#i actually think a lot about the whole memory and fragments thing too and the implications and specifics of it and the melding back to 100%

[jamiethebee]

[ORV Novel spoilers]

If Kim Dokja wasn't selfish, and split himself 50/50, and the system couldn't tell which one was the "real" one... Would the avatar with KimCom ever go into a coma? Would he have stayed awake and with them? Would there have been any push to do the group regression? Or would Yoo Joonghyuk and Han Sooyoung have gone by themselves regardless?

[fuk3d]

A Moment In Time

Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff (?)

Warning: Murder, Descriptions of blood, Major character death.

Word Count: 1.5k

A/N: Hey everyone. I really appreciate the support you guys gave on my last post, it was really overwhelming for me even though it might not seem a lot to most lol.

Chapter 1: Happy Birthday | Chapter 2: Distant Memories

Blood. 

Its smell is tang and metallic. Its colour is dangerous, fervent with connections of power, hatred, anger, and… death. 

Blood.

A fickle thing it is. In the way it stains, no matter the material. It stays, even when you try to get rid of it. But you already knew that didn’t you, [Name]?

“[Name] you must stay quiet, no matter what you hear and what you see, stay right here, please baby. Mama loves you” Your mother would say to you, the last thing she would ever say to you actually as she shoves you into the closet, shutting it with a harsh push before hurriedly walking away. Away from you. 

‘Don’t leave me’ you thought. 

Your small form had curled into itself in the dainty closet, small tremors compelling your whole body to quiver and shake. You were just a child back then, hiding away from the sounds of glass shattering, minute fragments of it scattering onto the hard-wood floors. Furniture could be heard crashing against the walls, multiple gruff voices penetrating through the sanctuary your mother had called your ‘safe space’. The sounds of her broken voice breaks through the closet barriers whilst she fights viciously, for the both of you. Still, all you could think about in that very moment was- 

When is mama coming back? How long has it been? Are they still here? Are they gonna hurt me too? Like how they’re hurting mama?

Your body couldn’t handle the stress, streams of whimpers and curt gasps escaping from your lips. You didn’t even know you were beginning to hyperventilate, your eyes blurred by the oval tears that had begun to collect. You couldn’t stop feeling, couldn’t stop hearing the sounds of struggling. You can’t breathe, can’t see, you can’t even hear what’s going outside beyond the closet. All you knew in that split second was that you needed to get out, smell the clean air before you went insane. 

And peculiar, how fate works in its twisted ways; it's almost like it could hear you, begging for a somewhat momentary release. The noise had died down, and everything had suddenly just come to a…. Stop.

Silence.  

No more were the sounds of screaming, yelling, and crying. Now, it was just you. 

You remember that night so clearly, every detail drilled through your head in a never-ending loop. 

And so, with much hesitation, you step out of the closet. Eye’s locked onto the horrific sight that had been laid in front of you. There lies your mother in a pool of her own blood, her eyes, like polished globes appeared lifeless, dead. You take a step, and then another one, then another, until you're standing in front of her. 

“Mama?” Your lips wobbled, legs buckling under the realisation that she was dead. You drop to your knees with a hard ‘thud!’, pain coursing through your little knees. Red starts to stain your clothing as the colour envelopes your tiny hands. Fluorescent red and blue gleam through the apartment. 

“Mama! Mama, wake up! The police are here, can you hear them? They’re coming to save you so you can stop pretending!!” You yell at her, attempting to pull at your mothers hand. Only to reel back from shock at how cold she felt. “Mama, why’re you so cold?” You put your soft hands on her own, feeling tears before it even registers in your mind that you’re crying. The transparent liquid sliding down your puffy cheeks, dripping at your chin before trickling onto the floorboards.   

The noises of your grieving reverberate off the worn down walls, the shuffling of heavy footsteps can be heard but you ignore it, too engrossed in your own mourning. When the police arrive at the designated area that you were in, they’re stunned by the sight. In the middle of all the broken glass and shattered furniture, was you and your mother.

You’re hastily carried away from her, a sick and uneasy feeling growing within your stomach when you see people gather her body and shove her into a body bag. 

What happens next is hazy. You fuzzily recall arriving at the police station and taken in immediately for questioning. They had asked if you knew who your dad was, to which you shook your head ‘no’, shaken by the awful tragedy that took place tonight. You think back to the two officers chatting to each other, just outside the room you were situated in. “Said they don’t know who their father is, poor thing. Must’ve been hard not having a dad.” A resounding slap could be heard as the officer scolds his friend with a coarse tone, “Keep your voice down will ya? You dickbag, they can hear us.” You remember their voices becoming distant, soft mutters of  ‘Alright! Alright!’  became nothing but background noise. 

After that, the police got you cleaned up before taking you down to a hospital lab, the people there extracting a sample of your DNA and swiftly sending it off for a paternity test. While they tossed you into an orphanage for a temporary stay. That's the system for you.  

It had been 6 weeks after that night, and during your abode at the orphanage, you had become entirely numb, both physically and mentally. You didn’t even attempt to make friends, too wrapped up within your own head about that night, about what went down. You completely shut down and refrained from opening up until one of the caregivers gave you a letter addressed to you. A black wax seal with a big, fancy W was engraved into. Curiosity akin to a cat, you unfurled the envelope, eyes lighting up with excitement when you realise that your father was Bruce Wayne. After all the traumatic shit you had gone through, you deserved to distract yourself from all the bad memories that had been plaguing you. 

Three days. 

 In three days, your dad (a word so foreign to you) will be taking you to your new home, where you’re safe, where you can sleep without any fear. 

Three days. 

Time seemed to feel prolonged, and it made you tense. You were so conscious of how skittish you had become over the course of three days. You just couldn’t sleep properly, couldn’t sit still at the thought of finally meeting Bruce Wayne, the man who was your father.

So, when the three day wait was up, you were dressed in your best attire (with what little clothes you own) and hurriedly made your way to the front of the orphanage, your cute suitcase in hand as a monochromatic  vehicle pulled up. You were basically jumping out of your shoes when you heard the car door open, only to realise that it wasn’t a man who looked to be your father. Actually, it was an elderly gentleman dressed in butler attire, with balding grey hair and a pale complexion. Huh, how disappointing.

You couldn’t help but frown, struggling to mask the disdain as he stepped towards you with an air of confidence. “You must be the child Bruce was talking about.” Huh? Why did he say it like that? Where was your dad? “My name is Alfred, I am your family butler.” 

Your lips stretched down into an impossibly deeper frown. “Okay… but, where’s my dad?” You questioned, awaiting his answer as Alfred cleared his throat. “Your father is… busy as of right now. He’s attending to matters regarding work. I hope you forgive him for his improper timing Young [Name].” Alfred dips his head, mimicking something similar to a bow while you poorly nodded at your family butler– Alfred. You stay silent as you step inside the car, Alfred shuts the door while he gets into the driver seat, the car's engine roaring thunderously as it shakes the vehicle. 

You look out the window, eyes reflecting off the glass whilst the people and buildings blend in together. Gotham was such a dull place, monochrome colours mixing into each other. It was the only region that was able to turn its own people into vile, foul, and disgusting human beings disguised in sheep's clothing. It was the only region that could turn its people into villains and monsters. And it certainly had a habit of making the people with the most potential suffer a fate worse than death. Just like you. 

Why didn’t my dad pick me up instead? What was so important that he couldn’t even meet me himself? What’s going to happen to m-

No. You shouldn’t think like that, you wouldn’t think like that. You’re sure it was just an accident, a slip up, a one time thing right? It doesn’t matter, as long as he’s your dad and as long as he cares right?

‘Right’ you affirm to yourself. Your confidence comes back, you're excited once again. 

If I can’t meet him at the orphanage, I can just meet him at my new home, right?

You really couldn’t wait. You couldn’t wait to meet your new family and you couldn’t wait to see your new home. 

“We’ve arrived Young [Name].”

@strwberryglass

End Note: Okay so I was contemplating if I should continue this further because I didn't want to start a piece of writing just to lose the motivation or interest. I want to do this for myself and not for the sake of writing for others (no offence). Anyway, thank you for reading!

Also, updates are going to be pretty slow since I'm starting school next week! So please hold on until then :)

[hiiragi7]

Things I've experienced post-Final Fusion:

All of a sudden, the days felt really... really... really long. I never really felt like there was any time in the day prior to final fusion; living my life in parts, I had never experienced such continuous flow of time before. It's long.

It feels like I now have a lot more time to do things in the day, and I have to be careful not to push myself too hard. I've found myself being online less and less and getting a lot more involved in my offline hobbies and reading. I have a lot more time to work towards things I want to do.

I can actually think about and plan for the future now, and it's incredibly exciting. I talk to my partner constantly about it. I am very excited about the future.

I can remember so much more of my childhood, things I never thought I would ever remember I now do. That being said, there are still things I don't remember, likely tied to other memory issues, and I've made my peace with that.

While my memory certainly got significantly better in many ways, I've realized I struggle with non-dissociative memory issues as well, and I will live with those issues for the rest of my life; it's just how my brain developed, and that's okay.

Speaking of memory, I can remember things freely that before were limited to the memory banks of my individual parts. I no longer have to worry about what parts hold which memories and go about tracking them down; I as a whole either remember something or I don't, and of my memories, I can remember any of them whenever I want.

I feel a sense of ownership over my life, over my memories and my sense of self and my body. I can look at it all and very confidently say "that's me", and I feel and know it to be 100% true. A long way away from not being able to recognize myself in the mirror.

I can't dissociatively "take a break" from life the way I used to (ie switching out and letting another part handle it), and while it took a long adjustment period to get used to this, I'm okay with that; I have other ways to take breaks while still being present, I can listen to music or watch videos. If I really just need to be unconscious, I take a nap.

