#Kel can't draw backgrounds

[zombiesandbells]

I thought I was helping him, but...

HERO... HERO got angry.

Without shadow

[cherieonow]

"Oh,I apologise,I thought something happend to you,you've been laying here and didn't move a single muscle,again sorry for waking you up."

[bichikichi]

🧡 Picnic 🖤

[crab-xdd]

Kel is my son, he is sooo cute and silly duh😭😭🤲

And oh, yea. I can't draw backgrounds, bye 🎀👋

[daisy-daze17]

Omori Manga Thoughts cause it was uhhh

OK so like. The thing is I only got into the omori fandom in February of this year so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

1. I'm mostly a fan of the art style-- a lot of people said that Sunny always seems to have a panicked expression so it's hard to read into him, plus the characters look a lot younger than they're supposed to (Which I find odd). But other than that, I think it does a really good job representing the scarier parts with very abstract drawings of Mari/Something. They coloured it well and thank god did Kel's skintone right. There is one particular panel that I especially love:

So much detail and it captures the feeling of seeing faraway for the first time really well ^^

Some nitpicky positive thoughts:

Sunny could have looked more distinct from Omori because the only difference I see are their outfits. Maybe make Sunny's features softer and have less contrasting values so we can see an immediate difference.

I like how they did everyone's eyes-- Sunny/Omori's are just dull and black, and everyone else with dark eyes are shown to have a light in them. (Just a nice detail i appreciated)

I like how Omori is clearly less expressive compared to sunny, but I think Sunny could have benefitted from having more emotions than surprised/blushing.

2. The pacing was weird. like really fucking weird. The basic structure of the game Omori is: Omori is in whitespace -> Omori plus the gang (Hero, Aubrey and Kel) meet up with Basil and Mari in headspace -> everyone minus Mari goes to Basil's house and learn all the combat stuff along the way -> after fixing the photo album it suddenly shifts to basil in a panicked state before glitching you back into white space again. The moment when basil shifts the mood from calm to terrifying is REALLY important.

It forces the new tone on you very suddenly and also sets up a lot of mystery surrounding Mari when Basil can't finish what he was going to say about her. By now we know that something is very wrong and it has to do with Mari, but we don't know what.

The manga is kind of all over the place the whole time. First we see the christmas scene when Sunny gets his violin. But then Mari does her whole nightmare thing and we know somethings up from the first few pages. Next we wake up at night as Sunny in the real world... yet it shows the little "THREE DAYS LEFT" as well? At this point I was super confused because basically the entire nighttime sequence is shown through a sort of montage with Sunny's mom's voice message in the background before transitioning into the day when Kel first knocks on the door. A cool thing they did was parallel Kel's knocking with the creepy knocking we get from Mari Something. HOWEVER for reasons unknown they just completely cut out the fight against something on the stairs??

Something I was really excited about was seeing how they would integrate the combat into the manga. And they do it later with the Aubrey fight (more on that later), but not now? So now I'm wondering if they'll include Sunny's three fears that he has to overcome.

So next we find our boy (KEL!!!!!) and he is asking Sunny if he wants to come to Hobbies. I did find the dialogue here pretty awkward as Kel bounced back and forth in demeanor, but that's to be expected since Sunny isn't talking. (And I appreciate how he shows some kind of reaction to seeing one of his best friends after 4 years lol)

I mean compared to this when he just jumps straight into his hobbez idea without much reaction to actually seeing Sunny lol.

The most notable thing after this is the Aubrey confrontation with Basil and the other hooligans. I DONT KNOW WHY but they chose to not show the hooligans in that scene!! The hooligans are aubrey's little gang/posse who she hangs around with all the time and the people we always see when she's bullying Basil.

It's very important to note that Basil is talking to KIM here. He starts the conversation begging for her to tell Aubrey to give the photo album back. Aubrey is actively ignoring his attempts to get it back, with basil claiming "She won't listen to me."

In the manga she appears out of seemingly no where and proceeds to beat Basil directly with her bat. Prior to this we get no setup or explanation as to why Aubrey's attacking him or what the situation is. WORST OF ALL, It's only Aubrey alone attacking him and NOT her gang of the Hooligans. The hooligans are important in showing us just how isolated and ostracized from society Basil really is after Aubrey began bullying him. He literally has a whole gang of kids who call him a creep and attack him regularly. Here it seems like Aubrey is insane and is just beating him selfless for kicks. (not that I'm justifying Aubrey's behavior in the game, but the lack of context makes this situation even worse.)

