#jeezus

[savaralyn2]

[caliphoria17]

First of several “happy endings”, you say???

THE WINK???

FOUR WORDS??? | x

FOUR TOTAL SEASONS, PERHAPS? 🫨

[heyimboredtalktome]

so ur telling me that america has 330 million people but the only choices it has for president is someone who's currently committing a genocide and someone who would commit a genocide.

[skeletonshower]

[streamdotpng]

I just wandered around a trade fair and yall, the amount of smells got me wondering if this is what its like living in an omegaverse world

[southernspooks]

my other fictional old man husband

[rose-n-gunses]

THE MILLENNIUM KISS IM PULLING MY HAIR OUT

[joelletwo]

[only one person in the room rn] anyone here ever um. spend a really heated summer in the depths of Little Fires Everywhere adoptive/bio parent discourse

[feddy-34]

no cuz what's he so fine for actually

[didderd]

HHHHHHHHHHH WHERE DO U PPL KEEP COMING FROM???

[exsqueezememacaroni]

Ashes to Ashes, part 5 (iconic moment gets its own post) X

[ask-zerotrio]

Epilogue/Author’s final note

Idk if anyone’s been paying attention to how the blog has been transforming over the course of the story, both in answers + meta blog layer, but I hope it’s been a fun ride! I wanted to thank you those who wrote really nice words again ;u; it means a lot, especially when I poured a lot into this blog (Probably more than I should lol.)

Anyway, I really wanted to do a full write up of the blog’s plot/timeline... A summary of the vision, if you will.

Arc 1: An idyllic universe

I’d be lying if I had this plot from the beginning, but the whole of it certainly came in a rush. Anyway, the beginning of this story was very much an AU where Sada and Turo did leave the crater, reuniting with Clavell and Arven before dying. It’s a universe where everything is perfect, and certainly one that Clavell of every universe dreams of, regardless of whether he’s romantically involved with anyone.

Arven gets to have his parents, Clavell gets to have his childhood friends by his side, Sada and Turo see that Paradise was never something found in the past and future.

Arc 2: A crumbling dream

Then, a desire to explore zerotrio “canon” overcame me, and I thought it might be fun to pursue a change in direction via story, as opposed to usual ask blog announcements/retcons. So... upon the mention of harm coming to the trio, Clavell assures himself that Sada and Turo are fine.

Thus begins the crumbling of this ideal world, with Clavell becoming sickly and grieving for something he doesn’t know... But Sada and Turo do. Throughout these few asks, whoever’s responsible for this dream is implied... and I think I’ll leave that for you to guess :)

Reality is rushing back at Clavell, and eventually time runs out for him. Sada and Turo know this, and I hoped I made it clear how apologetic they are (Love these complex, problematic, but fiercely loving professors lol. Their personalities are so intense, Clavell always in the crossfire)...

Arc 3: Zero Lab era

Suddenly, Clavell was no longer available to respond... as per his injury. Instead we have the Zero Lab Search queries: An opportunity for people to investigate what truly happened between the trio historically. No better certainty in happenings than real video footage, no?

An added plus was to show the trio’s early relationship together during the Tera Orb research eras... Fluffy filler between the grimness of what becomes of them.

Although the “footage” isn’t posted in chronological order, they are all still roughly dated to show a coherent-ish timeline of Sada +Turo and Clavell beginning to have different priorities for Arven’s sake. Arguments had and never truly resolved... logs of Sada and Turo’s absence in Arven’s young life... so forth.

Peppered amidst all these were little clues, as well as puzzles. I attempted to throw a red herring, wanting to keep Sada and Turo’s deaths a not so secret for longer.

Eventually however, we reach present day, with lots of footage locked or damaged. Clavell, Sada and Turo are never shown, but their impacts of their action are. (These poor poor wild Scream Tails haha.)

Arc 4: Present day

We finally arrive at the true present day... with Clavell facing off Protocol Sada and Turo on his own.

The reveal isn’t a crazy twist, nor did I really want it to. But the build up had been for a tragedy we already knew/are familiar with: that Sada and Turo died for their dreams....

But in these final moments where Clavell woke from a vision that felt too real, Protocol Sada and Turo weren’t immune to it either.

Zero Lab queries no longer function as they used to, and asking about the past hurts. Sada and Turo’s conscious speaks through the logs. (Its true workings I leave to your imagination, but I liked the thought of the AI and Protocol representing the two parts of a whole Professor.) We see the final moments of Sada and Turo in what is a death-defying retrospective.

What next... complicated/messy resolutions. Clavell saved, Sada and Turo “alive” but different. It’s more open ended than I intended, but I think it’s also alright to leave things to the imagination... 

The trio have always been in search of their respective treasures, and though it takes a long and rough journey...

... lost treasure can always be found.

[gatheredfates]

Soon I say. Then immediately head over here. I have no chill today. I already lightly poked at your characters before asking.

So first question. Koret. Echo. Okay those aren't really questions but tell me about the Echo and her. How does she experience it? She sees it as a curse so I imagine it gets in the way. But what exactly does it let her do? Or do to her?

:)

Koret and the Echo have a very complicated relationship.