I had to come to terms with the fact I couldn't push myself past my limits anymore in the way that I used to, and that this is in fact an expression of self-care for me. I used to be able to push far past what I should have been able to, especially with regards to physical pain, and to some extent I can still do this under specific circumstances, but it is no longer something that I will do in my day-to-day life living with disability and chronic pain.

Actually existing in my body now, I have come to realize just how much chronic pain I have been in. It's made me a lot more alert to my needs and how to care for myself, what makes it better and what makes it worse.

When people say "there's always a chance you'll split again", it doesn't scare me; it comforts me to know my brain would still know how to cope if such an extreme situation occured that I needed to split again. I've worked through dissociative barriers, I could do it again. I know what lies at the end of that path is love.

No part of me has ever gone away. Even fully fused, we are all still here. I can even still communicate with myself as parts if I choose to. I still have parts, they just look different now. There are no barriers between us.

My parts held a lot of different aspects of my identity to them, aspects I'm still to this day sorting out. I've had a lot of realizations about who I am as a person post-final fusion, especially with regards to gender and disability. A lot of things about myself were formerly very heavily fragmented and dissociated which no longer are, and I'm still making sense of them.

I no longer experience flashbacks and nightmares. This is a major thing for me I sometimes still am in disbelief about, my nightmares used to be so severe that I would refuse to sleep because of them, and my flashbacks were horrible and caused very intense physical sensations. I no longer have them, and that's incredible.

Life is so much more vivid and colorful than I ever realized. I never realized how dull everything felt and looked before final fusion. It feels like a complete perspective shift that is hard to grasp in words.

I can feel my body so much more now physically than I ever could before. I feel each of my limbs, I feel changes in temperature, I feel my own breath, I feel different textures and sensations, everything I hear and see and feel and taste has so much more depth to it now.

I have emotions! A whole lot of them, and I can feel all of them. I can feel emotions that might be percieved as "contradictory" at the same time, I can feel emotions over little things and big things and just about anything at all. I'm no longer limited to feeling my emotions in parts, and it's incredibly freeing.

On that note, I have so much more emotional capacity now for feeling all of the love I have for myself and others. It's wonderful. I can't shut up about it.

[thelivingautomaton]

MANNNNNNNNN ok. not to get my SEVERANCE brainworms all over the place but i literally cannot stop thinking about this show. also i keep reading theories on reddit and some of them are really good and some are unbelievably stupid/media-illiterate. so i am dumping my wild predictions/theorizing/thoughts on season 2 here. Please Enjoy Every Bullet Point Equally(TM)

OKAY let's get the big one out of the way: it seems pretty apparent now that cold harbor (and maybe all of the datasets mdr is given to "refine") is binning memories/experiences/brainwaves into severance chips, likely in order to reformat or rebuild someone's personality from the ground up.

this reddit post sums a lot of the evidence up but tl;dr you see an electron microscopy image of neural axons, as well as an etCO2 statistic, which is typically used to monitor respiration of someone who's in a coma or on ventilation

MOREOVER, the four aspects of mdr's data line up with kier eagan's four tempers (woe, frolic, dread, malice -- i've also seen it pointed out that this aligns with the four mdr workers, and in the original pilot script there's a reference to "needing" four workers, but iirc they all work on separate files??), and apparently one of his Whole Things(TM) was the idea that you can neatly sort a person's entire personality into those four boxes

the numbers provoke an emotional response in the refiner based on their interpretation of the data, which we can surmise is likely neural/electrical signals of some kind, specifically from brains that have been frozen or cryogenically preserved and are slowly being thawed. hence all the stress over "finishing" files on time, before they "expire" (i.e. brain thaws too much)

the opening credits for season 2 places a HUGE emphasis on big swollen misshapen heads, on brains, and also on ice...including a blink-and-you-miss-it glimpse of a crashed car sinking into the ice, which takes us into our next big point:

gemma obviously didn't die in the car crash BUT!!! lumon taking her and (presumably) replacing her body with a double (mark says he identified her but that she was also "burned" so that's obviously questionable) was actually something of a random fluke. for whatever reason the circumstances of her death made it so that she was ideal to use as a guinea pig for "part-time employment"

again, kind of going off the s2 opening credits here and the image of the car sinking into the ice -- obvs mark visited the tree where she crashed, but i feel like i remember he had to drive on a bridge overlooking a body of water to get there? maybe gemma and the car both fell in and were frozen (since everything in SEVERANCE apparently happens in the wintertime, lol)

i mean, it wouldn't surprise me if we learn that the car accident was "arranged" by lumon??? (either purely to harvest bodies or potentially if gemma turns out to have been involved in anti-eagan stuff on the DL) but idk, i don't love the idea cos i don't like it when shows try to tie LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE THING together into the big overarching mystery, y'know? like, some things are really just down to dumb luck and chance

i also don't think miss casey herself is a clone of gemma, so either her body was WAY less fucked up by the car crash physically than we might otherwise think, or lumon has some top-secret super-healing tech on the testing floor. maybe both!

ANYWAY, remember "allentown"? mark s's first-day fluke, where he completed a file in one day? that was him refining gemma into miss casey the first time around. YADDA YADDA LOVE TRANSCENDS SEVERANCE he literally put the splintered icy fragments of his dead wife back together again because she LIVES IN HIS VEINS guys. and now he's doing it AGAIN with cold harbor. this is why lumon was so desperate to keep him around even while they fired irving and dylan at the drop of a hat: they know he can get the job done, ESPECIALLY when it comes to working on gemma/miss casey. (see also: mark w commenting about how his team from the branch that shut down never made quota)

i've seen the idea tossed around that all the refiners are assigned to someone who was emotionally close to their outie (e.g. irving's deceased father) but i really don't think that's the case -- like, dylan says mark's freshman fluke let lumon devise new techniques for refining to cut down on the time it takes to finish a file, and istg i can see it perfectly in my head: cobel asking mark s how the FUCK he managed to do that and him just being like "i don't know, the numbers looked...scary??????" and her just. rolling with it.

(also i feel like that's why dylan's generally a good refiner -- he can read people! his outie knew what to say and how to act to impress the door factory guy in s2e2!)

so lumon really really needs cold harbor to work. if it's not because they care about gemma SPECIFICALLY for some secret reason, it must be that they care about the technique. lumon (i.e. the board and/or the eagan family), like so many corporate overlords before them, are selling immortality.

i'm on the fence about whether they're trying to resurrect/immortalize kier eagan specifically -- like it would make the most thematic sense, and they have a ton of material FROM his life certainly to work with, but he's supposed to have died in 1939 and cryonics tech just wasn't advanced enough at the time. but also the world of SEVERANCE is pretty distinct from our own so i guess it's plausible

i feel much more confident in saying they're trying to get the technique working specifically for the sake of current ceo jame eagan, who is an old decrepit fart. imo the "revolving" he mentions to helly in the s1 finale is key to this -- like, it kind of sounds like eagan-speak for rotating through/swapping into a new body???

this MIGHT be where the idea of cloning becomes involved, which i can see supported by the emphasis in the s2 opening credits on babies (including baby kier at the end ofc), but i also just had the even more fucked up thought that what if the end goal is to upload the eagans' personalities (and those of their chosen cronies) into the bodies of severed workers. hence the continued necessity for a severed working underclass as well as their ruling higher-ups -- it's a body farm, an endless cycle of severed workers toiling away to let the rich live on and then having their bodies/minds/souls co-opted when they've lost their other utility. oh my god helly was right THEY LITERALLY ARE LIVESTOCK

guys holy shit what if the season ends with jame (or KIER) eagan's personality getting uploaded into miss casey's chip and overwriting miss casey (and also gemma?? idk i feel like mark scout/mark s are both going to have to come to terms with the idea that gemma as she was is capital-g Gone, even if her body and brain are still sort of alive). and then season 3 has dichen lachman chewing the scenery as creepy old man eagan. I THINK IT WOULD BE FUN AND ALSO FUCKED UP

okay so what about cobel, right? like, obviously she's been drinking the eagan kool-aid, she is All In on immortalizing kier (or jame or whoever). but there's more to it than that!!! she's the one harping on about reintegration being real and possible, AND she's desperate seeking for any signs of it during mark s and miss casey's wellness sessions. why? cobel wants to revive her mother charlotte (we see her medical tag on cobel's eagan shrine), but she wants HER MOTHER, not a blank slate -- in other words she's rooting for the chips to not function properly in order to truly resurrect someone who's been dead

in particular i think this is why she flipped her lid on mark at the end of s2e2 when he asked what she knew about gemma -- like, idk maybe it's confirmation bias at play but to me her primal scream felt like it was coming from a place of...jealousy? like, "how DARE you ask me that, how are YOU the one who's allowed to get your loved one back and I'M being promoted up the ladder so lumon can get me out of the way even though MY motivations are pure". that kind of thing

cobel's attitude towards lumon and helena in s2e2 is SUUUUUUPER ambiguous -- i think she's going to turn from outright enemy into kind of a weird "enemy of my enemy is my friend" thing this season?? especially since i got the feeling that she really did kind of care about mark and devon in her own supremely weird, fucked-up way

oh god you guys. what if her "mrs selvig" persona was cobel imitating her own mother, mid-atlantic accent and corny outdated references to clark gable and all. FUCK

also the fact that she's looking for miss casey and mark s to remember each other implies that reintegration is possible even without outside interference with the chip itself (i.e. however reghabi reintegrated petey). and you know what?

i think she's right.

