#they also have a 'true' form but like 1. it's meant to be eldritch and indescribable

[antirepurp]

i have not drawn them in a hot minute so i figured to revamp them a bit

[lemon-natalia]

Nona the Ninth Reaction - John 1:20

i honestly hadn’t considered that John would have access to a bunch of other info, like the FTL planning to leave everyone behind, via the politician he’s puppeting around. he’s practically running the government of this unspecified country at this point. i mean i guess it was good practice for everything he’d later end up doing as Emperor 

‘I’ve got plans for that arm’ um. what. y'know what i really really don’t want to even know

for a guy who keeps saying he didn’t want to nuke anything he’s reallyyy leaning into the nukes every chance he gets

something i find very interesting is that John possibly also has powers besides necromancy that he’s seemingly glossed over a lot? even though they’re very toothy, he can apparently grow roses, and earlier C— talks about him potentially stabilising the North Glacier like that’s something he could definitely do. i wonder if it is actually possible to use thalergy, the life energy stuff, which really never gets mentioned that much tbh, in a similar way to thanergy?

ok how on earth is ‘Cows exhibit mourning behaviour for other cows’ such a goddamn impactful line. like its a really chilling moment of John confirming that he’s willing to start a nuclear war rather than let the ships leave. and it’s also objectively fucking ridiculous

John’s reflection here on his friends doubting him, and how ‘People don’t forgive, not really’ is very interesting considering his actions at the end of HtN, where he asks Augustine if they can have a ‘fresh slate’ in the wake of him killing Mercy. idk really what i’m trying to say here, but i do wonder how much John really meant what he was offering there 

well what with Ianthe, Harrow, and Kiriona, John certainly took M—’s remark about recruiting teenage girls in the next cult to heart

what i’m personally choosing to take away from this chapter is that multitasking is the true villain of the Locked Tomb universe. get some sleep and stop trying to do six things at once kids, or you might just end up nuking the entire earth

‘I can’t Sister. It’s too big’ i’m quite frankly a little disappointed that John didn’t take the opportunity to make a ‘that’s what she said’ joke here

holy crap, the nun shooting herself is certainly a moment. this is really leaning into the eldritch horror of what it would be like to be a human and aware of the Earth literally screaming at you

there’s such a tragic contrast between M— literally begging in her last moments for them not to shoot John vs Mercy being the one to kill him & John killing her so horrifically in return

John’s been essentially levelling up in necromancy as all of these chapters have progressed, but it’s a truly horrifying level of power he displays here. it’s not even the nukes that end up killing a lot of people, because John points out that he was able to just straight up snap the necks of about half of the entire world population

so much about this chapter is just walking the line between absurdist comedy and abject horror, but there is something just so … viscerally disturbing about the mental image of John literally just eating dirt as he consumes the soul of the Earth 

THIS is where the Barbie comparison comes in??? this?! John modelled a body for the remains of the soul of the partially-absorbed soul of the earth after BARBIE?!! talk about taking Barbieheimer to a whole new level

‘I drank them in, and it wasn’t enough’ someone better at comedy than me has probably made a very Hungry Caterpillar joke about this chapter 

‘You and I went full fucking Hungry Caterpillar’ DUDE. ok i stg i made the Hungry Caterpillar annotation immediately before i read like the next page and saw this 

‘I picked you to change [...] I still love you’ well, there’s some form of answer about how John actually got his necromancy in the first place. there’s something so awful about being a human being given powers you just straight up can’t really comprehend by a being so much bigger than you out of love 

the message reads ‘THE/TOWER/HAS/REACTIVAT’. at this point i can’t really think of anything else it could say other than ‘reactivated’. and given this is the chapter where John describes himself as becoming God, there’s something very poetic about the chapter heading being John 1:20, in which John the Baptist confesses that he isn’t the Messiah

[frogblast-the-ventcore]

How familiar are you with knights of the Old Republic by BioWare and Obsidian.

Back in the good old days of KOTOR 1 and 2, there was an implication that the main villain/Hero/Root cause of the game conflicts, Revan, turned to the dark side because he saw something in the outer rim of the galaxy. An empire of true Sith who would utterly crush the old republic and the Jedi one day and Revan turned to the dark side because he saw that militarizing the galaxy was the only way to survive the coming Sith onslaught. The implication was Kotor 3 was gonna be about finding these True Sith which terrified Revan and putting a stop to them with the True Sith being based off of the Shadows from babylon 5. Eventually, Kotor 3 became the Old Republic MMO and the True Sith turned out to basically be a Galactic Empire rip off with their own OP Gary Stue Palpatine rip off but that was obviously not what the True Sith where originally meant to be. The Lead Kotor writer heavily implied (IIRC) that they were trying to do a Galaxy scale equivalent of Malachor V based on all their talk about being based on the shadows from Babylon 5 and Kreia's talk of killing the force.

The True Sith in the original KOTOR III concept wanted to 'kill' The Force, silence the semi-sentient, pantheistic will forevermore, by turning every last planet in the Galaxy into a blood-drenched battlefield, a realm as traumatized as Malachor V. Bleeding the Force to its marrow by torturing the entire Galaxy to near-death. Since this concept was never acted upon, it's unclear if the end goal was to rule over the ashes, or simply leave the Galaxy in a state of perpetual war and suffering.

I would have made them eldritch abomination. Taking the red-skinned Sith Pureblood species as a baseline, then having them transfigured by the Dark Side over thousands of years into eldritch abominations. Acting as teachers and guides to others who would swear by the creed of "Power, at any cost."

A single True Sith might descend upon a world in the Outer Rim and be mistaken by the locals for a God. Every facet of their culture, religion, government and civil society would be bent and broken in the name of the Dark, a ruthless meritocracy where strength and cunning alone matter. When madness and utter selfishness has consumed a society in flames and internecine conflict, the Sith departs and starts again somewhere else.

