#SqarletTalks

[sqarletsworldlesswandering]

I'm sorry, but why does this starfolk look like Aven's legs decided to wander off without him?

All I can see now is the rest of him waking up in the morning, very confused and trying to figure out where in the world his legs got to.

I know this is a different starfolk, but I can't unsee it-

[sqarletsworldlesswandering]

Also bringing another Old AU I remembered.

Painful Wings, basically Body Horror AU where an absorption of a winged starfolk goes wrong for Edda.

Cue to her painfully getting wings and a tail. It's a bit silly now that I think about it... but it's fun!

Oh ouchie....

Beneficial to navigation? Yes.

Beneficial to mental and physical health...? Not so much.

...poor bby. Do starfolk have painkillers...?

[sqarletsworldlesswandering]

I know this is silly, but it's also kind of funny (at least in my mind).

I always feel slightly bad for leaving Edda and Aven in the Emerald Requiem and only running consecutive PoD attempts every time I hop on my current save. So, I'll take little "breaks" and walk them over to the Training Room or another zone for some "enrichment" while I practice platforming or combat. Some variety for our lil' star duo. Definitely not me projecting onto them.

[sqarletsworldlesswandering]

Also imagine the Duo... but sometimes goes wrong during fusion... and now Aven is gone but Edda have an extra pair of arms at least... and Aven still mentally aware of everything

AKA Duo fuses almost fully, but Edda and Aven are still separate so now they're kind of like a system because why not?

AKA When you think about it, Absorption can have some pretty messed up results.

Ooooooh dear, poor Aven just got the shortest end of the stick in existence-

At least he's still there mentally, though I can't imagine Edda is entirely thrilled about this development.

Yyyyyeah, Absorption has much potential to go...very poorly..... Almost makes you wonder if it played a hand in those fallen starfolk you run into around the world.

...Speaking of, you just reminded me of an idea I had before bed last night-

[sqarletsworldlesswandering]

Also another silly question related to Eclipsed:

What specific kind of starfolk are Edda, Aven and The General (?), and do said type have any lore?

I haven't come up with a name yet, possibly something like Wanderers? But The General is one of them, yes.

Lore wise, they were among the more prevalent Starfolk in the Old World, but at the start of the conflict, they died off significantly. The truth was, they were getting swarmed and targeted more than the others, because Wanderers were most frequently sentient, and had the highest potential to regain it. TOFA was afraid of the Starfolk as a whole, but was also perturbed by the notion that some specific Starfolk might not "stay under" so to speak. So They built into the conflict a particular hatred of Wanderers (and possibly a few other types? Not sure yet) to try and squash that potential threat.

We know how well that went.

[sqarletsworldlesswandering]

Swap-Climbing

Okay I gotta ramble about this, because apparently I'm not the only one who did it and I find it amusing:

Apparently, I've been watching too many platformers with extremely hard movement gimmicks, because for the life of me I keep overcomplicating movement in Worldless waaaay too much. Case in point - climbing long walls. I didn't realize you could sprint out of a wall jump. I thought the wall had to be attached to the ground. Enter a very perplexed Sqarlet trying to scale the main ascent in the Golden Spire using "swap climbing" - wall jump with Edda, double jump with Aven, wall jump, double jump, repeat ad infinitum et insanum. It worked, technically. Same thing for a couple other particularly pesky platforming sections.

It worked for the first couple things, but there's a timed gate in the Spire that I realized wasn't possible using a swap-climb. By this point, I had also attempted the Path of Determination a few times, and while the swap-climb never directly caused me any deaths, it sure made it hard to get over the barrier after the first wall climb. Cue the eventual epiphany, happiness and rejoicing, everything is fine now.

On to the bit I'm still actively cackling at: I'm contemplating what that would feel like to Edda and Aven, trying to execute this on their end. I can only assume it'd be... absolutely awful. Just... dizzying, disorienting, an even greater trial of patience than necessary, just all around awful. Aven is this close to walking away when Edda pauses, then says "I want to try one more thing." Wall jump, sprint, she lands, and 10 seconds of dead silence follows, shattered by Aven calmly sitting down, burying his face in a sand dune, and screaming into it for another 10 seconds. He spends the subsequent sprints upwards pouting, and initially refuses to snag the first grapple and lets them fall, so he can continue his sulk faceplanted in the ground like a Looney Toons character.

