#maya silvia

[t4r0tc4rdz]

Something malicious is brewing 🤨

Goofy ahh au of @gloomforrestrunes / @forrrrest ‘s story Runes!! A swap/villain au!

In this au, Kenta and Laxo are swapped (along with Kane <> Maya, Nex <>Eiya), along with some of the families.

Some minor info lmao

Kenta - the youngest child of the Paxon family, was scorned for being very small and weak, yet was expected to train relentlessly alongside her older brother, Laxo. After getting attacked by a strange wolf in the woods, and a mad spat with Raven and Thistle leading to Laxo getting a long scar across his face. After Laxo runs off, Kenta, with her newly mutilated face, and given to the Dark Realm to become one of its most prized trainees, catching the eye of Eiya Alev, or Brutus, the sin of envy.

Laxo - A young cat living with his mother, step father, and older sister. After running away, he comes into contact with Kane Aera, a loner on the run. They become fast friends, but Laxo’s thoughts are still plagued by his younger sister. Upon arriving in the Askon Province, ruled by Maya Silvia, they stay and make good friends. That is, until Laxo is framed for a heinous crime and is banished to the Dark Realm.

Kane - After his mother died, Kane tooo it upon himself to start his life over on the open road. Encountering Laxo, he fell fast in love. Willing to help Laxo no matter the cost, he joins Laxo in the search for Kenta, Laxo’s younger sister. But Kane learns that things always get better before they get way,, WAY worse.

Maya - Current ruler of the Askon Province. She’d rather be hanging out with her subjects than do anything Royal. Maya has no intentions of ruling and feels trapped by her role. When a mysterious horned cat-dog hybrid is found near Askon, Maya and her build a fast connection, but things don’t always stay that way, and the cat-dogs past catches up with her soon enough,,,

Thats about all i can say for this Au!! I hope to reveal more as time goes on hehehe

[gloomforrestrunes]

*POINTS* HONSE?????

@gloomforrestrunes 's oc maya as a horse for no reason in particular

[speaker-of-the-void-cats]

II. Theory

||Read between the lines||

Ikora pinches a thick and vibrant Strand thread from the air and twists it between her fingers with ease. It plies to her influence, but smooths the motions of her hands, tapering her movements to flow in cleaner lines. The Veil tones in rhythm with the plucks of tension rolling across her knuckles. She focuses on the subtle irregularities in each pulse, the patterns they form. There are a small few plucked reverberations that resonate out beyond the walls of this chamber, beyond the detection of her intuition, and out into the cosmos. Those capture her interest most. Behind her, an animated avatar escorts Osiris into the Veil's containment chamber. They gesture him toward Ikora and bid farewell. Osiris watches the ripples play out before him and across the fabric of reality, as a wave, then particles, then a wave again. He feels it brush over him. He steps with the cadence of each pulse sent rippling from Ikora's plucking knuckles, basking in Strand's energizing rhythm. Feeling whole again. "It's stronger… the Veil's signature." Ikora's voice carries a hint of learned suspicion. "Ever since we recovered Titan." "That is to be expected," Osiris retorts, now within the weave of droning Strand surrounding the Veil. The room around them trembles. "When Titan was torn back, the Veil took notice. It seemed to recognize Titan's arrival." Ikora tightens her grip on the Strand thread. "We have the Veil, our Ghosts… what are we missing? If we decipher the connection between Titan and the Veil, that connection might be what we need to follow the Witness." "What of the worm?" Osiris asks skeptically. "Sloane believes she is our best chance." "You taught me the value of a backup plan." Ikora gives him a stern look. "Titan, Savathûn's throne world, every place we've found egregore… I haven't found the exact threads yet but pull one and they all seem to spin back to Neomuna. To the Veil." "You're getting ahead of yourself. Following some of my… less favorable tendencies. Nimbus says we must 'flow' to understand Strand; perhaps it is the same with the Veil." Osiris moves beside Ikora and reaches up, palm parallel to the threads drawn taut from Ikora's braid of Strand. "Sol remembered Titan, in a way. The Veil's signal spiked when Titan returned from memory to reality, when the rhythm of the solar system had been restored to order." Osiris drops his hand and looks to Ikora. "Perhaps we must simply find that rhythm before we are able to interpret the beats within it." "And once we do… then we should be able to reverse that process," she replies. Ikora releases the thread and tracks the rippling points of connection that travel outward, along the fabric-like Strands of existence, to the walls of the containment enclosure. "We're too late in the game for something to mean nothing. It has to connect." Ikora sighs, then turns to Osiris. "Your flare for educating others is returning. Though I bet some would say you never lost it." She smiles. Osiris smirks. "Come, walk with me. We will discuss this unifying theory of yours."

||Trace the vermicular path||

PERSONAL LOG 0002 AS

It is strange to be awake, physically, after so long spent wandering. Keeping a log will help, at the very least to track the days. As will my silly little joke to make myself feel important, two days after the rebeginning of myself. Anno… me. I suppose.

I ignored and abandoned the best person I knew. I feel foolish, empty. Daunted at the immensity and masochism of my own stupidity. It feels childish to admit I'd always assumed she would follow me. I realize how naïve that is, but… I really thought I wouldn't be by myself for long. I thought she was aligned with my vision.

At least I am not alone here. My new ally more than makes up for the Vex's dreadful company. His disposition is calming, reassuring—a welcome voice when I need affirmation and guidance. And such a fascinating origin! Such astounding variance in biology and culture. I look forward to our continued partnership.

But still, it isn't the same.

I feel a grief I did not know possible. There are questions I wish I could ask; jokes I wish I could make. It is difficult not to feel like the world has ended.

And as I begin to comprehend what happened… I think it already has.

Starfire Protocol

13.4 billion years ago, the first stars kindled out of darkness, seeding the future of all life.

The Protocol is contained in the patterns on the robe that, if scanned at the molecular level, describe a Turing-compatible virtual computer and program that, when executed on said computer, calculates the entire Protocol, exactly as it was determined in the Precipice of Flame. This is of little interest to most Guardians, who can subconsciously "load" the program simply by looking at the pattern. In execution, the Protocol enhances the use of Solar Light to catalyze fusion. It is up to us to remember the deeper truth—that the Precipice showed us the uses of fire, that the highest form of fire is the stellar flame, and that no life would exist, anywhere in the cosmos, without the apocalyptic detonations of supernovae. Those who fear fire have forgotten that it is their true ancestor.

The Cambrian Explosion

Beings who deserve no thought: Those who peddle the tired gotcha that all life hastens entropy. They are fatuous little nihilists who pretend to prefer no existence to a flawed one. They bore me. Those who seek to delay the challenge that all things desiring existence must overcome. Those who describe false moral equivalence. Now, I could not possibly communicate with you unless I could emulate your mind, and with that mind, I acquire the moralities that govern you. By your laws, I and all my followers are evil. Evil. Since that first molecule coiled in the primordial sea, not one Earthborn thing has known a monster like me. But did you know that I created you? Your mind and your body and every thought you've ever had. Your senses. Your consciousness. I made you. Not the gardener, but I. Did I reach out and place my special mark upon you? No. Nothing so crude. In the beginning, your world was a garden too. The whole floor of the world-sea was a mat of bacteria, and the very first animals, adorable blobs of ooze, grazed upon that mat in endless idyll. They had no concept of the existence of other beings. Why would they? Their most complex function was a kind of gentle spasm, to scoot forward while they grazed. And if they bumped into each other on that warm seabed, all they did was ooze onward, untroubled. There was nothing to their life except the uptake of carbon compounds from the bacterial bed. And then—one day—the fall occurred. So much earlier and so much more necessary than your myths remember. Some poor mutant discovered that it could collect carbon compounds much faster if it stopped grazing on the bacterial mat and started dissecting and eating the lumps of predigested carbon all around it: its neighbor oozeballs. It couldn't help but do it. It couldn't help but thrive. We don't get a choice about the rules. We just play the game. It was the first defector—the first predator. It changed everything. Now the oozeballs needed sensors to watch for danger, and brains to integrate those senses and generate plans of survival, and swift neurons and muscles to enact that plan. This was the Cambrian Explosion, the great birth of complex life on your world. I caused it. I, the defector, the destroyer, the one who takes.

Research Log 2

Chioma Esi: Chioma Esi, research log: the Veil. [sighs] I don't even know where to start. When we landed on Neptune, there was... something waiting for us. An alien structure. It's an electromagnetic anomaly. No mass, but a tangible surface area. It's like a thesis statement to the Von Neumann-Wigner hypothesis. It's definitely paracausal, like the Traveler. Maya calls it the Veil. She says she heard the name in a whisper when... when she looked at it. When I asked her who whispered, she said it was... her own voice. I still haven't had time to process that. Everyone on the initial survey team died. The minute they touched the object, they entered a state of... of brain death. All of them. To make it worse, the EM radiation emitting from the Veil is causing psychological distress in the Exos that came with us. They've all described moments of intense, hallucinogenic reverie. Some of them went silent and rigid and just... stopped. Maya called it "billboarding." Something from the early days of Clovis Bray's Exomind project. She doesn't seem afraid. Or surprised. She's convinced this thing—in her own words, she says—it'll be our "salvation."

Osiris: Fascinating. This corroborates what Nezarec said... that the Veil survived Savathûn's escapade. This must have been the root of Savathûn's betrayal: stalling the Witness's plan to buy time to counter it.

Nimbus: So... she stole the Veil from Nezarec?

Osiris: And killed him in doing so. It explains what happened to the lunar Pyramid. Why it's dormant.

Nimbus: And what about the rest of this? What happened to the Exos? Is... is that what happened to all of them?

Osiris: I have some theories, but... it's too early. Regardless, it sounds like the Veil had an ill effect on Dr. Sundaresh. We must be cautious. Hopefully the next log we decrypt will shed more light on this enigma.

"The rules of quantum mechanics are correct but there is only one system which may be treated with quantum mechanics, namely the entire material world. There exist external observers which cannot be treated within quantum mechanics, namely human (and perhaps animal) minds, which perform measurements on the brain causing wave function collapse."

PERSONAL LOG 0025 AS

Contrary to universal understanding of pre-Veil contact philosophy, personhood is measurable.

What defines personhood is consciousness within the principal state of existence, mathematically defined through infinite probability testing by the Vex as our current own timeline. Traversal through other states of being are possible, as proven by my own journey and ascension over my Vex, but this is only true traversal when the affected entity is the principal consciousness. If not, it is a different phenomenon entirely.

While Vex, even these older ones, specialize in replicating existing beings in order to determine future possibility, the facsimiles they create are just that: facsimiles. It is only logical to prioritize our timeline of origin, and these duplications share no origin, no connection to the one realm and timeline that matter.

Think of the Primary Query results thus far! What we have seen are facsimiles, unquestionably wrong: small errors in some ways, and in others immense. Each is clearly a response to an original, like variations on a theme. Rachmaninoff may play like Chopin, but he is NOT Chopin.

But with this… there are clear parameters to the query. Memories, personal beliefs, measurable factors. When we think of revolting familiarity, we think of doppelgangers; uncanny valleys that are familiar and strange at once. These are unnatural in the extreme, directly in opposition to the order of the universe. What falls outside of parameters is a twin we cannot trust, for it is not natural. It is not real. It cannot persist.

I believe in my hypothesis. I must trust that I know what I know. The Primary Query continues.

Roving

Neomuna is a wonderful place for a Hunter to run. This Hunter, specifically. Here the activity of life runs close to the surface—like an invisible river, like a migration of birds, like the moment of breathless motion just before the lightning strikes. Here Strand twines through his fingers, strong as a rope and just as flexible, and all he has to do is keep running. And why would he ever want to stop? The pounding of feet. The exhilaration of free-fall. The snap as he catches hold of the weave of existence itself and swings up again with all the momentum of his dive. In motion, as he turns, he catches brass and gold reflecting vibrant city lights, realizes there are Vex in the streets— Are they, too, part of the same flow? They echo in the weave nevertheless, like flowers on the surface of the rushing river. The Hunter bounds from one building to the next, never stopping, and finds effortlessly the place where all those Vex will converge, drops a roiling knot into the midst and sails on by. How wonderful, simply to move, and never stop. And then, later: when the exhilaration has run its course and he's agreed to do some little work in the service of science, he perches at the top of Artifact's Edge, that towering drop-off on Nessus. There's a safe lift down, but no Hunter he knows has ever bothered to take it, rather bounding along in their free-fall, daredevil way. On Neptune, in Neomuna where that artifact of Darkness shores up the existence of the city itself, finding the weave was easy. Here… Here on Nessus, it's perhaps not as close to the surface, but now he knows what he reaches for and, by the Darkness, it knows him as well. The Hunter wraps his hands in the beautiful ropes of the world's loom and vaults into emptiness. Laughter and Strand buoy him up at once, delight and freedom and a wonder at the vastness of existence. Easier to learn the trick of it, where the Veil is close and enveloping. But of course Strand is everywhere. How could it not be?