Lower end of the spectrum, they'd be exceptionally powerful and mysterious dark side users appearing seemingly from nowhere, resembling a species thought to be extinct for millenia. Higher end of the spectrum they'd be godlike monsters, like Tenebrae or God-Emperor Sheev.

Considering they have thousands of years worth of unbroken knowledge and study with Sith Magic and Sith Alchemy I could see them being less like conventional Force users and more like Warhammer psykers in terms of Force bullshit they can do. Shit like detonating suns, moving moons with your mind and starting storms in hyperspace could all be within the ability of the higher-ups. I could also see the worlds of the true Sith being filled with Fabius Bile-esque abominations of flesh and bone given the special emphasis of the Sith on biological experimentation.

As for their aesthetic. I have been getting obsessed with Elden Ring lately so I think they should have a fromsoftware esque Dark Fantasy aesthetic. Ornate armour concealing… Something beneath their helmets, lightsabers wreathed in Eldritch darkness or even just regular blades and spears covered in dark side fire and lightning. Most of the underlings would still be vaguely humanoid but I see the higher ups being utterly insane in terms of appearance.

One thing to consider is that if these beings have been in the Unknown Regions/Extragalactic Void as far back as the time of Adas, embracing the Dark Side in all its forms and reveling in violence and destruction, there'd likely be … very few of them. A life devoted to the Star Wars equivalent of the Sword Logic is a lifetime of eternal winnowing, and after so many generations of constant competition and applying Sith Alchemy upon one's' own body, they'd be essentially unrecognizable.

And considering the emphasis of the Sith on embracing one's inner desires and transcending all limitations through acquiring power, how each True Sith appears and behaves would depend on the Sith Power in question. One might be a biomechanical horror, obsessed with pushing their physical form past all extremities of pain and euphoria, another might be a desiccated husk, allowing his body to wither away to focus on honing his mind into a weapon of mass destruction. This Empire would function a lot like the Hive, with lesser members tithing upwards to their superiors and so on, and the higher up you are in the chain the more freedom you have to modify the bodies and minds of yourself and your subordinates. There's be a veritable pantheon of a highly select number of Sith Lords that have essentially turned themselves into inhuman monsters over millenia, with Adas hovering somewhere above.

.

[stellanslashgeode]

Back in the good old days of KOTOR 1 and 2, there was an implication that the main villain/root cause of the game conflicts, Revan, turned to the dark side because he saw something in the outer rim of the galaxy. An empire of true Sith who would utterly crush the old republic and the Jedi one day and Revan turned to the dark side because he saw that militarizing the galaxy was the only way to survive the coming Sith onslaught. The implication was Kotor 3 was gonna be about finding these True Sith which terrified Revan and putting a stop to them with the True Sith being based off of the Shadows from babylon 5. Eventually, Kotor 3 became the Old Republic MMO and the True Sith turned out to basically be a Galactic Empire rip off with their own OP Gary Stue Palpatine rip off but that was obviously not what the True Sith where originally meant to be. The Lead Kotor writer heavily implied (IIRC) that they were trying to do a Galaxy scale equivalent of Malachor V based on all their talk about being based on the shadows from Babylon 5 and Kreia's talk of killing the force.

The True Sith in the original KOTOR III concept wanted to 'kill' The Force, silence the semi-sentient, pantheistic will forevermore, by turning every last planet in the Galaxy into a blood-drenched battlefield, a realm as traumatized as Malachor V. Bleeding the Force to its marrow by torturing the entire Galaxy to near-death. Since this concept was never acted upon, it's unclear if the end goal was to rule over the ashes, or simply leave the Galaxy in a state of perpetual war and suffering.

I would have made them eldritch abomination. Taking the red-skinned Sith Pureblood species as a baseline, then having them transfigured by the Dark Side over thousands of years into eldritch abominations. Acting as teachers and guides to others who would swear by the creed of "Power, at any cost."

A single True Sith might descend upon a world in the Outer Rim and be mistaken by the locals for a God. Every facet of their culture, religion, government and civil society would be bent and broken in the name of the Dark, a ruthless meritocracy where strength and cunning alone matter. When madness and utter selfishness has consumed a society in flames and internecine conflict, the Sith departs and starts again somewhere else.

Lower end of the spectrum, they'd be exceptionally powerful and mysterious dark side users appearing seemingly from nowhere, resembling a species thought to be extinct for millenia. Higher end of the spectrum they'd be godlike monsters, like Tenebrae or God-Emperor Sheev.

Considering they have thousands of years worth of unbroken knowledge and study with Sith Magic and Sith Alchemy I could see them being less like conventional Force users and more like Warhammer psykers in terms of Force bullshit they can do. Shit like detonating suns, moving moons with your mind and starting storms in hyperspace could all be within the ability of the higher-ups. I could also see the worlds of the true Sith being filled with Fabius Bile-esque abominations of flesh and bone given the special emphasis of the Sith on biological experimentation.

As for their aesthetic. I have been getting obsessed with Elden Ring lately so I think they should have a fromsoftware esque Dark Fantasy aesthetic. Ornate armour concealing… Something beneath their helmets, lightsabers wreathed in Eldritch darkness or even just regular blades and spears covered in dark side fire and lightning. Most of the underlings would still be vaguely humanoid but I see the higher ups being utterly insane in terms of appearance.

One thing to consider is that if these beings have been in the Unknown Regions/Extragalactic Void as far back as the time of Adas, embracing the Dark Side in all its forms and reveling in violence and destruction, there'd likely be … very few of them. A life devoted to the Star Wars equivalent of the Sword Logic is a lifetime of eternal winnowing, and after so many generations of constant competition and applying Sith Alchemy upon one's' own body, they'd be essentially unrecognizable.

