#i just like making connections with lore stuff

[unnamedcrane]

I'm gonna need to know so much more about this fairy au please and thank you I crave knowledge! All of it!

Oh god all of it?

*sweats profusely while glancing at 70 page doc*

Well... maybe some of it for now

So fairy au literally started from a joke I had with @erineas (which i do plan to mention some time, cause it's still very funny), but along their sona becoming a fairy mine also did and we started to come up with random little "lore bits"

Most of it is overlooked half the time, cause we're too focused on our skelebaes, buuut:

there's like bajilllion types of fairies, they're based in like plant types natural elements things like that (my sona is a flower fairy cause i am very basic like that) and more powerful fairies are based off of just well more "powerful" plants/elements if that makes sense

i was pushing so hard to try and figure out the magic and how it works and stuff, but I only have little bits and pieces and most of it is about fairy dust anyway

there were long conversations from my side about how fairy wings work, cause you know they're connected to the magic and are like... a bit of an equivalent to how magic works in monster souls? Like fairies wings would be the culmination of their magic in its most pure form (outside of fairy dust)

and depending how "magical" a fairy is that would make the wings more natural looking or more you know shimmery magical

because of all this wing lore, I had (still have?) trouble choosing wings for my fairy cause I'm insane

in other news there's fairy villages in the forests and I really wanted to base them in whatever disney fairies lore there is, but i quickly realized that I only watched those movies as a kid and I barely remember them

but yeah everyone is invited to my fairy village where we are all besties and we have the best time, being either:

a gremlin fairy (erineas)

a pwetty faiwy (me)

or yk anything in between, you can be a ladybug if you want to be

[vidavalor]

Springboard away, Kaylee! That's what we're all here for, right? 😊

I agree with you about connections between Aziraphale and Raphael. You got me thinking and now I have some more musings on the A.Z. part of Aziraphale's name, some etymological support for Raphael & Aziraphale, and miscellaneous stuff that those thoughts touched about Paradise Lost, Milton Keynes, the Azerbaijani Sector Chief, and a little about Baraqiel, should you be interested.

I think that you're right that, while Crowley & Aziraphale are composite characters, the one that is most directly inspiring Aziraphale is probably Raphael. Since Crowley and Aziraphale are main characters, they could not directly give them angel names from Biblical lore because we'd be able to figure out too much of the plot if they did. It wouldn't be interesting because we'd google the lore, think we knew everything about them, and make assumptions about them that might inform our understanding of the story.

With Crowley, he's already fallen when we meet him and they have a trans allegory happening with him that is an additional reason to just never address the deadname. With Aziraphale, who is our main character from a writing standpoint because it's his story arc we're following, he had to invent a name for him. Plus, in a show this wordplay-laden, how could he not, right? He had to have a name that went along with his story. (It's also one of the most fun parts of writing fiction! 😊) Raphael has always sounded like Aziraphale to me, not Crowley...

Adding to the reasons you mentioned is that he's just kind of like The Archangel of Likes to Kind of Fuck Off and Do His Own Thing. Some religions quibble about whether he is one or not and he pops in and out of the story at times because he's just out being busy and stuff. There's a lot of stories related to him about bodies of water and a big, fish-themed story. You also mentioned Raphael as the angel in Eden in Milton's Paradise Lost. You probably have this in your reference lists already-- I'm sorry, I can't recall atm-- but Paradise Lost is referenced in S2 and in a really interesting scene when it comes what we're talking about here...

When Reece Shearsmith's Furfur shows up in 1941-- and Shearsmith, between Furfur and Shakespeare, is King of Meta and Clues in Good Omens-- he quotes Milton's Paradise Lost when he tries to get Crowley to remember "doing dubious battle on the plains of Heaven" with him before The Fall.

In the same scene, he says "monkey in a waistcoat." It's a bit on the nose (in a punny way but still lol) but references to literal keys in Good Omens are some of the hidden language keys. Furfur's lines here connect back to the passage about The Arrangement in the novel (language bits of which are split between 1941, Pt. 2 and the 1601 scene, both of which are heavy with Shearsmith's writer-stand-in characters.) In 1941, Furfur quotes Milton's Paradise Lost and mentions keys. In The Arrangement passage in the novel-- one of the most euphemistic passages of it-- there's a reference to the "new" city of Milton Keynes. This could be a deep dive on its own but one thing about Milton Keynes that's relevant to this here is that it's the location of Bletchley Park, the famous British code-breaking facility during WW2.

What does this have to do with us talking about Raphael being the angel to which Aziraphale is aligned a bit? Because while Furfur is full of Clues in this scene, the biggest one he brings us is Demon's Guide to Angelic Beings Who Walk the Earth.