I think It's also important to bring up how they switched around the order of events because in this situation, it's not working. We're supposed to first be introduced to younger Aubrey and Basil in headspace-- their younger counterparts. Aubrey is strong-willed and excitable and Basil is calm and kind. And most importantly-- they're VERY GOOD FRIENDS. So seeing Aubrey revealed to have been bullying him these past 4 years shocks the player and makes them understand how much things have really changed. Doing it the other way around will automatically villainize DW Aubrey since we already know what goes on in real life.

And then something interesting happens-- Sunny blacks out during the fight and returns to Headspace. This is SUPER weird as we've only ever seen Sunny go into headspace while sleeping, because it's an escape mechanism he uses to avoid The Truth. Does this mean he isn't aware he goes into headspace unwillingly sometimes? And what does this mean for the continuation of the real world story? Are we going to go through the entire Space Boy quest just to get back to that scene?

Anyway, I'm interested to see how they take it from here. Maybe they'll do a continuous switchover to the real world where they jump between it more frequently. But I question what that would mean for the timeline because the events of headspace happen in between the three days while Sunny is sleeping-- so he can't be in two places at the same time. Maybe they'll write more and more random ways for Sunny to black out to do this?? They defiantly are trying to take a step back from following the game exactly. I can't say I don't like it because I don't know how it'll turn out, so I'm excited for chapter 2!

[welcome-to-grayspace]

Handful of Sunny headcanons (post true ending): - First and foremost, although they had a rough period after the truth was revealed, everyone stayed close anyway. They're all still friends. - Sunny is bisexual and you can't convince me otherwise - A lot of artists draw Sunny years into the future with a super light blue prosthetic eye and I think that's cool but prosthetic eyes literally come in so many different colors so I'd like to think he found one that's a really similar shade to his natural eye color. He probably walked around with an eyepatch for a while immediately following he and basil's fight though while the scars healed. (if he has a glass eye, he most likely has a bit of a lazy eye, although this depends on the type of implant used). - At some point, he picked up music again, but at his own pace and in his own style. - Sunny ends up channeling a lot of his creative energy from the worlds he would imagine into art, and becomes a full-time illustrator eventually. (based on his sketchbook) - Sunny is incredibly thin in the game, but I like to think that since he was clearly malnourished (based on a bunch of different interactions in the game), during recovery in the future when he begins to eat more regularly he gains a bit of weight and his body type changes as he gets older. - he spent an ungodly amount of hours on oblivion and relapsed into not leaving his house for a week when it came out. he tries not to talk about it (this is purely projection) (please help) - He's a big vocaloid fan - He and all his friends make a discord server someday in the future and they voice call twice a week. Sunny stays muted all the time and types instead (this is also projection), Basil stays unmuted but he doesn't talk a whole lot so you just hear background noise the whole time but it adds to the "sitting in your friend's living room" vibe so everyone's cool with it. Kel and Aubrey's constant energy basically carries the entire call and Hero just kinda chills and sends shitposts every once in a while. (Aubrey's friends are also in the server and occasionally pop in, and it instantly ramps up the chaotic energy by like 1000 every time, it's awesome)

[keldae]

Got bored, decided Xaja needed some new art. So have the Smol being her badass self on... I want to say Manaan, maybe?

I’m not entirely happy with it (although am v. pleased with the lightsabers), but I can’t be bothered to go back and fix things. So I’m calling her done (for now)!

Like what you see? Buy the Jawa a Kofi!

[theangrypokemaniac]

I've been on Tumblr ten months now, and this blog has existed for nine of them. During that time I have noticed something.

The majority of the posts I've come across have been by and for the S&M scene, as is to be expected.

The second-most frequent are Indigo League, which I don't think is bad going considering it was broadcast before most Tumblerries were born.

Third-most popular I would say is Sinnoh, probably for being the introduction for many here.

After that I've seen bits on Johto, a smattering of Orange League (unsurprising given it's briefness) and maybe a single item on Hoenn.

No one likes that then? Is it Max? Go on, it is.