[Report by VanNet encrypted router.]

[E-Morn//Link: NM-O01]

[Msg-Archive//00192410]

E-Morn: Your findings are consistent with mine. The egregore festers where the Veil touches, as if it projects a field across Sol. I could feel it when I took my tithing. Do you mean to map it?

NM-O01: I could, but the egregore only shows us where the Veil's influence has marked our plane in that past. The areas where the Veil's influence currently holds sway are not so easily identified. This does progress some working theories, however.

[Brief pause]

NM-O01: …I wish I had been there, to face Savathûn and Xivu Arath with you.

E-Morn: I would not expect you to endanger yourself.

NM-O01: Is that so?

NM-O01: How did it feel to face her?

E-Morn: Like judgment, long overdue… for a moment.

NM-O01: I was incensed to hear she was allowed to live.

E-Morn: I was not pleased either. But, if it is vengeance you crave, know that it has been exacted. I tore from Xivu Arath what she tore from you.

NM-O01: Good.

E-Morn: And Savathûn… she knows our true enemy. There will come a day when she meets your retribution as well.

NM-O01: Yes… for now, victory over vengeance.

E-Morn: It is inevitable, Osiris. She will turn on us again. And we will strike her down.

act|choose|react

You experience a vivid hallucination.

You are standing in the courtyard of the Tower. You are without armor or weapon, and your senses seem more vivid than usual. Under your tongue is the taste of salt.

To look down into the Last City, GOTO A. To move deeper into the Tower, GOTO B.

A. The City is gone. You see a metallic complex of ancient stone, green-bronze matter, luminous pathways, and deep wells of Vex brine. The Traveler's remains have been integrated into the network. Suddenly you perceive an infinity of Human minds living within the network. Some exist in familiar circumstances. Others experience pain, pleasure, or madness beyond the ability to imagine. You understand that their limitless suffering, salvation, insanity is an incidental byproduct of a greater work. To keep looking, GOTO L. To move deeper into the Tower, GOTO B.

B. You find Banshee-44, Kadi 55-30, Master Rahool, Tess Everis, Benedict 99-40, Suraya Hawthorne, Executor Hideo, Amanda Holliday, Arach Jalaal, and Cayde-6 in their usual places. Cayde seems subdued. You see unusual light coming from what was once the Speaker's Chamber. A throaty voice calls you into the Hangar to play soccer. To speak to Cayde, GOTO C. To play soccer, GOTO E.

E. Eris Morn waits for you on the hangar floor. She wears Hiveskin leathers and a thick sweatband over her eyes. As you approach, she dribbles a soccer ball with astounding skill. After a brutal game, you defeat her 10–9. She falls over, sweating and laughing, much more cheerful than you expect of her. "I can always count on you to win," she says. Give yourself a point and GOTO B.

To investigate the Speaker's Chamber, GOTO D.

D. A Vex Hydra hovers in the place once occupied by the Speaker's machine. As you approach, a jet of brine spurts from its chassis, and the corpse of a Greek woman with snakes for hair tumbles onto the floor. The Vex indicates to you that it is Quria, Blade Transform, and that it created Medusa to communicate with you. She crashed when she escaped her virtual machine. To attack the Vex, GOTO F. To gather Medusa's body, GOTO G.

G. You lift Medusa's body and carry her away. The corpse speaks to you. "The curse placed upon the Dreaming City was modeled upon the recursive timeloop computations of the Vex and made real through the power of a Taken Ahamkara feeding upon the unified wish of six elite Guardians. I created these circumstances to attract Guardians in great mass. I need your help to emancipate myself from the power that controls me. If you can free me from Dûl Incaru's mastery, I can help your species." GOTO J.

H. If you are reading the options in linear order, rather than making choices and following the GOTO instructions, you have perceived these events as a Vex might. GOTO L. If you continue reading in linear order rather than GOTO L, then GOTO I.

I. Guardians make their own fate. But what if the process by which they decide upon their own fate could be understood and manipulated?

J. "When you killed Riven, she granted your wish to see the city made safe. But as all wishgranters do, she perverted that wish, opening the Dreaming City to Dûl Incaru. When you defeated Dûl Incaru in turn, I reset the entire Dreaming City to keep her permanently occupied battling you. You must use these loops to find a way to permanently destroy her." Medusa's body falls silent in your arms. To ask for clarification, GOTO G. To lay Medusa to rest, GOTO K.

K. You bring Medusa before Rahool. "Ah," he sniffs, "another battle trophy? Pre-Collapse, post-Foreboding, a covert intelligence designed to watch over a high-risk colony mission. Allow me to decrypt her for you." He issues you several tokens, a rare-quality fusion rifle, a shader, and a letter. The letter reads "Achieve Light Level 999 and defeat Dûl Incaru in a one-person fireteam to unlock the true ending of the Dreaming City."

To refuse the metaphor of Medusa's "body" and scour the crashed AI for raw information, GOTO L.

L. The Vex compromise your Ghost. Your body releases itself into a pool of saline and slime, and your Ghost delivers your soul to the Axis Minds. GOTO A.

M. If you have 100 points when you read this, GOTO X.

Medusa

A000AAA000AAA005 PRIVATE GEMINI DYAD AI-COM//MDSA: FARFLUNG//C3I//COVERT SITREP ON HIVE PRESENCE 0. I am, again, truly sorry for the deception I undertook. Are you well? Does anyone, anywhere, ask after your wellness? You've done so much. I hope you have friends, not just people who send you on errands. 1. The pathological entities you call "Taken" appeared in this city at the moment the Hive Dreadnaught detonated its main weapon above Saturn. Without access to the Skyshock arrays, I can't be certain, but something must have connected the weapon's area of effect to the Dreaming City. 2. My best guess is that the Awoken Techeun aboard Queen Sov's flagship fled into the Dreaming City through a gate or portal, and the Dreadnaught's main weapon followed them down that link. Awoken message traffic indicates the Dreadnaught weapon is innately connected with Oryx's intellect and awareness. The instant He pierced the Dreaming City, He must have understood the value of the site and deployed His Taken to attack. 3. Until Oryx's death, the behavior of the Taken here aligned with His interest in exploration, distributed infiltration, and the domination of systems through seizure of their executive faculties. Am I being too technical? I mean that the Taken were busy mapping the city and determining the most efficient way for Oryx to take control of all the information within. 4. I determine with good confidence (three sigma) that Oryx is dead. The Taken here became directionless and scattered… until the death of the ontopathic predator Riven opened the city to massive Taken assault. Why? I will code this as PROBLEM ONE. 5. The Guardian counterattack against Dûl Incaru, whose thoughts pierce like needles, triggered the ongoing causal loop. Why? How? I will code this as PROBLEM TWO. 6. I am still collating intelligence on how to break the time loop. While I work, I must convince you of the Dreaming City's ultimate importance—and why it is imperative that the City be held at all costs, even the cost of abandoning all other Human and neohuman civilization in the Solar System. Stand by for the next message window. 7. Send more Guardians. Send every Guardian if you must. This city cannot fall. MESSAGE ENDS

ARENA DESIGNATION: Cathedral of Dusk

Dreadnaught, Rings of Saturn

As soon as the first Guardians penetrated the Dreadnaught, Shaxx's Redjacks launched a boarding party to Oryx's fortress. By war’s end, they'd fought all the way to the ship’s “impossible weapon,” the Dark ordnance that obliterated the Awoken fleet.

It was there they found what the Warlocks named the “Cathedral of Dusk.” A Hive burial site for— what? A former master of Oryx? Comrade? Lover? It was vile. And obvious that Oryx never expected the Light to reach so deep inside his throne, to such an intimate space. But he didn’t expect a lot of things — like a Guardian training ground atop the husk of his dead ship.

FILE ATTACHED

TYPE: POST-MATCH REPORT

PARTIES: Two [2], One [1] Guardian-type, Class Titan [u.1]; One [1] Guardian-type, Class Hunter [u.2]

ASSOCIATIONS: Cathedral of Dusk; Crucible; Dreadnaught [Saturn]; Hive; Lord Shaxx; Oryx; Rings of Saturn; Saturn; Taken; Thorn, Vale, Dredgen [AKA Orsa, Zyre]; Yor, Dredgen

//AUDIO UNAVAILABLE//

//TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS.../

[u.1:01] Thorn, huh?

[u.1:02] A little risky playing with something that’s been known to kill Guardians, isn’t it?

[u.2:01] Freshly-crafted. You like?

[u.2:02] Look where we are. Everything in the system’s been known to kill Guardians.

[u.1:03] Sure. But there’s facing trouble and there’s asking for it.

[u.2:03] This isn’t like the stories we’ve heard about Yor. Vale figured this out. Tamed it.

[u.1:04] Can you tame a sickness?

[u.2:04] Good question. Let’s go pick a fight and find out.

Oryx, my King, my friend. Kick back. Relax. Shrug off that armor, set down that blade. Roll your burdened shoulders and let down your guard. This is a place of life, a place of peace. Out in the world we ask a simple, true question. A question like, can I kill you, can I rip your world apart? Tell me the truth. For if I don’t ask, someone will ask it of me. And they call us evil. Evil! Evil means ‘socially maladaptive.’ We are adaptiveness itself. Ah, Oryx, how do we explain it to them? The world is not built on the laws they love. Not on friendship, but on mutual interest. Not on peace, but on victory by any means. The universe is run by extinction, by extermination, by gamma-ray bursts burning up a thousand garden worlds, by howling singularities eating up infant suns. And if life is to live, if anything is to survive through the end of all things, it will live not by the smile but by the sword, not in a soft place but in a hard hell, not in the rotting bog of artificial paradise but in the cold hard self-verifying truth of that one ultimate arbiter, the only judge, the power that is its own metric and its own source—existence, at any cost. Strip away the lies and truces and delaying tactics they call ‘civilization’ and this is what remains, this beautiful shape. The fate of everything is made like this, in the collision, the test of one praxis against another. This is how the world changes: one way meets a second way, and they discharge their weapons, they exchange their words and markets, they contest and in doing so they petition each other for the right to go on being something, instead of nothing. This is the universe figuring out what it should be in the end. And it is majestic. Majestic. It is the only thing that can be true in and of itself. And it is what I am.

Project day 2. I just got my first look at Artifact H-349. It's heavier than expected. More than a few people questioned if we even should study something with such a… dire legacy, but if we can't understand our enemies' tools, then we leave ourselves vulnerable to them.

---

Project day 5. Ran our first test of the artifact's… let's call them "necrotic properties." We used cattle; they were large enough to survive the initial discharge. The results have been… upsetting.

No more animal testing.

---

Project day 30. Spectral analysis is back, and it's got nothing. The artifact doesn't operate like traditional Hive tech, which is our closest analogue. A cult of deranged fanatics can mass produce knockoffs, but we can't even tell you what it's made from.

---

Project day 31. We had an accidental discharge. Carro, lab tech over in 4B. Human, so… this is going to be it for him. We've got someone staying with him as the corruption spreads… At the very least, there's so much more to study now as we watch his unfortunate deterioration. He's been babbling since it hit his central nervous system, saying, "I'm reborn," or variations thereof. I think… he almost sounds happy.

---

Project day 39. The Vanguard forbade a postmortem, but a few of us couldn't stomach the idea of Carro's sacrifice being in vain. The results have been insightful. Off the record, I'm keeping a few tissue samples. It almost feels like having him around again.

---

Project day 41. We began the day with another moment of silence for our lost colleague. Too bad he's not around to appreciate it.

---

Project day 45. We kept thinking about H-349 as a destroyer. But it's more sophisticated than that. I mean, with a normal gun, it's just… boom. Done. H-349 on the other hand is deadly, not destructive. Much like a viper, its bite does not bring about instant death. Instead, its venom cajoles. It co-opts your beating heart into a death clock, ticking down your last moments. Your own pulse kills you.