And considering the emphasis of the Sith on embracing one's inner desires and transcending all limitations through acquiring power, how each True Sith appears and behaves would depend on the Sith Power in question. One might be a biomechanical horror, obsessed with pushing their physical form past all extremities of pain and euphoria, another might be a desiccated husk, allowing his body to wither away to focus on honing his mind into a weapon of mass destruction. This Empire would function a lot like the Hive, with lesser members tithing upwards to their superiors and so on, and the higher up you are in the chain the more freedom you have to modify the bodies and minds of yourself and your subordinates. There's be a veritable pantheon of a highly select number of Sith Lords that have essentially turned themselves into inhuman monsters over millenia, with Adas hovering somewhere above.

I'm a big proponent of weird Sith stuff. Sith as Cenobites, do it you cowards. Sith initiation as limit experiences. Give them body modifications and mortification. Make them alien and totally philosophically misaligned with the Jedi, not just a breakaway sect. Have them be hiding out in the chaos just doing weird evil Sith shit.

[dungeonmalcontent]

Dear elder forces, I'm trying to plan out how to make a stat block for Tharizdun as my final boss for my campaign. I know gods aren't meant to be "fought" per say, but my plays with have divine blessings and be at level twenty most likely so I'm not worried about their power level. How do I make a good godly stat block? My first thought is phases, something like a good video game boss (like bloodborne) with abilities that build on each other. I just don't want him to feel flat and boring :(

Thanks for the help! I love your stuff :)

*cough, switching to Hermaeus Mora voice, cough*

Yes. Good question young darkling. You were right to bring this matter before the midnight council.

We are of the opinion that true god stat blocks should not be utilized in gameplay. Even at high player level. Ideologically, threatening the mortality of a hypothetically immortal entity goes against the balance of power of a setting, where mortal creatures allow gods to draw power from belief. Your rules for how gods work may alter this.

We have devised two strategies.

1) Tharizdun as the environment rather than a proper opponent. Gods, or their presence or aspects of them, can be brought into the world through rituals and powerful belief. Those that call a god's power into the world act as anchors for that power. Powerful ritual implements can also be used as anchors. Players can be tasked with quickly subduing powerful followers or corrupt angels or dismantling ritual circles while the power of Tharizdun works against them. You can treat Tharizdun as a sort of interactive lair; you have a table of effects that happen to players, and players can do certain things to mitigate or prevent those effects. Like, an eldritch viewing eye of the god stands in as the physical form, following the players and causing anomalies to disrupt them. Every round on the eyes initiative it rolls to cast a spell or alter the terrain unless it has been dealt a certain baseline if damage or a special condition has been met. This causes the players to split priorities. They must deal with the influence of Tharizdun while accomplishing special objectives potentially in a certain order. Like this: the eye follows the players until Tharizdun's anchors are dismantled in a certain order, first the deacon that cast the summoning ritual, then the ritual circle (and potentially acolytes), and then the artifact through which the ritual was enacted. The deacon's power prevents players from harming the circle and the circle protects the artifact. This way you get stages without necessarily changing forms or derailing combat and worrying about players being discouraged by not being done yet or not feeling like they were rewarded for early effort.

2) An avatar of Tharizdun. Whoever brought Tharizdun's power into the world becomes the god's avatar. Draw from an archfiend's stat block for inspiration. But to make the battle interesting without bogging it down with minions, be sure to make the lair interesting. The lair is not just some pseudo monster, it is a place. Being in certain positions benefits the avatar in certain ways (close to the ritual circle allows them to draw more power, killing an acolyte restores health, coming too close to mundane objects imbues them with chaos and causes them to lunge out towards players with random magic, etc.). This method can also use phases of combat, though the council has discovered that phases can be daunting if your players are not prepared for a slog. Rather than phases, the council recommends periods of invulnerability. When the avatar hits certain hit point milestones (quarters, thirds, or halves generally) the avatar enters a state where they cannot be damaged (starting on their next turn in combat) and remain invulnerable until a specific condition is met (usually clearly evident in the directly visible environment, like the destruction of newly conjured icons of godly influence).

The midnight council hopes this advice is satisfactory and helpful. The council also hopes that Amy typos are ignored, as it is hard for several entities to type a coherent message concurrently with various non-ui friendly appendages (tentacle suckers stick to the touch screen and rip off keyboard keys if care is not taken).

[theyanderespecialist]

Base Yandere SCP 001 Headcanons: His Co Ruler (17th Day Of Halloween)

[Hello My Sexy Readers, I am here with another chapter of the this series and this was pre made on the 29th of september and and all 1 - 16 days of halloween were made September 28th and before anyways this one is about the Scarlet King! I hope you enjoy!]

[BONUS SIDE NOTE I might move these around this was made originally for the 17th day of Halloween but it might be changed to a different. Same with all the others not in just this series but also in different series. Enjoy!]

-Base Yandere Headcanons With SCP 001 The Scarlet King-

.He is a eldritch god formed as the manifestation of the tension between the modern world and the premodern world and the rage it creates.

.Originally it existing as the concept of there being something greater than man, such as gods or the supernatural, that could not be controlled or reasoned with.

.It can alter history and was snot seintent until the foundation said it was.

.It alter history making it known in many ancient text as it was.

.It thrives off people giving it meaning and trying to understand as the more people try to understand the entity the more power it has.

.The king was the only of his siblings to possess self-awareness.

.This was both a curse and a blessing, and meant he could also feel pain and loneliness.

.The thought of light outside the abyss and the shade of the Tree of Knowledge pained the king even more, driving him to decide that existence was pain and that would be best if nothing existed at all.

.That was until he came across you, to him you are this light of comfort and love compassion and gentleness the only thing good in this world.

.He has several brides but you were the only one to make him feel anything other than pain or hate.

.He is obsessed with you as you are the only thing good he believes he can rebuild a world with you. Start from scratch with you as his Queen.

.He gives you title of queen no matter gender not saying you are a female roll really he does not mind your gender just old fashion but it is just the title

.He is all powerful and the one scarlet king of the Multiverse.

.He is the one who would destroy your home and all your loved ones with such glee. (Yup glee (Lip smack) Onwards)

.He believes you are the only true you so he will make you immortal and kill every other you in the multiverse

.His ultimate goal is to make you his queen and make everyone else suffer.