In truth, her feelings on the Echo depend on what verse I'm playing her in, because her WoL verse has a very circular relationship that she's only just coming to terms with, whereas her general/in-game verse doesn't have that same kind of closure.

I'll break it down into those parts but I'll pop it under a read-more, only because I tend to get carried away when talking about her.

I may drabble these at some point.

Warrior of Light

Kor, point blank, did not want to be the Warrior of Light. She made it known to the Scions very early in the piece that the only reason that she was allying with them was because her secondary option was killing herself, and she'd prefer to take out Hydaleyn before she did. She was not a kind or palatable character in early ARR.

The thing was, the Echo was nothing but a horror. Her very first manifestation of it showed her sister being murdered and thrown to the brine beneath La Noscea, and she could do absolutely nothing to stop it. She was on her ship at least two days away from port, having just had a major argument with her, and in no place to warn or protect. Her death was an inevitability she could not stop.

Kor has a complicated relationship with her sister. She was protective in the same way she could be possessive; she wanted to shelter her from everything, even at the cost of her experiences, and part of that she felt was the reason she ran into her father's arms when he promised even an ilm of protection. Kor's treatment was more akin a raw nerve — jagged edges and white-hot reactions — and, while her heart was in the right place, a creature raised on rage and trauma learns to extend the same in kind. There were times where she was not a good person, or a good sibling, and those are things she has had to reconcile in Lily's death.

That makes her angry. This anger, this hate, influenced everything she did. What was the point of The Echo if it couldn't stop the one thing she so desperately wished she could avert? She didn't want the people of Eorzea to look at her like she was a hero. If she could carve The Echo out and give it to them malignant and squirming, she would have. If they wanted to be the hero and risk life and limb, they could bloody well have it. All she was interested in was undermining whatever sick individual(s) thought she ought to be the 'chosen one'.

It didn't even occur to her that she was softening over time. Every time she did, it felt like there was another blow — another obstacle — she and the Scions needed to overcome. Rage became resignation, she told herself; even if she'd risk life and limb for them.

It's not so much the Echo does anything to her, no more so than a regular WoL. A lot of the time her visions come to her in dreams, or in strange, intangible pictures she needs to decipher, but they don't hurt her. In Stormblood, she comes to the terrible realisation she had been relying on The Echo when Zenos took her eye, and that causes her outrage all over again.

It's a Catch-22. She didn't mind The Echo when it allowed her to kill her father, but despised using its clairvoyance. It merely showed her that all her thoughts about him were right.

There's a lot in here that I could unpack that would make this already really long reply longer than it already is, but I'll cut to the chase. Elpis was eye-opening for her. Meeting Venat changed her perspective. Events within Shadowbingers had already given her a more sympathetic look towards the ancients and the cruelty of fate, but coming face to face with the person she told herself she hated... she didn't hate her. She simply could not hate her. In telling her the story of how she had come to be, she also had to tell her about her sister.

It was that horrible, gut-wrenching realisation that she needed to ask Venat to only give her The Echo on the night her sister died.

She needed to see that she died, to feel the weight of her death, before she would do anything. Where Lily alive, she wouldn't become the Warrior of Light. If she didn't see her death, there would be no rage to live for — no constant push to adventure and endure for her 'revenge'. Venat had to inflict the worst horror for the greatest kindness, and she did it knowing Kor ( or, more apt, Kore — her protégé, inheritor of her seat ) would hate her.

She did it anyway.

What's crazy about all of that is I made up the former part of Kor's story in Stormblood. Everything beyond that was just a happy accident, and it feels right for it to come full circle in that way. Fate had to play out a certain way so she and others could chart their own course. She needed to live because she deserved to live.

Minor footnotes are that I did drabble parts of it here. I'd like to revisit it at some point but... it's there.

In Game/General Verse

All the stuff surrounding Lily still applies. Kor simply never sought out the Scions. Instead, she was pulled off the brink by Crow and ushered keenly into Firelight Trading Company.

Kor... doesn't like The Echo. That's not a shock. While it gives her the future-sight to predict storms and keep her safe, it's also the little bastard who likes to give her a play-by-play of her friends and loved ones' lives.

There's a indescribable level of mortification that comes from trying to respect peoples' boundaries and their trauma, only for The Echo to conveniently say 'hehe, let's tell you anyway!' in nightmares you can't escape from. It feels invasive and spiteful to her, even if those it affects knows it's not her fault. She wouldn't want people to see into her life, so why is it fair she gets to?

Obviously, I'm very mindful of the power The Echo holds, and I'm deliberate in reinforcing that it doesn't give Kor any advantages in regular roleplay. It's just there for ~flavour~.

However, in both verses she wrecked her ship on Leviathan because she couldn't be tempered and got her just rewards from The Maelstrom. That was probably the best thing that came from it.

[meadowsofmay]

why am i so lucky with getting all of these discourse tiktoks about critical role when all i wanna do is just watch edits and campaign moments in peace?

how, and that is more weird than anything, these people are talking so much and yet, say absolutely nothing?

[worldsewage]

I wanna join a zine can some1 just tell me when a zine gets created…. So I can join…

[cultofpoppy-tm]

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