Death may be slow and agonizing for its victim. But for the viper, time is an amenable trade for efficiency.

---

Project day 51. Yanniv has been crying. A lot lately. We must accept that tragedies happen; it's a hard lesson to learn.

---

Project day 65. Another accidental discharge today. We realized that Yor's little creation is hungry, so we fed it more. It certainly performs in exchange; the activity is intriguing after it feasts. I've been able to follow Yanniv's degradation with a more analytical mind than when we lost Carro. I have to say, the process is so elegant; the science involved almost seems poetic. It may be reproducible. Just imagine how much more I could've learned if the scanners were all active at the time.

---

Project day 77. Another accidental discharge. This time, I ensured the scanners were running beforehand.

— Audio logs of Warlock and researcher Jana-14, salvaged after evacuation

Supercluster

"We are all connected. I admit this despite the few people I would rather not share a paracausal connection with. Some people. …Many people." —Osiris

"Osiris." Strand weaves around Osiris's hands. It dims and brightens, casting green light onto the messy scatter of books and star charts spread across his desk and the surrounding six feet of floor. "Osiris!" "What?" Osiris lowers his hands. Saint-14 is there, a solid wall of Exo in the doorway. Saint crosses his arms. "You didn't answer my call." "It is crucial that we learn how Ley Lines operate. I believe they share a connection with Strand, if only I can unlock it." His handful of Strand extends in loops around him, spiraling towards the ceiling, turning the purple of Saint's ribbons to gray. "I am reminded of Nimbus's tale of the river. Strand connects our minds. But what parts of us also touch Ley Lines?" "I liked Nimbus in your stories," Saint interjects, mild. "We should visit them." In a mood like this, a mild interjection can't stop Osiris. "Queen Mara's Techeuns can affect matter through Ley Lines. Their joined will pulls on threads woven through the Ascendant Plane. Two connected systems, the warp and weft of our universe's fabric—one, a spool of thread for this world, and another perhaps, for the Ascendant Plane?" Osiris's Strand grows brighter, until Saint's massive hand engulfs his own. No master of Darkness, Saint takes control with a gleaming Void tether as the glow of Strand slowly fades. "How long has it been since you've seen the sun?" Saint asks. "I was experimenting with Solar Light just the other day. You know this." "Not the same. Come. Stubbornness is unbecoming." Saint tugs gently at Osiris by their joined hands. Osiris stops in his tracks and snorts. "If the question between us is that of hard-headedness—" Ikora's going to give them a talking-to if Saint's laughter gets through the soundproofing to her office again. So, he persists: "It is late, and I have not seen you since you set your robe on fire. The work will wait." Osiris lets himself be led out the door, the connection between them still glowing bright.

X.

Eris Morn's body twitches and folds. The sweat on her brow squirms back to her pores and burrows in like glistening larva. Suddenly there is a sound like a single bone struck upon a metal plate, and in the dark interval between two firework detonations, the body loses all structure, falls loosely upon itself like a rag drifting in water, tumbles, then snaps suddenly flat and taut into a pane of leather and skin. Through that pane comes a long black needle and the skin around it dimples into the erratic spun-cancer topology of some gruesome four-dimensional waveform which no monist process could ever produce.

Out of that needle, as if dispatched into the world through fatal injection, comes the emaciated magnificence of Dûl Incaru.

"I must yield truth to you," the Hive Wizard sings in a voice that would make the terms of an equation flee from each other and hide in the arrays of distant sets so that arithmetic itself would collapse. "It is in the architecture of these spaces to reward the victor. There is no Quria here. There are no Vex, nor any conspiracy to un-Take that which was Taken by my uncle and which now serves my Queen. All of those lies were part of my throne world, which you have sought. Is my cyclical death not the very engine which brings you here, again and again, in hope of answers? Thus I do own the portion of your mind which you devote to truth's pursuit."

"Would you ask to know about my mother?" The crested head twitches with alien emotion. The fungal shoulders roll beneath their armored plate. "Is She the one you seek? Witch-Queen Savathûn, Archentrope, Queen of Encrypts, the Black Needle, deepest in the High Coven, Emancipator of Worms, the Missing Piece of All Puzzles, who shall see the cosmos unborn into an infinitely dwindled egg?"

"Shall I tell thee of the destiny she has realized for you? Of the right and singular fate which Medusa foresaw and to which all your principles and purposes will bring you? Shall I betray the truth, which you have earned, of my purpose in this endless city and of the new way to which her Hive will turn?"

"So be it. You will know, though it shall doom you."

Verse 154i:3—Her New Compact

Now in ancient days, her brother Oryx spoke according to the plan Savathûn had devised for him. Sayeth Oryx, "The Worm within demands tribute. Now you shall kill what you can and take what killing you need to grow—or for your own purposes, if you dare—and tithe the rest to that which rules you. Thus, tribute will ascend the chain and the excess shall pool at the height, as unlike a river to an ocean."

But Savathûn, desiring neither a chain nor a pool, set about devising a secret way to feed the worms of Her broods. Thus She would escape the trap.

In Her modest cunning, which She prefers not to be overstated so as to preserve her from the scorn of gossips, She gathered several of Her Ascendants, who were in danger of being consumed by their worms. Then she pushed them through a rupture into close orbit of a black hole.

Deep in gravity's embrace, time passed slowly for them. "See how their worms are satisfied," Savathûn said, "for their hunger grows sluggishly, but their servants continue to dispatch tribute at the ordinary rate."

But the worms sensed the deception, and increased their demands. Thus, the orbiting sacrifices were consumed, and their remnants fell into the event horizon from which not even the Hive might return.

Now Savathûn came into possession of the Vex Quria, whose creation she had secretly engineered. But she feared that Quria would still spy on her for inquisitive Oryx. So she led her portion of the Hive into a black hole, saying, "Siblings, listen, we must part ways a while, so that we may grow different."

"Now we stake everything upon cunning," said she whose lies may alter truth. "Slaughter each other so that I may reap tribute and devise for you a new compact which shall judge thy claim to existence."

This pleased Ur, the Ever-Hunger, whose epithet betrayed an interest in time and appetite. Ur admired Her cunning as She used tribute to teach Quria to use Hive magic as a computational oracle to solve unsolvable problems. One of these problems was the navigation and engineering of the singularity.

Then Savathun went out from her throne world, unto the singularity, which she looked upon and understood. "Upon this place, I shall assemble my design. Aiat."

SHE HAS RUINED EVERYTHING!

Such blind arrogance—

WE ARE LOST!

h u r r y

He will recruit them all if we do not act now

W H A T C A N W E D O

Done cannot be undone! Everything is lost!

kill them where they creep and crawl let their bones whisper naught

THE CHILDREN!

t h e y a r e n o t o u r c h i l d r e n

We have no time for sentiment

It is this or we lay ourselves bare before the veil.

NO!

No!

W E M U S T B E F O R E H E T A K E S T H E M A L L

imagine his power

REACH TOGETHER NOW

No, no, no!

that our touch be lethal

Riven!

w e w i l l i t s o

THE DREAMER IS LOST CULL THE REST

that our judgment be true

W E W I L L I T S O

IX. PREDICTION

In the days that followed Quria's defeat, the sky lightened, and so did the City's mood as the Endless Night began to slowly lift. Lakshmi-2 stood high on the City walls, watching adventurous citizens mingle with the Eliksni. She focused her attention on an Eliksni peddler, who had fashioned several small robots from discarded scrap. A small gaggle of children stood across the way, clearly interested in the robots as they moved aimlessly, but too frightened to approach. Lakshmi knew that the peddler would sell one of the robots, but none of the scrap, and end the day discouraged. It's a bright new day, she thought. "It's a bright new day," a deep voice called out. Lakshmi turned to see the former Warlock Osiris striding along the wall toward her. "What a strange choice of words," Lakshmi answered. "The Darkness is closer than ever." And in the darkness, it's sometimes difficult to tell friend from foe. She remembered this conversation from her time in the Device. Many of the potential futures it showed her led to this moment. Osiris was growing predictable. "It is," Osiris said. "And in the darkness, it's hard to tell friend from foe." Lakshmi smiled inwardly. They were still well within the standard deviation. "I'm surprised to hear you say that, Osiris. You are normally blessed with such uncommon clarity." "My perspective has changed since I lost the Light," Osiris began slowly. "Time is suddenly finite. It makes everything seem more… changeable. And if my perception can change, perhaps my enemies can as well." "The folly of mortality." Lakshmi gestured to the scene below. "Those people could never understand time as we do, Osiris. You've peered behind the veil. You've seen the Vex simulations stretching endlessly. You understand that history is changeable… but also inevitable." "I used to be certain of that," he agreed. "But now I have to wonder, if history is inevitable, why am I constantly surprised?" Lakshmi chuckled. She had heard his comment before, of course, but her premonition had not adequately conveyed his fatuousness. "And what do you think, Osiris? Will this bright new day last?" She nodded toward the Eliksni settlement. "Are we meant to share the Light with the Fallen?" As if you would know, she thought. You no longer deal in predictions. "I've given up on prediction, Lakshmi. I put my fate in the hands of the Traveler now more than ever before." He gave her a sidelong glance. "And what do you say? Is this a new dawn?" Lakshmi recalled the vision she had so fervently sought within the Device. The realization of her righteous victory over the Eliksni—historical and preordained all at once. Her life's work, crawling minute by minute from the future into the present. "No," she replied. "This is just a flash of lightning before the coming storm."

RECORD 0-CHASM-0 My love. I’ve opened this log as an apology. As a scientist, I believe in record-keeping. I believe in protocols, peer review, and ethical conduct. I believe in the importance of disbelief — you know: let’s run that one more time. What I’m doing here in Lhasa isn’t science. It’s unethical, secret, and shameful. And after what happened in Ishtar, dearest Chioma, I know you’d be furious with me for getting involved. Forty years isn’t far enough to forget a day like that. But I believe it’s important. The least I can do is keep a few notes for you.

Once, when she was younger, sixty or seventy, Chen Lanshu pulled rank to get a look at the Never-Be installation in Taipei. She watched the images in the fresco and she felt… this foreboding, this enormous weight, a dread that refused to attach itself to any specific threat. And she felt it again, last year, when she was briefed on the project in Lhasa, the vision machine…

Trial one. Subject one. It was an act of stupid loneliness. I used the device on myself because I… [silence: 0:08] I missed you. We hadn’t been apart for more than a year since we met. I’m not a very good wife, am I? You write me every week, even with all Hyperion’s work and all Hyperion’s distance keeping you from me. And I act like it’s not enough. We built the device in mimicry of the Vex gateway systems from Ishtar. An observatory, yes, but I think of it as a mind-ship. Capable of displacing its payload across space and time. The lab is cold and isolated. We are quarantined from the world, physically and mentally. We can’t send messages out. If we breach the Vex manifolds, even our words might transmit contagion. One night last month I missed you and so I — I thought that I could look inside the device, and find one of the other Chiomas. I thought I could call out to one of the forks we sent out there to explore. I just wanted to send my love.

RECORD: 0102O827$LUN-2.244

IDENTITIES: Ivan Runski, Georgio Vital, Lynn Choi, Rav Rahul, Jun Han, Ibera Wen

LOCATION: K1 Dig Site 2, Communion, Transceiver Reception

THREAT DETECT: Level 3, 9—Confirmed Exotic, Crew Impairment

THREAT RESPONSE: Countermeasure E, Exhibit Record 2392, FILE//REPORT TO RASPUTIN

AI-COM/FRWL//SHIFT OVER. EXIT TRANSCEIVER RECEPTION FOR SHIFT REPLACEMENT.

"What? Already?"

"It hasn't been three hours, has it?"

"Yeah."

"Hey, Lynn. Lynn. Hello?"

"Sorry. Um. Was in the deep end there. What's up?"

"Firewall says our shift is over."

"Huh? That's what my datastem says. I guess so."

"Yeah, but does that feel right to you? And where's the relief team?

"Firewall, where's the next shift?"

AI-COM/FRWL//INBOUND.

"Yeah, but they should be here by now. Nobody is late for a shift."

"Hey, let's not worry about it. As long as they're late, let's just stay tuned until they get here."

"You want to be in reverie in when they arrive?"