.He hates the changes of modern day and it makes him stronger because of his rage.

.If you were to reject this demon god man?

.Well then your universe will be completely and utterly destroyed by him.

.Life with him is not easy he has a short temper.

.He would in his rage backhand you and become rough with you.

.He does not regret it most of time.

.He is the type of yandere to see you need to be trained to accept his love.

.May that be from rough "Love making"

.Or physical punishments.

.I am not going to sugar coat he is a controlling manipulative son of a bitch who loves the suffering and pain of others.

.Once you accept his love though you would be treated as a queen just do not step one toe out of line because he will remind you of your place.

."You see (Name). This is always where you were meant to be, as MY Queen."

[WOOOOOOOOOOOO I mean I give characters like Valentino some credit but they were once human and not born with such hate for so long yes Valentino from Hazbin hotel is a piece of shit but the Scarlet king is more so cold and controlling in a way that is different from Valentino both piece of shit but on some terrible manipulative controllibg and abusive level Valentino does at least have physical love but the scarlet king is more so wanting to possess reader wholely even if it was not romantic it seems with him more that his darling yandere or not would be a prize...

Anyways I hope you all enjoyed and stay sexy all of my friends!]

[thewhitefluffyhat]

Thoughts on Deltarune Chapter 2

I wasn't even intending to write a Deltarune post, but here we are!

Have some extended ramblings/theorizing about Undertale, Deltarune, and the role of the "Player" vs character agency.

[Warning: full spoilers for ALL routes in both Undertale and Deltarune!]

.

Frisk’s Agency in Undertale

So I'm not sure how common this is nowadays (I haven't been following Undertale theories for a while), but I personally prefer the interpretation that there is no "Player" as an in-universe force in Undertale. I think it's a far more elegant story if the fourth wall isn't broken.

I'm also fond of the Narrator Chara and "Chara isn't pure evil until Murder Route teaches them to be" interpretations too.

And, of course, the third plank bridging those two is that I don't see Frisk as a just a pure, innocent cinnamon roll.

Because I like the story best when it's Frisk who chooses mercy or murder. It gives Frisk a much more complex character, if they are allowed to have the capacity for both immense kindness and immense cruelty. It even gives them an interesting implied character arc, if you take the natural progression path of True Pacifist > Murder Fun Times > Soulless Pacifist.

Just like Flowey, Frisk first tried to use their powers of Determination for good, but eventually they also grew curious and began to see the world as a game. And then they went too far and ultimately regretted it. Regretted it so much, in fact, that they were willing to sell their soul for just a chance to fix it.

After all, it's not you, the "Player," whose SOUL Chara wants. It's you, Frisk.

I also dislike the idea of an in-universe "Player" because that implies that "Frisk" is nothing but an empty shell - on ALL routes. All of those heartwarming moments in the True Pacifist route? All of the silly Flirt actions? Yeah, that's not Frisk, that's just as much the "Player" puppeting some poor kid's body as the events of the Bad Times.

Who knows what Frisk is truly like if their every action - good or ill - is controlled by some unseen, eldritch force? Now Frisk no longer has any characterization.

And given that said force overrides Frisk's agency, then isn't the "Player" evil no matter which route you take? It's become a story where they only "moral" choice is never to pick up the game at all. Hrm.

Anyway, but that's all Undertale. Which brings me to...

What the heck is going on in Deltarune?

Unlike Frisk=the Red SOUL in Undertale, we don't seem to control Kris=the Red SOUL in Deltarune. The game repeatedly underlines that the player only controls the Red SOUL, not Kris.

(Though, with stuff like the sound of the bathroom faucet only being audible when Kris's actual body is nearby - it seems like even when separated, the Red SOUL may still be perceiving through Kris's other senses besides sight...?)

With Spamton's dialogue and Kris's reaction after the non-Weird NEO fight, there's also a lot more emphasis in Deltarune of Kris (and the rest of the party!) being puppeted by some other force. And that's on top of all the stuff in the first chapter highlighting Kris/the Red SOUL's lack of agency.

Because of all those hints, Deltarune seems to be much more explicitly pointing toward that dark interpretation of Undertale - that the "Player"/Red SOUL is removing Kris's agency, regardless of route.

Indeed, I'm somewhat intrigued by the possibility that we/the Red SOUL might be forcing Kris to act nice just as much as we force them to act cruel. The way that Kris deliberately removes the Red SOUL in order to do some very suspicious actions might support that. As do some comments in Chapter 1, like characters in the post-Dark World walkaround noting how Kris is being less weird and more inquisitive than usual. Maybe Kris is the Knight and the Red SOUL is possessing them to undo their evil actions. Maybe the real Kris doesn't want to be friends with Susie and Ralsei at all!

But taking that interpretation to such an extreme also doesn't quite fit. Why does Kris slash the tires on Toriel's car? The only reason I can think of is that they want to keep Susie at their house. And why does Kris create the Dark World in their house? Is Kris creating the fountains because they want to have fun with friends? Especially right after the chapter emphasized how great the Dark World adventures were, that seems very likely.

There are also some smaller details too, of Kris interpreting the Red SOUL's input with their own spin (like saying things sarcastically), or of Kris chatting in a friendly way with Ralsei which the player/SOUL can't influence.

So, I'm pretty sure that even outside of the Red SOUL's control, Kris genuinely does like their friends.

Meanwhile, there were a lot of hints this chapter that Something Bad happened to Kris, Noelle, Dess, and Asriel when they went exploring in the forest by the graveyard. Most likely, they went into that ominous bunker south of the town. Is that incident related to Kris’s current strangeness?

And then, and THEN, there's the Snow Mercy route. That route seems to imply that the Red SOUL is both evil, and very much not Kris. Noelle says Kris isn't like themself, that their voice changes strangely, and she can still hear the creepy voice even when Kris is downed.

How to make sense of this all?