THE BIG BOY THEORY: MARK SCOUT AND MARK S WILL START TO SPONTANEOUSLY REINTEGRATE THIS SEASON

i will live and die on this hill, ben stiller i swear to FUCK

what's the overriding symbolism in the season 1 opening credits?? the line between innie and outie is porous (or "mushy", if you will). black sludge seeping from the trash cans that's made of all your other selves (also reflecting how irving dreams of his outie's black paint). mark's innie and outie selves constantly chasing circles around one another until at the end they both collapse on the bed...and then collapse together as a single person.

what's the overriding symbolism in the season 2 opening credits???? not just "mark scout, i.e. mark in red pajamas, delving into lumon's mysteries", not just "mushy confusion of innie and outie feelings re: helly and miss casey" -- mark's innie and outie selves working together. innie mark pulling outie mark out of the severance chip. innie mark hoisting up the curtain dividing outer and inner worlds to let outie mark through. innie mark CARRYING OUTIE MARK IN HIS ARMS. do you see the fucking vision.

of course that's also coupled with the final image of the credits: mark bursting through and out of his own head. which i think emphasizes that there's going to be conflict as well as cooperation between mark's disparate selves (especially when it comes to everything involving the helly/mark/casey love triangle)

why did mark look like he was having a goddamn seizure when he was coming down the elevator. why did he glimpse a mysterious figure following him in the hallway. WHY THE FUCK WAS HIS VERY FIRST INSTINCT TO BOLT FOR WELLNESS AND LOOK FOR MISS CASEY!!!!! (okay this could also conceivably be due to him yelling to devon that she was alive literally one second ago but still)

i think mark's "spontaneous reintegration" is also more or less an insane fluke, basically a product of the fact that he's now working on gemma/miss casey's refinement data AGAIN and both his innie and outie selves are starting to blur together regarding their shock and turmoil over the realization that gemma is alive (and probably loads of other stuff too while we're at it).

but idk, maybe spontaneous reintegration also occurs naturally over time? irving is also having some bleed-through and iirc he's been at lumon the longest of all of them

shit dude. what if outie burt ALSO has bleed-through and that's why he followed irving and was crying. honestly what the fuck was even the deal with that, i don't know!!!!

anyway i imagine that "spontaneous reintegration" would really put a kibosh in lumon's plans to permanently rewire and wipe the brains of severed folks in order to pave the way for an immortal ruling class. also i thought the way they did petey's hallucinatory flip-flopping between his lives/selves was awesome and i would like more of that, please. (also: i miss petey, y'all)

i think if they do end up going this route it's gonna be spoonfed to us pretty slowly though -- like, s2 will slowly build up the mystery of "what the fuck's going on with mark reintegrating", then s3 is his two selves coming to terms with...All Of That

those are all of my big idea theories but i also have some smaller bullet points to address:

dylan's gonna visit his family in the """visitation suite""" and it 100% is going to be paid lumon actors. and the giveaway is gonna come at the end of the episode when we cut back to outie dylan's life and his wife (or one of his other kids, who knows) is terminally sick (maybe wheelchair- or bed-bound?), hence outie dylan's desperation to find another job post-firing

that is one million percent helena eagan down on the severed floor (although i can see the argument for it being helly r and she's just not comfortable sharing her real experience on the outside). her shady story aside, i think britt lower is CRUSHING IT as "helena pretending to be helly but it's kind of off-putting and fake because it's helena's idea of how helly would behave". like, it's giving me the same vibes as in FRINGE when fauxlivia pretends to be olivia and then seduces/sleeps with peter. real ones know

RICKEN IS NOT A FUCKING SECRET EAGAN!!!!!! DEVON IS NOT SECRETLY IN ON ANYTHING (besides keeping her brother safe)!!!!!! HIS FRIENDS ARE JUST PRETENTIOUS SHITHEELS!!!!!!!!!!!!

as much as i would literally chew glass (positive) for mark s and miss casey to be A Thing, i feel like narratively and thematically it's not gonna work with the show's overarching themes of like, struggling to process grief and selfhood and figuring out what makes you you (or someone else their own independent self). gemma is Gone and you can't bring her back and you can't cut yourself off from the grief and the pain. mark has to reintegrate (literally and metaphorically/emotionally) in order to resolve his issues and move on

this show is so!!!!!! OOOOOUUUUGGGGHHGHGHH

[connorsnothereeither]

OH I realised today that I never actually explained the “Ulysses was originally a rabbit” joke… so here’s that explanation/behind the scenes on his character creation lol-

When I was first invited to join Fable as a cast member and create my own character for the world, I spent some time spitballing ideas. All the new cast were given a lot of wiggle room to build our little guys, and so I came up with 3 concept character pitches, which each could have explored different areas of the server’s lore that we hadn’t gotten a huge glimpse into in the first 2 seasons:

Character #1 was the aforementioned rabbit, named Tamlin! Although maybe rabbit isn’t quite accurate, he was a Jackalope hybrid. He was the most developed of the pitches I came up with, and I think I described him as “Alice in Wonderland’s White Rabbit meets Celtic Mythology/the Fae”. He would have been more Nature-Fam (specifically c!Jamie) adjacent, being a rabbit hybrid created by Deltavera, as a sort of assistant/companion. Narratively he functioned almost as a foil to c!Ven, being an assistant to Delta rather than Fable. He would have been driven mad by Fable to some extent after Delta’s death (we hadn’t decided on how exactly, at that point in time) and leaned hard into the Wonderland tea/madness/whimsical aspect. His purpose story-wise would have been to help c!Jamie learn about Deltavera over time, both of them unlocking pieces of the past together in scattered fragments, ending with Tamlin getting all of his memories back.

Character #2 was a piglin, I think? Or at the very least some kind of Nether Hybrid. They would have been a Nether soldier that fully deserted both sides of the war, and was living undercover in the Overworld as a fugitive while trying to fend off zombification. His working name was “Asmodius” or “Azzy”, and a lot of his characterisation and the idea of his family coming with him was eventually folded directly into the Tuskly’s as NPC’s!

Character #3 was an unnamed Telchin. He was originally solely a warrior, inspired by the Iliad, rather than the Odyssey, specifically Prince Hector of Troy. A soldier who had spent decades fighting and being hardened and calloused only to defend a city that was always doomed to fall. I didn’t want to interfere with the scientist side of the Telchin, since that was very much Metta and Ocie’s thing, so I intentionally tried to steer clear of that, and lean hard into the war-time aspect of the telchin, and the idea of the rest of society collapsing while the scientists worked on the projects.

In the end, there was a bunch of reasons the characters didn’t pan out.

Tamlin was ultimately just not narratively necessary? c!Jamie could find out most of those things on his own, and as Deltavera was developed into the more lovable “I only talk to animals” loner, it felt weird for him to have an assistant. Logistically it would also have been difficult for me to act as both Tamlin and Delta in any cutscenes lmao. As much as I liked the wacky Mad Hatter rabbit hybrid vibes, it also made him overlap just a little too much with what c!Haley had become. Certain elements were reused for Ulysses though, like the fragmented memories, and the “tea obsession” was changed to the “kelp obsession” at the beginning of the season, etc.

Asmodius just wasn’t as developed as a character, and I didn’t think he could hold water for the whole season. Not to mention Athena and Ocie were both expanding on the Nether aspect of the world though c!Athena and Oscar’s backstory, and I didn’t think I was bringing anything new enough that fully justified his existence as a character beyond the initial concept (hence why it was given to the Tuskly’s, specifically Wilkins, since at the time there was only ever going to be him as the only Tuskly).

I actually think it was Heyhay that approached me about expanding the Telchin idea? Maybe? It was a while ago now. I was really excited to be given the invite to take part in the established scientist/project lore that had been developed in s2, because it was something they’d really been building up, basically with the pitch of “hey… you like horror stuff right? *points at Brink* We have some horrors to witness” lol. I got to really go all in on the Frankenstein meets Greek Mythology angle, and finding a way to transition someone from a soldier to a scientist was what led to the medic/doctor angle, and examining what drives a once person to do the things Ulysses did, and experiment on a god they worshipped. The letter of regret about Project Leviathan was the first time I really got a feel for writing Ulysses as a character, and I instantly became very attached. Like, as much as the other ideas for him would have been fun, I would not trade the character he became and the development of him behind the scenes for the world, he is the best character outcome I could have hoped for when joining Fable ✨

[sae-something]

I've been thinking about how my experience of parts shifted over the last year or so and I want to put it in word but there are no words. It's like there's still the 'old' crew of parts I figured out at first, the ones with names, the ones that by now feel familiar. I used to separate those parts into daily life and trauma parts, or whatever, but I'm coming to think that.. maybe all of them are daily life, in the sense that they're like the outer shell of it all.

It's like an outward shield of parts - Sae (& daily life variations), britney, pip, little sae, eva, marieke/esra (though not sure about them), the mara's, some others... They're the outside bubble. Underneath that, it's almost like tree branches that just go deeper and deeper until at the bottom of it there's just so, so many fragments.

I'm pretty close to britney most of the time and we appreciate each other, but sometimes suddenly a part shows up that really feels like britney from 5+ years ago, but it's not britney, because as it happens britney is 'with me', commenting things like "wtf that's not me, I don't do things like that anymore". So then it's just... a britney-adjacent part from further below the surface, I guess?

(I'm really making all of this up as I'm writing this post, so don't pin me down on any of this)

I think a lot of the general high school feelings are also britney-adjacent. All the 'little girls' that hold the mom stuff are eva-adjecent. All the youngest attachment pain belong to so many fragments 'below' little sae (and obviously the baby). Marieke/Esra is strongly tied to primary school (the second) and being sick, and I don't really know much about that whole time period yet so not sure about the parts situation.

I think it could actually be narrowed down even further - technically Eva is already one level 'below' the outer shell of Little sae, I guess. Vuur and the Mara's (big + little one) could 'belong' to britney.

The only one I don't know about is Pip. She's like a little island. All alone. The only one (?) that holds more positive and warm memories of our parents, though those have felt completely non-existent. At some point HT even asked where Pip was, but Pip just feels... deflated. Which I guess makes sense since we went NC with our parents.