The book's purpose inside the story is to provide information on the angels for the demons but it's inclusion is really for us. A demon, as we know, is also a person who is skilled at something. An angelic being is not necessarily just an angel-- it's someone with qualities that human beings have typically ascribed to angels. It just means someone who is kind, generous, loving, etc.... and to walk the earth is to live life. It means that when we look at the Baraqiel entry beneath Aziraphale's and consider that the wording in it, just on the surface alone, sounds like it's describing Crowley? It can be because Crowley might be a demon but he's also an angelic being. 😉

I bring this up here because of Crowley's entry. He's listed as an angel in it-- one that exists in Biblical lore, as Raphael does. Baraqiel cannot be Crowley's angel name because this is a list of current angels, not fallen ones. (We don't need to ever learn Crowley's deadname in the series.) We know from the other Reece Shearsmith scene in the series about The Arrangement, though, and about Crowley still able to do angelic things, like blessings. Demon's Guide is saying that Crowley and Aziraphale have made up the angel Baraqiel-- that it's Crowley's Bildad the Shuhite-like fake angel identity. They're trolling Heaven and Hell to such an extent that Baraqiel is really Crowley and he has an official listing in Hell's phonebook for angels. 😂

So, while the show is wonderfully disinterested in Crowley's name prior to his fall, they're happy to provide us with the angel in known Biblical lore that he has been pretending to be at times while a demon. I wonder how many excellent job performance commendations the angel Baraqiel has gotten from Heaven over the last few years. Crowley and Aziraphale getting endless enjoyment out of the higher-ups in Heaven pretending to have any clue who this is when this angel comes up. 😂

When you go look at the lore for Baraqiel and Barachiel (sometimes, rarely, also apparently spelled Barakel), there are some things that are amusingly muddy. There's some confusion over the spelling or, even, if these are two different angels. There's confusion over whether or not this person ever became a fallen angel. It's among the most ???? of angels in Biblical lore when it comes to what the deal is... but not really when it comes to the things they're associated with is. Stuff like teaching people about astronomy, being symbolized by roses, and having a love of blessing romance and weddings.

I know a certain redheaded angelic being who loves love and the stars, don't you? Demon's Guide is suggesting that Aziraphale made up the name(s) and there is a lot of wordplay in it and the entry that support that idea. I guess mah point is that here is an angel that does exist in Biblical lore and is very much aligned with what they're going with Crowley and so is one of the inspirations for Crowley and we see that angel name and background being used in the show so the idea that Raphael is tied to Aziraphale in the ways you're mentioning? Makes perfect sense.

One more other thing that would support is some etymology of the name as well... Raphael roots back to the Hebrew rāp̄ā'ēl (רָפָאֵל) The '-el' parts of the angels' names all refer to God, which is why there are so many of them that have -el on the end of their names: Gabriel, Muriel, Uriel, Michael, Saraqael, etc.. The 'God' aspect of it, when referring to angels, can sometimes also be translated as meaning 'angel', as opposed to God itself-- thematically, pretty interesting when looked at in relation to Good Omens. The root of Raphael is the rapha/rapa part of it and, in Hebrew and in this context, it means 'healed' and 'helped.' Last week, in that meta about the turnip & the inkwell, we were talking about the Latin roots of rapa and its relationship with Crowley's story. Raphael, in a mix of multiple language roots here, would be the angel who helps heal the raped-- it's literally part of his and Crowley's story in the name of the angel from Biblical lore that we're saying is the probably the primary inspiration for Aziraphale.

I'd also agree that the similarities between Aziraphale and some of the alternate names for Raphael-- Aziriah, in particular-- are significant. Additionally, it's interesting that so many of the angels have the -el signifying God and angels in their name but Aziraphale is spelled backwards from that-- with a -le. Especially when you add in the Mr. Fell and stuff but, even back in the day, Aziraphale's name was different from the others. We don't know exactly when Aziraphale became A.Z. Fell but it had to be sometime prior to the 1630s, when he bought the land for eventual Whickber Street. It's likely definitely since when he began building the bookshop in the late 1700s. He might have had it for much longer than that but we don't really have any scenes that tell us that, one way or the other.

What we do have, though, is some proof that Aziraphale has used his own name in different situations before.

He was just Sir Aziraphale of The Table Round in Wessex and, in more modern times, Mr. Sushi calls him "Aziraphale" in S1.

Yet, we also have most of Whickber Street calling Aziraphale "Mr. Fell" in other situations-- Maggie, Mr. Brown, Mrs. Sandwich... even, hilariously, Jim.

There are different reasons why these people might, even in the more informal modern times of S2, but I think Aziraphale encourages it because he likes being Mr. Fell because it is more like it is, covertly, his and Crowley's shared surname, as The Hoff post that started this convo gets into. You mentioned all the alternate names that Raphael has in Biblical lore and different translations of it and I think we might be able to say that there's evidence in Good Omens that while we and Crowley and the angels and things always call Aziraphale "Aziraphale" because that's his core name, there's also the fact that, at least for the last few hundred years, Aziraphale has been pretending to be different members of a familial line.

One of the reasons why he might just have everyone call him "Mr. Fell" is because he's double-digits of generations deep into the Fell family tree here and he's probably been known to forget which first name the humans think he has in a given era. He could have well been all the names we're talking about at different times-- Raphael, Azariah, etc.-- and ones that sound like them or have some kind of wordplay significance that he enjoys. I've seen a lot of fic that makes his first name Ezra, which also works. Each subsequent generation is supposed to be a descendent of or relative to the founder A.Z. Fell, so he could have had a whole bunch of different names and I'd bet that Raphael and related names were among them.