What I find odd is that, in all that period, I haven't seen anything on Unova or Kalos. No fan art, no screen shots, nothing.

I'm sure someone can point to a bounty of pieces I've overlooked, all done within the last year, but if so, they're well-hidden, as none of the people I follow have shown any interest in re-blogging them.

If you have done any, you must admit the amount has depleted considerably.

Why is this? Is it of no interest anymore?

This in itself validates my own opinion. Had I been here when Unova and Kalos were broadcast, I presume over half of the posts I'd see would've been devoted to them. If I then spoke harshly of either, that would not have been well-received.

However, if dropped, both by the audience and writers as soon as the latest generation arrives, wasn't I right to not be impressed?

If cast aside by those who claimed to worship them, were they really of any worth at all?

Well the same fate has now befallen Alola. I make no secret of how much I despise it, and can not grasp its appeal for anyone.

I don't know how Pokémon even has a fanbase anymore, given that it's ugly, boring and repetitive.

Prior to the arrival of the S.S., I suspected that Alola material would drop, vanishing altogether once a year's worth came to a close, and so it has proved to be.

It's gone from making up roughly 60% - 70% of dashboard posts to about 10% - 20%, in only a few months. Is it that bad then?

It can't be explained as excitement for the new, not with the amount of coverage Kanto gets, and even that isn't motivated by reminiscence, given the average age of the current viewer.

Why are you still posting about something that old? It reminds me of my wasted youth, but what's your excuse?

Why, when the writers want to wallow in nostalgia, do they hark back to Kanto, which no modern fan can remember?

Is no one looking with misty-eyed fondness at Iris and Cilan? Why not?

Or is that an admission that it was so appallingly bad even the writers recognised it, that's why it's been so hastily forgotten?

You could watch Pokémon from the beginning to the close Sinnoh, skip the next two eras, starting again with Alola, and you would never know there'd been a between.

Unova is described as a 'soft reset', with regards to its inverted nature. The arrogance of those writers is staggering:

• Trying to erase all that'd gone before, supplanted by their half-arsed efforts.

• Redesigning everyone with Fish Eye and flat profiles.

• Resetting Ash as not even knowing the basics.

• Warping Team Rocket's established personalities into disgusting, soulless lizard people robbed of all charm and charisma.

• Only new Pokémon existing.

• Catches kept with Juniper not Professor Oak etc.

The irony is that Unova Pokémon are copies of the first 151, so whilst deliberately ignoring the past, they can't resist imitating it, thanks to their own woeful inadequacy. I suppose they hoped if they didn't notice, we wouldn't either.

They then undermined their own decision by stuffing everything available into the third run, as a blatant effort to win back the crowd, including:

• Reverting to Team Rocket's actual motto, not that embarrassingly pretentious codswallop.

Too bloody lazy to make it rhyme now!

Notice they opted not for the Sinnoh one, although more recent. It was straight back to the beginning.

• Look at these hundreds of Pokémon we suddenly remembered!

Just before Giovanni's mid-life crisis, Ash spotted a Rattata, but it having been so isolated from the outside world, his brain fell to mush at the concept, and pronounced it 'retarda'.

Idiots are so easy to please!

• Charizard! Genwunners love Charizard! Give 'em Charizard and they'll forget everything else we've done! Let's condense his entire story arc into one episode of meaningless retelling!

So, Charizard was there to bait the first wave, and yet we had the plot we know repeated to us anyway?

Don't refer to the past and everyone will think it's brand-new!

It makes no sense. How could this be done with the hope of drawing in old fans, and yet filling up an episode with it as plotline isn't an issue, when the intended targets know it's been done before?

• Butterfree! Genwunners loved Butterfree leaving! Let's condense his entire story arc into one episode of meaningless rehash!

Why would they remain when finding the same thing again, absent of feeling and subtlety, not to mention upon discovering the damage done elsewhere?

Recent incomers, who might assume it's a fresh idea, have no emotional connection with Butterfree, so who is it meant to please?

Why is Mewtwo a woman?

• Mewtwo! Genwunners love Mewtwo! Let's copy its background for Genesect rather than be creative! Look, it's Mewtwo! Watch it!!!

Erm... It's not the same Mewtwo...

It's not the same Mewtwo?