Anyway. I'm not sure at all about any of this. I guess my main thing is that all of it has just become so much more fluent. There's too many fragments to keep track of. In therapy, A never asks who's around, she just moves with whoever shows up, whatever the vibe is, and whatever anyone wants to talk about. There's often a lot of parts shifting in and out during therapy, jumping from one place to the next. I really admire A's abilities to keep track of whatever thread/topic we're talking about because I often fall silent in the middle of it all, and then A gently nudges me back to wherever it was I got stuck.

It does help that I'm really able to stay present for almost all of it now. Sudden and intense flashbacks and the deepest attachment pain aside, I always feel I'm still there at least a little bit. I finally understand what A meant all those years as she kept telling me "it only works if you can stay with it". For the longest time that felt like she refused to talk to other parts, or that she thought there are no parts... now I realise that she just wants us to do it together.

I don't know man. I'll probably be neck deep in denial and unable to talk about any of this again soon. It just feels so much different than it did before. I think I felt a lot of pressure to know all parts or know who's who, but reality is... often I don't. I just try to be there for whatever shows up. Some fragments stick - 'the girl with the pain', 'the one with the plushie between her legs', stuff like that. I recognize those and we (as parts, but also with HT and A) make sure to remember them, hold them, go back to them. But it feels entirely impossible (and not needed? though I do feel shame about that) to name all fragments and keep track of them.

I do have a lot of fear still of 'losing parts', but A keeps reminding me that nothing can truly disappear. Everyone will remain inside me until they feel safe enough to come back. Gonna stop writing now because I'm getting antsy and anxious about all this. I don't even know why I'm sharing this, maybe someone might relate, I guess, maybe someone might read this and feel less alone.

[therantingsage]

Misc additional observations/notes relating to the implication analysis post that I either forgot to add or omitted for pacing reasons.

This one's embarrassing to admit, but I literally did not remember this until the post was done and posted:

N being bad at keeping things to himself is literally the first thing we learn about him when he starts talking. "Inclusive reflexes" isn't what teaches Uzi this, it's literally the first thing she finds out about his character, so she has no excuse. There is no plausible deniability she knows her boyfriend can't keep secrets.

((Unrelated to anything but since I'm talking about the pilot like. Why does he fan himself here. Dude you don't even have feelings for her yet bro what's this about. Guy who really likes strong personalities I guess))

N's tiny little smile in Promening when Uzi admits to wanting his help. He's like, critically underappreciated by the people around him before this so Uzi reaching out to him here must be so meaningful to him. He wants to be helpful and she's letting him be.

And Uzi, too, despite being stubborn about it. N being so eager to offer help in the first place isn't something she's used to, either. I'm pretty sure the (correct) general consensus is that this is the episode she falls for him, and honestly all the blushing has very little to do with why I think that's the case.

Because, like...no one really bothered even pretending to get along with her. Like, aside from Thad, but that's for like one scene total before N enters the picture, and Uzi's "how do you know my name, people willingly talk to you" implies to me that they didn't have a lot of, if any, meaningful interactions before that point anyway. And then here comes N, who despite how they'd parted, doesn't even seem upset with her. They both spent their time apart terrified of things being bad between them....but it all just melts away when they reunite and the mutual genuine concern shines through. It's great.

N maybe has fragments of memories of life at the manor, not a lot, but he probably has the vague sense that people used to be nicer to him in general. So it's not as foreign to him. Uzi does not have that luxury so having N be so enthusiastically in her corner definitely touches her heart. And it shows through in how she interacts with him in this episode.

There's lots and lots of little moments in Cabin Fever that I like but this tiny sheepish blush is a funny one. Like he just. Alluded to talking about her. And that flusters her for some reason. We have no idea how much time has actually passed since the last episode but its clear from how little it takes for this reaction to happen that her feelings have grown stronger. She likes him and its cute.

This scene is one I want to talk about in more detail, though. Home establishes that V still has faint lingering feelings for N, so it's not that hard to assume that her behavior here is at least partially motivated by jealousy. She's petty and vindictive and jealous...but most importantly she's perceptive.

Uzi has abandonment issues, which I think is easy enough to understand so I'm not going to elaborate on it. But V figured that out, and makes this threat with the knowledge that Uzi is worried about being abandoned. Uzi fears the idea that she wouldn't be missed if she disappeared, and here comes V, claiming that the one person she cares most about wouldn't care either. Hitting her where it hurts, trying to convince her that her fears are justified and inevitable.

It's likely that this moment contributes to her eventually going feral. That the stress overheats her faster.

She's incredibly vulnerable, when she snaps out of it. Shares that specific fear with N, who reassures her. Because this whole scene is him telling her that no, he wouldn't be able to just get over it if she was gone, because their brief time apart in this single episode was already something that scared him. That she's already become important enough to him that her absence was keenly felt.

It's probably around here, or a bit after this point in the nebulous timeskip between this episode and the next, that N falls for her. Scratch that, his whole speech, as I said in the prior post, just...really feels like some kind of romantic-adjacent confession. But I don't think it WAS explicitly them confessing feelings for each other. N figures out he likes her in this episode I'd like to think, but that speech was the closest he could come to admitting that. Cuz. Y'know. Uzi needs reassurance in other ways right now, no point in muddying the issue.

((and also not news to anybody I'm sure but the song that plays during that scene is LITERALLY called 'Falling...for you??' so. y'know. hindsight is 20/20 this is genuinely the moment he realizes his feelings for her are romantic))

And additional thing I like that I think about a lot, but the way he deliberately choses to switch his hands to claws when he pries her wings open. "I'm a monster, leave me be" she says, to which he replies "Hey, look, I am too, see? It's ok". It's great, he's mirroring, trying to make her feel seen. And by the vulnerability of her next line, it works. They really just, understand each other so damn well.

Home stuff. The fact that the first word that comes to mind to describe him is 'cute' is funny enough, but the fact that she even goes so far as to SAY it out loud before hastily correcting herself. Looking at her bf's baby pictures-coded. Has to keep her image up tho, this version doesn't know her so she can't be too weird or open about it.

But she still wants this version to think she's cool cuz she's a dork who likes him. It's unclear how much of this episode is diegetic when you subtract Uzi, but since these are memories and not proper time travel, we don't know to what extent Uzi's trying to avoid affecting the events. She might not care at all. Did the real N even go down to that basement willingly at any point? I doubt it. But we don't know! And also that's not what I'm making this post to talk about.

Funny Solvercam-Uzi body language on display. Delighted he recognizes her finally, spits out something edgy to play it cool (genuinely my favorite Uzi line of all time), sheepishly looks back at him, and shyly averts her gaze when he thanks her before looking back. Had she her regular face I'm sure she'd be smiling and blushing about it. It's cute as hell. It's very open delight, when you think about it. But still awkwardly teenage. It's easy to see this and have it make a whole lotta sense if they were already dating at this point. Got that meaningful eye contact going on. She likes making him happy so she's proud she succeeded.

Him trying to help steady her when they land. She blushes and slaps his hand away like 'dude I'm fine people are LOOKING at us stoooooop >:('

Her tail chewing on him is fine tho because we don't know if she controls it fully or if it does things subconsciously. And also the others aren't actually looking at them in this shot. Neither of them make the tail stop chewing so at the very least N doesn't mind.

Still flustered easily when he shows her he cares tho. Early-relationship 'hehehe he likes meeee' moment, adorable. Still clearly giddy that someone cares about her.

He's so conflicted after 'Tessa' tells him Uzi needs to die. He loves her, he loves her so so much, but Tessa is his oldest friend. All the memories he has of her paint a picture of someone he's supposed to listen to. Someone he can trust. Someone who wouldn't lie to him. He spends the rest of this episode bracing himself for a goodbye he doesn't want to give and its heartbreaking.

And despite his fear...Uzi still manages to comfort him the best way she knows how. And it gets him to smile! Because that's what the two of them are to each other. He's scared...but she's with him, so its less scary.

They've both caught up to the moment. 'Oh. We're still holding hands while the other two can see oh god'. They're both tight-lipped. She bumps him and they let go, maybe N thinks 'oh, right, yeah, not in public' but then they hold hands again but with intent this time.

And once again, it gets N to smile! And a second later Uzi does too! Awkward little moment of intimacy that must be so refreshing for them because there's so much heavy stuff happening but now they get to be distracted thinking about something lower-stakes.

To me, this bit is an interesting parallel to the Cabin Fever falling scene. He tends to be pretty perceptive about Uzi's worries. He's a good listener. Uzi fears abandonment, he fires back with a promise to stay with her.

But here, the thing Uzi fears is that things are being kept from her. That these two are keeping secrets from her. But instead of assuring her that they'll talk later, like they said they would, he instead chooses to use this moment to put his foot down with 'Tessa'. He just lost V maybe, and he's not willing to lose Uzi too, so he's decided she must be wrong about this being the only solution to the problem.

Up until that very moment, she didn't realize hurting her was on the table. It comes out of nowhere, freaks her out, and confirms her fear that she's not being told something. So she runs.

And the guilt he feels for scaring her off is heartbreaking. Half this episode is limb-chopping, genuinely, so the fact that he chooses this bone-saw to cut himself free instead of the litany of other things he has that he knows are quicker can't be a coincidence. He's punishing himself. And, additionally, probably reminding himself of V, hiding things because he worries the truth will hurt. Which makes the V hologram showing up moments later thematically very appropriate.

Can't add anymore pictures to this so maybe I'll make a part three later lol

[blurglesmurfklaine]

Truth be told, Jack doesn’t remember the eight seconds he spent on the bronco’s back.

If any moon-eyed fangirls come up to him and ask about it, he plans on giving the standard blanket responses, like all he heard was the roar of the crowd.