A Theory on Kris and the Red SOUL

One idea is that as scary and zombie-like as Kris looks without the SOUL, they're probably a nice, if lonely kid who desperately wants friends after their big brother went to college. (And possibly after something traumatic happened to them/their neighbor.) They're creating the Dark Worlds for the sake of fun and escapism.

But the Red SOUL puts an end to Kris's happy fantasies. Indeed, if the Red SOUL gives up, "the world is covered in darkness." So without the Red SOUL, would Kris simply keep creating fountains...? (What ARE the fountains, why can Kris and theoretically any Lightener create them?)

Maybe in the normal route, the Red SOUL is trying to gently help Kris move on and accept reality in some way. At the very least, I suspect Ralsei is working toward this goal.

But in that case... that's a pretty strange way for the Red SOUL to go about it, forcibly taking control of Kris to the point that the kid notices and seems to greatly resent it.

But what if the Red SOUL didn't have a choice about this arrangement either?

After all, the Red SOUL's customized vessel was discarded at the start of Chapter 1... and it was placed into Kris instead.

Here's a question: will Kris die if they're without a SOUL for too long?

Because there are an awful lot of moments in these games where characters break free of something they are bound to, but it doesn't end well: -Spamton collapses when his strings are cut. -The Darkeners can move freely outside their origin world for a while, but eventually turn to statues if they stay in another world. -Regardless of whether Berdly removes the Queen’s wires himself, he's exhausted and unable to fight any more after being under her control. -And when Kris takes the Red SOUL out of their body, their movements become slow and clumsy. Like it's a struggle for them to move at all.

Meanwhile in Undertale, post-Pacifist Asriel could maintain his form to say goodbye, but without SOUL(s), he inevitably returns to being Flowey.

So here's a theory: Kris died and/or lost their original soul. Perhaps due to some action/inaction on Noelle's part in the exploration incident. And as a last-ditch resort to keep them alive, the Red SOUL was somehow implanted in Kris.

(Also maybe Dess died/went missing at the same time...?)

And now, the Red SOUL the only thing keeping Kris around. 

But just like in Undertale, it seems like Deltarune SOULs have wills of their own.

Which means Kris's current state is similar to the Chara-Asriel fusion, or Omega Flowey, or even Frisk-Chara. Control of the body is shared. The difference is that instead of the SOUL we play representing the original owner/will of the body, this time the SOUL we're playing as is the intruder.

Essentially, this time around we are playing the role of the Chara-equivalent instead of the Frisk-equivalent!

(Though whether Kris themself is more of Chara or Frisk I’ll leave to other theorists...)

Anyway, while Kris likely wishes to be rid of the SOUL and dislikes this whole body sharing arrangement, they know they can't survive without it. And perhaps Kris being in a partially soulless state might explain why they do questionable stuff like creating Dark Worlds and slashing their mom's car tires in order to play with their friends. (Again, see also: Asriel/Flowey.)

But when the Red SOUL and Kris are in alignment, things go okay. The Red SOUL suggests commands, but Kris is willing to follow and seems to enjoy being with Susie and Ralsei.  

Let’s Talk About Snow Mercy

It's when the Red SOUL and Kris aren't in alignment... well. That seems to be what's happening in the Snow Mercy route. That kind of situation sure didn't go so hot with Frisk and Chara in Undertale, so I doubt this will end nicely for Kris and the Red SOUL either. At the very least, Kris seems to have been visibly upset after what happened with Noelle in this route.

(By the way, there are two other moments in Chapter 2 when Susie asks if Kris is okay - first after the normal Spamton NEO fight and subsequent discussion of what it meant and second after she and Kris approach the bunker.

Three different moments, but Kris appears to react similarly. Are all of these things related? The bunker, Kris being puppeted, and the events of the Snow Mercy route?)

Meanwhile, here’s a contrast. Undertale's Murder Route seemed to exist for the sake of curiosity and power - either the "Player" or Frisk's desires, whichever interpretation you subscribe to. And the changes to the world were all logical consequences of that - because of the Fallen Child's rampage, friendly NPCs disappear, major characters fight you more seriously, etc.

But the actions in Snow Mercy are... weirdly specific, weirdly unpredictable. It doesn't come across as a simple power trip. Instead, Snow Mercy is a bunch of really bizarre actions that feel even more mysterious to the player as they are to Noelle and Kris. I sure wouldn't have guessed that backtracking to the trash heap and freezing a bunch of enemies would lead to new items spontaneously appearing and then giving Noelle access to a scary new spell. It's like something straight out of a creepypasta!

The overall tone that comes across to me is that the Red SOUL seems to know what it's doing, even while the player is kept in the dark. And given Noelle's responses, it almost seems like the SOUL is trying to remind her of events/actions from her past, events which are obviously unknown to the player. All of which leads me to think that the Red SOUL has motives and goals of its own... so just like Undertale, this probably isn't a situation of the "Player" being a fourth wall-breaking force either.

The Red SOUL is its own character.

And I'm certainly curious to find out more about them!

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #121: Lancelot (Saber)

Today on Fate and Phantasms we’re building the one Frenchman who could do no wrong (until he did) Lancelot du Lac! This time instead of his snarly dog version we’re making his Saber class form, so buckle in for a huge smite and a whole lot of other stuff to fill time between getting smites.

Check out his build breakdown below the cut, or his character sheet over here! 

Next up: How sad. Alexa, play Despacito.

Race and Background

Fun fact: Lancelot was raised by the Lady of the Lake, the same woman who would one day give Artoria her sword. Sorry, I think I said that wrong, I meant to say he was raised by a lady in a lake. Like, under the water. To celebrate this weird ass origin story, we’re making Lancelot a Triton, because I honestly don’t think I’ll ever get another excuse to make one of those. Tritons get +1 to Strength, Constitution, and Charisma, as well as the option to breathe air and water thanks to being Amphibious. You’re also an Emissary of the Sea and Guardian of the Depths, allowing you to talk to any water-breathing beasts, and giving you resistance to cold damage to boot. You can also Control Air and Water, which right now means you can cast Fog Cloud once per day using charisma.