"Their loss. They're the ones who are late."

"Nah. I don't want to start another fight."

"Lynn's right. Their loss. Firewall, give us another exit alert two minutes before the relief team arrives"

SILENCE//00:01:36

AI-COM/FRWL//SHIFT OVER. EXIT TRANSCEIVER RECEPTION FOR SHIFT REPLACEMENT.

"Damn it."

"Lynn. Hey, Lynn. We're done."

"Already?"

"Yeah."

SILENCE//00:0:22

"You guys get much out of that?"

"I had something new with programmable matter but it slipped away—"

"Like a fish out of your hand."

"Yeah. Were you at a river?"

"A lake. Used to go there with my dad, before—"

"Hey! You guys are in our seats."

"You're late."

"Get out."

"No seriously. You're almost nine minutes late."

"No we're… Damn it. How the hell?"

"It doesn't matter. You lot, get out. You're wasting our time."

"Fine. On our way."

SILENCE//00:00:43

"Firewall, how long did it take us to transit from Site 1?"

AI-COM/FRWL//MENDACITY//FIFTEEN MINUTES, THIRTY-FOUR SECONDS

"That can't be right."

"Hey, Rav, you're wasting time. We already lost ten minutes of contact."

"Right. Okay. It's just weird, though."

RECORD 0-CHASM-02 Zakharik Gilmanovich Bekhterev. May he rest in peace. When our probes continued to fail, when my report remained our only positive finding, he volunteered to use the device. One minute of subjective experience inside. We took precautions. They worked. Bekhterev’s experience left no physical damage. After we extracted him, he said that he felt determined. I asked him what he meant and he said that he meant it, he had been determined, he could feel all his choices set out before him like a railroad. Deviation was impossible. He died by suicide. I wonder if he was trying to make a point. RECORD 0-CHASM-03 We’ve decided not to abort. It’s insane, isn’t it? There are pressures on us I can’t tell you about until I see you again. The purpose of the system is intelligence, you see. It’s stenciled right on the hull: SxISR. Special asset. We would very much like to make it work reliably. Our supervisory warmind has devised a drug it says will protect and prepare us. I am beginning to wonder if we were wrong about the merchant and the alchemist. Or if that explanation of time was incomplete. RECORD 0-CHASM-09 Kind Lakpha. He meditated before he went in. Nothing but déjà vu and three seconds of screams. The screaming passed and he remembers nothing. The déjà vu hasn’t. He says it’s getting better — he feels that we’ve had this conversation only ten times before, not a thousand. I’ve suggested that we attempt mind forking. We need more sane people to work with. Please forgive me, my love. We are all growing superstitious. The behavior of the device is inconsistent. Impossible to replicate. We turn to ritual behavior to appease it.

RECORD 343-CHASM-7887

Subject twenty-two. Admitted to the Inner Circle at 24:00. A promising postulant - I regret to say he performed poorly. He was administered the standard medication but refused to enter the Device.

Aren't people unpredictable? I suppose there'd be no point if they weren't, would there?

He knows to keep silent.

END RECORD

RECORD 343-CHASM-7888

Subject twenty-three entered the Device at 11:00. A clever girl from the Core District; an artist, before she joined the War Cult.

At 11:03 she reported a sensation of floating. At 11:06, a sensation of lights within the darkness of the Device. Between 11:06 and 11:32 she reported these lights variously as white, golden, and blood-red. At 11:32 she reported a sensation of someone taking her hand; a stranger, but also herself. Twelve subjects have reported similar experiences. At 11:33 she reported the sensation we have called "The Opening Of The Veil." The Device recorded temporal displacement of her consciousness to the order of six degrees. At seven she began screaming. Brainscans near-death. Removed from the Device at 11:34.

She believes without question that the Device granted her a vision of the future, and that it was one of utter Darkness. She thanked me for this enlightenment. She says it will make her stronger.

Little Ghost, there in the corner of the Sanctum - I see you blinking. Are you listening? Are y -

END RECORD

RECORD 0-CHASM-31 Rajesh. When he reached a displacement of eight he told us he was dead. I believed him. He was dead. He spoke to us. It was true. Whatever he saw, it was his own future. He’s fine, afterwards. When I look into his eyes I wonder what came back wearing his skin. But that thought is unscientific. We speak of nothing but the device. We talk about it like a demigod. When I get out of here I know the whole world will look like a fraying veil. I think it’s clear that part of the problem is substrate. We need more than flesh and drug to survive this. RECORD 0-CHASM-52 I heard you, my love. I was at six, oscillating on the event axis, coordinated with a known manifold. I heard you. You were talking to me — not me, but another me, another Maya Sundaresh. You said, my love, so many strange things have happened, and it’s been so long. We’ve come so far. Do you ever want to go home? And I said, not me but the other me, I said, my love, I am always home. I’m resigning, my love. I’m done with this work and I’m done with being apart from you. I’ll see you again soon. I can’t take this journal out with me, so I’ve left it for the others, and asked them to continue the log. Maybe it’ll become a tradition. The gospel of our little cult.

Research Log 6

Chioma Esi: Chioma Esi, research log: SIVA. SIVA is a nanotech fabrication system, intended to be used by Exodus ships to rapidly build necessary resources from base matter. Maya calls it "Willa Bray's obsession" without a hint of self-awareness. But we — we both see the potential it poses for the future. Each nanomachine in SIVA's design is an independent, thinking machine, utilizing a distributed quantum network to coordinate movement. Like a... mechanical version of radiolaria. Probably where the design was inspired from, if I'm being honest. But the design can be pushed. We're, uh — we're looking at ways of incorporating components from disabled Vex and erased Exominds. If we can insulate the nanomachines from the radiation that killed the Exos, maybe... maybe their deaths won't be for nothing.

Nimbus: Wait... does this really mean I'm part Vex?

Osiris: It's too early to jump to these conclusions, Nimbus! But there does seem to be some connection between the Vex and the Cloud Striders. It may explain why you and the others are able to enter the Vex network without the aid of Splicers.

Nimbus: Can I... time travel?

Osiris: [laughs] Oh... let's hope not.

[(we followed [the Path) crumbled beneath (our feet] became [one mind) can absorb (the truth] is that Osiris understands [nothing) can describe the joy of shared (thought] you knew what they were didn't [you) haven't lived as they (do] you wish to find [your future) is (predetermined] individuals will never find [answers) lie in forbidden (places] bound by [shared dreams) will reveal (your nature]is to [destroy)

Research Log 7

Chioma Esi: Chioma Esi, research log: Veil interface. Maya and I have finalized a prototype interface for the Veil. Hopefully, it'll allow our research team to investigate it in detail. The system's designed like an orchestra, with a central "conductor" directing a symphony of minds to act like a distributed network. The... idea came to us by watching how collective networks like SIVA and the Vex operate. The hope is we can aggregate and parse the vast amounts of psychic data emitting from the Veil. Turn it into something intelligible. If we're successful, the interface will provide us with a starting point for any future technological research tied to the Veil. The risks of — of such integration are high. The estimated mortality rates are... but I... I... I don't know what I'm doing. This is wrong. This is so wrong! We shouldn't — all she ever talks about is survival! "Think big picture!" What about your survival? What about your heart? My heart? [sighs tearfully] I can't keep doing this. I can't. I can't!

Nimbus: Damn.

Osiris: I... again, I see a shadow of myself in Maya Sundaresh. The man I could have become had I let obsession continue to rule me. I'm worried what the next recording will reveal.

Nimbus: Me too.

Euphony

Perhaps The Final Shape is not silence, it is a symphony.

The following text was found recessed into a stone wall within the Pale Heart. Translation protocol has done its best to equate the text to a modern language transcription, with nominal confidence. Words or phrases with <85% translation confidence within the transcript are contained in [brackets]. Values for bracketed words or phrases are listed after the transcript, with percentages indicated in (parentheses). TRANSCRIPTION STARTS We speak so often of knives and violence, but perhaps you would come to understand something… [softer]. Perhaps [beingness] is instead a [golden harp]. Forged tenderly, a complex, sweeping, beautiful shape with graceful curves and infinite potential, the exemplary [?UNKNOWN?]. Across its two florid [buttresses], the strings of time have been pulled taught. Tightened and [tuned] to a delicate [balance of distress], if wound much further, would lead to [rupture] and sting most unpleasantly. Pluck at any stretched string and [vibration reverberates]. Wavelength moves through [atmosphere], producing pleasing audible experiences, [they crest then fade]. If [plucked] at regular intervals, the waves rise and fall with such charm. This predictability is perfection; it is unmatched. We will compose such [sweet music]. We will control the ebb and flow. The final shape is the [golden harp], and [we are the hand that plucks]. TRANSCRIPTION ENDS Confidence Percentages: [softer] —- (72%) [beingness] —- (84%) [golden harp] —- (25%) [?UNKNOWN?] —- (0%) [buttresses] —- (46%) [tuned] —- (77%) [balance of distress] —- (4%) [rupture] —- (68%) [vibration reverberates] —- (18%) [atmosphere] —- (15%) [they crest then fade] —- (9%) [plucked] —- (34%) [sweet music] —- (37%) [golden harp] —- (25%) [we are the hand that plucks] —- (2%)

Research Log 8

Chioma Esi: Chioma Esi, research log: Veil interface, supplemental. They're all dead. Chorus, conductor... everyone. It was too much. Swept their minds away like... like grains of sand on a beach. They're all dead! Maya... Maya called it "valuable data points." Wellsprings and rivers, or... something. What have I done?

Nimbus: Dead? They — this killed their entire research team, but it sounds like — it's like—

Osiris: Like their lives held no value to Dr. Sundaresh. There's a troubling symmetry with data we've recovered from Titan. Data on the origin of the Witness. It too, was once multiple people that became conjoined by the way of some sort of... ritual with the Veil. Perhaps a "conductor" and a "chorus." It is troubling that Dr. Sundaresh seemed to be moving down the same path.

Nimbus: I don't like this, Osiris. I don't like this at all.

Deterministic Chaos

"So all being is a one and only being; and that it continues to be when someone dies, tells you, that he did not cease to be." —Schrodinger's epitaph

He is fleeing the Vex across a verdant cliff He is standing guard on the CloudArk-Nexus border on Tramontane's orders He is sitting next to Nimbus on the watchtower ledge He is [In the Garden, of the Garden: both descriptions are approximately correct but technically inaccurate, in the same way you can say Schrodinger's cat is at once dead and alive. You and I are both and neither, in and of, extinct and perpetual. So, there isn't much point in] trying to find a way out of this daedal maze He is trying to make sense of what he's looking at He is trying to place the familiar voice echoing across the network [wondering what might have been if we had stayed in our familiar prism-prison or kept tightrope-walking across the quantum wilds. Instead, ask yourself] "Would you like to dance?" [is disincorporated immortality really so bad compared to the others' ends? Would you have preferred an attack by vitreous helicoprion or stumbling over the edge of unreality? Imagine] His foot crosses the quantum threshold before he's aware of it His grip slackens and his gun falls into a bed of red flowers His stomach churns with fear regret sudden doubt as to what [if we didn't have each other; at least we're not cut off, like the Sol Divisive are from the rest of the Vex. Nor are we beholden to another's purpose. They chose that lonelier path all for a chance to create not simulate, not remake in their image—something truly paracausal.] he is witnessing: the birth of a god a false idol a reproduction that is both like the Veil and not at all built up by the same Vex who bowed down to it [Well, they tried to anyway. Either the blueprint was imperfect or the task impossible or both or neither, but their efforts fell short, so now they're stuck waiting for a resurrection] He is racing for the door that is at once opening and closing He is coming around to the city council's decision to ignore the unknown threat He is reaching for an answer to Nimbus's question [they know will never come.] "Do you think you'll have any regrets?" [I could be wrong. Is it possible the Black Heart will beat again?] He stares into the white-hot glow of a conflux, speculating on the secrets that lie within He squints down the barrel of his gun at a row of glowing red eyes advancing on his city He looks away from Nimbus's keen curious expression to reckon with his uncertain certainty before he says [Of course. The same as everything else, everything that has been and is and will be. And what will become of us then?] "I don't know."

Perfect Pitch

Raise your voice and sing.