In actuality, all he has are fragments from right before the livestock hands pulled that gate. It’s hard to forget that kind of anticipation racing through his veins, the sawing sound of rope pinning his riding glove to the back of the horse as Jack grit his teeth, ordering Racer to pull it even tighter.

Everything else, like the sickening crack from his head slamming against Midnight Train’s spine that made the audience cringe in horror, was told to him second hand. 

The trainer who checked him out gave him a lot of medical jargon he wasn’t too familiar with, but Jack gathered the important stuff. No riding for three days, get plenty of rest, neither of which he has any intention of following. And of course, there was the whole spiel about concussions affecting memory.

Imprinted in his is the face of one of the pick-up men as Jack faded in and out of consciousness, stern and cool and steady. He can nearly still feel strong arms around him, keeping him from falling into the dirt of the arena, can still hear the New York accent reassuringly mutter, “I’ve got you… I’ve got you.”

So if Jack can’t stop thinking of the pick-up man who hauled his limp body from the horse into his lap, he’s chalking it up to brain damage. 

He’s been named Rookie of The Year for Bareback Riding—Jack Kelly can’t afford to be distracted by any potential flings. 

And still, every time he blinks, that face is waiting for him just behind his eyelids.

It’s the longest, most agonizing twenty-four hours before an opportunity to make a bad decision presents itself to Jack. He usually doesn’t make it that long. He also usually doesn’t go that long without visiting Dancer, but his body needed to recover after being thrown off that horse in the arena. 

The first thing that greets Jack when he enters the stables is the very same face that’s been stuck in his mind since yesterday. The pick-up man is reaching up, brushing the soft golden mane of the quarter horse that pulled Jack off the bronco.

“Fancy meeting you here,” he greets, drawing up his most charming first-impressions smile.

“In the stables?” asks the pick-up man. Not an ounce of his attention dedicated to brushing his horse’s long blond mane is redirected to Jack. “Pretty sure this is the least fancy place to meet someone.”

“It’s as good a place as any to thank you. For yesterday.”

“I assume you mean when you got your ass bucked off of Midnight Train and I dragged you out?”

Jack scoffs. He should probably be accosted, but he’s only more intrigued. “That would be correct,” he admits.

“No need to thank me, in that case. Just doing my job.”

“Be nice if I had a name to the face that saved my rawhide.”

“And it’d be nice if you checked your staff sheet maybe once before you rode.”

Jack blinks. “Pardon me,” he begins, leaning an elbow up against Dancer’s stable, “but have I offended you?”

“Not yet.” His head twitches in annoyance. “But you’re a rodeo man. You’re bound to eventually.”

Jack crosses his arms. “I’ve been nothing but a gentleman.”

The pick-up man pauses and sighs, finally rewarding Jack with a look in his direction. He pretends not to, but Jack catches the way his eyes quickly scan him up and down. “David. David Jacobs. Which you’d have known if you’d check your staff sheet. You haven’t even bothered to give me your name, because you assume everyone already knows it.”

“So you’re saying you haven’t heard of me.”

“Oh, I’ve heard all about you, Jack Kelly,” David answers, turning his attention back to the silky mane he’d been brushing.

Jack looks up at the horse in question—a beautiful quarter with an unusual coloring halfway between brown and straight up golden. He steals another glance at David, head turned up in an admiration that’s reserved for the sacred bond between man and horse, as ridiculous as Jack admits that sounds.

Still, it’s quite the sight. David is quite the sight, beams of the setting sun reflecting off his green eyes, the shadows accentuating the perfect combination of curves and angles on his face.

 “Gorgeous,” Jack finds himself muttering.

“Thanks,” David replies, completely missing where Jack’s compliment was directed. “Shimmer’s my pride and joy. If you should be thanking anyone, it’s her. She’s a bit of a social butterfly. Even broncs love her.” He turns his gaze to Which one’s yours?”

“The skittery one right next door.” Jack points out the appaloosa horse, Dancer, aptly named for the way she fidgets her feet when she’s excited.

David snorts. “Figures. Shimmer’s obsessed with her. I always catch them talking to each other ‘cross the stables.”

“Funny. I’m obsessed with you.”

David rolls his eyes. “Maybe you should be obsessed with brushing up your technique, and you won’t get your ass handed to you so often.”

“Ass handed to me? I made it to eight seconds.” He also ranked fourth in the semifinals. As a rookie. But he won’t bring that up right now.

“It’s going to take a lot more than eight seconds to impress me.”

“Let me take you out to dinner then, darlin’. Show you that I can go all night.”

“You think you’re cute, don’t you?”

Jack shrugs. “To be completely honest, I think I’m downright adorable, but that’s besides the point.”

He thinks he might see David’s mouth twitch when he returns his attention to Jack. “I don’t sleep with cowboys. Kind of a rule of mine.”

“Believe me, sweetheart, you spend a night with me and we won’t be doing any sleeping.” He chances hooking a finger under David’s chin and dragging his mouth dangerously close to his ear. It’s entirely too brazen and forward, but Jack doesn’t know any other way to be. “You think Broncos are the only thing I know how to ride?” he asks, grinning when he hears David swallow around a drying throat.

“You couldn’t keep me saddled if you tried,” David mutters back, and his breath against Jack’s cheek sends a shudder from his ear, through his spine, all the way down to his toes.

And then David shoves him. Hard. Sending Jack toppling over his own feet and sprawling out onto the ground with an incredible lack of grace.

“Like I said,” David calls back as he opens the gate to Shimmer’s stable and saddles her up. “Technique could use some fixing.”

The click of horse hooves trotting against cobblestone fading into the distance, Jack decides he’s unequivocally in love with David Jacobs.

[nights-at-crystarium]

Fragments - episodes 31-35 author notes

You can find similar breakdown posts on older episodes in my pinned!

The chasm in their understanding of what makes Vivi tick.

The stakes in this scene seem low and the twins are just overdramatizing the danger for the sake of unwinding and being silly, right? Yesn't. One wrong move or word, and they join those leafmen scattered all over the place.

Finding the line between bad actor and caring sister.

Of course Alisaie wants to hang out with Vivi. She doesn't want to admit that to herself, let alone risk looking desperate in her brother's eyes. Tsundere moment. It's been a while since they've. Had a rest. Between rescuing Minfilia from Laxan Loft and making their way to Il Mheg. Alphinaud, at least in my hc, isn't as physically durable, but definitely as stubborn and proud as Alisaie, so he wouldn't simply agree to chill out for a moment. Alisaie makes him tunnel-vision her bad (?) acting and openly throwing the game for supposedly selfish reasons, while she gets what she wanted, AND forces Alphi to sit his ass down.

I’m sorry but I really need to point out that her ahoge did, in fact, launch into the stratosphere.

More under the cut~

....Can you blame her tho.

Vivi’s shirt’s a bit more plain than usual, he needed to wear something practical under his crystarium guard disguise in Laxan Loft.

The flashback in episodes 32-33 has no dialogue per se, only monologues, to emphasize how disconnected they are.

Technically both vivis are real, but Exarch’s memories are definitely heavily skewed. He’d only known Vivi during the CT quests, in this story it’s a month or two in summer, during which literally nothing bad happens, sans the finale. Alisaie, however, got lucky to experience Vivi during Stormblood, his absolute low.

Exarch and Alisaie sit on opposing sides of the bias, one wears pink glasses, delusional and bluepilled, the other one’s (heh) redpilled, perhaps a bit too much. Hence Alisaie feels the whiplash when her jerkass woobie friend suddenly acts mellow (back in the present), still she has the expertise to tell that he’s not affected by a fae spell or anything.

Full page because I’m so proud of the paneling here, simple as this trick is, these speech bubbles blocking Vivi from sight neatly illustrate that Alisaie just babbles away, paying no heed to his state.

With the power of flashbacks and stories told by one character to another, I’m able to revisit any moment in their past whenever I please. I didn’t commit to a linear story because there was no story! Well, just the outlines. Vivi as a character began in ShB because I really needed to fuck that old man, I started writing down the lil scenes loosely connected by the canon plot, and that’s how the whole concept of Fragments came to be.

It may not work for everyone, but my secret sauce’s that you don’t have to begin at the beginning. Make a guy, put him in a situation, then ask a lot of whys and hows to expand his story backward and forward.

Keeping the past events for later allows me to flesh things out at a leisurely pace. This Alisaie flashback is actually an iteration, originally I’d planned to have Vivi stand alone and just think the broody thoughts, and that was supposed to be the transition between ARR and ShB arcs. I grow more writing muscle as I go, and I’m infinitely happy that I avoided that angsty infodump.

Okay this’s becoming a big fat tangent, but I wanted to acknowledge another pitfall: overusing a character as a mere exposition tool. I wouldn’t do this for, say, Tataru or Y’shtola. Being THE flashback haver makes sense for Alisaie because a) they’re close with Vivi, b) her worldview and opinion on Vivi are changing in ShB, she’s a smart lil thing who would slow down and reflect when appropriate, c) she has a distinct arc in my comic, and knowing what’s going on inside that elf brain will give you the most entertainment out of her actions in the present moment.

I’m new to writing and very excited about the story that comes together as we speak, so I like to show around my kitchen. Please lemme know if you enjoy this. I don’t know if I’m parroting the boring 101s, or if this’s actually useful to someone.

“Meals made for me” YEA HE CAN’T COOK. Well, barely.

New sharp outfit, procured by our most magnanimous branch. The “tail” will help me draw the upcoming Titania fight, it adds fluidity to his movements.

*presses the upgrade button*

There's a lot happening in his head that's not being shown. I hope at least some readers wonder who or what he leaves behind in his mind's eye in this moment. What we know for sure is that he doesn’t take too long to make a decision.

Not sure if subtle, but I did try the breadcrumbing:

Unfortunately for everyone, including himself :’>

I love this one especially because, instead of telling that about himself, Vivi asks Ardbert, kinda gauging his wol experience against the other wol’s.