Finally, as a knight of the round table you’re a Knight of the Order, giving you proficiency with Persuasion and Religion. 

Ability Scores:

As fitting of someone who turns lancers into fine smears on the ground, your Strength is going to be your highest score. After that is Charisma. Half the time you’re in some sort of situation where nobody can tell who you are, but they still like you anyway. I’d think a high charisma would make you less forgettable, but I’m not English. After that is Constitution- Dolorous Guard requires you to fight twenty knights, and they cheat on top of that! You’d better be ready for the long haul. Your Dexterity isn’t terrible, you’ll mostly be in plate mail anyway. Your Intelligence is a bit low, but your plans generally get summed up as “hit things”, so it’s not much of a loss. Finally, dump Wisdom. If you could resist charm effects you wouldn’t be in this mess. 

Class Levels

1. Paladin 1: I hope this isn’t too surprising. First level paladins get proficiency in Wisdom and Charisma saves, as well as two paladin skills. Athletics will help you lug three shields around, and Intimidation will make that look even remotely scary to anyone else.

You also get a Divine Sense that will help you detect celestials, fiends, or undead near you for a turn. If you’re hunting down the holy grail, it’s probably guarded by celestials or undead, so this might give you an edge on your son. You can use this a number of times per long rest equal to 1 + your charisma modifier. You can also Lay on Hands for a bit of healing that recharges each long rest.

2. Paladin 2: Use your new Fighting Style to get better with your great sword with Great Weapon Fighting. This lets you re-roll ones and twos on your damage rolls with two handed weapons. when you combine this with your smites, it’ll get a lot of use. Oh, speaking of, you can use Divine Smite to add some radiant damage to your melee weapon attacks by burning a spell slot. Speaking of speaking of, you can cast and prepare Spells now using Charisma. Lance is more about the smiting than anything else, and you can also swap spells at will, so don’t get too worked up over what you take. 

3. Paladin 3: As a knight to the great King Arthur, you’re an Oath of the Crown paladin, meaning you can use your Channel Divinity in two different ways. Once per short rest, you can either issue a Champion Challenge or Turn the Tide. The former forces creatures within thirty feet of you to make a Wisdom save (DC 8 + your charisma modifier + your proficiency bonus) or they’re unable to move more than 30′ away from you. This ends if you can’t fight any more, or the creature is ever more than 30′ away from you. Interestingly enough, this doesn’t end if they’re incapacitated, so it’s good for locking down prisoners. The latter heals creatures you choose nearby if they’re bloodied. A lot of people get bloodied near you later, so it might be a good idea to save this. Both options use your bonus action.

You can also Harness Divine Power, spending a bonus action and your channel divinity use to regain a spell slot. Once again speaking of, you get the oath spells Command and Compelled Duel, meaning you don’t have to prepare them to use them. Forcing people to duel you would have solved a lot of problems you had while questing. Not the big one, but a lot of them.

Also, your Divine Health makes you immune to disease. Also also, Control Air and Water makes a comeback, and now you can cast Gust of Wind once per day too.

4. Paladin 4: We’re giving you a breather from all that stuff we got last level. This level, use your first Ability Score Improvement to grab the Tavern Brawler feat. This bumps up your Strength by one, makes you proficient with improvised weapons, improves your unarmed attacks by making them 1d4 instead of 1 damage, and you can grapple enemies as a bonus action after attacking with an improvised weapon. “A knight’s hands are never empty”, after all.

5. Paladin 5: Fifth level paladins get an Extra Attack with each attack action, and Control Air and Water comes back once again for one more freebie. Now you can cast Wall of Water once per day.

Speaking of casting, crown paladins get another level of spell slots and two more oath spells. Warding Bond will protect your fair maiden for up to an hour, giving them a bonus to AC and forcing you to take half their damage. You also get Zone of Truth, whose main purpose is to make things incredibly awkward between you and Artoria.

6. Paladin 6: Our last stop on the paladin train gives you an Aura of Protection, giving you and nearby allies a bonus to all saves equal to your charisma modifier. You’re good at saving against charms now, but at least you were lore compliant early on.

7. Warlock 1: Remember how you were raised by a faerie early on? It’s time to collect. Thanks to your Archfey patron, You can use your Fey Presence to frighten (or charm) creatures that fail a wisdom save once per short rest. You also get Pact Magic, spells that recharge on short rests that don’t quite mix with your existing magic. Just keep your paladin slots and warlock slots how they look on the paper. One class’s slots can cast the other’s spells though.

Speaking of spells: Sword Burst and True Strike for swording good, Armor of Agathys for armoring good, and Cause Fear to be more intimidating.

8. Warlock 2: Second level warlocks get Eldritch Invocations, ways to customize their changeling experience. You get Fiendish Vigor so you can cast False Life on yourself at will, and save the other one for next level. You can also cast Charm Person- nobody said you weren’t sexy.

9. Warlock 3: Getting fancy new swords must be pretty common for knights. At third level you enter the Pact of the Blade, giving you a fancy greatsword you can summon as an action. If you’d prefer something a bit lighter, you can also cast Shadow Blade for a smaller blade... made of shadow.

You also get the invocation Improved Pact Weapon, adding 1 to your attack and damage rolls.

10. Bard 1: You’re the poster boy of being good at just about everything you try, with the exception of keeping it in your pants. That’s a bard, alright. First level bards get any one skill proficiency- Animal Handling will help you stay on your horse better (It doesn’t actually, but it really should).

You also get Bardic Inspiration, d6 you can hand out to allies to help them with attack rolls, skill checks, and saving throws that recharge on short rests. Finally, you get another round of Spells that use Charisma to cast. These spell slots mix with your paladin slots, so check the multiclassing page to figure out how many you have at any given time.