This then adds an interesting level to the idea that, in the Mr. Sushi scene, he appears to be using "Aziraphale" with the humans in the modern era, too. Maybe he has in the past in different times as well-- calling it an old family name that has been passed down or something-- but it at least shows that he's trying to use his real name in the present.

This then affects the A.Z. Fell thing, I think...

Technically, A.Z. could be a "just a J" type of situation where the wink is in the fact that "A.Z. Fell" sounds similar to "Aziraphale." I think that he probably chose that name for the primary one for his human identity because of how Heaven wouldn't really look twice at it, since it sounded close to his own name. It's clear, though, that he likes the letters of it and there's a thing about them because he's even keeping his wordplay-happy private diary using "A.Z. Fell."

There might be a Clue in that, as well. When we heard him narrate the entry and read the title of his diary, he pronounced "Z" as "zed." This is the formal British English way of pronouncing the letter Z. (And you and I looked at the use of the more American "diary" vs. journal already.)

Zed is the British English pronunciation for the letter Z, yes, but it's also a word in its own right. It comes from the Greek zeta, which is the root of the letter Z, and it means weapon. Z is also the last letter of the alphabet so it's a weapon for an end-- a death. An, um, finale.

The letter A comes from the Semitic aleph, which means ox. In the way that Z is spoken aloud as zed in British English and zee in American English, Az is also apparently the acrophonic name of the letter A in the old Cyrillic alphabet. So, to some effect, Az/A.Z. are about oxen and swords but there's also something back in Demon's Guide that is interesting where this name is concerned.

In Crowley's wordplay orgasm of an entry for Aziraphale, in the part where he lists the bookshop's name and address, he pulls all the periods out of the name of the shop so that it reads like this:

"AZ Fell & Co"

Az can also be seen as a shortened form of Aziraphale. [Isn't there a couple of Michael Sheen interviews where he calls him that?] Az is short for azure, the shade of blue also known as lapis lazuli. Azure also has meaning within heraldry, the punny language of designs on coats of arms. It's also the abbreviations for two locations: the U.S. state of Arizona and the country of Azerbaijan. (It's also the shorthand code for the Azerbaijani language.)

Arizona has a contested etymology. Some people say it means "little spring" (like the body of water) and other people say it means "good oaks" (like a tree/Mr. Fell and "to fell a tree".) The country of Azerbaijan is referenced by Crowley in 2.01, when he tells Agent Fuzuli that he has the wrong bench and Cupids him up with a duck-feeding counterpart-- "the Azerbaijani Sextor Sector Chief."

hello! i've read through a lot of your blogs and i think you've got really interesting ideas! i was wondering if you'd done something analyzing aziraphale's 'human name' and why he picked the name a. z. fell? perhaps it's got something to do with foreshadowing his fall?

Hi there! 💕 Thanks for reading & glad you're enjoying them. *puts on the tea kettle and gets the cookies*

There are two ways of looking at Aziraphale's choice of name, I think, and you mentioned both ways in your ask. One way is what the name might mean to Aziraphale-- why he chose it-- and the other is what the overall meaning of it is in the story.

In terms of the overall meaning level of his name, I think it gets into the question of what a fall is. Aziraphale's surname isn't even just Fall-- it's Fell. It's past tense. In this sense, the show is basically saying that even though Aziraphale's fall-- in the 'an angel literally falling to Hell' sense of it-- is just beginning to occur in the story, Aziraphale really fell, in other senses of the word, long ago.

He's fundamentally no different from Crowley-- something Aziraphale even says to him in the Job minisode when he says that he's a demon after lying to save the kids. He doesn't see Crowley as having ever done anything "worse" than that-- and Crowley and many others likely didn't. They asked questions. They sought knowledge.

A demon can also just mean someone who is knowledgeable about different things. In that sense, Aziraphale has always been a demon, even if he hasn't been a literal demon of Hell.

Aziraphale has always been a fallen angel by Heaven's definition and spiritually one of the demons, even if he has always still been seen by others as an angel. It gets at the idea that these definitions are all b.s. that Heaven has made up. They're all just people; they're all angelic beings walking the Earth who can be demonic in different ways-- just like the humans.

To fall, though, isn't just a literal fall or a fall from grace, like in the Heaven/Hell senses, but also other things, right? To fall in love, for instance... which then gets interesting when you consider why Aziraphale might have chosen this particular word to reflect himself.

I did a bit of a dive on thoughts about Aziraphale choosing the name Fell for himself as part of a post that is also about the fact that Crowley's distinctive signature on the Hell document when he takes the baby in 1.01 is-- rather curiously-- the very same, very unique capital letter F found in the inscription we were shown is in the front of Aziraphale's copy of Modern Magic. Why this is all the same topic will make more sense as you read it, should you be interested:

[kalijhomentethi]

another take on the timeline after arcane was made canon:

what if... arcane ends during/before the second noxian invasion of ionia? i thought about this because:

1.1. there were hints of jhin throughout the season, such as a mask in alternate ekko's workshop that kind of resembled jhin's mask (episode 7), plus the same theatre and piano in awaken being showed briefly with notes of the same song being played when it popped up (episode 8), and the cargo cannon in piltover being shot the fourth and final time by the person that played the piano (episode 9). if jhin has already been freed from ionia and has already been doing Jhin Things around the time arcane occurs, then the first noxian invasion of ionia has already happened.