Episode 34 really shook people awake and reminded that we’re off the msq rails with this story. I loved the response it evoked in the tags, lots of thoughtful rambling about being a hero.

Fae temptation jokes and all, but Feo Ul really says what Vivi needs to say out loud to himself.

Normalize prioritizing self-care over world-saving.

Vivi genuinely cares about Feo Ul. That’s unusual. It might be my storytelling mistake that I didn’t show much of his typical indifference before this scene, unless you count the episodes where he does this

instead of hurrying the fuck up with the msq. Or, perhaps, it’s okay, since this gets plenty of attention later on. You won’t miss the fact that he isn’t eager to set himself on fire to keep others warm. Feo Ul just lucked their way into his heart, and, as a result, he approaches the Titania fight with unusual consideration.

/srs mode on ^

Remember how I just talked about developing this story in all directions at once? I planned Vivi to have this demeanor during the early days of writing Fragments. Like, most of the time. He’d be a broody bitch, get slowly thawed by Exarch’s kindness, and... That’d be it. In veeeeeery broad strokes, this’s still the case, but the current iteration has much more nuance.

Vivi and Titania’s likeness has no deep meaning, take it or leave it. Vivi cares about appearances, he was bound to notice this. Feo Ul can see souls, visuals are secondary to them. But Vivi, being himself, must doubt and question everything.

He moves fast and thinks a lot as the adrenaline speeds him up.

Notice how he lets Titania speak and remains quiet. This’s common in most fights: he doesn’t indulge with chats or banter those who he sees as mere targets to destroy. There’s like a point of no return, if an enemy poses no threat and can be talked out of dying, Vivi will speak, sadly he enters this fight knowing that Titania has to die no matter what.

Once he’s familiarized himself with the situation, and realized that Titania’s more than just a mindless husk, things change up a bit. But for now, he just runs in circles, analyzes the situation, and overthinks about their visual resemblance :’>

Sorry not sorry but unintentional reference x’DD

To be fair Vivi IS being a magical boy in this miniarc so this works lmao.

Wrapping up on this note, thanks for sticking with me and reading till the end~

[0utpost-alpha]

Personal Thoughts On Red vs Blue: Restoration

Alright so, it’s been a few weeks since Red vs Blue Restoration hit the internet. I’ve had time to sit, think, cry and process RvB and Rooster Teeth as a whole ending. As I stated on a previous post, I got into RVB around 2015? I think Season 13 had ended then. So I haven’t really spent as much time with the Sims Troopers as many others have. But those 9 years were wonderful and I’m grateful for finding such an entertaining show and fandom. Any show that can make me laugh my ass off and also make me full on sob my eyes out is 10/10 in my book.

Anyway, moving on. I said I’d put out my own personal thoughts and feelings for Restoration in the form of a Pro’s and Con’s post; so here it is:

THE PROS

The AI Fragments: I LOVE them going back and focusing on the AI fragments again. I remember hearing that Miles was talking about how he was going to do something similar with them after the Chorus Trilogy but things happened and Jason ended up taking over after Season 14. I personally always adored the idea of the Reds and Blues each getting one of the AI fragments that suited their personal needs and would lead to more character development for them later on down the line.

Tucker and the AI’s: On the subject of AI’s, After Season 13, I remember reading a lot of fan theories and fanfics that often brought up what possible side effects Tucker could go through with Epsilon not only shattering but having all those fragments at once helping him power the Meta suit. And it looks like a lot of them weren’t far off! While we will never know what actually happened once those doors were opened, at some point either immediately or not long afterwards, the AI took control and ran off with poor Tucker.

Caboose’s Voice: While it was a little jarring at the beginning, being so used to Joel’s, Michael Malconian did a phenomenal job as Caboose’s voice. I feel like he got that child-like, not all there, but still ready to help out however he can personality down perfect. NGL, I think I actually prefer this voice to the old one. I’m just sad that we won’t get to hear more of this Caboose.

Speaking of Caboose: I love how they had Caboose have a big brain moment. Instead of bringing back Church, something he wanted more than anything, he knew Tex was their best chance against Meta!Tucker. Also, destroying the Memory Unit. Talk about huge character development for Cabooses character. (It’s also possible that this was what Church asked Caboose to do when he was whispering to him in the ship? I need to go back and rewatch it)

Simmons: I know there was already an image or video around showing Simmons with the robotic arm, but I kind of fell off the RvB bus after Zero came out so I missed a bit of content that was floating around on the internet. So me and @yourscientistfriend were tickled pink when we noticed his arm for the first time. It’s small, but nice to know that RT remembered that specific detail about Simmons.

Sarge’s Sacrifice: alright, this one is probably on a lot of peoples Con’s lists but I personally feel like, if any of them were gonna be killed off Sarge was the best because; he died doing what he loved. Fighting. He protected his boys and went down on his own terms. His farewell to Grif definitely hit the hardest. I think deep down we all knew Sarge cared about Grif, but actually hearing him say it was so satisfying.

Memory is the key: the boys sitting around the campfire reminiscing about everything they had been through together in the last 23 years was such a bitter sweet nostalgia blast. The fact that they also got BNL to do a song over it was kind of a nice surprise too.

THE CONS

A lot of characters didn’t really get a chance to shine. It mainly focused on Simmons, Grif, Tucker and Caboose for a majority of the movie. Donut was only there in a thought bubble for a gag, Carolina didn’t even show up till the very end, and Wash didn’t even get to fight, he honestly didn’t really even serve a purpose except to fall off a fucking cliff to get Carolina’s attention and I feel like that wasn’t even necessary. Hell, I think they even forgot about Lopez after that one scene at the beginning. I honestly feel for the Donut and Doc fans. They seriously got screwed over.

“Come With Me”: So. Grimmons didn’t become canon. I am, severely disappointed as I’m sure a majority of the fandom is. I wasn’t expecting a kiss or a make-out section or anything that extreme. But I feel after all these years of teasing us they could have given us SOMETHING.

Tucker Trauma: As I said in the Pro’s, I loved the set up they did with Tucker and the fragments. However, what I didn’t like was how they didn’t address the trauma Tucker went through with them controlling him. They forced him to kill innocent people, attack his friends and mentally tortured him in order to get him to cooperate or wear him down enough to take control. But after they remove the fragments, he’s just ok now? Back to his regular bow chika bow wow self? Don’t get me wrong, like with many of my other cons I realize that a lot of things had to be scrapped or cut because of time and that because Season 19 had to be turned into a movie instead of a full blown season they couldn’t properly address a lot that they probably wanted to. But I wish we could have at least got something along the lines of Wash taking Tucker back with him to get physically and mentally checked out.

Also, wtf is up with Grif just up and leaving. I know Season 15-17 was retconned (update: they weren’t retconned) but damn man, Grif really doesn’t care about any of them? Even after the whole reminiscing scene? It just feels out of character for him. I feel like after everything was said and done he would have taken those papers and shot them or something. Said something about how someone’s gotta give the new leader of the reds a hard time, said something about not leaving till he figure out why they were there!?  Anything than whatever the hell that was.

Thing’s I’m sad will never happen now that Red vs Blue is officially over:

More time with Locus’s character as well as character development and redemption (as well as possibly becoming one of the Reds and Blues)

Grimmons

Simmons’s getting an arc that better fleshes out his character and would give us more background into his history (I mean come on. From the bits and pieces we got over the seasons, it’s very clear Simmons’s had a shitty past. Yes, I’m still mad that his labyrinth was turned into a alien probing joke)

Never seeing an actual conclusion to the fight at the end of Season 13. (I get they wanted to let the fans play around with ideas on what happened but it still bugs me).

Wash and Simmons bonding during a knife training session

Wash and Tucker bonding over AI Trauma

Tucker and Junior bonding

Overall, it was an ending. And probably the most decent one we could have gotten considering everything that was going on. A lot of other shows didn’t even get that. So I honestly can’t complain too much. They also deliberately left the ending pretty open so the fandom could easily write their own ending if they wanted to which is awesome of them.  

[koyue]

Finished uploading all the chapters of Fragments! Normally I struggle with endings, but the ending was actually the first thing I wrote and I really love how it turned out, so if you'd like, please check it out ٩(◕‿◕｡)۶

Random trivia for this fic (with spoilers for Jujutsu Kaisen and the fic itself) and personal ramblings are all under the cut (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

—

I've been wanting to write a SatoSugu fic for a long time and it was really the ending of JJK that made me start writing it. I actually liked the final chapter because I love that Nobara, Megumi, and Yuji just got a breather with a silly little case, but I was definitely unsatisfied with a lot of the lead-up and I didn't like how we didn't get any proper closure on Gojo (Plus, isn't the world of JJK a lot worse off now? And nobody really talked about it? And Sukuna had some sort of backstory that never became relevant until the last three pages? Plus Yuji found out the truth of his parents offscreen?? Huh???)