You believe the way to an original fan's heart is to lie to them, and in the process smash a fundamental principle of canon that there can only be one Mewtwo?

The writers get a deserved excoriation round these parts, because someone has to, as what part of that film suggested the current crop give the tiniest toss about what matters to you and me?

I'm glad Unova is labelled 'the Dork Age' as every series since its dawn has been atrocious.

Hoenn and Sinnoh held massive flaws, but they're masterpieces compared to what followed. At least they felt like Pokémon, albeit a watery interpretation.

Unova has to be truly lowly for the dunces responsible to recognise it, and neither Kalos or Alola have been as cut off from their predecessors.

I don't believe that's a sign of contrition, more a matter of necessity. Thanks to the same personal limitations there just weren't enough new Pokémon in either era to make such insularity possible. Even between the two it'd be a scrape.

Except whilst previously invented Pokémon designs may be involved, there's no sign of actual familiar characters.

Ash took his original team to Johto, and even in Hoenn and Sinnoh, where local catches took precedent, older Pokémon were still referenced and came back for the League, but that stopped with Unova.

It's evil influence strikes again!

Despite flimsy nods to the past, which can't be avoided, each generation is now a world unto itself, to the point that individual episodes live by their own canon, a feeble web of strands unrelated to anything else.

Why is it considered 'retro' enough to say, have Forms of Kanto Pokémon, for which we're expected to be so grateful, when there's no mention of Ash's earlier squad?

Remember Tauros? And Kingler? And Muk?

Remember Bayleef? And Noctowl? And Heracross?

Remember Corphish? And Torkoal? And Swellow?

Remember Buizel? And Gible? And Torterra?

They don't. As far as I can tell none of them exist anymore, and maybe aren't meant to ever have done.

Same as Gary, Cassidy and Butch, Jessibelle, Tracey, and so on. Until they do, and don't again. Whatever is convenient to today's storyline.

My typical attitude is that the first series is the best thing ever, and it's all been downhill from there, with Unova and all that came after reaching incredible depths of tedium. I don't suppose you like that, but the ephemeral tendencies displayed on Tumblr hardly help change my opinion.

At some low ebb I'll get round to watching Galar, which I'm confident I'll hate as much as the last few generations, based on what I've already seen and heard.

There's little point doing otherwise. Why bother getting involved with the 'plot' or characters if, when it's over, they'll never be spoken of again?

What incentive is there for me to even force myself to like Galar when, once the ninth generation (Pokémon Keenan and Kel) emerges on the distant horizon, those who've sung its praises for three or four years and scoffed at criticism, will drop it without a backwards glance?

Yet talk about the Indigo League is ever present, somewhat proving its superiority. Attachment to it is a subconscious acknowledgement of the dearth of quality in the modern mentality, but which no one can bring themselves to admit.

[keldae]

These Dreams Of You

could be considered a follow-up to this.

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He’s in his apartment on Coruscant -- a place he hasn’t set foot in for almost a year. This feeling of warm comfort, of languidly rolling over in his bed, is one that he’s almost forgotten about entirely. He frowns -- why does this feel so strange?

But then he sees her in his bed next to him, curled up on her side, gazing up at him through her eyelashes. He smiles and leans in to nuzzle her nose, and for a second, everything feels perfect -- or almost perfect, anyway. “Hey,” he murmurs, his voice low and gentle.

“Theron.” How does her voice make his name sound so good? She smiles at his caresses, all but purring. “I miss this.”

“I miss you,” Theron whispers, and wonders where that thought came from. How could something be wrong in this moment of blissful comfort?

Xaja shifts slightly, her smile fading. Theron can feel the tendrils of dark, painful grief snaking back into this moment before she speaks again. “I need you, Theron. Please…”

“How could you need me?” Theron reaches to caress her cheek, frowning. “You’re--” You’re dead, floats through his mind, and now he remembers why this doesn’t feel right, and he wishes he could forget it again.

Fear flickers through Xaja’s eyes as she seems to shrink under his hand. “Theron, hurry, please. He’s… he’s hurting me again...”

“What? Who’s hurting you?” Theron tries to grab her shoulder, and panics when his hand goes right through her like she’s made of mist. “Where are you?”