1.2. jhin's obsession with perfection == viktor's vision of humanity. the person who played the piano was touched by the puppets and has seen what jayce/viktor saw. the arcane puppets also looked kind of similar to his mask. plus, the theme of puppets and performances.

2. should the second invasion be happening already, then it makes sense that the demon raven appeared at the end of the show because swain wanted to check up on things in piltover. with the black rose already having made their presence known there, it would make sense for another member of the trifarix to keep an eye on the city + noxus wants all nations under one banner anyway so.

3. speaking of the trifarix, it was presumably leblanc that enchanted riven's blade, mentioned as a pale sorceress in the court. the runes of riven's blade match the runes that belonged to ambessa's right hand man.

problems with picking up from second invasion:

i used jhin as the main indicator of the timeline, who was only hinted in arcane. plus, riot can easily retcon when jhin gets freed from ionia.

jhin as an enforcer? outside of his performances, he was able to evade capture and escape from the kinkou easily, and being an enforcer seems to be such a bold job. but that may also be what enables him to hide right under people's noses.

the "pale sorceress" could also be anyone. in riven's lore, it was boram darkwill as the general and not yet swain, but we know the black rose will reach anyone and anything.

what if arcane ends and we get the first invasion?

in swain's story, the demon raven appeared to him even before he got a demon arm. the raven appearing at the end of arcane could be prior to him becoming a general still.

jhin is still locked up in ionia.

problem with both takes:

what about singed? a zaunite alchemist plays a big role in the noxian invasion due to chemical warfare and leads to riven's biggest lore point. however, singed has already achieved his goal of bringing orianna back alive-ish and ambessa is dead, who had him swear his loyalty to her and her only. what are the chances singed would come to noxus when his daughter is already alive-ish, the supposed reason for his experiments?

however x2, arcane has already opened the noxians' eyes to what zaun is capable of. ambessa wasn't afraid to make deals with zaunites to cause a scene at a funeral, but she initially wanted to find scientists from piltover. i'm sure noxus can find another mad scientist from zaun if singed's story ends with arcane s2.

tl;dr: i'm still convinced it's one of the noxian invasions of ionia that we will get in the next league series.

[rassicas]

i have one video i've been wanting to make about a certain splatoon lore topic so badly for some years now and i wanna do it soon. but every time i think about it i can feel myself going insane. there's so much i need to say. how do i structure this in a way that makes sense. does it even make sense at all. to me? god help me

[ganondoodle]

the closer we get to arcanes finale the more worried i am bc so often .. if not always .. things i like end in a way that i dislike so much it ruins everything else for me

and im so worried they pull a 'this is a multiverse' thing bc then they can say every skin is somehow canon bc its all different universes you seeeeee and jayce went mad bc he lived through all of them or something, or force it to end in a way that makes the champions end up like they are in game- Vi is a shitty cop, Jinx is just heehoo craycray bc xyz etc

[hexxter]

Rewatching Disney worlds parts cause I love the friendship the player get with the characters.. SEPHIROTH???

I didn’t remember that part ever happening…

Am I overthinking it to think its actually means something for the future lore? Its probably just gameplay stuff lol like boss battle

But I can’t help it cause its fits my little headcanon version of khux and Player

[thefirstknife]

The Observatory

I've been rotating a piece of the TFS CE lore in my brain so long I forgot to write about it. There's no transcript yet that I can find (I might do it myself tbh if nobody else does), but here's the scans with the whole text.

So, there's a lot going on in that CE, but the main gist of it is that the whole CE is written like a report from Eido. She investigated information about the Witness and the Collapse to try and help prepare us for our inevitable fight against it. Through her investigation, she found old Eliksni databanks that contain ancient records of past civilisations; main one being discussed is the civilisation that would eventually end up becoming the Witness.

There was a lot going on with them, shown to us through discussions between two specific individuals; they're only identified through code as HNW047622 and RS6243199. I'll call them HNW and RS. I've mentioned this before because we could see one of the pages in the preview of the Collector's Edition.

These individuals talked a lot and gave us insight into the Witness' civilisation. In short, they were super advanced and had something they described as the "Gardener's tools" which they apparently used to terraform other planets. They also talk about the concept of "the final shape" a lot and lead philosophical debates about its meaning and whether or not they have a responsibility to bring that concept to others in the universe. I'll probably go into their civilisation in-depth at some point, but for now I want to go off about something that appears to be a minor detail.

As part of their conversations, In the 5th image from the scans, they extensively talk about the final shape. The RS individual mentions something called "the Observatory." It is apparently some sort of a prediction machine. Full transcript of the relevant conversation and the rest of the post under:

[RS6243199]: I agree with you, in theory, but we do not exist purely in the theoretical. This suffering is already happening now, all the time, everywhere we look. Come see me, and I will show you the Observatory's readings. Such sights as we have seen, my friend, make me sick to my soul. [HNW047622]: I thought that the Observatory could only see possibilities. The future-branches of past visible-light readings. [RS6243199]: We have made improvements. The glass-minds*** trim the excess branches. What we see now are the strongest paths. And in the seeing, they become true. [HNW047622]: Then tell me what you have seen. I gain nothing from running from the truth, no matter how uncomfortable. [RS6243199]: Cities turning on themselves in a frenzy of self-destruction. Children offering up parents in superstitious sacrifice to bloodied gods. An entire people who would boil off their own atmosphere rather than let their neighbors enjoy fresh air! Great waves drowning worlds. Bodies which do not decompose, for everything, down to the very bacteria, has died as well. Machine-plagues carving their prediction-machines into moons. Your garden, destroyed. As the Observatory saw it, so it came to pass.