So I wrote this to cheer myself up ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

—

I had fifteen chapters written out before I posted it because originally, I'd done the outline for twenty chapters. Then stuff happened and it somehow ended up being thirty five chapters long. I couldn't decide whose POV I wanted it to be from, so I settled on switching between Gojo's and Geto's POV

—

I loved Riko's character from the get-go and, even though I knew it was going to happen, I was heartbroken when she was killed. So I had to include her in and give her the happy ending she deserved. I like to think she would've been good friends with everyone at Jujutsu High had she lived. I also gave her a water-based cursed technique because a lot of her happier times in JJK seem to revolve around the water (the beach, the aquarium, the river)

—

Somehow this fic turned into a little personal contest to see how many of my favorite characters from JJK I could include. I just wish I could've expanded on Yuki's character since I really liked her too, but I just couldn't figure out how

—

Shoko was supposed to appear at some point, but by then, the story had gone in a whole different direction than what I had drafted, so I had to cut her scenes out because they no longer made sense

—

I made Gojo and Geto childhood best friends just because I love that trope so much. I love the idea of them being reincarnated in a peaceful world where they got to grow up with each other. I'd like to write a oneshot one day set in this universe where they're kids getting into trouble

—

God, I struggled with chapters 29 and 30 and rewrote them several times. Everything sounded a little OOC because there's a lot of emotional vulnerability and neither Gojo nor Geto (especially Gojo) seem like the sort of people who would allow themselves to be that vulnerable with another person, but eventually I came up with something I liked. Plus hey, maybe they're a little more emotionally intelligent in this world ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

—

I like writing dream scenes. They show up in a lot of the fics I've written and there are a ton in this one. They're not prophetic dreams, but mainly manifestations of the character's fears coupled with past and present memories

—

I'd always planned to include original characters since it's a reincarnation AU, but I didn't plan for Satoko (Gojo's grandmother in this fic) to have such a big role. I made up a whole story of what happened to her during her first life as a member of the Gojo clan, but it was too much and just didn't fit with the rest of the fic, so I had to cut it out. I really wish we could've learned a little more about the previous Six Eyes users in canon (actually, I wish we could've learned a little more about everyone in canon, particularly their families)

—

I wrote most of chapter 31 while listening to the Digimon: The Movie soundtrack (yes, that "so bad it's good" pastiche of three different movies that came out in North America). I'm a Digimon fan myself, so I had to include a few references in the fic

—

The final chapter is my favorite. The idea of the trio somehow seeing Gojo's ghost when they visit his grave is hilarious to me. I also wrote it while listening to "Ao no Sumika/ The First Take" because it's just perfect

[kirric-the-fan]

Okay, I finally watched Houseki no kuni bc it was on my 'oh I should check it out sometime' radar, and then went to check out the manga bc the series is noticeably cut off, and while it had its good points, for me it has got to have been one of the most narratively frustrating series I have followed, because while the main story theme is solid, I felt like they kept missing obvious plot points along the way. And kept dropping and forgetting characters without good reason.

Like, constantly

Apologies to those who love this series wholeheartedly. I really did want to love it too, especially after the first few chapters.

More below the cut

One of the things I quite liked about the setting was how tight and closed and relatively simple it was: you had the Earth, the gems, the lunarians, and the Admirabilis- (uhhh I'm gonna call them snails for convenience in this piece. Sorry). The problem is, with such a tight staging, it then relies on a tight narrative and well developed characters to carry the story.

But I found it really narratively sloppy, in a way that was really frustrating for me:

- Disclaimer first: I know forgetting is part of the themes of the story, but there's narratively forgetting, and then there's completely forgetting within the writing process until it maybe occurs to you later on and you might shove a little bit back in, and this felt like that.

- It took them too long to figure out they need to go to the moon. That section of the story just seemed incredibly slow tbh.

- The gems becoming lunarians didn't feel right for all of them.

- Antarticite becomes liquid when it's too warm, right? Even if she was that soft a powder, they could have just warmed things up a bit and recollect the liquid that flows to the bottom

- I kept thinking that Phos would be able to safely interact with Cinnabar's mercury once she got her arms (one element to another- Platinum and gold are noticeably unreactive). They didn't.

- They never really found a solution for Cinnabar (see above). I get the whole forgetting thing, but it seemed set up as quite a significant plot thing, but was completely forgotten about half the time.

- Lots of forgotten/disregarded gem characters. They had so much potential to add to the themes of the story in the time they had, and most, didn't. There's characters in there that I was like 'what did you even do?'

- Actually the same with the other characters too. The whole snail thing was grossly overlooked imo. As a whole third of the 'was human' thing, they were far too easily thrown to one side. I can see the gems needing to work to farm to support the snails to live on Earth again. Maybe the snails could turn out to be able to eat up the mercury safely somehow and restore damage from that. Maybe they could turn out to be able to eat up the gem powder and re-constitute it into gem form in their shells and return the softer gems that way. So much potential, disregarded.

- I thought the ice floes were talking bc either a snail was frozen in there, or the ice itself had become a little sentient, with a similar deal to Antarcticite. I would have loved to see more into the 'at what point does a gem become senitent?' side of things. You looking at a ship of theseus deal and exploration of what makes someone themselves, or human? Boom

(almost wrote that as 'chip of theseus' btw and BOY, is that on the nose!)

- Again with the snails. We never got to know why Phos and not the others could talk with them. Was it because she was eaten? Would the same thing happen if other gems were consumed?

- Those legs were still somewhere. Same re arms. Even if it was fragments, imagine Phos finding this part of herself later on, and the memories so alien that despite all the change she's adapted to, that's the part her body rejects.

- Lunarians were stated of being fond of the colour of Phos' gem. This was something that was never developed, never really elaborated on. Now imagine if the Lunarians were fond of the greens and blue because it reminded them of Earth. (ofc that would change the dynamic of who they targeted, but it would be an interesting take. Imagine Alexandrite getting saved by the skin of her teeth because she went red at just the tight time) Imagine Phos getting to the moon and discovering that they'd used the rest of lapis lazuli to make art of the planet they'd used to know, the planet they stare at distantly, the planet that holds what is to them, their salvation.

- It would have been good if Phos could have come full circle to her encyclopedia somehow. Or if one of the other gems completed it for her in that 10000 years. (*cough*cinnabar*cough*), and it's just a collection of supportive messages from everyone.

anyway: Aaagh! Ugggh. It was decent, but it could have been so much more polished as a story. And that's the worst thing.

[reimeichan]

Last night, Green and I fused temporarily. It was completely unplanned, though recently we had suspected that the dissociation between us has lessened a lot that we were likely going to experience some kind of blending or fusion in the near future. Well, it happened a lot sooner than expected.

The experience was a lot. Just, so, so much. We were exposed to each others' trauma memories, and there was just so much to unpack. He realized just how much our school life negatively affected us, and how much I love our father. For me, I understood why he hated our parents so much, including our father, and just how much pain we were in at home. He better understood my motivations, and I empathized with his. We both cried and cried while working through all of our emotions and connecting the dots in our memories: our home life affected our school life which affected our home life. None of these things were truly separate aspects of our life, but the dissociation had fooled us into thinking they were. Even if logically we were able to trace how they related to each other, it was a whole different thing when we actually felt like we lived through all that.

The fusion helped us fill in the gaps that our fragmented memories had kept from us, and honestly it was... such a weird experience. I thought I had understood my life well enough up until this point, but it was like I put on glasses for the first time and suddenly the world around me became less blurry. Once those fragmented memories finally became a little more whole, everything became so clear I was blown away by the drastic difference in the new perspective I was suddenly getting.

Overwhelming. That's probably the best word for everything I experienced. I had experienced fusions before, but never on the same scale as what temporarily fusing with Green was like. Both of us were wholy unprepared and ultimately it broke off as both of us knew we weren't ready to permanently fuse just yet. It was a wonderful feeling, but it would have been far too premature for us to stay that way.

I'm glad for the experience, though. I feel like we both came away from that learning something new about each other and about ourselves.

[jessepinwheel]

Re: Parasitic Extraction: I'm excited about the premise and if you can stomach writing it (does not sound short) then I will absolutely read the fuck out of it. When you say hive-mind situation for the cloned Obi-Wans, what specifically were you thinking? Individuals constantly merging into a gestalt entity to remain cohesive, then splitting apart for individual missions, changing slightly with every gestalt? The splintering of Prime Obi-Wan into thousands of initially-identical iterations who just have basic telepathy? A sort of Kalashtar hive mind thing, where Prime Obi-Wan is the actual entity and each iteration is a small fragment of the whole person? Do they share expertise and memories? Do they all need to die in order for him to become psychically whole again? I presume some (or all) of this is definitely unanswerable because spoilers, but I have spent far too much time thinking about telepathy and gestalt entities for my own novel-writing purposes, also because of that very early crush on Jean Grey, so I am endlessly fascinated by it.

considering that the chances of me actually writing this story are near none (I'm thinking about alternatives but a full story is not happening) spoilers hardly matter. not like anybody is going to remember this blog post by the time I release anything

the obi-collective is a pretty major part of the story and something I've talked about at length in my discord server, but the short version is basically:

it's not possible to create force-sensitive clones under most circumstances (the mandalorians have certainly tried). so for the obi-clones to be force-sensitive, basically obi-wan had to 'seed' each individual one with his own force powers and nurture it until it could basically sustain itself. obi-wan does this for 100 clones a month for two years (so 20 months, 2000 clones), and this results in all the obi-clones having a psychic connection to obi-wan and through him, to all the other obi-clones. not something that was intentional! these are just things that happen when you do weird force things you have no experience with!

anyways. all the obi-clones have telepathic connections to all the other obi-clones and can access each other's memories and physical sensations at will (this process can be blocked but they usually don't have a reason to). as more clones get added in and more psychic connections get added it sort of balls up into a collective consciousness which I colloquially refer to as the psychic soup. this psychic soup is so large that it's very dangerous for a lot of force sensitive people to connect to it especially if they can't shield well (which most mandalorian jedi can't because they basically burned all of the old jedi order's teachings) because it's easy to get overwhelmed by all the information and lose track of who is you and who is them until 'you' just gets washed into the soup, too.