“I don’t know…” Her voice is quiet, but he can’t tell if that’s because she’s fading away from him, or if it’s due to the tears he can hear her trying to hold back. He desperately reaches for her again as she cries out for him, as the apartment around them suddenly grows dark and terrible. He can hear a cruel laugh in the background, one that reminds him too vividly of Yavin IV and Ziost. “Theron, help me, please!”

With a ragged gasp, Theron jerked himself upward, for a second panicking until he recognized his surroundings. This wasn’t Coruscant… this was the sketchy back-alley hovel he’d taken up residence in on Zakuul, deep in the Old World where the Knights weren’t likely to look for an offworld spy. The narrow bed he laid on was cold, sheets strewn in all directions from his restless movements. And when he reached his hand out to where Xaja should have been at his side, he felt nothing but a hard mattress and a cold, painful grief.

“Fuck,” he whispered as he swung his legs over the side of the bed and dropped his head into his hands. Over two years after Xaja’s murder at Zakuul’s hands, and the grief hadn’t eased at all. If anything, his nightmares about her were getting more and more vivid. He wasn’t sure yet if this was better or worse than the ones he’d been having previously, the ones where his overactive brain decided to imagine what her final moments alone before her death had been like.

At least being alone in the dark as he was, with only Tee-Seven for company, there was no one to witness the tears on his unshaven cheeks, or the shuddering of his hunched shoulders as he tried to smother the grief again. He balefully frowned at the chronometer on his ocular display -- two in the morning, local time. He had a feeling he wouldn't be going back to sleep tonight, not with the lingering fear and grief drowning him.

"These dreams of you are gonna drive me mad," he finally mumbled as he wiped a hand over his eyes and took a shaky breath. He'd all but given up meditating, given how the Force seemed to have drop kicked him over the last couple of years, but maybe trying again now would calm him down after the nightmare. Leaving the bed, he knelt in front of the window that looked out over the Eternal Swamp beyond the city walls. He then closed his eyes, focusing on his breathing as he tried settling into the patterns Master Zho had taught him. In, and out… in, and out… in, and out--

Help me, Theron. Please!

Theron swore and flopped onto his back as Xaja's voice whispered in the back of his mind. "Never mind," he groaned, "I've already gone mad." When he had said he would have done anything to hear Xaja speak to him again, he hadn't meant being haunted into insanity by dreams of her. It shouldn't have been you. It should never have been you…

"Fuck, I miss you," he brokenly whispered to the empty air above him. "I want you back." He bitterly snorted. "Why can't I hallucinate you lying beside me where you belonged?" If this was the Force's way of giving her back to him in some form, it was a cruel comfort. He was pretty sure this counted as proof that the Force hated him personally.

"I'm sorry," he finally mumbled, squeezing his eyes closed as he felt tears trickling down his skin again. A low hum emitted from the corner -- no doubt Tee-Seven offering his concern -- but he couldn’t respond. He could only shake his head. "I need you back, Xaja. Never should’ve let you go to begin with. This just... hurts too much without you." He took in a shuddering breath. "I don't know what to do without you here."

So much for not getting attached, he thought with a snort of sarcastic amusement. He tried to tell himself to not risk it with the pretty Jedi during their time together on Rishi or Yavin IV, and that was even during happier times when she had still lived, a bright spot in his galaxy. He clenched his jaw in an attempt to smother down his grief and tried to think about something else… anything that had the hope of getting his mind off of Xaja, his dreams of her, and the regrets he carried with him.

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Hours later, as he was sipping a mug of lukewarm caf and scowling at his datapad, he gave a start at Tee-Seven’s sudden beep of warning. The droid’s sensors had picked up someone walking down the alley toward Theron’s cramped residence -- someone walking quietly, but not exactly sneaking about. Frowning, Theron got to his feet, setting the caf down and reaching for his blaster. No one should have known he was here; no one had reason to be knocking on his door, the raps echoing in the stillness of the apartment.

Cautiously, Theron cracked the door open -- and a second later, wasn’t sure if he was relieved his visitor wasn’t one of Marcus’ operatives coming to track him down, or more uneasy that this was an Imperial asset looking him in the eye. “Nine,” he sighed, easing his grip on his blaster. Cipher Nine might be a notorious sociopath and an infamous Imperial spy, but Theron was at least reasonably sure that the old man wasn’t here to end him. If Reanden Taerich had wanted him dead, he could have killed him easily enough on Nar Shaddaa last year.