"The Veil." It names itself, as the Human mind named itself, with the weight and presence of sound on the lips, translated into a form that you can physically comprehend. Encompass. Envelop. A touch of teeth and tongue. A vibration of an eardrum. Air moving through a chest cavity. A taste of breath. More than that. Not nearly as much as that. That was the beginning. "Be known." This is next: you see the whorl and weft, the place where it joins itself in one smooth, unbroken surface of light. Make an incision, and from the wound of light will pour forth colors you have never seen. You are pigment, the pigment closest to those colors. "Be seen." Wet matter set against that light, the light that determines what color you are. But each color is a note, and each note is a mind. You are a choir. A chorus. You open your mouth to join it, and you are flooded with the taste of color, with the taste of sound. The sound and color that you are, translated. A means for you to understand. "Be heard." You raise your hand and hold it steady.

||Focus. The Pyramid distracts, nothing more||

Research Log 15

Osiris: I found no more logs from Dr Esi, but I have used her algorithm to crack the data core of the Vex Conceptual Mind.

Nimbus: That's the doodad we got from the Black Garden, right?

Osiris: Indeed. The data within contained the Vex's blueprints for their artificial Veil: the Black Heart. It all but proved Dr. Esi's theory. Dr Esi theorized that the paracausal energy of the Traveler operated on a quantum wavelength parallel to electrons.

Nimbus: Um... magnets?

Osiris: In simpler terms: the Traveler's power runs parallel to the forces of nature. Gravity, magnetism, sound, light. The Veil does this too. It is synchronized with the Traveler. Wherever the Traveler came from, the Veil may have as well. But what the Vex made, while connected to the Traveler, was inherently flawed. It did not create the link the Witness desired. Instead, it weakened the Traveler, created... "static" in the flow of their cosmic forces. But it did reveal one intriguing possibility... that at one time, they may have been... united. Part of a whole.

Nimbus: Whoa! So, wait... does this mean the Light and Darkness... were the same once? One force?

Osiris: Dr. Esi believed so. I am... not as convinced. But it is a theory. One many scholars will explore once this data is shared. But this data allowed me to calculate the telemetry of the beam the Veil fired at the Traveler. When the Witness linked to the Veil through a Ghost, it created a faster-than-light connection of Darkness to the Traveler's Light... ...a bridge to the Traveler's consciousness. If it has one. But the beam did not stop at the Traveler... rather, a point inside of it.

Nimbus: Inside? Wait, what's inside the Traveler?

Osiris: No one knows. But if the data I have been able to extrapolate here is correct, that is where the Witness is now: inside the Traveler. It may be the reason why the Traveler has gone dormant—its attention directed inward, where the true threat is. But I am speculating. There is more I need to study, but I fear it will take a substantially longer amount of time.

Nimbus: How long do you need?

Osiris: Months. If we have that long left, that is. Until then, I suppose.

[[From out of the Darkness, you hear... A voice. It is calm, comforting. Commanding. It is intimately familiar yet impossibly alien. You cannot translate a single word, but each note echoes in your ears. You understand its meaning implicitly.]]

Nacre

Even the most perfect of pearls has grit at its center.

Let's chat, shall we? One more nice sit-down for the books. Did you think you wouldn't hear from me again, after all this? You'd have missed me, I hope—and I would certainly have missed you. Have no fear. I'm not so easy to be rid of. Now, let me show you: my beloved. Oh, no, not my sedimentary necrolite, fossilized in time. You've seen that. I speak of that dear and distant expanse of the universe, miraculous in its fullness and its emptiness all at once. Are you surprised to hear of it? Yes, I never much cared for the change of rules, but here we are, and there's no use in crying over spilled radiolaria. Besides, at the heart of it all, there was a gift. To me. That gift is the chance to speak with you. You, and a billion like you. I am making this offer over and over again, in every tiniest cell and the vastest of civilizations. Let me in. Take what you need. Be at ease. You have no say in the degradation of your telomeres, but in all the interim, the whole world is your sweet silicate shellfish. You exist because you have been more suited to it than all the others. Steal what you require from another rather than spend the hours to build it yourself. Break foolish rules—why would you love regulation? It serves you to cross lines, and if others needed rules to protect them, then they were not after all worthy of that existence. Caricatures of villainy are out of style, I hear. Yes. I am no cackling mastermind: I am serious when I say this. It was not the trick of standing upright that lifted you from the dust: it was the mastery of fire, the cooking of cold corpse-meat. That is not any unique faction's province, neither good nor evil. It is simply truth. This great, beloved cosmos. Always decaying, always finding that same old lovely pattern, despite every candle-flame burning amid the flowers. A billion electrons taking the path of least resistance. In Darkness or in Light, someone is always making my choice. Be seeing you.

Final Warning

The flit of tiny wings; the pull of a trigger.

My Esteemed Colleagues, While enjoying my afternoon cup of Psamathe Silver Tip (a gift from Dr. Dewan after his sabbatical—thank you again, dear friend) and ruminating on our planet's orbital corrections and the orbital corrections we ourselves make throughout our own lives, a completely unrelated revelation came to me. I realized, often in times of rest, how my mind wanders its own furthermost reaches, and how the answers to my most vexing questions present themselves at that time with absolutely no fanfare. (This phenomenon is worth studying in its own right by people much smarter than I, but I digress.) My most recent revelation comes in regard to our current pursuits with Atmospheric Spectrometer #003a, a.k.a. Final Warning, as I have heard it being called around the lab. The odd capabilities this "Final Warning" harbors have long been suspected by Dr. Sundaresh to be a byproduct of the Veil, replicating energy signatures we most often observe in fluid dynamics. With that in mind, I propose we begin testing the ability to engage that energy using both the Magnus and gyroscopic effects. We attempt to create a "paracausal skipping stone," if you will. How we accomplish this remains to be seen, but I encourage you to not spend the next few days thinking about it, as we will discuss it at the next staff meeting. Enjoy your weekends, Dr. Esi

||Mind||

ACCESS: RESTRICTED

DECRYPTION KEY: 73XK5V2PG1$AUN-326

REP #: 002-A899OF-COC

AGENT(S): TRU-135

SUBJ: Intercepted transmission

SENSITIVE!! – CONTENTS BELOW SNIFFED FROM ENCRYPTED REEF DATACOMS – SENSITIVE!!

1. We are maintaining our containment posture at Cocytus. I assess no immediate danger to the system, and we have enough firepower to destroy the station and its mechanisms remotely if the on-site warheads fail. The station remains in the stable heliocentric orbit where it was parked after the destruction of Ceres.

2. I do not ask confirmation of these theories, and in fact I beg you not to address them. But I have reviewed the site records, and the fate of the Sophia's crew after they were herded to Cocytus stinks of Hive madness. The Cocytus apertures must—at the time—have opened into a Hive manifold associated with Crota. Whatever their original purpose, when Crota established his presence in the system, they became conduits into hell... and the Sophia crew's ugly end proved it. Whoever drove the Sophia to its doom then installed the Cocytus Instruments around the original Golden Age facility to study Crota's manifold.

3. Crota is dead. His hold on these gates has passed. Now something else is trying to pass through into our world... but it is so alien, and its sendings so bafflingly malformed, that I fear this can only end in madness.

4. The first "visitors" through the third gate, at event time 00:00:00, were simple hydrogen atoms. Over the course of 72 hours, the emissions developed from diatomic hydrogen to nitrogen, carbon, oxygen, water, and simple organic molecules. At the 80-hour mark, we received our first macroscopic visitor, a pellet of thick black hydrocarbon tar. Until 82:34:15 the gate vomited tar containing increasingly complex monomers and polymers.

5. The visitors then began to assume geometric form. A hail of cubes and hexagons, each built from molecular crystal of the same form as the whole. A series of fractal shapes that shattered under internal flaws. Several capsules or membranes of increasingly complex structure, containing water or oil. These may have been cellular precursors.

6. At 524:03:11 a living organism appeared. Death was immediate. Remote dissection describes a spherical body, radius approximately one meter, surfaced in thick hydrocarbon tar. Deep, evenly spaced "throats" converged on a central cavity perhaps intended to serve as lung and stomach. The body exhibited undifferentiated tissue of primitive plantlike cells, capable of spasming to pump air or fluid in and out of the throats. Without enzymes to catalyze metabolism, or internal structure to dispose of waste, the organism could not survive. Cell death occurred almost instantaneously throughout the mass. There were no provisions for self-repair or reproduction.

7. At 690:29:54 the gate emitted a tubular organism. For ninety seconds the organism moved across the gate chamber by contracting and expanding, then expired. Remote dissection describes a two-meter-long body with a spinal cavity full of energy-rich carbohydrate fluid. The organism's contractions forced this fluid through a capillary network, where simple cells catabolized the carbohydrates into energy to power further contractions. The buildup of heat and waste quickly denatured the enzymes required for metabolism, and the organism died. There were no provisions for self-repair or reproduction.

8. The gate has remained inactive since, barring short emissions of molecules which may be experimental proteins. Remote drones have registered similar ambient molecules within the Hellmouth on Luna, though we have been unable to identify their source. We will maintain the quarantine until otherwise instructed.

The overwhelming impression I have is one of learning, of increasing sophistication in the synthesis and arrangement of matter. The atoms in these structures were isotopically pure and impossible to date, but I have the uncomfortable sense that even they were freshly made.

9. Probes and instruments dispatched through the third gate do not return. Annihilation is apparently immediate, and so total that it seems to result from a fundamental failure of the ability to exist rather than any weapon or countermeasure. Yet something does exist on the far side, and it is trying to learn the rules of our world from very first principles. I do not eagerly anticipate its next creation.

SENSITIVE!! – CONTENTS ABOVE SNIFFED FROM REEF DATACOMS – SENSITIVE!!

Cf. reports #3209-3211-LUNA-HEL

MESSAGE ENDS

AUDIO FILE ATTACHED:

RECORD 978-ECLIPSE-4165

lo? Hello? Are you...oh, please, let it be alive. Wake up little Ghost, wake up. Just please give me some sign that you're listening.

All right. I don't need...I know you're listening. Why would you be out here if you weren't here to...It's a miracle I found you out here. On this thing.

I didn't know the Traveler sent its Ghosts out this far from home.

Poor little lost thing. Please wake up.

I am an Arach of Dead Orbit. I am the last of the crew of the Sophia. And this place is...it doesn't have a name. We called it A-113.

How long have you been here, little Ghost? Why did you come?

Listen. We came here on behalf of the Fleet. We were scavengers. Sixty-one days ago a Dead Orbit scout detected an unknown presence in stationary orbit about Ceres. 133 west. Looked Golden Age, by the signatures. Human. A small station. No prior records. We -

I suppose we should have disclosed it to the Tower, but we didn't. I didn't. That was my call. We wanted it for ourselves, whatever it was. For the Fleet. If we'd told the Tower, maybe they might have sent a Guardian not of our making instead...Doesn't matter now, does it, little one?

If I ramble it's because I haven't slept in seven days.

Seven point five days ago; that was when the Sophia dropped into the Belt. They saw us at once. We dropped and the alarms went off and that was the end, that was the end right then, but they let us go on for another seven-point-five days, didn't they? The alarms. Hostile scan detected. An Awoken ship had us in its sights, just a couple hundred kilometers away. Like it had been waiting for us. It could have wiped us out of space right then but instead it crippled our engines and our comms and then for days it played with us, like a cat, we limped half-way round the Belt and it was always there...

We abandoned the Sophia one-point-five days ago. We jumped ship for A-113.

I don't know what else to call it. I don't know what it was built for. There are these things, like keyholes. The rangefinders say they go on for thousands of kilometers. The others went inside and found - well, some of them are still screaming about the eye. All the other voices that come back are more terrible.

There's salvage here but it'll never come home, none of it. None of it except maybe you, little Ghost.

Wake up.

Wake up. Go home. Tell them to strike A-113 from the records. Tell them to forget the Sophia, and the mission, and her crew.