(do some mandalorian jedi get absorbed into the obi-collective? yes)

back to the obi-clones. early obi-clones who mostly predate the collective consciousness (like kote (#0066) or surau (#0501)) have more of a sense of self and individuality because they were able to develop those things before the collective consciousness started happening. later obi-clones (like boga (#1977)) were created after the collective consciousness was established, which means they're more mentally part of the collective and more develop their individuality by budding off from the collective consciousness. these later clones are more likely to just turn their individuality off for a while and let themselves be controlled directly by the collective, or even don't bother with individuality at all

but obi-wan himself doesn't control the hive mind, and the obi-clones aren't mental copies of him. he just raised the obi-clones via psychic skype and also in person by possessing the clones for short periods of time (because he can do that) and the obi-collective developed on its own. obi-wan can dip into the psychic soup at will and get information, but they can't access his mind or wash out his consciousness like they can to other force sensitives.

hopefully that answers your question :)

ask me about parasitic extraction, the role reversal mandalorian empire au that I have

[rubykgrant]

I'm curious, based on the scenes from the trailers, how would YOU have written Restoration? I think, personally, I would've had Sarge be unconscious for a couple days, forcing Simmons to step up as leader without offing such a good character. I also would've kept Doc alive and had Donut, Lopez, Sheila, and Sister be part of things more.

Oh, don't curse me with that, I'm having a hard enough time with all the thoughts for my OWN story-line... OK, but honestly? There is a versions that would be "perfect for me" (and that may as well be my own story-line), and a version that would maybe be what this final season was, but just a little different-

-Imagine it actually picks up immediately after Church's final message. Like, we hear his voice again, see the same visuals, but instead of fading to black as Epsilon blinks out, there is a brief pause... and everything goes into MOTION. Tucker and the rest of the characters start fighting, and we see the whole thing!

-When the plot actually starts, nobody is together. Similar to Donut's suggestion of taking a break from each other in 17, they all went their separate ways, but when problems start to pop up, they need to regroup (Doc isn't dead, Donut is part of things)

-If Sarge has to die (in my perfect version, he doesn't, but if he HAS to), he's injured first on the Staff of Charon, OR he's been injured and out of the main focus for a bit, and he doesn't die until near the end (still gets buried in Blood Gulch, but now everybody is there). If he dies at the beginning, there would be a lot of flash-backs to some of his lines through the series, being all significant and such

-Tucker keeping the armor and being the new "Meta" can go a few different ways, actually (and 19 had the potential for all of it, it just kinda didn't push it hard enough in any of these directions)

-One version, after the fight is over, Tucker stands back from the others as he realizes Church is totally gone... and orange flames flicker in the reflection of his helmet visor. @leonardalphachurch brought up a good concept of how Sigma probably wouldn't just FORCE Tucker to do anything, but instead convince him that this is totally a good idea (and perhaps driving a wedge between Tucker and his other friends). This is a "villain" who thinks they're right (but Tucker isn't just totally "evil"). Several times, he would defeat the others, have the opportunity to kill them, but he doesn't. The AI aren't torturing him, but as time goes on, their reasoning becomes less rational, and it is a struggle to remember why they're all fighting so hard for this goal, but they can't STOP

-Epsilon Deconstructing means the Fragments lost their memories... and so did Tucker. This can go hand in had with him and the Fragments getting too focused on the only thing they "know", finding Church, being "complete". It can also roll into a DIFFERENT kind of manipulation, with a totally different antagonist intending to turn Tucker and the AI into a new murder machine (it could be Hargrove, it could the UNSC, could be somebody else. they just recognize that Tucker is an incredible fighter and the AI are very capable, so they're manipulating the situation)

-Slightly with that same vibe, the suit was always a trap; Hargrove figured either Felix of Locus would put it on, and rigged the thing to take control and follow programmed orders. The AI are trapped in it too, forced to help fight, but don't want to actually kill anybody. ALSO, if you want Felix in there; he asked Price about the whole brain-scanning stuff, and thought he'd get himself some kind of "do-over" if he had a back-up copy of his brain. So, the REAL manipulative AI is, in fact, FELIX (when the original Felix died, his suit scanned his brain one last time and sent the information to the suit, where it waited to activate). In this version, Locus is more involved, he has to help stop the computer ghost of his toxic yaoi boyfriend

-After the final fight, Tucker leaves the group to go find Junior, and when the others finally see him again, he seems like a "bad guy", attacking different UNSC soldiers. He keeps AVOIDING his friends, not because he hates them, but he specifically doesn't want them involved in this mess. The government is calling Tucker an evil villain, but he's actually just been saving different alien planets, forgotten outposts, and people like the prisoners who have been hurt by the UNSC (Tucker gets a Temple arc, except he's like... actually successful. somewhere, in another dimension, Temple is sooooo mad and jealous). Somebody tries to stop Tucker with some weird tower, but it just activates Great Destroyer Mode. The rest of his friends need to stop him without killing him

-In all versions, everybody has an eventual show-down with Tucker and the AI, Tex comes back (because that was the BEST PART), and the only reason they need to fight him and remove the AI is so everything can kind of re-set. Tucker needs to remember himself, and the AI need to re-charge and calm down (if there is a Felix AI, he gets deleted. bye, hater). Donut is the one who pulls off the big epic throw with the AI Unit; he's got an ARM (also, one way or another, a conversation between the O'Malley who is only part of Doc, and the Omega AI. it would just be fun to hear Omega say something like "Nice to see you found your back-bone")

-We still have Wash talking to people he misses, but it's the other Freelancers (and maybe a hint of the implication that, if things hadn't been so traumatic during their first meeting, this is something he could have shared with Epsilon; memories)

-Tucker gets one final recorded message from Church, so they can have a decent good-bye. Within the AI unit, Church reunites with Tex, but the Fragments are there too, everybody is finally together again. They don't destroy it; instead, Caboose gives it to Carolina, telling her "When they're ready to wake up, you can see your family again)

-In either Sarge Dies scenario, Simmons gets VERY UPSET. He either loses his temper entirely, or he gets so quiet and cold, it is very unnerving. Grif has to snap him out of it. After all the big problems settle down, and Grif gets ready to go back home with Kai, Simmons tells him good-bye... and then starts following him after a short pause. What else would he do? (I have a dozen different ways I could imagine an emotional/romantic moment, but in all seriousness? it just isn't realistic for them to go separate ways. Grif and Simmons are stuck together for all eternity. I HAVE SPOKEN)

-Happy family reunion with Tucker and Junior! Everybody else finds their own path in life, they know they can still reach out to each other again, but they all have different options now (Wash wants to go track down the Triplets, and Niner is gonna give him a lift)

There is... a LOT of other stuff, but I can't fit it all in. Anyway, some kind of "better" version of Meta Tucker that isn't just him being tortured/mind-controlled, and he gets his kid back, more of an emotional impact when it comes to losing Sarge, Grif and Simmons are stuck like glue forever, Donut and Doc get to be there... yeah

[aeonophagic]

I'm really glad you enjoyed these! the translator is actually user 17979 on here, they've written some really good After God fanfics and are a good friend of mine! the other parts they've translated are: original: "His soul seemed to have left his body. He was unfettered. There was no fear or panic. He felt nothing."

original: "It does not matter. They are one and the same. I need his power. I underestimated him."

and this one is more just a funny one from our treasured translator:

I'll have you know I had about the same reaction to the "You are the story I started 50.000 years ago" line, it just brings up so many questions; VA's lore is scattered as it is and very little is given to us, so just dropping something like this in a convo I doubt a lot of people have read is so [vague hand gestures] it's quite late at night when I'm writing this so forgive any incomprehensibility: the line itself, combined with some others there ("It's tone was surprisingly laden with grief, as if it was lamenting a past that could not return") read to me as slightly contrary to VA being merely a Divine Key, it sounds like he has an amount of history in the PE; my personal idea that is pure unadulterated speculation is that VA might have started out as just a person who had something to do with the PE HoR? it would explain the fact that he repeatedly speaks to a "you" which is clearly not actually Joey in this convo and doesn't seem to be Welt Joyce either considering the 50k years thing, that is to say maybe VA even inherited the core (woo Welt paralel) of the PE HoR; considering that Vill-V does say that the Core of Reason is fucking weird [paraphrasing] and, at least if my memory is holding up, Welt did retreat into the Herrscher Core at least once to avoid dying, there's nothing saying VA couldn't have also pulled that and ended up getting his ass merged with that Fragment of Prommy and turned into the only DK we know to be sentient, I dunno I'm sleep deprived that being said the 3rd line I sent last time would imply that VA was also like not human if all of this happened... I'll just say he yoinked a body Orokapi style and call it a day cuz I think if I keep trying to get these thoughts down on paper they will actually become complete word vomit [thumbs up emoji] anyhow the ramble section ended up being longer than I intended... but the fact that we really know so little of his lore does make my brain go haywire, if they ever explain Void Archives' lore properly that'll probably all be disproven but it's what I came up with considering what we know (and I remember)

“There was no more gravity that bound him to the mortal world” I think this one is in reference to Void Archives likely using the Fenghuang Down… ouuu

I definitely think the PE Herrschers besides Elysia all being nothing more than the names of said Herrschers in the story is one of the things that blocks my road here. Me and a friend have theorised plenty of things about the PE HoR, but none can be confirmed, none are even implied!!! A character with such a nothingburger that you can just make shit up and no one could tell you yes or no. My favorite theory is that the PE HoR looked just like Otto, but a girl. Because it’s funny. But now I don’t know… I can’t sacrifice my integrity for humor… I think the idea of the person that used to be what later became Void Archives was a part of the HoR core is really interesting. It would take from the whole “artificial thing struggles with humanity”, because then they’d have already been human once, but at the same time it would be as if they were reclaiming their humanity which is also intriguing etc etc… it’s really interesting. I initially thought Void Archives’ sentience came from them being part Prometheus since she’s sentient too, but at the same time why would Vill-V merge them with her then..? Because Prometheus is an AI so she can handle the “ever expanding knowledge”? Don’t know… so much left in the air, most Void Archives lore we know is stitched together thanks to No.17 who hasn’t talked about them even once. Thank you for sharing!!! I’m having lots of thoughts…