“You’re a pain in the ass to track down, you know that?” Reanden dryly said by way of greeting, shifting his hands into his jacket pockets. The older spy’s hair had gotten more grey in the last three years, and there were new lines on his face, but those calculating dark eyes were still as sharp and piercing as ever.

“Apparently still too easy,” Theron grumbled. He crossed his arms and leaned against the door frame. What the blazes had Cipher-kriffing-Nine been looking for him for? He settled for a direct approach. “What brings you out here?”

Reanden paused, dark eyes glancing to the alley for a moment. “That’s a conversion best not had out here,” he finally said, his voice low. “You mind?”

Barely keeping from rolling his eyes, Theron stepped back to allow the old man inside. His tone was acerbic as he gestured to the shabby room. "Make yourself at home." The door was secured behind him.

Turning, he watched Reanden survey the one-room apartment with its scarce furnishings, lazily shrugging one shoulder. "I've seen worse," the old spy as he sat in the one chair in the room. Somewhat surprised to not hear a snarky comment from the old timer, Theron found himself sitting on the bed as Tee-Seven started happily beeping upon recognizing their visitor. Even more surprising, he watched as the elder man patted the droid’s chassis with something approaching affection. "So this is where you ended up."

"Busted him off Coruscant when I left," Theron shrugged casually. "He was being wasted in a military hangar."

"Same time you took the Serenity?" Reanden offered a tired smirk as Theron started. "Heard about that through the vine."

"... Xaja would have hated her ship being left to rust in a hangar," Theron protested, for a second certain that the old man was ready to tear him a new one for stealing -- no, liberating -- his late daughter’s starship.

"She would have," Reanden agreed, his voice quiet, sombre, and definitely not the verbal fight Theron had been expecting. “Definitely the Corellian in her.” 

Theron frowned as the old spy looked down at his hands, the normal snarky demeanour fading into a familiar heartache. “You didn’t sneak onto Zakuul for a social call, old timer,” he finally said. “And you definitely didn’t drop in to catch up with me.”

“Bite me, kid,” Reanden muttered, glaring up at Theron for a second before seemingly standing down and sighing. “There’s a lot of people searching for your hide in particular, but, no, that’s not why I’m here. I’m here on unrelated business -- only just figured out you were onworld about two hours ago.”

“And you tracked me down because…?”

“Because I figured you’d have a personal interest in this.” Reanden unflinchingly met Theron’s gaze when the younger spy frowned in confusion at him. “Sorand… has a theory that he’s asked me to look into, and I believe Lana will only be a couple of steps behind me on this.”

A personal interest for Theron that Cipher Nine would be involved with… and on Zakuul…? Maybe, he thought, the old man had an idea to kill Arcann directly for what he’d done to Xaja. And Darth Imperius was clever, with his own reasons to hate Zakuul -- perhaps father and son had figured out a plan. Or had Korin gotten into something? “What’s up? You find some sort of a vulnerability in that half-metallic bastard?”

“Not yet.” Reanden opened his mouth as if he were going to say something, paused, then shook his head. “What do you know about Force bonds, kid?”

Theron frowned in confusion. This was not where he’d expected this conversation to go. “Not a lot. Connections that form between Force-users, usually people close to each other.”

“Like a student and their teacher; a parent and child,” Reanden slowly agreed, “or siblings.” Theron felt his frown deepen as the older man looked at him. “Sorand had... formed a bond with Xaja, presumably some time during the Revanite incident. He’s been having intermittent dreams since…well, since the attack; they’ve been getting more intense over the past few months.” He sighed and raked a hand through his hair, an uncharacteristic sign of anxiety that Theron wasn’t used to seeing from him. The next statement left in a rush: “He believes there’s a chance that Xaja might have survived the attack. He suspects that if she's still alive, she’s probably on Zakuul, and she's in some sort of danger that he can't identify.”

For a second, Theron felt hope flare within his chest, his heart in his throat -- then reality kicked back in, and he felt his shoulders slump. “Dreams? If dreams were real, Taerich, I’d be piloting a Hutt pleasure barge overrun with gizka. The only dreams coming true now are nightmares.” He blindly gestured with one hand toward the wall, and the Spire beyond it, as if to prove his point. "You saw those reports of what happened to Marr’s fleet. There's no chance she made it."