Grab Friends to be scarier and more charming, Dancing Lights and Faerie Fire for a bit more faerie magic, Heroism to lead your knights to glory, Longstrider to push yourself, and Speak with Animals. There were a lot of talking animals back then.

11. Bard 2: Being a Jack of All Trades makes you somewhat good at just about everything, adding half your proficiency to all skills. Camelot also gets a bit livelier thanks to your Song of Rest, adding a d6 to healing done on short rests.

Half the time you can hide your identity with as little as a new shield, so you can practically cast Disguise Self already.

12. Bard 3: You’re a master of weaponry, and so are Swords bards. You get another Fighting Style, and the Dual Wielding style will help you out when your hands are full by adding your strength to your offhand attacks. You can also spend your inspiration on Blade Flourishes, adding that much damage to your attack and gaining one of three options. A Defensive Flourish adds the same number to your AC, a Slashing Flourish deals that damage to another creature near you as well, and a Mobile Flourish forces the target backwards, and you can react to push the initiative. You can only flourish once per turn, but even if you don’t, attacking also adds 10 feet of movement to your speed for the turn.

You also get Expertise in two skills, doubling your proficiency in Religion and Intimidation. You came in second place in the Grail treasure hunt. That’s something to be proud of.

You can also cast Enhance Ability this level. It’s not quite the strength of four men, but it does give you the strength of two Lancelots, which is still quite a bit.

13 Warlock 4: It’s been a while since our last ASI, huh? Grab Fey Touched to bump up your Charisma and cast Misty Step or Gift of Alacrity once per long rest for free, or at any time like a normal spell. The former is teleportation, the latter gives a creature +1d8 to initiative for up to eight hours. You can also cast Booming Blade for even more swording, and Calm Emotions to delay your execution once the whole Guinevere thing gets out.

14. Warlock 5: Fifth level warlocks get third level spells like Spirit Shroud, giving you that cool shadowy thing your berserker self has to deal extra damage, slow down creatures nearby, and prevent them from healing. You also get the invocation Eldritch Smite- now you can smite while you smite!

15. Bard 4: Use this ASI to round up your Strength. This leaves you with one odd number-feel free to put this into anything you’d like, maybe you already got a +1 from something your DM gave you?

You also get Prestidigitation because I’m running out of cantrips to give you and Knock for a handy battering ram.

16. Bard 5: At fifth level of barding, your inspiration increases to a d8, also increasing the amount of damage your flourishes do. You also become a Font of Inspiration, allowing you to recharge inspiration dice on short rests.

Your final bard spell is Fear, because we haven’t spent enough time hammering home how scary an angry man wielding literally everything is yet.

17. Warlock 6: Sixth level feylocks can Misty Escape away when they get hit, using their reaction to turn invisible and teleport up to sixty feet away. Again, this would have been very useful in a multitude of situations while you were questing. Frankly this also would be super useful with the whole adultery thing too. Just bite your tongue and you’re out of the bedroom! You can use this once per short rest.

You can also call in a favor from your extended family by casting Summon Fey.

18. Warlock 7: Seventh level warlocks get fourth level spells, and we’re just gonna dip into your berserker self real quick, just for flavor. You get Shadow of Moil for another version of your shadow cloak, and the invocation Cloak of Flies for yet another version that makes you even scarier than usual.

19. Warlock 8: Use your last ASI to bump your Charisma even higher for stronger spells, stronger saves, and stronger persuasions. You can also cast Banishment now to help in your fight against more supernatural foes. Remember how I said the holy grail is probably guarded by celestials? Now you can deal with them.

20. Warlock 9: Your capstone level of warlock gives you fifth level spells and more importantly, fifth level spell slots. You can cast Contact Other Plane if you want to chat with those celestials you just threw back to Mount Celestia if you really want to. You can also use your final invocation Whispers of the Grave to chat with your ancestors or King Arthur.

Pros

Much like your boss, you’re really good at Smiting. A greatsword, plus eldritch smite, plus divine smite, plus a spirit shroud, plus a blade flourish, plus a crit is 4d6+28d8+5 damage in a single swing. It just beats out Lartoria’s smiting power, dealing an average of 145 points, with the added benefit of blocking the target from healing that back for a full round.

Bardadins are kind of good at everything. With at least half proficiency on all checks and +4 on all saves, you’re just about as skilled as you can get without excelling at anything. Aside from scaring your enemies.

Being good at everything also relates to being able to turn anything into a deadly weapon. Smiting a lich with a sword? Pedestrian. Everyone knows if you kill a lich with their own shinbone all their phylacteries break out of shame.

Cons

Your saves might be a bit better, but you still have low wisdom. Good luck finding that grail when you can barely find your own armor.

One big flaw of all that smiting? Almost no range. Flying and fast enemies can seriously put you through your paces.

Like most three fold multiclasses, this build takes forever to get online. You don’t get your final subclass until level 12, and you don’t get Eldritch Smite, which is kind of a selling point of the build, until level 14. Most games don’t even get that far.

[facelessxchurch]

So I noticed something in Bedlam: one of the evil psychiatrists in Greymire is named Derleth; August Derleth is a Cthulhu mythos contributor. Looking into him, he cited a book called "Prince of Abissinia" as an influence of his. So Landy is certainly trying to evoke Lovecraft/has HPL on his mind. So your HC about the Unnamed=Hastur m/b true. And I still think the FOs poisoning humanity to the point some of them are dormant eldritch gods walking around obliviously thinking they're people is cool.

I didn't know that bc I didn't read 'Bedlam'. However, I do appreciate these easter eggs and if homage to HPL is paid in this manner!

While I realise this ask was send before the release of the Grimoire, the discount Lovecraftian Gods thing he did in the beginning of the Grimoire was so bad that I wonder if he truly did try to make his own version of the pantheon of Eldritch Gods or if it's meant to be a parody of the Lovecraft mythos in the same way Caelan was a parody of Edward Cullen (Twilight) and Corrival Academy is a parody of Hogwarts (Harry Potter).

