was overly focused on the challenges I had instead of how I actually dealt with them, and my new aggressively-optimistic outlook would simply not mesh with Doom. Not one bit. I also felt that my class didn’t quite fit, and Sylph was sitting right there with their magick-y healing and creation powerset -- the ultimate support, and the type of person who makes their own way through life by simply refusing to accept they could be stopped or put down by anything. By the time the Extended Zodiac Quiz came out in 2017 and confirmed I was Lifebound, I had already proven to be on top of my game in college in a creative field. I joined our LGBT+ club and started somewhat aggressively railing against overly-restrictive labels and social constructs in Contemporary English to the point that I was exceeding the page limit on our essay assignments on a regular basis and still felt I wasn’t saying everything I wanted to say. Sylph of Life just clicked for me in a way the Knight of Breath and Seer of Doom never had, so I figured I’d nailed it.

Then, earlier this year, I found out I was actually a girl.

2020-Present - Knight of Life... or maybe Heart???

Imagine for a minute that you’re at a theater watching some movie through the perspective of the protagonist. You think you’ve got the plot all figured out, you’re guessing every story beat, and then in the last 5 minutes the big twist reveals the protagonist has unwittingly been an unreliable narrator for the last two hours. Literally everything you thought you understood has been flipped on its head, and it’s still good but it’s all very confusing. You leave the theater wondering what you just watched, and as you turn on your car you suddenly realize there were subtle hints foreshadowing the twist for over half the film. With every passing second the pieces start coming together, and you just know that watching it again would leave you going “How the hell did I miss that?!”

That’s about the best way I can explain what I’ve been experiencing for the past four-ish months. All the puzzle pieces I had put together were thrown totally out of whack and I’m finding every day that there are aspects of myself and my personality that I never knew where there. Discovering myself is hard work, but it’s a wonderful feeling, and it’s no wonder that on the heels of this I’m seriously vibing with the aspect relating to Personal Identity. That said, I still find myself parsing labels and identity through the lens of Life - words which are too restrictive to properly convey who I am, and an experience that can’t be explained or constrained by the stereotypical narrative people tend to have about people who are bisexual, polyamorous, transgender, and at once more complicated than those words can really describe. When I take the Extended Zodiac Quiz I find that I’m still Lifebound, but changing even a single question by a single step leaves me Heartbound instead, and I think that dichotomy really mirrors where I feel I’m at as a person.

Class-wise, I feel drawn to both Sylph and Knight to a degree, but in the years since I first chose the Knight of Breath classpect I have come to understand the class as a Passive Server - one who gives for the benefit of others - and that speaks to me. The wonderful Mythological Class Quiz by @homestuckexamination has only confirmed my suspicions about that. I have yet to decide between Knight of Life and Knight of Heart, but they’re both very interesting classpects imo, and either way I’m sure I’ll be spending far too much of my free time developing powers and things for them :P

Takeaway

Whew, that’s a lot of words! But what exactly does it all mean? Well... if you ask me, Classpecting is sort of a process. I’m sure that, years down the line, I’ll probably say I had it all wrong and I’m actually some other combination of class and aspect, and I’ll reminisce about the days when I was so obviously misreading myself. But that’s kind of the fun of it, isn’t it? It’s just another form of personality quiz, albeit one where you get sick powers and a nifty set of pajamas at the end. And for all the good that introspection can do to help you understand yourself a little better, you better believe I’m going to be spending the next hour or two debating whether passing out heals and buffs while tanking everything would be more cool than body-surfing and turning enemies into clones à la Agent Smith in The Matrix: Reloaded.

[mephestopheles]

ngl, I probably took the wrong ‘lessons’ from Robocop when I first saw it when I was like 10 or 11 and have been mildly and passively obsessed with cyborgs and robots and other forms of artificial intelligence ever since. (Side note this does make the current timeline suck because I could be talking to actual machine intelligence but no, tech bros just want generative ai to make art for them)

Did a quick bit of more research and while “I” comes over from Old English and prior to that proto-Germanic from ‘ic’ or ‘ek’. The newness is that it didn’t start getting capitalized until the 15th or 16th century. So that’s cool, not sure how it’s useful to the fic but research rabbit holes happen.