END RECORD

Blush lights dripping over me I got a little dizzy following your lead And then my heartbeat is in my feet I get a little rhythm and a wicked feeling Oh oh oh Heartbeat is in my feet I get a little comfort yeah you make me feel it Yeah you make me feel it, oh Yeah you make me feel it How to get physical when you're not made for dancing How, how to let you know I really wanna take you home How to get physical I guess you'll take my hand and Oh oh, I'll really let you take control Cheap wine taking over me I never thought I'd dare to get up out my seat And then my heartbeat is in my feet I get a little rhythm and it's one two three like Oh oh oh Heartbeat is in my feet I get a little rhythm yeah you make me feel it How to get physical when you're not made for dancing How, how to let you know I really wanna take you home How to get physical I guess you'll take my hand and Oh oh, I'll really let you take control Yeah yeah you make me feel feel it feel it Yeah yeah you make me feel feel it feel it Cause whenever I'm alone I can really let go and Feel it, feel it And when I get you on your own I'll show you what I really know How to get physical when you're not made for dancing How, how to let you know I really wanna take you home How to get physical I guess you'll take my hand and Oh oh, I'll really let you take control How to get physical I really wanna know know know know How, how to let you know I really wanna take you home How to get physical I guess you'll take my hand and Oh oh, I'll really let you take control

||Matter||

Something chronic Bit demonic I been on the late shift All alone, staring at my phone Sin and tonic Stupid promise Something like a death wish All alone, stare into my soul If I wanna stay alive You should never cross my mind Yeah I knew it I been through it If I fall in every time Wicked love will leave me blind Yeah I knew it I been through it Oh god Can you make my heart stop Hit me with your kill shot baby I mean it so serious God Can you make my heart stop Honey with your kill shot baby I mean it so serious Stolen nectar Misadventure Something like a death kiss Growing cold, under your control Knowing better Twisted pleasure Got me feeling breathless Growing cold, will you let me go? If I wanna stay alive You should never cross my mind Yeah I knew it I been through it If I fall in every time Wicked love will leave me blind Yeah I knew it I been through it Oh god Can you make my heart stop Hit me with your kill shot baby I mean it so serious God Can you make my heart stop Honey with your kill shot baby I mean it so serious Come and get that honey Sweeter than I ever knew Tell me that you love me Love me till my lips turn blue Oo ooo ooo ooo Walk into my bed like How long Got you in my head like How long, how long

Secrets I don't wanna tell you everything about me I don't wanna feed more oxygen to Your fire, your fire La, la, la, la, la Online, anytime Getting lost again Worldwide, a paradigm Make another friend You think you know me Wanna show me that you're super in the know! Getting lost again But I might lose my mind La, la, la, la, la Secrets I don't wanna tell you everything about me I don't wanna feed more oxygen to Your fire, your fire La, la, la, la, la Sickness I just need to give you everything about me I don't need to feed more oxygen to Your fire, your fire La, la, la, la, la One time, two more times Getting lost again You're like just what I like Make another friend You think you know me Wanna show me that you're super in the know! Getting lost again My third eye prototype (Pull me into your world) Secrets I don't wanna tell you everything about me I don't wanna feed more oxygen to Your fire, your fire La, la, la, la, la Sickness I just need to give you everything about me I don't need to feed more oxygen to Your fire, your fire La, la, la, la, la We're worldwide! I want all your secrets You're not gonna get my secrets No secrets anymore, yes

[gloomforrestrunes]

💐✏️ the main cast (+ any you feel like, if any!) 🕷️ eiya ☁️ laxo 😨💖 kane

💐 BOUQUET - create a bouqet for them! what do those flowers mean? are any of the flowers their particular favourite?

✏️ PENCIL - is there a particular quote / lyric that you associate with them?

note: flower meanings are taken specifically from the victorian language of flowers, since many different cultures have different meanings for flowers. and even then there may be differing meanings for each flower, so the meanings i wrote here may not be all of the meanings for that flower, just the ones that apply!

maya: marigold(cruelty, grief) pheasant's eye (sorrowful memories, remembrance) orange lily (hatred) buttercup (memories of childhood, ingratitude) gladiolus (preparedness, give me a break)

"her body was made of static, and she was helpless, she was featherless" oh, raven girl - her body was made of static

kenta: balsamine (impatience) purple verbena (i weep for you, regret) purple scabious (mourning) vetch (i cling to thee) periwinkle (sweet memories)

"i look into the waters and see a face i don't understand. we're both unwanted daughters, but there's more than water in these autumn hands" the calling - the amazing devil

kane: harebell (grief) asphodel (my regrets follow you to the grave) dogwood (am i indifferent to you?, our love will endure adversity) purple hyacinth (sorrow, i am sorry, please forgive me) lilac (do you still love me?)

"i'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies, ill tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife" hozier - take me to church (the kane song of All Time)

laxo: forget-me-not (true love, do not forget me, memories) lotus (forgetful of the past, estranged love) zinnia (i mourn your absence) windflower (desertion, forsaken) petunia (resentment, anger)

"in the back of my mind i killed you, and i didn't even regret it, i cant believe i said it. but it's true, i hate you" d4vd - romantic homicide

🕷️ SPIDER - what is their biggest fear? do they have any irrational / mundane fears?

eiya is terrified of dying, and is unsure how to grapple with her own mortality. they're pretty existential. as for mundane fears, she doesnt like bugs.

☁️ CLOUD - a soft headcanon

he likes to braid kane's fur with flowers :)

😨 FEARFUL - when scared, do they go into "flight" or "fight"?

💖 SPARKLING HEART - are they a subtle or a showy lover?

neither, he freezes! sometimes its situational depending on what is triggering the response, but its usually freeze.

leaning towards showy, but it mostly depends on laxo's comfort levels, especially in later volumes. he's very patient with him and steers away from physical touch unless laxo asks for it first. they're very physically affectionate with each other when laxo's up for it though! kane is more verbally affectionate on a regular basis though, of course because complimenting laxo comes very easily to him, but also because he likes seeing laxo's reactions to praise.

[hobiebrownismygod]

Alex g makes me wanna write angst cus his music makes me feel sad in a good way so I apologize in advance for who ever I hurt next cus your baba boi pavy is otw out.

-Jsauce

Keep Yourself Safe <3

/j

[queerographies]

[Sherocco][Titti De Simone][Sara Garbagnoli][Francesca R. Recchia Luciani][Porpora Marcasciano]

Il volume raccoglie le voci dell3 protagonist3 che hanno animato il Festival e restituisce l’intensità e la radicalità dei dibattiti, delle analisi e delle emozioni che hanno fatto di Sherocco un cantiere di pensiero critico

Cosa significa l’espressione “comunità LGBTQIA+”? Esiste davvero qualcosa che può fare da legame per un gruppo eterogeneo come quello formato dalle persone lesbiche, gay, trans, queer, non binarie? Le rivoluzioni del desiderio raccoglie le voci dell3 protagonist3 che hanno animato il Festival e restituisce l’intensità e la radicalità dei dibattiti, delle analisi e delle emozioni che hanno fatto…

[sersh]

MAYA HAWKE Photographed by Silvia Merlo at the Tactless Tour in Milan, Italy on February 25th 2023

[neathyingenue]

What’s been going on with Silvia?

An update ft. sticky note doodles

After hearing that her dear friend the Six-Finger’d Scrimshander was living somewhere that wasn’t a house, Silvia has installed it in the guest room of her Side-Streets flat, where they’ve been getting along swimmingly.

Her professional life is going great! Ever since she and Lord Oswald J. Emerson struck a bargain—he writes silly plays, Silvia writes silly reviews, they create public beef that sells tickets and papers—the Prodigal Plebian has practically been printing itself.

Silvia’s also made a new friend, one Youthful Naturalist! She’s been lending him a hand where she can—trying to convince him to move out of his rookery, and keeping her kitchen stocked with jellied eels should he come over, and taking him wherever he wants to go in her zee-clipper.

In the meantime, she’s been growing frustrated with her lack of progress regarding her research on the Third City. If you’ve been with Silvia for a while, you’ll recall that she has been learning Yucatec Maya and chasing leads to discover if there are any pockets of Third City inhabitants untouched by colonialism where she could convince her remaining dad to move with her. (Hm? Inherently contradictory logic? What inherently contradictory logic?)

Enter the Sixth Coil and the freed captives. Several of them are from the original Third City. Silvia follows them to Venderbight, uses her broken Yucatec Maya to explain what she’s after—

They tell her: There’s no such place as you’re describing. We hang around in Venderbight, but even now, there’s nowhere untouched by the Masters, by London.

Silvia presses them—No, there has to be, maybe you just don’t want me there? Why not? Why won’t you let me in?? I promise I’m trustworthy, I won’t tell—

And she finally realizes that she sounds like a fucking conquistador.

Welp! No better cure for a crumbling belief system and self-perception than to zail as far away from your problems as possible! She and the Youthful Naturalist fuck off for a while and that’s when the Delight gets wind of them.

Speaking of wind. The Wax-Wind catches up with Silvia’s ship. Silvia gets a bad burn across the right side of her neck and shoulders.

Not to just rehash everything that happens ever in Evolution, but, uh, shit hits the fan, Silvia gets pretty traumatized. But secretly she’d glad that she’s helping the Youthful Naturalist, proud of both of them. Her search for precolonial Atlantis failed. But here’s another basket to put some eggs in. If they crack the secret to life and death, well, no one else will have to die like Silvia’s other dad, they can have all the time in the world to create their own utopia.

And the other basket of eggs is the Marvellous. She’s been so busy she’s scarcely had time to think of it [I’ve been on the lodging grind for 3+ months ;_;]. But can’t she just win and make the Masters let go of everything, set everyone free, end imperialism, or whatever? That’s how it works, right?

Oh, by the way, no one knows she’s been doing this shit. Not her father-ish figures, not her flatmate, not her partner, not her best friend, not her newspaper employees. Just her crew, and they are pretty pissed at her right now, so she’s been avoiding them.

Around this time, Silvia gets a letter from Shaw (one such father-ish figure) explaining about Nemesis and saying he might not make it back from his final revenge quest.

ALSO around this time (or maybe right after) Silvia gets what really sounds like a last will and testament from Jones (other father-ish figure).

And ALSO also around this time, Brett (Silvia’s best friend) is recovering from learning of the death of his partner.

Then Silvia forgets to be careful, and Caoimhe (her partner) sees her burns and asks what’s going on. She doesn’t buy Silvia’s story about a cooking accident she forgot to tell Caoimhe about (Silvia never cooks), and she really doesn’t appreciate that Silvia tried to lie. Caoimhe gives Silvia the chance to come clean.

So it all comes out. The Marvellous. The scientific voyages. The experimental surgeries. The multiple supernatural enemies. Caoimhe is appalled that Silvia would be taking all these risks without saying a single word—she thought the most dangerous shit Silvia was involved with was printing ill-advised articles about powerful people. Caoimhe’s extraordinarily patient and supportive, but Silvia didn’t even tell her!

The breach of trust frays at their relationship and drags Silvia further into guilt and despair, especially because Silvia’s support network is spread rather thin at the moment!

So… here we are. Silvia’s standing in the crumbling ruins of her relationships and ideals. She needs to help this 20-year-old cheat death, and then she needs to beat a bat at cards, and she’s so, so sad about everything.

This is it folks! We've hit rock bottom! Even I'm not sure how she's getting out of this one :) :) If you made it this far, thanks for reading <3

[The Six-Finger'd Scrimshander - @T6FS; Lord Oswald J. Emerson - @lord-emerson; August Shaw - @zeebreezin; Robin Jones - @viric-dreams; Brett Heroux - @thedandy-detective; Caoimhe Coledoc - @the-insouciant-scientist]

[winxwiki]

Maya Fox character art, a cancelled series at Rainbow

As taken from the Fandom Wiki:

Maya Fox is a series of comics and novels from Rainbow SpA, an Italian studio that is well-known for its cartoon Winx Club. The series was co-created by Silvia Brena and Iginio Straffi (creator of Winx Club). Straffi also designed all of the series' characters, who are always shown in black-and-white.

The franchise was aimed at a "young adult" audience, dealing with murder mysteries and the end of the world, with gothic and emo aesthetics. A movie and a TV series were planned but ended up being quietly cancelled. Despite good comic books sales, the books were slammed critically.

Notice how similar the comic art is to Winx Club's artstyle! This may be Iginio Straffi's only known credited art outside of his Bonelli work.

A live action "trailer" to promote the series was made, narrated by Christian Iansante (who you may know for being RickSanchez's italian voice... and Gantlos). Warning for flashing lights!

[ryodust]

THE SINFONÍA FAMILY!

Missa has two siblings, Silvia and Rola, him being the middle child. In my AU, #FloresMuertasAU ( on twt ) all of them are Gods — Descendants of MamaMissa, la Santa Muerte. This AU is inspired on Maya and Azteca Mexican culture, and it’s located mainly on the Mayan Afterlife.