[sqarletsworldlesswandering]

Curious about somethin'

I have a silly question:

How do ya'll pronounce Edda and Aven?

I say "Ee-duh" and "Ah-vehn", but I've heard other pronunciations - in particular "Eh-duh" and "Aye-vehn."

[sqarletsworldlesswandering]

Note-Taking Run

I've been thinking of starting another Worldless run as an in-between to fighting Summum, and as per the heading, I wanted this one to be a "note-taking run," where-in I attempt to observe everything a little more carefully and catch any story-elements and hints that I missed. This is mostly for myself, but I'll probably post any results.

Having said that, is there anything anyone would like me to investigate or keep an eye out for specifically?

[sqarletsworldlesswandering]

*fishing around in the Void for my last brain cell*

[sqarletsworldlesswandering]

Also on Subnautica silliness... I can see the Duo being very confused about humans-

And Robin being VERY confused about them-

Bonus points if they retained some nonhuman traits.

Oh absolutely. They'd be extremely perplexed by most things about humans. If it's the canon duo, they'd be pretty perplexed by this whole "eating" and "sleeping" dealio. If it's Eclipsed, they're familiar with both concepts, but entirely unused to needing to do either one. They're also just...very unused to actually having to beat the crap out of something and then not absorbing it. And also not being able to conceivably win against something three times their size.

Meanwhile Robin is just over here like "...Alan what the heck is with these guys?" Alan has no clue either. He's just intrigued by what they used to be. Cue Robin having some very long, very confused and rabbit-traily conversations with our duo.

Oo, yeah, I wonder what traits they'd retain.... Aven's claws are the obvious one. Maybe they retained some of their magic too. Grapples and sprints, perhaps? Or at least Edda's dash. Physically if they retained some of their original coloration that'd be fascinating, especially in the eyes. Maybe their eyes glow....

[sqarletsworldlesswandering]

Figured I'd come up with an actual sona this time around, so here we have Specter!

Inkwells:

Inkwells are small, passive, and relatively harmless Light Starfolk. They also appear to be consistently either intelligent, or sentient in some right. They primarily observe their surroundings, and then record their findings using their essence and tail (Side note: Essence ink lasts a remarkably long time, bordering on indelible. It also lasts on most surfaces).

When sentient, they will record whatever they find interesting as they will, occasionally resulting in small caches of miscellaneous records wherever they've nested. Sentience is much less common.

However, when intelligent but not truly sentient, Inkwells often find (or are found by) a "patron" - someone who tells them what to record. This was common practice before the conflict, but currently few have need of such a commodity.

Inkwells are usually accompanied by Libellits - Dark Starfolk who contain their records. However, some - such as myself - do not have a companion. Instead, they record their observations on other surfaces such as rocks, leaves, and paper, opting for more durable materials. The Old World had a folk tradition of gifting an Inkwell without a Libellit something to write on, usually a small square of slate or paper. This was considered both polite and good luck.

[sqarletsworldlesswandering]

Stickers

Okay, mulling around designing some worldless "stickers" for fun - something unofficial (and obviously not monetized), but still something that people could print out on their own if they felt like it.

Do y'all have any thoughts on designs? I've got a couple in mind, but I'm also curious what y'all would like. Especially if you've got funny ideas.

[sqarletsworldlesswandering]

Hello there fellow Worldless Fan!

Got any fun headcanons or theories?

Hello hello! (Gosh y'all are so welcoming, I love it-)

Hrmmmmmm. I don't have a ton of headcanons (yet), but I can certainly come up with a few, lol. Mostly for the personality of our beloved duo.

Edda:

Strikes me as the more "professional" of the two (I mean, look at her idle-). However, this is more true early in the game, while we're still chasing Aven.

That said, when actually revving for a fight, she's more akin to a chihuahua in my head. Smol, but Will Fight You. Also true early on, and just takes on a more chaotic undertone as you progress and she has someone to Protect.

She has impulse control, and half the time knows something is a bad idea, but will do it anyway if she's riled up enough. This also tempers out a (very) little bit, and shifts from "I'm gonna do it anyway" to "Let's see if I can scare the living daylights out of Aven."