The fic started off after I did the Citadel DLC and the introduction of the clone. One, I absolutely loved seeing all of the characters interact and have fun with each other, outside of the doom and gloom it did give me more of a grasp on their characters overall.

Finished the game (regretted waiting so long to do the citadel dlc because I didn't get all of the side stories) and got really angry with the choices. They have probably been hashed out time and again, but the idea that I would be willing to destroy the Geth and who knows how many augmented organics to get rid of the Reapers was not a choice I could willingly make. Not after working so hard to find a path where we could work together. Control was out of the question as I could so easily see how removing and sense of self would over time put us back in the same situation, a higher being without any concept of why they're technically saving anyone would inevitably forget why they chose control in the first place.

Synthesis was the acceptable option considering the choices. However, a clone was introduced and I was super angry that even the Paragon interrupt forced the clone to die. That felt cheap.

So I'm asking a question, what if your clone wasn't given such an option on the Normandy, but now has to reconcile who they are away from Shepard and company, and how does that change the person Shepard could become, with essentially a new slate of post ME2.

It's a lot of identity stuff, who we are with and without our memories. Are we still capable of doing good works as we process our trauma. I have the benefit of also picking the spacer background and the war hero psych profile as a starting point, so I got to add more of Hannah Shepard and how she would react to all of this.

Which is also kind of how I got into adding more Geth, mostly because, well Shepard 1 got to have a friend Geth, baby brother gets to have one too.

I have a destination in mind, it is already making me sad, and I can't wait to share it with folks when the time is right. I will eventually need a beta for canon and lore wrangling when the time is right :)

I'm planning on doing a deep dive into the lore stuff myself at some point but I'm nervous to add too much information before I get more plot out of my head. If I'm not careful I will try to rewrite the entire thing.

Welcome to the brainrot, have we considered Geth naming conventions?

Geth are autonomous small running programs stacked on top of each other in a "mobile platform" that generally becomes more intelligent the more there are. Even post Rannoch and with the upload Reaper code their sense of individuality is going to be very different than humans or other organic species.

Legion was content with being given a name in ME2 but that's because to them* naming the part that speaks is weird, it would be like naming a toe. At least in a Geth, their toe would also be part of the consensus so to speak.

This got long, the rest is under the cut

Post Rannoch, (and leaving aside that the sudden and faulty storytelling of trying to repeat Mordin's sacrifice) we see Legion not only say "I" instead of "We", they sacrifice themselves to complete the upload, spreading their many programs amongst the rest. The other Geth that comes over does note that Legion's sacrifice will be remembered, which suggests that instead of individual programs creating a higher intelligence based on numbers, they're unified in each mobile platform.

Does this mean that the individual smaller programs are now considered individuals, or is it still many smaller programs that inhabit a mobile platform? Only becoming a single being as they evolve together to develop personality quirks and preferences as time goes on?

From a writing standpoint, it was definitely easier for them to basically hand wave the "there they're intelligent now and understand the difference between I and we. But the hand wave doesn't work for me. If they're essentially software and can go anywhere, do they "die" when they leave their platform to rejoin a hub?

If that was the case before the upload, what happens now? Are they locked into specific platforms now and can't bounce from one to another? Does that frighten them because that locks them out from the way they used to understand and know each other? If they're not locked out from rejoining hubs or becoming part of a ship or space station, do they retain who they are when they return to their mobile platform?

Legion's sacrifice suggests they can't, but given that's to complete the upgrades, it stands to reason the Geth would either find a way to maintain cohesion while changing spaces, or would remain in one platform.

Now granted this is a very limited viewpoint. It assumes that the Geth's response to individuality would align with other organic responses to it, and with a sense of "self" would begin to understand self preservation.

They understand preservation of their species as a whole, as we see with them willing to forgo freedom and autonomy for base survival. But individual freedom and individual self preservation is going to be very new, they might even as a species refuse to participate in that kind of individualism even if they have to work harder to maintain the community they are used to.