"He swears up and down that he can feel her, or at least feel something where his bond with her was -- and he says it feels nothing like the broken bond he had with his mum.” Reanden grimaced, shifting forward in the seat. He rested his elbows on his thighs, fingers interlaced over his knees. “Look, I'm about as Force-sensitive as you and have no idea what a bond is supposed to feel like, but I trust my kid. He wouldn’t… offer hope where there isn’t any. He’s not that cruel." He shrugged. "At the least, I promised him I would do some snooping. Figured you'd be interested."

Sorand was a pretty sane, reasonable Sith, Theron knew. Unless the siege on Dromund Kaas had driven him completely insane… but Reanden, even with his clear biases toward his surviving children, should have been able to recognize that. So if Cipher Nine thought Imperius' hunch concerning a long-dead Jedi was worth investigating…

But if they're wrong? Theron raked a hand down his face as he stood up and paced to the window, then back again. "I can't do this," he heard himself whisper. "Getting my hopes up, and then finding out it was a false hope… I can't do that and lose her again." He had done that enough with the first reports of the infamous Outlander assassin, whispers of whom indicated they matched Xaja's description, unless there were other tiny, feisty redheaded women with blazing green eyes and blue lightsabers. Nothing had come out of that.

"What makes you think I can?" When Theron glanced over, he was struck by the tangible grief in Reanden's dark eyes, the sorrow making itself evident in the stoop of his shoulders. This wasn’t the Cipher Nine of legend, infamous saboteur and assassin -- this was a grief-stricken father. "My children mean everything to me, my daughter included. I need a confirmation, one way or another."

"Fuck," Theron muttered as he stared out the window for a moment longer, then finally looked back at Reanden. "If he's wrong and we're chasing a false hope, and she's still de-- still gone…"

"And if he's right, and Xaja's alive and in some sort of distress? Could you live with yourself if you didn't even try to help her?"

Help me, please…

Theron groaned and sat back down on the bed, the mattress creaking under his weight. Weird coincidence that Nine would show up with this new theory after last night's dream, he thought, and felt himself frown. The Force didn't operate in coincidences like this, did it? He wished he had Master Zho's guidance right then -- or Hells, even his mother. Somehow, he felt like Satele would at least offer some sort of advice. And he would take any answers he could get right now.

"I... dreamed about her last night," he heard himself admit quietly, before his brain quite caught up to his mouth. "It was different than the normal nightmares about her. She was… she was scared, and kept saying 'he's hurting me'. She didn't say who 'he' was, but…" He bitterly laughed and raked his hand through his hair. "And now I'm hearing her voice in the back of my head. I think I'm losing it."

When he finally looked back at Reanden, the older man was frowning in thought, clearly considering what Theron said. "Sorand thinks he felt her fear too," he added at length. "Said he could feel pain and cold -- thinks they might have been from her end of the bond. He didn't say anything about her being hurt by anyone though. I haven't been in contact with Korin, so I don't know if he's having dreams too."

"And you haven't…?"

"Pfft. Do I look like the type of person to have dreams from the Force?"

"You're as likely as me, old timer."

"One of us didn't get thirteen years of Jedi mind training as a kid." Reanden shrugged. "Not to mention you've been onworld longer. If Sorand's right, and Xaja's here, proximity probably can't hurt."

The idea that maybe, just maybe, Xaja was somewhere on this damned rock turned the spark of hope into a tiny flame in his chest. Theron closed his eyes against the sudden desperate yearning to have her in his arms right then, and for a moment was grateful Reanden couldn't sense his feelings. "You've got some sort of plan for looking, right?"

"I've got about forty percent of a plan," Reanden acknowledged. "You and Tee-Seven share what you've turned up so far, and we might have more of a plan before Lana turns up."

"Forty percent isn't much of a plan," Theron dubiously pointed out, not mentioning he was pretty sure he only had about five percent of a plan to search for Xaja himself… and only thirty percent of a plan to kill Arcann, which was rapidly being bumped down the priority list.

"This coming from the guy who blew up a Sith warship in his underwear."

"Never gonna live that down, am I?" Theron asked with a sigh as he made his way to the computer console, ignoring Reanden's smirk. "I've been doing recon around the Spire for the last few months…"