The footnote is a text from Eido:

*** From the context, some sort of computational assistant? There appears to be some etymological overlap with the names of Vex Minds. Something to investigate later, perhaps!

This made me instantly lose my mind when I was reading. Very early into Lightfall's release, I made a post about the Veil and the history of the universe. It's about some very peculiar similarities between a lot of prediction technology and caches of information that preserve ancient history and ancient civilisations and how they may connect to the Veil.

Mind you, this was before we knew a lot about the Veil; I wrote this pre-Veil logs and before it was confirmed that the Veil is linked directly to consciousness and memory. It was also before Season of the Deep which gave us Akashic Revelation: a lore tab in which a Guardian tries to go through the portal and experiences a vivid flashback of memory of his own pre-Guardian life. The name of the tab is important: akashic records is an esoteric concept for a supposed existence of a record of everything that has ever happened in the universe, past or present or future, human and non-human.

This is basically what I proposed in my post, before this lore tab, about the Veil; that the Veil or some source the Veil can tap into, is something similar to that. That all of the prediction machines are essentially pulling from this same source. In the post, I mentioned the OXA machine (the "black box for galactic civilisations" that allowed the Psions to see the future), Inspiral lore book (in which various civilisations and individuals left their records in the Darkness), the Device (the machine built on Vex technology by the Future War Cult in the Golden Age, led my Maya Sundaresh, used to displace consciousness and also see the future as used by Lakshmi-2), and even maybe the Sundial made by Osiris. I also mentioned how there's a possibility that even the whole scope of Vex prediction technology is somehow based on or tapping into this same source.

I am very amused at how I wrote: "It’s also interesting that Maya Sundaresh seems to be quite involved in pretty much every aspect of this." So true past me, that really is interesting! Her connection to the Veil and Lakshmi (and the importance of the Device and FWC) will later be revealed in Veil Logs. Almost like these connections were made deliberately, between all of these machines and the Veil.

With the benefit of new lore being released in the time since I made the original post, I am even more convinced that there's something going on here, and especially after TFS CE because the section I copied here mentions yet another incredibly similar machine: the Observatory of the Witness' species. It's not described in a lot of details, but from what we did get, it's quite unmistakeable that this is similar to things like the OXA and the Device.

The Observatory is clearly shown to be some sort of a machine that can see the future. Or, rather, as HNW says, it can see "possibilities." This matches what we've seen of the Device when Lakshmi-2 was using it; she was able to see different possible futures, futures that were getting increasingly narrow and biased to what she wanted to see. Identical formatting for using some sort of a machine to predict the future is shown as well with a Psion Ixel using... something (? maybe the OXA?) to do the same.

And again, the same formatting is used this season when a Psion Qorix uses her inate Psion abilities to project visions of the future into the minds of those present at Caiatl's War Council. It's worth noting that Psions have huge ties to Darkness abilities, as well as their entire species having been influenced by Nezarec to an unknown extent, but enough for them to share psionic/psychic abilities, an affinity to void, helmets that reflect his head shape and possibly more we don't know about. It's also worth noting that Nezarec was the one who was transporting the Veil on his Pyramid ship and lamented how Neomuni were not using it to its full potential. Nezarec may have used the Veil to influence the Psions.

This is important because these devices aren't exact, and the Observatory seems to share the same caveat. It shows possibilities, not certainties. Different users might see different things, painted by their own desires and experiences. However, there's something in all of these prediction machines that can lead to a real prediction of the future. The invididual RS mentions several visions, most of which are not specific enough to identify, but sound plausible given the sheer size of the universe; they must've happened somewhere at some point. There's one specific that we know: "great waves drowning worlds." And there's one mentioned by RS that also happened; the destruction of the "garden" made by HNW. This is mentioned in the beginning of the CE. HNW terraformed a planet, but that planet was later completely destroyed.

Even more interesting, the way the Witness' species used the Observatory seems to imply that they employed the Vex directly to help them manage this machine. RS explains that the "glass-minds" are capable of "trimming excess branches" and allowing only the "strongest paths" to be explored. Perhaps this was their way of not falling into the trap that the people using the OXA or the Device could fall into; by having the Vex monitor and manage this prediction machine, it stops the user from inserting too many personal variables. And yes, as Eido noted as well, "glass-minds" is a phrase that indeed shares similarity with the Vex and is almost certainly referring to the Vex.

This is incredibly interesting for a lot of reasons. First, as I've already mentioned, these sort of prediction machines are common throughout the universe and keep being mentioned. Different species at different times have been capable of creating similar machines for similar purposes. Inspiral also goes deeper into how species could use the Darkness to access memory and history through it; the Ecumene and the Qugu had these abilities and used them as part of their civilisation. Through Psions, we get a mix of these two things; the Psions have both tangled with prediction machines like the OXA, but they also posses seemingly inate Darkness abilities that function similarly. They can project futures and possibilities to others, they can merge their minds (and bodies!), and their old religion was based on ancestor worship. Emotions, memories, consciousness itself: these are part of Darkness and governed by the paracausal entity we know as the Veil. It seems like machines capable of giving insight into the past and future are connected to the consciousness of the universe.