All of this so I figure out naming conventions among Geth.

I can't see them suddenly developing names as organic species understand them, although they might start using a similar convention as the Quarians use. They might also prefer numbers or codes. Shepard was inside the consensus for a while, it's unclear how long, but when I species measures in nanoseconds even a few minutes would be a lifetime. Would that impact any human-like characteristics upon the Geth? Do we think that Shepard has that much influence even as he's removing the virus from the Geth?

I think Legion believes so. I think that Legion has felt and responded to Shepard's influence even when they were speaking across a gulf of disparate understanding. Shepard's willingness to give Legion a chance, willingness to help Legion, and treat them as an equal in the latter half of ME2 and when you meet him again in Me3 make me believe they fully believe that Shepard is enough to change things.

So a new Geth, someone joining the Alliance to help but doesn't have a name, or designation that humans would understand. Would they accept a name given by a human, or an Asari? I'm not even sure the Asari would try to impose a name on a Geth.

I know humans will. We can't help it. We fucking named a roomba Stabby. We name snow plows. I know humans on some level are nervous of artificial intelligence, but let's face it, the Geth arrive to give us a hand, we will adopt them, even if they don't understand why.

So, that leaves me with a couple of possibilities, the Geth that stick around Rannoch and decide to help the Quarians rebuild will likely take their naming conventions after the Quarians at first before developing their own names over time. The Geth that interact with humans more are probably going to develop human naming patterns, if not outright named by humans to the point that maybe some Geth develop a culture that your name is bestowed by your favourite human.

Maybe that is a piece of code that's left over from Legion, a small program replicated many times that is within all of the Geth, but cultivated in those that stick around humans, that being named by a friend becomes a coming of age so to speak.

*they being used as the collective noun, and not the singular personal pronoun. I'm not even getting into Geth genders or if they even have a concept of gender. They're just figuring out person hood, nevermind gender roles.

[araneagreatlyapproves]

OC Interview -- Tag Game

I appreciate the tag @stephicness xux I haven't been able/motivated to do much with my OC's lately so this should be fun. (I hope you don't mind me using that painting you gave me on my birthday in here since there's no way I could make my characters look as good as you make them look. Zero character art skillz.  >u> )

RULES

1. PICK ONE OF YOUR CHARACTERS

(Cuz I can’t draw characters, and my picture taking skills are awful as well xux)

2. FILL IN THE QUESTIONS/STATEMENTS AS IF YOU ARE BEING INTERVIEWED FOR AN ARTICLE AND YOU WERE THE MUSE.

3. TAG PEOPLE TO DO THIS MEME. @garrus-the-spectre, @etherealautumn90, @irlscrooge, – Wanna give it a try?!

—–

1. WHAT IS YOUR NAME? “Bastille Novum. Nice to meet you.”

2. WHAT IS YOUR REAL NAME? “What do you mean?” He raised a seemingly perfect eyebrow in confusion. “That is my real name. I suppose it might seem strange to you.” The Guardian relaxed into the soft back of his seat and smiled softly. “If it's easier for you, just call me Bast.”

3. DO YOU KNOW WHY YOU WERE CALLED THAT? “A name is a name. It allows others to distinguish me from a group, that is all. Seems pointless to question why when I've been dead for over a century.”

4. ARE YOU SINGLE OR TAKEN? The neon citron of his eyes seemed to intensify along with the slight blush that brightened his cheeks. “I'm currently in a relationship. Why do you ask---wait, where did you get that photo?!” He stammers while attempting to regain his composure with deep breaths.

(Art by @stephicness​ .u. )

5. HAVE ANY ABILITIES OR POWERS? “Well, I'm a Warlock.” He quickly answered, glad to be on a different topic. “I recently acquired the abilities of a Stormcaller. In simpler terms, my body acts as a conduit for the electricity I wield as a weapon, summoned forth from the Storm.”

6. STOP BEING A MARY SUE. “What's a 'Mary Sue'? I already told you what my name was.”

7. WHAT’S YOUR EYE COLOR? “My eyes? Orangish-yellow? I'm told they resemble a flame, but I don't spend much time in front of a mirror to confirm those claims.”