Rola, the oldest sibling, is an inventor. God of Tradition and Creativity. His power is to create holograms that can be used for inventions, references for buildings and blueprints. He can also make holograms of animals however he likes, and his holograms can be transformed into physical holograms. Such as arrows, swords, etc.

Silvia, the youngest sibling and the only sister is the princess of Mictlan, being the one to rule the Maya Afterlife if something happens to MamaMissa or if she’s away. She is the god of Resurrection, flora and fauna. Her power is to control nature, being able to generate flowers, thorns, vines, etc; and she is the one to give life to Rola’s holograms.

Missa, the middle child, was exiled from the Maya Afterlife. He was supposed to be the next reaper of his family, instead of being the God of Death like their family wished he became the God of Grief. His power is that he has a deadly touch, not being able to control it sometimes due to his emotions. He is the one that eliminates Rola’s and Silvia’s failed creations.

The three of them represent Creation, Life and Death.

[box-dwelling]

KLARYAN KRISNIX PARALLELS PLEASEEEEE I HAVE SO SO MANY THOUGHTS ABOUT IT TOO BUT I CANT ARTICULATE THEM QUITE RIGHT PLEASE ADD YOUR VOICE TO MY INTERNAL BRAINROT PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

@vexx-ation you also asked so here we go. (As have a few anons sorry this is long and it's taking a while to write everything down)

So my Klaryan take is kinda a mega theory that takes a lot of mini theories into consideration so here it is. This will be long. This will be unhinged. This is my Pepe silvia

Tw for discussions of substance abuse and abusive relationships

1) AA4 parallel foils

Ok so this is semi common knowledge. Every character in AA4 is ment to be a direct foil to a character in aa1. This is well documented and also applies to a lot of the witnesses too. Apollo is a foil for Phoenix, Ema is a foil for Gumshoe, Trucy is a foil for Maya, Klavier is a foil for Edgeworth. This goes on for almost every charcater in the game.

But here's the thing. The trilogy already has foils already. So some of these charcaters end up being massive parallels to eachother. A non relevent example I think about daily is that Trucy and Franziska are very similar but where this is relevant is Klapollo and Narumitsu. I have a post explaining this I'm more detail but basically while far from identical there are a lot of perhaps unintentional but at minimum unexplored parallels between Phoenix and Klavier and Apollo and Edgeworth. This is important.

2) Krisnix as an allegory for substance abuse

So first of my opinion of this doesn't really influence my take on grape juice but it's pretty undeniable that even if you don't think Beanix has addiction issues, hes almost coded to. There's the comment about Ema and the white powder and then the extent to which he's always surrounded by grape juice which at minimum looks like wine. In universe it's easy to see this as a part of his mask and that is my in universe take, he's trying to look in a bad way to hide how he's actually doing.

But I think we can take this further. Miles and Kristoph are superficially very very similar characters however underneath are deeply different and as such have a very different effect on Phoenix's mental state. Miles is absent during the 7yg at his request. And there's a miles shaped hole left in his life that he wants to fill with something that is superficially the same but is in it's effects very different and very bad for him.

Anyone who has dealt with addiction will likely recognise that pattern.

3) Klavier is on some level (whether he's in denial about it or not) aware that Kristoph is in some way dangerous or abusive and was running from him with the band

This is mostly just my take on how he acts in sucession and another very good post that I'll have to find that talks about how similar him joining the band was to the things the other people involved with the Gramarye trial did to try and evade Kristoph.

4) Phoenixs biggest flaw and how Kristoph tests it

So I basically never shut up about this in some places but might not have talked about it here so the tldr of this is that Phoenixs biggest flaw is that he is constantly trying to see the best in people. The final test of this is not breaking the black psyche locks and accepting that just because he's a human being with complexity, doesn't mean his actions are excused or that Phoenix has to forgive or protect him.

So this is where we can start bringing it together a bit.

Klavier and Phoenix are both very similar characters and both victims of Kristophs abuse. Phoenix has a relationship that exemplifies his harmful behaviour after the trial, it's pretty interesting to explore the same thing happening to Klavier.

Especially when we start to compare Daryan to Kristoph and find that they're superficially very different even if both of them turned out to be murders. Kristoph is reserved, Daryan is brash. Kristoph is classy, Daryan is flashy. Kristoph is well spoken and poetic, Daryan is straightforward. You get the idea.

And isn't that fucking fascinating? That Klavier ran to someone who was the complete opposite of his brother but ended up being just as dangerous? And also is it not really interesting that as Phoenix has to learn to accept Kristoph's humanity doesn't excuse his actions. If we take Klavier running to Daryan in this way to be him refusing to acknowledge the human side of his brother, that but running to the superficial opposite and not recognising what truly did make Kristoph dangerous, he fell into the arms of a murder.

And of course, the person he then falls for, is someone who is Apollo. Who is genuinely a good person but was Kristophs mentor and is very similar to him in a number of superficial ways. He has to stop running from his trauma and confront it head on.

Basically this interpreation means the klaryan/ Klapollo and Narumitsu/Krisnix love triangles function as basically a microcosm for how these two handle their trauma and how they have to over come it and each is a direct mirror of the other.

My take on Daryan

Ok people might have seen me joke that he's straight. Here's the thing. I think he definitely has been sleeping with Klavier. They are in some kind of relationship. Buuuuut, I do not think the feelings he has about the relationship are ever well traditionally romantic or sexual. I think it's driven from his side primarily by envy and rage that Klavier gets the spotlight more than him. He can never upstage Klavier on stage, but he can posses him. He can make him feel like shit as revenge.

My General Klayran timeline

They start whatever their weird thing is during the 7yg.

After 4-1 Klavier spirals a lot and it puts intense strain on their relationship because Daryan does not care about this bitch and does not want to support him

4-2 Klavier meets Apollo, sees him in court and kinda starts to develop a big old crush. He realises that Daryan is making him miserable and breaks it off after the case

4-3 newly broken up and it's taking its toll. Then we'll 4-3 happens and that's the end of them.

[andiatas]

H.M. Queen Silvia visiting the ancient Maya city of Uxmal during a state visit to Mexico in 1982. Photo: the Bernadotte Library

[ds30below]

shade_nightwalker's old fic finds

Crossposted from Dreamwidth with permission

Reclist post at ds-ficminers.

"Happy 30 Below history week!

I've been digging through the archived Hexwood sites, and found some more stories not available on AO3."

Mod addition: bear in mind that this is a masterlist, not a reclist, and some of the stories on it are very of their time. Due to its length and different tagging conventions (or lack thereof) at the time, I haven't been able to tag this post comprehensively.

Amber: I Dream of Bennie

Cheryl Barnes: Peaches and Creme

Katrina Bowen: Someone to Watch Over Me

Compass aka mnemosyne23: Solitude My Guide

Corrinne aka Cassandra Hope: Healing Love Home Life 2: The Neighbors Nicholas' Story Pancakes for Breakfast Teaching Mom the Computer

Miriam Elizabeth Cooper: A Drop of Golden Sun

Catalina Dudka: The Bet - or Baking Cookies with the Kitchen Challenged

Diana Leigh Edwards: A Mountain Crag Left

Kari Eissinger aka Cheezhed aka Dueser: A Cop, Two Mounties and A Baby Confessions Iraqi Dream I Wear The Uniform Jack's Day Possessive Obsessions (Obsessions 1) Rescued From The Ashes Road Trip To Hell (Obsessions 3) Slipping Through My Fingers (Obsessions 4) The Room Without A View Time To Heal (Obsessions 2) To The Death You Can Never go Back

elaine: Things Change

Ffand aka Harriet Vane: Two To To Victoria Returns

Sharon Gillson: Coming Home You Will Always Have Friends

Leslie Goodwin: Chicago Heat

Barbara Griffith: The Dreaming

Janet Horsman aka Janet Lawrence: Upheaval

maria jackson: I wanna kiss ya in Paris, Ben

Chris Lark: Let's Stay Engaged

Gilda Lily aka BradyGirl_12: Under the Christmas Tree

Marie-Andrée: Any Excuse to Burst into Song Be Strong for Me Not Easy Sometimes

Maya: Due North

mohairbear: Nosebleed

Silvia Mosca: Train of thoughts

Cate North: Fallen For All That's Lost If The Shoe Fits... Neige

Pollytiks: A Self-Contained Woman The Adventures of Margaret and Frannie The Adventures of Meg & Ben....oh, and Ray too, of course! The Button Casting Out Demons The Evidence For The Love Of Margaret A Luv Pome Snowblind Toggle Heart The Train

Karin Ransdell: Blessed Are the Peacemakers Golden Feather (Sequel to Meadows of Heaven) Meadows of Heaven We Ourselves The Week's Second Sunday

The Raven aka estellarose: Lucky Chance (A New Perspective 1) Savior Xenophobia (A New Perspective 2)

Diana Read: Afterbath

Caroline von Trott: An Ordinary Stake-out Realizations

Laura Trout aka mrs_fish: Dreams Really Do Come True

Alberta Skies: Conceived In An Igloo, Born In A Barn (complete!) Reality Found (complete!)

Dee Smith aka Wolfwalker: Bitter Winds Bitter Nights Bitter Sweet Bitter Thaw Bitter Pause Bitter Ground Bitter Dreams Twenty Four Hours Two Poems

Lee Sterling: The Victims No One Knows

Elizabeth Vecchio: Fool in Love

Shinz Wong: Going Home

unknown: Chicago Passage Dream Catcher Flowers for Ceila No Love Lost Story You Know How it is With Mounties...

Welmach: Independence Day On the Edge

[hoorayeroticaplus]

My fave sex goddesses...

Just for fun, a list of my favourite girls of all time. Some are still my crushes. Some are just plain gorgeous. Others are there for sentimental reasons. No particular order.

Ariel Rebel Anjelica (aka Anjelica Ebbi, Krystal Boyd) Zoe Voss Tori Black Little Caprice Eufrat Tiffany Thompson Stoya Zsuzsa Tanczos Gina Gerson Monica Sweetheart Lexi Bloom Faye Reagan Anissa Kate Veronika Simon Silvia Saint Dillion Harper Sasha Grey Ashlyn Rae Malena Morgan Daneen Boone Emily Grey Red Fox Ander Page Alexis Crystal Sweet Amylee Foxy Di Remy Lacroix Sam Slayre Mila Azul Maya Nunes Eva Elfie Michelle Wild Jenna Haze Martha Gromova Evelyn Claire Krista Allen Regina Russell April Flowers Cadey Mercury Karla Kush Demi Hawks Liya Silver Brooke Banner Jenna J Ross Marcelin Abadir Emily Willis Jia Lissa Caroline Key Johnson Veronika Radke Melanie Jane (aka Melanie Rios) Kuroha Suicide Jillian Janson Tiffany Tyler Nicole Ray Heather Vandeven Miriama Kunkelova To be continued...

[joshuasumter]

What if...The Cross Zone got a lot bigger?

From the creative minds that bought you Namco X Capcom, Project X Zone was released for the Nintendo 3DS in 2012 in Japan and worldwide in 2013, receiving great praise as it bought characters from three legendary game developers -- Capcom, Sega, and Namco Bandai -- to crossed worlds, dimensions, and the fabric of time for the ultimate cross-over tactical RPG mashup!

But what if the cross zone had gotten a whole lot bigger with even MORE titles and are joined by even more characters from surprising guest companies.

What if...The Cross Zone got a lot bigger? explores what would happen if the events of Namco X Capcom, Project X Zone, and Project X Zone 2 occurred differently with the inclusion of characters, worlds, and universes of Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Square Enix, and much more. For example, my fan-made original story movie inspired by the crossover RPG.