Second, these things somehow always come back to the Vex. We don't know how the OXA was built, but the Vex could access it. The Device was build from Vex technology and so was the Sundial. The Observatory is very closely linked to the Vex as well; either built by them or simply being close enough to be accessible for the Vex to manage it. The Vex are more or less known for their manipulation of time, their ability to move through it and use it as a tool, as well as for their prediction and simulation machines and constructs.

And of course, this year revealed to us that the Vex, or at least a part of the Vex, have tried recreating the Veil in the form of Black Heart, but failed due to their inability to understand paracausality. However, it seems like the Vex are drawn to the Veil even outside of just the Sol Divisive, as can be seen from Neomuna. The Vex were a constant threat to Neomuna throughout its existence and the Vex have been trying to access the CloudArk, an alternate reality engine built on the energy of the Veil.

This season in particular has been fairly suspicious with the Vex as well, showing us a concerning evolution of the Sol Divisive and the Vex in general; their radiolaria emitting Darkness energy, Oracles appearing outside of the Vault of Glass and also resonating Darkness, their attempts to "merge with the Witness" and a strange message that seems to be implying they're still not done with reaching out to the Veil in the form of the Black Heart. I talked about this more here.

Are the Vex drawn to the Veil for a particular reason? Perhaps they unknowingly tap into something the Veil is responsible for, like prediction, through the simple fact that the Veil is the paracausal entity responsible for Darkness which is memory? For the Vex, memory could work outside of time; perhaps their prediction abilities are simply them being able to "remember" the future, because they can exist through and outside time.

There is also the even more mysterious possibility here that revolves around a few hints in regards to the Veil and the Traveler being a single entity at some point in time. If the Veil and the Traveler used to be one before becoming separated, this may be what Unveiling talked about through metaphor; the mythical Garden before the universe existed could've been this singularity that was just the Veil and the Traveler together as one. And as Unveiling also noted, in one of those parts of Unveiling that seem to be closer to the truth than others, the Vex already existed then. The reason they're so out of place in a universe of paracausality is because they appear to have come into existence before paracausality so it is foreign to them. They might remember the time when the two were one, therefore they still have an instinctual draw to the Veil; and honestly, to the Traveler too, given how close to it they've settled in our system. As the lore on Scatter Signal notes, someone told us that all Vex agree that "Sol is Salvation." It's where both the Veil and the Traveler are.

This is beyond speculative, but it's been on my mind since that first post well over a year ago because of how closely linked Darkness, the Vex and these peculiar prediction devices have been throughout the history of the universe; now added with one more, the Observatory, most likely the first one ever made (or found), by the species that would later become the Witness. I could be off on the exact nature of this connection, but I feel like there is some sort of a connection all the same. I also feel like they wouldn't have mentioned this in TFS CE for no reason, especially because we're clearly not going to deal with the Vex until after TFS.

Either way, the Observatory mention and description really got me spiralling into unhinged territory. It added such a specific little detail about something I've speculated about before and made it fit perfectly. I wonder if this will remain just like a little curiosity and background worldbuilding or if there's a more direct reason for including it; namely if this is more hints about post-TFS stuff regarding the Vex.

Until we know for sure, I will continue to believe that all prediction abilities and prediction machines are tapping into a single source; the consciousness/memory of the universe, produced by the Veil as a part of the inherent propery of Darkness. The Vex are key to this because they may be doing it in a very specific way given their relationship to time, the possibility that they existed in the universe before anyone else, and possibly because of their memory of a time when the Veil and the Traveler were one.

It could be also something simpler and not entirely interconnected. But I was very pleased to see yet another Vex-based prediction machine being introduced into the universe, adding to the existing ones that have been fairly relevant this year and mentioned several times like the OXA and the Device. Can't wait for TFS and post-TFS content to see if this is something we'll be exploring in more detail, especially as we start dealing with the Vex!

All this about a half of a single page of TFS CE. Girl help.

[parchmentknight]

realizing that i am an outlier in fandoms because i do not ship anyone with anyone

[sketchingstars03]

Ya know, it’s funny. Ink is probably the “sans that doesn’t need to be a sans” that actually makes the MOST sense to be a sans anyway IMO.

But not in an in-narrative way,

It makes sense on a META LEVEL.

Think about it

The UTMV fandom’s main creative outlet has always been through Sans. So it only makes sense for its protector, the embodiment of creativity in this fandom, to be one regardless.

And the best part?

It works so well for him to make sense as a sans on a meta level..

Because Ink is a meta character.

[arklay]

RESIDENT EVIL → THE WESKER FAMILY

To the public, little is known of the families behind some of the world’s most renowned bioterrorists, but the question remains: did they play a role in causing their children to walk down the path that they did? Or are these individuals simply ambitious criminals with delusions of grandeur?