8. HOW ABOUT YOUR HAIR COLOR? “You have eyes, don't you?” He muttered irritably, glancing up to spot a stray piece of hair that had fallen over his brow. “Navy Blue. Also, no. I didn't dye it.”

9. HAVE YOU ANY FAMILY MEMBERS? He sighs, leaning back into his chair once again with his hands folded neatly in his lap. “If I did, they're long dead. I don't remember much about my life before I became a Guardian, so I couldn't share their names with you even if I once knew them.”

10. OH? WHAT ABOUT PETS? “Unless Ghosts qualify as pets, no.”

11. NOW TELL ME ABOUT SOMETHING YOU DON’T LIKE. “That...is a broad question. Superficial things that I don't particularly like include ugly shaders, most Warlock armor, individuals with high-pitched voices, and overly sweet food, to name a few.” He mutters, averting his gaze from the interviewer. “The short list of significant things that I dislike would depress you, so I'd prefer not to share.”

12. DO YOU HAVE ANY HOBBIES/ACTIVITIES YOU LIKE DOING? “I never really thought about it.” He mused honestly, closing his eyes momentarily to think while one hand wandered up to rest inquisitively on his chin. He opened his eyes and an exasperated sigh escaped his lips. “Well, I enjoy reading. All genres including academic texts, but what I really love is traveling. I would lose my mind if I had to spend all of my time on Earth. I can literally fly anywhere and it's extremely freeing.” He pauses a moment, a forlorn expression taking over his features.. “I used to love cave-diving and participating in archeological digs...but I had an incident a few years back and I can't bring myself to do it anymore, let alone enjoy it.”

13. EVER HURT ANYONE BEFORE? "Yes, I have.”

14. EVER…KILLED ANYONE BEFORE? He frowns “More than I care to count.”

15. WHAT KIND OF ANIMAL ARE YOU? “...I am not particularly sure how to answer that question.”

16. NAME YOUR WORST HABITS. “I tend to be a control freak, and that causes a lot of problems for me; with my team, my boyfriend, and even my own abilities.” He admits, crossing his hands over his lap again and tapping his boot against the floor. “I also have a tendency to over-think things that would better be left alone. Other than that though, I guess I'm also a picky eater.” He grinned slightly as he paused to think again. “I'm sure Isaiah could think of more if you feel like interviewing him next.”

17. DO YOU LOOK UP TO ANYONE AT ALL? “These questions are getting pretty personal.” He judgmentally appraised with a suspicious look in his eye “Someone I look up to…? I suppose that would be my clan leader, Senen-12. She's strong, independent, skilled and holds our team together. I don't know what my clan and I would do without her, if you must know.”

18. GAY, STRAIGHT, OR BISEXUAL? "It seems to me like you already know the answer to that question.” He bashfully gestures to the photo of him and Isaiah.

19. DO YOU GO TO SCHOOL? “Not conventional school, no. As a Guardian it's my job to self-educate, but I don't typically learn about mundane topics like English and math. Mostly it's lore, mysticism, and the weaknesses of my enemies. Much more interesting, right?”

20. DO YOU EVER WANT TO MARRY AND HAVE KIDS ONE DAY? Instead of getting angry or flustered, like what would have been his normal reaction, he appeared taken aback and he sunk into his seat in thought. One hand shifted to support his forehead, as if he had a migraine. “I, uh...” he stammered, swallowing loudly. “Having children isn't really an option for Guardians like me, I wouldn't really want any even if it were an option. I'm not really the 'fatherly' type. And marriage?” His free hand wandered to his robe pocket and reached inside to fiddle with something there. “I've debated with myself, especially recently, if binding myself to someone is worth it. It seems like it would just hurt much, much more to lose that person after being bound like that. No matter how much you love them.” He glanced up finally, his eyes sparkling despite the melancholy in his voice. “Then again, I've always been a bit of a masochist...~”

21. DO YOU HAVE ANY FANBOYS/FANGIRLS? He shook his head abruptly, in part as an answer to the question, and also to recompose himself after the previous question. “No, no, no. I'm not nearly that popular. Though, Isaiah gushes over me. I don't think he qualifies, however. He's biased.”