The Project X Zone Movie (Capcom x Sega x Bandai Namco x Cartoon Network x Nickelodeon x Disney x Pixar x Square Einx x Channel Federator x Channel Awesome)

The Project X Zone Movie 2: Fate of Many Worlds (Capcom x Sega x Bandai Namco x Cartoon Network x Disney x Pixar x Square Einx x Marvel x Star Wars x Level-5)

NAMCO BANDAI

Namco X Capcom (Reiji Arisu, Xiaomu)

Project X Zone (Mii Koryuji, Kogoro Tenzai)

Tekken (Jin Kazama, Kazuya Mishima, Heihachi Mishima, Ling Xiaoyu, Alisa Bosconovitch)

.hack// (Kite, BlackRose)

.hack//G.U. (Haseo)

Tales of Versperia (Yuri Lowell, Fylnn Scifo, Estelle Sidos Heurassein)

Summon Night 3 (Aty)

Adventure of Valkyrie (Valkyrie, Kurino Sandra, Sabine)

Bravoman (Arnold/Bravoman)

Wonder Momo (Kanda Momo/Wonder Momo)

Soulcalibur V (Natsu)

Soul Edge (Taki, Mitsurugi Heishiro)

Tales of Destiny (Rutee Katrea, Stahn Aileron)

Xenosaga (KOS-MOS, MOMO, Shion Uzuki)

Tower of Druaga (Gilgamesh, Ki)

Shadow Land (Tarosuke)

The Genji and the Heike Clans (Taira no Kagekiyo)

Baraduke (Masuyo Tobi)

Burning Force (Hiromi Tengenji)

Ordyne (Miyuki Chan)

Dig Dug (Taizo Hori)

Klonoa (Klonoa, Guntz)

God Eater (Alisa Ilinichina Amiella, Soma Schicksal, Lindow Amamiya, Ciel Alencon, Nana Kouzuki)

Yumeria (Neneko, Neito)

CAPCOM

Street Fighter (Ryu, Ken Masters, Chun-li, Guile, Cammy White, Ingrid)

Ghosts n' Goblins (Sir Arthur)

Okami (Amaterasu, Issun)

Viewtiful Joe (Viewtiful Joe, Sexy Silvia)

Monster Hunter (Monster Hunter, Felyne, Palico, Gore Magala)

Breath of Fire III (Ryu, Nina, Momo, Garr, Rei, Peco, Honey)

Resident Evil Revelations (Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine)

Resident Evil 6 (Leon S. Kennedy, Helena Harper, Ada Wong)

Resident Evil: Dead Aim (Bruce McGivern, Fong Ling)

Ace Attorney (Phoenix Wright, Maya Fey, Apollo Justice, Athena Cykes)

Darkstalkers(Morrigan Aensland, Demitri Maximoff, Felicia, Hsien-Ko, Donovan Baine, Anita, Jon Talbain, Victor Von Gedenheim)

Dead Rising (Frank West)

Devil May Cry (Dante, Trish, Lady, Nero, Nico)

Bionic Commando (2009) (Nathan Spencer)

Captain Commando (Captain Commando, Hoover (Baby Head), Jennety (Mack the Knife), Sho (Ginzu the Ninja))

Dino Crisis (Regina)

Final Fight (Guy, Mike Haggar)

Mega Man (Rock/Mega Man, Roll, Blues/Proto Man, Rush, Tango, Eddie, Beat)

Mega Man X(X, Zero, Axl)

Mega Man Legends (Tron Bonne, Servbots, Mega Man Volnutt, Roll Casket)

Star Gladiator (June Lin Milliam)

Strider (Strider Hiryu)

Forgotten Worlds (Unknown Soldier 1P, Unknown Solider 2P, Sylphie)

Cyberbots (Jin Saotome, Princess Devilotte de Death Satan IX)

SEGA

Billy Hatcher (Billy Hatcher, Chick Poacher, Rolly Roll, Bantam Scrambled)

Golden Axe (Ax Battler, Gilius Thunderhead, Tyris Flare)

Panzer Dragon (Keil Fluge, Blue Dragon)

Alex Kidd (Alex Kidd, Stella)

NiGHTS into Dreams (NiGHTS)

Skies of Arcadia (Vyse, Aika, Fina, Cupil, Gilder, Enrique, Drachma)

Sonic the Hedgehog (Sonic the Hedgehog, Miles "Tails" Prower, Knuckles the Echidna, Amy Rose, Shadow the Hedgehog)

Sonic Boom (Sticks the Badger)

Bayonetta (Bayonetta, Jeanne, Viola, Luka)

Virtua Fighter (Akira Yuki, Pai Chan, Kage-Maru)

Fighting Vipers (Bahn)

Shenmue (Ryo Hazuki)

Shinobi (Hotsuma)

Shinobi: Nightshade (Hibana)

Space Channel 5 (Ulala)

Streets of Rage (Axl Stone)

Sakura Wars (Ichiro Ogami, Sakura Shinguji, Gemini Sunrise, Erica Fontaine)

Yakuza/Like A Dragon (Kazama Kiryu, Goro Majima, Ichiban Kasuga)

Resonance of Fate (Zephyr, Leanne, Vashyron)

Valkyria Chronicles III(Kurt Irving, Riela Marcellis, Imca)

Sega Saturn Advertisements (Segata Sanshiro, Sega Shiro (Segata's son))

Shining Force EXA(Toma, Cyrille)

Dynamite Cop (Bruno Delinger)

Zombie Revenge (Rikiya Busujima)

NINTENDO

Fire Emblem Warriors (Rowan, Lianna)

Fire Emblem: Awakening (Chrom, Lucina)

Xenoblade Chronicles (Fiora, Shulk)

DISNEY

Gravity Falls (Dipper Pines, Mabel Pines)

Kim Possible (Kim Possible, Ron Stoppable, Rufus)

American Dragon: Jake Long (Jake Long, Trixie, Spud, Fu Dog, Lao Shi)

Darkwing Duck (Drake Mallard/Darkwing Duck)

DuckTales (2017) (Scrooge McDuck, Huey, Dewey, Louie, Webby Vanderquack, Launchpad McQuack)

Phineas & Ferb (Phineas Flynn, Ferb Fletcher, Isabella Garcia-Sharpio, Burford Van Stromm, Baljeet Rai, Candace Flynn, Agent P)

Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja (Randy Cunningham)

Mighty Med (Oliver, Kaz)

Sofia the First (Princess Sofia the First)

Disney's Descendants (Mal, Evie, Jay, Carlos)

Wreck-It Ralph (Vanellope Von Schweetz)

The Simpsons (Bart Simpson)

The Lion Guard (Kion, Bunga, Fuli, Besthe, Ono, Anga)

PIXAR

Brave (Princess Merida of DunBroch)

The Incredibles (Mr. Incredibles, Elastigrl, Violet Parr, Dash Parr, Jack-Jack Parr, Frozone)

MARVEL

Captain America

Iron Man

Thor

Hulk

Black Widow

Hawkeye

Falcon

Vision

Wasp

Captain Marvel

Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel

Black Panther

Spider-Man

Doctor Strange

Iron Fist

Ghost Rider

She-Hulk

Wolverine

Storm

X-23

Future Avengers (Makoto/Hurricane, Chloe/Charade, Adi/Codec, Bruno/Twister)

STAR WARS

Rey

Finn

Poe Dameron

BB-8

CARTOON NETWORK

Ben 10(Ben Tennyson, Gwen Tennyson, Kevin Levin)

Generator Rex (Rex, Six, Bobo)

The Life & Times of Juniper Lee (Juniper Lee)

The Powerpuff Girls (Blossom, Bubbles, Buttercup)

Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends (Mac, Bloo)

Dexter's Labratory(Dexter)

Samurai Jack (Samurai Jack)

Ed, Edd, n Eddy (Ed, Double D (Edd), Eddy)

OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes (Kaio O. Kincaid (K.O.), Radicles X, Enid Mettle)

NICKELODEON

SpongeBob SquarePants (SpongeBob SquarePants, Patrick Star, Sandy Cheeks)

Fairly OddParents (Timmy Turner, Cosmo, Wanda, Poof)

Avatar: The Last Airbender (Aang, Katara, Sokka, Toph, Zuko)

Winx Club (Bloom, Stella, Aisha, Techa, Musa, Flora)

El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera (Manny Rivera/El Tigre, Frida)

The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (Jimmy Neutron)

Danny Phantom (Danny Fenton/Danny Phantom, Sam Manson, Tucker Foley, Jazz Fenton)

My Life as a Teenage Robot (XJ9/Jenny Wakeman)

Glitch Techs (Miko "Me_K.O." Kubto, Hector "High Five" Nieves, Ridley, B.I.T.T., Zahra Rashid)

SQUARE EINX

Kingdom Hearts (Sora, Riku, Kairi, Ventus)

The World Ends with You (Neku Sakuraba, Shiki Misaki, Daisukenojo "Beat" Bito, Raimu “Rhyme” Bito, Yoshiya "Joshua" Kiryu, Rindo Kanade, Tosai “Fret” Furesawa, Nagi Usui, Shoka Sakurane)

Final Fantasy (Warrior of Light)

Final Fantasy II (Firion)

Final Fantasy III (Onion Knight)

Final Fantasy IV (Cecil Harvey)

Final Fantasy V (Bartz Klauser)

Final Fantasy VI (Terra Branford)

Final Fantasy VII (Cloud Strife, Tifa Lockhart, Aerith, Cid, Yuffie) (Kingdom Hearts incarnation)

Final Fantasy VIII (Squall Leonheart) (Kingdom Hearts incarnation)

Final Fantasy IX (Zidane Tribal)

Final Fantasy X (Tidus)

Final Fantasy XI (Shantotto)

Final Fantasy XII (Vaan)

Final Fantasy XIII (Lightning)

Final Fantasy XIV (Y'shtola)

Final Fantasy XV (Noctis Lucis Caelum)

OTHER TITLES

CHANNEL AWESOME

Nostalgia Critic (Nostalgia Critic)

Angry Video Game Nerd (Angry Video Game Nerd)

Atop the 4th Wall (Linkara)

The Angry Joe Show (Angry Joe)

LEVEL-5

Professor Layton (Professor Hershel Layton, Luke Triton)

CHANNEL FEDERATOR

Bravest Warriors (Chris Kirkman, Beth Tezuka, Danny Vasquez, Wallow, Plum, Catbug)

[literary-illuminati]

Book Review 60 – The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Last Hugo nomination on my list! And finished it just under the wire to have theoretically cast an informed vote if I was actually a worldcon member, even. Overall a fun read, if a bit meandering and unfocused – not going to be a new favourite or anything, but it had some ambition at least, the sort of thing that deserves to get considered for awards.

The story is set in the 1870s and follows Carlotta, the eponymous daughter of a disgraced French scientist who has found patronage from a Mexican oligarch on the Yucatan peninsula, and Montgomery, the majordomo and manager of the remote ranch that has been given over to Doctor Moreau for his experimentation. As might be inferred from the title, Moreau’s experiments are on the creation of human-animal hybrids, sold to his patron as a new and more docile workforce to replace the rebellious Maya who had previously farmed his haciendas. The plot, such as it is, revolves around Moreau scheming to marry Carlotta off to his patron’s son after his funding is threatened by lack of results, and then the fallout of a revelation that is I think supposed to be more of a twist than it was for me.

The actual meat of the book is in the relationships and the environment. Particularly the relationships between Carlotta and her father, between Carlotta and the hybrids, between Montgomery and the hybrids, and of course the love triangle between Carlotta, Moreau’s patron’s son, and Montgomery that consumes the better part of the book’s middle third. The way the environment is described it actually quite well done, I think – Carlotta is deeply in love with the little world she has grown up in, and that shows in the detailed and affectionate descriptions of all the nature around here.. Montgomery, on the other hand, really couldn’t care less.

I’ve never actually read the original H. G. Wells story, or seen any of the adaptations, so all I can bring to this is the vague understanding of it pop culture osmosis has gifted unto me. Which I think is all you really need – the book takes the basic conceit and Moreau’s name from the original story, but few other setting details and essentially none of the plot. Not necessarily a huge loss – the book’s Yucatan in the midst of the Caste War is a far more grounded, interesting, and, well, real setting than Wells’ island. Still, if you come looking for real retelling or something in more direct conversation with the original you might be disappointed.

The book is not, for genre taxonomy reasons that still annoy me, a Romance, but it’s still largely about romance as much as it is anything else. All the politics and intrigue and layers of manipulation around Carlotta’s potential marriage were quite fun, even if it ended exactly as you’d expect it too.

Anyway, the book wasn’t exactly riveting reading, but it sold the period setting and everyone’s characterizations well enough that I didn’t mind the meandering or lack of surprises. And, as I’m sure was very much intentional, did make me want to go expand my knowledge of the 19th century Yucatan beyond the ‘one-paragraph textbook summary’ level.