For Diana Wesker (née Afanasyeva), her introduction into the bioweapons black market trade was upon discovering her employers were using her research into limb regeneration with salamanders to further their experiments in creating enhanced soldiers, instead of developing human therapies with which she was recruited for. Although the prospect of using biological weapons in the military did not appeal to her, the concept remained fascinating for her own selfish endeavours. Born on the 27th of October, 1963 in Sydney, Australia to Russian immigrant parents, Diana had harsh expectations placed upon her at a young age, ones that no matter how hard she tried she could never live up to. Her mother, Tatyana, was an unfeeling woman, absent for long stretches of time with little regard to how it affected her daughters, much more concerned with her craft as an accomplished opera singer. Viktor was no better. A strict man whose role as father and ballet master blurred, he pushed his girls to one day follow in his footsteps. Whilst Sofia enjoyed ballet, and went on to become a professional ballet dancer, Diana’s heart was set on going into the field of biology. She wished to make a name for herself, separate from her family – to which she succeeded.

Diana was married to former U.S. Marine, Dave Monroe, for only a year until he was declared dead in 1992 after succumbing to injuries sustained in a horrific car accident. Foul play was ruled out while Diana played the role of the grief-stricken widow, but in reality, she had snapped after years of mistreatment at her husband’s hands, and opted for something she could pass off as an accident to be free of him. For years she believed he was dead – and he was, legally – but that proved to not be the case when he found his way back into her life again in 1999. Unbeknownst to her, she had been lied to by the police and coroner, who were paid off by her employers when they took Dave’s body for themselves and used him as one of their first test subjects in developing supersoldiers. Before he could ever hurt her again, Diana’s second husband, Albert Wesker, tracked the man down, captured him and tortured him, before allowing Diana to get her violent and bloody revenge.

The origins of Albert Wesker’s involvement in bioterrorism, alongside his twin sister, Alex, are much different than that of Diana’s. The two hail from London, Canada, but unfortunately, they hold no memories of their lives there, nor what happened to their biological parents when they were eight years old. Agents of Oswell E. Spencer, an aristocratic billionaire and eugenicist, took the twins from their home and executed their parents as per Spencer’s orders. Albert and Alex were then placed in a home funded by the Spencer Foundation where they were given new names and a privileged upbringing. They had access to the best education possible, free to pursue whichever field they decided, but it was by no accident they both went into virology and bioengineering; at home, their adoptive parents – agents whom they believed to be their real parents – instilled them with the beliefs of Oswell E. Spencer, harbouring disdain for war and pestilence, and believing humans to be an evolutionary dead-end in need of a rebirth. They were only two of the hundreds of children “adopted” as part of what is known as Project W, a plan intended to develop an advanced race of human beings. The most promising candidates were headhunted by Umbrella Pharmaceuticals, the twins amongst them, where they went on to create bioweapons for the company founded by none other than the man who had handpicked them for his plan. The final stage of this was to infect the thirteen Spencer saw fit, however, only two survived; Albert received the intended effects, now possessing superhuman abilities, however, Alex was only offered more time to live due to her terminal degenerative illness.

In the summer of 1995, Diana was working undercover within Umbrella to gather development data on their projects for her company. Here, she had a chance encounter with Albert, an intelligence officer at the time, which permanently altered the course of her life. The two were never seen far from one another’s side, marrying in 1998, and they went on to become notorious in the bioweapons industry. The development of the Uroboros virus was where things took a turn for the worst. Although Diana’s infection was successful and she bore abilities that rivalled her husband’s, the plan itself did not succeed as they had hoped, and almost cost Albert his life at the hands of his former subordinates.

Now, they work within the shadows, with Diana declared missing and Albert believed to be dead. Their legacy, however, lives on with the mark they left on the world. As visionaries in their field, they influenced bioterror attacks carried out by countless individuals and organisations. In turn, they also inspired others to fight against such atrocities. One such person happens to be Albert’s son from a former relationship, Jake Müller, whose existence he was unaware of.

[puppppppppy]

wish they would just let me live on wuhu island man.. kicks pebble and sighs

[jichanxo]

how it started:

how it's going:

[saym0-0]

general life series designs for Grian and Joel :3 their wings are clipped bc they cant fly in the life series and ik other ppl draw them tied back or straight up vanished but i feel like this way makes the most sense? like it doesn't directly injure them (although birds with clipped wings are often clumsier and hurt themselves on accident more often) but evens the playing field a bit

sketch in the corner is of joel and his wolves in 3rd life btw

and the other one was meant to be ren and martyn on skizzle point yk when they're cornered (also in 3rd life)

[starlightswordfight]

yeah I feel like I did attempt to join that fandom at the Wrong time

[ganondoodle]

(Original art) Xaror, any pronouns, species (?), age (?)

short summary about them; they act as both an antagonist and an ally since they are only really interested in what they want or whats fun to them, they are immortal and call themselves 'death itself' since they have a special connection to souls (being the only one able to communicate with them) and the ability to seperate souls from their bodies in such a way that nothing can harm the soul afterwards their main goal is to .. bother and disturb the 'celestials'*, which they hate, as much as they can, breaking into their palace, freeing prisoners, destroying research, destroying the place, and most importantly, making as many souls unusable to them as possible-

they dont want to destroy the celestials though, they cant fight them anyway and this game of doing 'good' only with the goal of annoying them is their most treasured activity, so Xaror doesnt intend to stop them from killing or hurting anyone, only from harvesting what they are actually after (though Xaror doesnt actually care as little as they think they do about people, and has a soft spot for demons)

most of their appearance is later into the story; Zaphira (the empress) had been in coma and the medical facility she was treated in was destroyed by Shargon (orange eyed demon who acts as her bodyguard for the first part) in an attempt to save her from her estranged relatives taking over her country after they heard of her decline in health, she is believed dead but washes up on the shore of the mountain Xaror resides at years later (it has a reason, too much to write here) and they slowly nurse her back to health, the reason they give for it is that they found their first encounter very fun, thats all (is it?)