22. WHAT ARE YOU MOST AFRAID OF? His eyes darken and he has to avert his gaze for a moment. “If I have to be absolutely honest, I would have to say that my greatest fear is watching those I hold dear being hurt and not being able to do anything about it...”

23. WHAT DO YOU USUALLY WEAR? “I usually just wear basic Warlock armor. We're permitted to customize and spice up our look with shaders, but it's all pretty basic. Arms, legs, a robe, helmet, and then a Warlock bond; all of which is our choice, of course. I'm just glad I don't have to  wear a cape like a Hunter. I can't imagine how badly those things get in the way.”

24. DO YOU LOVE SOMEONE? A warm smile curls his soft lips and he chuckles bashfully. “Of course I do, haven't you been listening?”

25. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU WET YOURSELF? "You think I would be cowardly enough to do something like that?”

26. WELL, IT’S NOT OVER YET! "Really? I was under the impression that this was going to be a quick interview. Keep any further personal questions to a minimum, okay?”

27. WHAT CLASS ARE YOU? (HIGH CLASS, MIDDLE CLASS, LOW CLASS) "I don't think things like 'class' define anyone left on Earth.”

28. HOW MANY FRIENDS DO YOU HAVE? “I have a small circle of friends, that I don't care to count, which really only consist of two Fireteams; Fireteam Regis, Isaiah's fireteam, and Fireteam Autem, which is mine.”

29. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON PIE? "Most pies are too sweet for my tastes.”

30. FAVORITE DRINK? “Water?”

31. WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE PLACE? “That's the beauty of having the ability to travel space in seconds; I don't need to choose.”

32. ARE YOU INTERESTED IN SOMEONE… “...I refuse to repeat myself. Take a look at your notes from previous questions and figure out the answer yourself.”

33. WHAT’S YOUR BRA CUP SIZE AND/OR HOW BIG IS YOUR WILLY? “I—I don’t think that's ANY concern of yours…!” He stammers, quickly crossing his legs as if to hide.

34. WOULD YOU RATHER SWIM IN THE LAKE OR THE OCEAN? He shrugs his shoulders with his palms up. “A lake, probably, if I had the choice. Though...it's probably not a good idea for me to be in any body of water, especially with others, for the time being. I don't quite have a handle on my Stormcaller abilities yet, and I would hate to electrocute someone by mistake.”

35. WHAT’S YOUR TYPE? A smile brightens his face again and his gaze seems far off, as if he's picturing someone in particular. His fingertips dance across his curled lips as he thinks. “Strong, but gentle and compassionate. Maybe even a little immature. Someone who's confident and straightforward enough to show and tell me what they want.” For a moment he pauses, his mind wandering and his free hand returning to his pocket. “Someone who makes me laugh, and even embarrasses me at times because they love so deeply.” He laughs softly under his breath, recalling a moment from his past. After a moment, he shifts in his seat, still smiling. “I also prefer them to have lavender skin, purple hair, and beautiful blue eyes. If that isn't specific enough for you.”

36. ANY FETISHES? “THAT is definitely not any of your business.”

37. SEME OR UKE? TOP OR BOTTOM? DOMINANT OR SUBMISSIVE? “What is your obsession with my sex life?” He growls, clearly irritated. He stubbornly crosses his arms over his chest and sighs, resigning to surrendering himself to that particular kind of question. “Fine. I prefer a more...submissive role, but I'm not opposed to other roles either. It's a spur of the moment kind of thing...” he continually grumbles as he explains and eventually makes eye contact again.

38. CAMPING OR INDOORS? “Indoors. I prefer the comfort of my own home. Camping usually involves being shot at or ambushed.”

39. ARE YOU WANTING THIS QUIZ TO END? “Yes. I've been waiting for this 'quiz' to end since you asked me if I was single or taken. May I leave now?”

[lemondice]

Guest post: Mia!