Has a serious playful streak, once she get's comfortable. Especially when dashing hither and thon and sprinting across water (Aven refuses to accept any challenges to a race after getting fooled once). I like to think this surfaces after merging with Aven, and that beforehand she was too focused on being "professional" to indulge. Aven gets her to chill a bit.

Aven:

The more casual, even-keel of the two, but early on also a bit chaotic compared to Edda's markedly militant undertones.

Also the more playful by default. He seems like he would have a good sense of humor.

That said, I also envision him as being a little more reserved up-front, given that after the initial awakening, he opts to run rather than fight. I always pictured that as a mix of fear, calculation, and reservation, with emphasis on the reservation since something very new just happened, and he needs to process that before he tries fighting the other participant in that.

(Edda: "He asked for no pickles.")

I also envision him as the rest of Edda's impulse control when her inner chihuahua wins out. This is also the part where he develops grey hairs every time she decides scaring him with a stunt would be fun.

Both Edda and Aven have their aggressive streaks, but where Edda has the aforementioned chihuahua vibes, Aven is more of a porcupine/cactus - he prickles at you, and glares at you, but would also like to deter you from starting the fight if he can, and if he can't, he ain't instigating.

Less of a personality note, but that scarf of his is somehow immune to water (joking off of how in-game it continues to flap underwater, and doesn't get soggy and weighed down), and Edda is jealous. (I would like to think that at least once she snags the end of it to use as an umbrella.)

Some other miscellaneous stuff:

Aven would 100% braid Edda's hair if she lets him (which she might, later on).

As much of a fuss as he makes of it, he doesn't actually mind her using his scarf as an umbrella (even though it doesn't work very well).

Aven is the one who likes taking time to explore, and encourages Edda to slow down and enjoy things (I base this largely off of how Edda has faster movement).

The fight with Angel? Yeah, Aven ends up taking back-seat for that one, and not even because he wanted to, but because Edda has found a Groove and he's not sure he wants to interfere with it.

A similar notion is true of fighting Demon, if for...different reasons. (Basing that both on the angst potential, and on the fact that I pretty much only used Aven for evasive maneuvers and fire in that fight.)

Anyways, that got long-

I will add more as more comes to me, and knowing me it will eventually, lol. Hope you enjoy the headcanons!

[sqarletsworldlesswandering]

Worldless AU: New Management

This is a concept, not a fully fleshed out AU per se, but I was toying with the idea.

What if Worldless wasn't the only one of their kind, and there were other "gods" so to speak?

More specifically, what if another of said gods took a good long look at what Worldless was doing, decided That Was Enough of That, and just....booted them from management. "Hi hello I'm yoinking your world because you refuse to take proper care of it. Bye."

I think this is effectively my attempt to create a preventative happily ever after style AU, tbh.

[sqarletsworldlesswandering]

Also silly Angel thingy!

Do you think they could fly?

Also how many wings do you think they have?

Yep! I think she can fly (especially since she straight up divebombs Edda). I'm a little unsure on wing count just yet. When I first looked at her in-game, I interpreted her as having one pair of wings. However, in retrospect, those could also be three pairs of wings? I think given the size of the wing pieces, I'm gonna say she has one pair - that "third" pair of wings is so small it wouldn't be a functional set, really. Nor would it serve the purpose that the third pair usually does on six winged angels.

As a side thought - it'd be fascinating if "Angel" was also kind of a group of starfolk, with subsets like Cherubim and Seraphim. Or maybe Seraph and Cherub are other types of starfolk alongside Angel? (I have a character design for one that I was messing around with, actually.)

If we put the strength order from strongest to weakest as Seraph, Cherub, Angel, then that would also provide a convenient worldbuilding justification for why Angel and Demon aren't on par power-wise.

[sqarletsworldlesswandering]

Also since my version of Edda has deuteranopia, and my version of Aven has VSS...

The vision-swap would be so, SO funny. It's complete utter confusion from both parties!

Like "WHY ARE THERE DOTS???? AND WHAT COLOUR IS THAT?!??!" and "WHY IS THE WALL YELLOW? IT WAS RED A FEW SECONDS AGO!"

Edda: By the stars this place isn't grey?!?!

Aven: Wait wait wait what do you mean this is how clear things normally are what is this-?!

Edda: Wait hold on, why is stuff so fuzzy though? What's with the dots??

Aven: I dunno I thought that was normal. Why is the Sanctuary not green anymore...?