(more lore under the cut bc this is already so long .. im trying to keep it short q-q ......... this is stuff i have been working on since i was a kid so uh, some things might be cheesy but i cant change them anymore ..)

just to get some basics out of the way; theres three worlds, the celestials palace, human world and demon world, each are their own planet connected via different gateways

*celestials (possibly not final name, loosely based on angels) are the last remaining "survivors" of their planets demise, when their world died the most powerful among them cannibalized the weaker to sustain themselves until there were only less than 10 left, who each turned into different beings from it and dont resemble their own people much anymore, they built a palace from what was left on their world that protects them from space as its atmosphere collapsed shortly after- however they still needed something to live off; they discover the human world and are delighted to find rather short lived people with powerful souls, the best kind of sustenance for them (now), they aim to herd them like cattle, but a problem arose when it turned out another world has long been in contact with the human world; demons

demons are semi immortal creatures that act as protectors for their world, protection they extended, more or less secretely, to the human world ensuring them a long and secure life- the celestials need them to die at their whim though (demons are few in numbers, hard to kill and rarely have offspring, not an ideal target); as they worked out a plan on how to get rid of demons one of the celestials, Xanthriel (time) grew somewhat fond of people as they spent alot of time in the human world to observe and research them; in the end turning on their own completely, but losing the fight against Uriel (knowledge)

Xanthriel was supposed to be executed for their betrayal, but it doesnt work, instead they are splintered into many parts after a lot of struggle, most body, memory and most strength is one part (ending up as motionless forever bleeding corpse kept locked up in the palace), the rest is some time later gathered together and reforms as a seperate, weak mockery of them, they embody Xanthriels emotion- Xaror, without memory, strangely cut to pieces (hence all the missing limbs and broken halo) but driven by an unstoppable desire to disturb the celestials (they live seperate long enough to each become their own person, at some point Xaror discovers Xanthriels body after all and they merge back together, though as they are now two, Xanthriel only takes over once directly after merging, stays silent for a long time and lets Xaror be themselves, only later revealing that they are there at all .. hiding perhaps- i rarely have specific ideas for voices, but Xanthriels is like, like coarse rocks being violently rubbed against each other, less voice more noise)

(also, the celestials use Xanthriels blood from the day of their execution to create a plague that nearly wipes out all demons, only the youngest of them survived, effectively robbing them of everything, culture, history, knowledge etc- as demons rarely have children, like a complete restart of their society, they disappeared from the human world, and over time being largely forgotten as actually existing- the celestials wanted them all gone however, so they kept kidnapping them to try and find somethign that would work similarly against the young ones too (and then in general, bc the only usable blood of Xanthriel was from the day of their fall, and that has long since been used up) one of the young ones was Shargon, he was the only one still alive from his group

(also, the celestials use Xanthriels blood from the day of their execution to create a plague that nearly wipes out all demons, only the youngest of them survived, effectively robbing them of everything, culture, history, knowledge etc- as demons rarely have children, like a complete restart of their society, they disappeared from the human world, and over time being largely forgotten as actually existing- the celestials wanted them all gone however, so they kept kidnapping them to try and find somethign that would work similarly against the young ones too (and then in general, bc the only usable blood of Xanthriel was from the day of their fall, and that has long since been used up) one of the young ones was Shargon, he was the only one still alive from his group (he wasnt the strongest or special, he was jsut the last in the row and always got the lowest dosage) when Xaror found them in yet another break in into the palace and got him back to the demon world .. where he was promptly blamed for the others that were taken and treated like a pretender/fake/spy bc what he got put through changed his eye color (something that demons cannot change in any form) to one that does not exist among 'real' demons (orange ... notice the inner color of Xarors broken halo? :) ), some even suggesting killing him, but none of them were brave enough to do it (they were all kids still) .. except Eadrya (the big blue-ish one, largely regarded as the strongest demon alive) but Shargon managed to escape, and since then lived largely in isolation- this is part of why he is so hated, and why he starts to spend so much time in the human world after rediscovering the pathway there)

[emmodii-mode]

Just finished my first playthrough of BG3. Romanced Lae'zel, but ending up turning into an Illithid because the idea of making Orpheus or Karlach do it didn't sit well with me (or my character).

I told Lae'zel to leave with Orpheus in the end (I heard she wouldn't stay with a ghaik anyway, which she's valid for, but also, it doesn't feel right to ask her to stay when I know how much her people mean to her). And like-

Her face before she flies off---

She looks so heartbroken and sad.