This week, I thought it would be fun to have my bandmate in Lemon Knife and girlfriend in lemon life, Mia Blixt-Shehan, write a post for some variety.  I asked her to write about her favorite bands and how they influenced her work in Lemon Knife, and you can read her post right below:

So, I’m a Guest Writer for a blog! Exciting times! Really! Look, I’ve had this title exactly once before (https://www.writebynight.net/news-events/wfpl-rats/), where I made the interesting (read: ill-informed) decision of pawning off the first chapters of a thirteen-year-old novel—by which I mean I was thirteen years old when I tried to write the stinking thing (what was I doing trying out novel writing at thirteen?)—about the coming of age of a group of British sewer rats who decide to migrate to America in the era of Beatlemania…???...to promote a now-defunct blog under a now-defunct nom de plume. I’ll gladly take my second chance to appear on someone else’s blog without completely exposing the gaps once filled by my long-lost tween-aged marbles, thanks very much!

Well, anyway…of course, I have a bit of a personal attachment, to understate things—the blog’s author is my dear bandmate and partner, John, so I, Mia, am here to write about my top three favorite musical artists and how they made a mark on the excellent duo that is Lemon Knife! I hope you enjoy my stop by and learn a few things as well. Here we go, lowest- to highest-ranked:

3. Muse

Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story of the air raid siren with the bass. Lowercase—The Air Raid Siren is the formidable Bruce Dickinson, obviously, I can’t take that title. But I’d be an effective red alert nonetheless—“EEEEEEVAAAAAACUUUUUUAAAAAAAATE IT’S A MOOOOOOOOONSOOOOOON!!!!”…new Lemon Knife lyric?

Before my love affair with the Muse discography began just five or so years ago, however, I wasn’t an air raid siren but a coffee shop bulletin board flyer. At this point I’d finally become semi-comfortable with my instrumental abilities, in specific circumstances, anyway, but I was still terrified of singing louder than, like, 25 decibels. I knew my voice was imperfect and didn’t really want to use it for much. The potential use of my vocal imperfections finally clicked on the fateful day where I heard the Black Holes and Revelations album for the first time (of at least ninety since). Loosely recommended by a visiting librarian when I was a library page, it was something I remembered only by fate on my usual very long train ride to college one day—“sure, let’s stream this thing, this train is stuck and I’ve got nothing better to do!” And there it was, as I sat spellbound through the opening track, “Take a Bow”—I was listening to a voice I hadn’t heard the likes of before, though I couldn’t quite place how it was so distinctive at the time. This was something greatly commanding and uniquely beautiful, and something that evoked copious amounts of whatever song’s emotion without sacrificing the ability to sound genuinely stinking good, and I wanted to know how it was done straight away. And so, after the last notes of “Knights of Cydonia” had died away, I set to figuring out the keeper of that voice—the magnificently brilliant Matt Bellamy—and diving into the music and generally obsessing over every recording I could unearth on my lengthy train rides. Good college pals, Muse were…

In the depths of my weekly Muse analysis (weekly classes, you know) I also became fascinated with the instantly recognizable bass work in the band, granted to the listener by the utterly fantastic Chris Wolstenholme. This isn’t your typical fuzz bass by any means. It’s got every amount of effect manipulation and gear tweaking and all—the—pedals—yet it’s combined with a great and distinctive technique that ensures that unlike that of too many other bands of their era and just before it (looking at you, Green Day!), their bass will almost certainly never become a lesser part of the music. It was here that I heard about another distorted bassist that was openly inspired by Muse and took it to the next level—he was Mike Kerr, the sole melodic instrument (well, besides vocals!) in a little band called Royal Blood. And it was THERE that I realized that bass/drum duos could be a thing…and…well…what do you think happened next?

2. The Who

We’re going a pretty hefty step up in influence here—I wouldn’t be a fuzz bassist and air raid siren vocalist without Muse, but I wouldn’t be a musician at all without The ‘Orrible ‘Oo.

It’s a story I’ve told countless times and will forever retell: Right around the extremely tender age of five, I came across a VHS (remember those?!) of the original Who rockumentary, decades before the squeaky-clean presentation of Amazing Journey—I speak of The Kids Are Alright. Familial lore dictates that the music of Neil Young was an immediate sedative when I was kicking hard in the womb, but a few years out of it, this was the first time I’d been exposed to music so raw and raucous and explosive…literally and figuratively. It had clearly seeped into my underdeveloped brain as an obsession grew through the years. (The first piano chords I learned outside of classical training were the ones in “Baba O’Riley,” at my independent request.)

At thirteen—oh, yeah, when I was also trying to write a novel about rats!—I got my first guitar. I took a few lessons for some months with a couple of fantastic tutors and then I was off on my own with a self-prescribed in-depth study of acoustic Who songs. I can’t imagine I was a particularly typical student, because from the very beginning I had absolutely no interest in learning to Van-Halen-shred and very little in the Gilmour bend, even though I greatly admired both—I was in deep with the Townshend -sus4 chords and vicious pick attack. To this day my right hand is ridiculously gritty with sets of both six and four strings, more so with my choice of using coins as plectrums (we’re about to get to that). Eventually I decided to abandon soloist peer pressure entirely and focus hard on rhythmic playing and making songs melodically interesting, which, filtered through The Who, greatly informed my later interests in both musical composition and the deep dive into bass. Rock composition came easily—much easier than lyricism, then and now—after spending so much time with my head in the Who discography, with the instantly recognizable chord structures and ever-expanding boundary-pushing within songwriting (flailing rhythm guitar! Lead bass guitar! ARP-2600s! Rock operas!!), and my decision to pursue bass was solidified by John Entwistle, the band’s resident Ox and my four-string hero to this very day.

1. Queen

Oh, buddy! This is it! This is the point of the article where we start really jumping up and down about things—like, if you thought those other two entries were fanatical, well, ohhhh, buddy!!

Queen! Yes! The greatest band on Earth, then, now, and onward. Well—to me. It’s all subjective, I’m aware. But the greatest band on Earth. Really. Here are four guys that took rock by its legs, stood it on its head, and spun it around until the very soul of it was changed for good. The way I see it, there are two schools of musical artists in the current era—the ones that mostly grew up on everyone else in the 1970s, and the ones that mostly grew up on Queen. You can always tell who they are if you have the innate sense, which often comes to you by being a fellow Queen fan. The Struts. Fun. (fun., actually.) Mika. The Killers. And in news that should surprise no one reading this, three of the most obvious Queen fans in music make up Muse. They can’t be understated.

Let’s look at this further—what did we have here? The most “duh” answer first—we had the greatest frontman in the history of any style of music, I’d venture to say, in Freddie Mercury. Need I say more about him—really?!? We had a bassist that told miniature stories within his prominent sound in John Deacon. We had Roger Taylor, the human drummer who was “more reliable than a drum machine,” the primary utterer of THOSE harmony high notes, and, as it turned out, probably the most experimentally minded member of the band if his solo career is any indication. And last but most certainly not least, we had a guitarist who literally crafted one of the most immediately known tones in rock with his bare hands (from a fireplace!) and pushed every boundary of the instrument in Brian May. Whose musical presence, by the way, essentially saved my life way back when. (I was about to say that there should be shirts made with the statement “Brian May Saved My Life” on them, but I immediately recognized how terrible of an idea that would actually be, although I wanted it known that it passed through my brain, so yup, here’s a parenthetical on it. Voila.) Many apprehensive people who eventually get into music see themselves for the first time in a tough-as-nails leather-clad punk goddess, or a platform-wearing out-and-proud queer, or a genre-blending, every-line-crossing, overall bad-arse POC. I saw myself in a frizzy-haired nerrrrrrrd equally inclined to embroil himself in academics (astrophysics in his case, anthropology and library science in mine) and jet onstage to make himself very known in a rock band. A convincing argument to be sure.

Okay! That was a while. It was. I hope it wasn’t too much of a while. If you made it here, congratulations—and thank you! Lemon Knife is a happy endeavor indeed—maybe we’ll see you at a show!!