I mean, he did call his version of the Outer Gods 'Those-Who-Slumber,-Whose-Names-We-Dare-Not-Speak-Lest-They-Rouse-To-Waking'. Like, yeah, that sounds like a parody of Azathoth, the blind idiot God.

"And I still think the FOs poisoning humanity to the point some of them are dormant eldritch gods walking around obliviously thinking they're people is cool."

'Poisoning humanity' is an overstatement as the Faceless genes seem to do jackshit unless they get activated. I feel like at least the six FO bloodlines should have some monstrous appearances as result of their inhuman blood in a similar vain as the citizens of Innsmouth or the Dunwich twins. If you get the power of an eldritch abomination, there should be the drawback of an inhuman appearance. The only one that looks the part is Strosivadian tbh :/

Also, since the six bloodlines were established, I'm annoyed that there is no difference between them and all the people (1 in 7) that have FO genes in them.

And all this inconsistencies and all the retcons. Let me explain. Under the cut, bc this gott long AF.

First in book 3 it was established that if you get posed by an FO your whole personality gets whipped out and only your body still exists as a vessel.

Then in 'Midnight' (chapter 25) it gets revealed that the Faceless Ones apparently turned completely into humans (at least physically) resulting in like a sub-race of Faceless Ones.

Then Bedlam seems to back-pedal on that and is like, no, the Faceless genes come from former vessels and 1 in 7 people have it, so Abyssina's family isn't really special.

[SP “Bedlam”, chapter 15, page 86-87]

At the end of Bedlam it's revealed that Valkyrie has the FO genes too since Dusk say she tastes like the kith. Not sure why that’s a shocker bc apparently that’s common AF??

“Those people were what is known as Kith,” Dusk said. “When I drank from you, I knew. The legends are wrong, Valkyrie. You are not descended from the Last of the Ancients. You are descended from their enemies. You have their power and you have their blood. You are a Faceless One.”

Then in the Grimoire the Six Bloodlines are mentioned for the first time and those gotta be something else than the 1-7 people that decent of former vessels bc those billion people couldn't be summed up in just six bloodlines. Bc of Abyssina and the Of The Unveiled I’m taking bloodline to mean something like a royal family, aristocracy among mages pretty much, especially since the Faceless blood should make them especially powerful like the Unnamed. At least we haven’t been given another explanation as to why he’s so powerful other than blood-purity. Which also makes be wonder about the six families interbreeding/inbreeding with each other like European aristrocaty used to?

Also according to the Grimoire the FO were interbreeding with the Ancients.

When it says they 'took form of these animals' that sounds like what Abyssinia said about the FO actually becoming a human body.

Also, the way I understand the Grimoire, the Ancients are the ancestors of the mages, so the bloodlines can't be a result between FO and normal humans bc 'mankind' as we know it only showed up after the FO were already banished from the Prime Dimension.

It doesn't clarify that the Ancients are the ancestors of the mages, but I explained further why I think that's the case here.

But this means that everyone that has Faceless blood also gotta have Ancient blood bc the FO could only breed with the Ancients since normal humans only came a lot later, so what Landy said about Val only having FO blood is gotta be false.

But at a later point in the Grimoire it’s talking about the former vessel stuff again.

This is implying that the six bloodlines are the descendants of former vessels (I think?), but like I said prior, 1 in 7 people having FO genes are way too many to just be 6 bloodlines/familes, each bloodline would need a few thousand people or more. Plus, ’bloodline’ implies breeding.

I also gotta admit I’m biased bc ‘The Six Bloodlines’ sounds badass, important and regal and I do not like the thought of it being nothing special, that it’s just the 1 in 7 humans that descended of former FO vessels.

So at this point we got:

People with FO genes that are the descendants of former FO vessels.

People with FO blood who are the result oft he FO interbreeding with the Ancients. This are the six bloodlines.

Everybody who is a descendant of the FO gotta be a descendant of the Ancients too bc normal humans only showed up after the FO were already long banished.

Bc of that the kith all gotta be descendants of the Ancients as well bc they are the descendants of former FO vessels and while the FO were around there were no normal humans.

The Ancients were a different, older subcategory of homo. If we are homo sapiens then they were something like... homo antiquus? What do ya think? Does the name sounds good?

All mages are descendants of the Ancients (this is mostly headcanon based but I think my explanation for it makes sense.)

The order things happened seems to be: FO find earth and enslave the Ancients, the Ancients turn the environment hostile, the FO are forced to take vessels and start to interbreed with the Ancients resulting in the six bloodlines. At the same time hey created the magic resistance creatures to kill the Ancients that had turned against them. Those creatures rebel too and have to be locked away underground. The Ancients forge the Godkillers and force them out of the Prime Dimension, Ancients kill each other, eons (probably more like centuries) later humans emerge.

I’m not sure about the reason the FO decided to interbreed but it might have been to produce a new sub-race of FO that were human enough that they didn’t need a vessel. Neither am I sure why the og FO left their vessels before they burned out completely. It might have been that they were forced out when the Ancient rebelled against them and forced them out of the Prime Dimension.

The ‘fun’ part is, all this information is based on unreliable sources. ‘The Book of Tears’ is confirmed by canon to be propaganda, the Unnamed could have lied to his family or believing a lie himself to make his own family more important and Skul, Temper and Brate are relying information they most like read somewhere, so all of this could easily get retconned :/

The route I went is mashing all pieces of lore we got together instead of treating one piece as outright false bc ALL information sources are unreliable.

Here are the problems I have were the information we are given conflicts with canon:

1.

I feel like only those with FO genes should be turned into kith since they feel a lot like the result of the of the transformation that started when the FO started to posses their ancestor getting finished, turning them into empty vessels for a host that is no longer around. So the explanation given in Bedlam would only apply to the people with FO genes.

But then, even if their blood is too watered down, the people with FO blood shouldn’t be turned into kith bc if we are going with Abyssinia’s explanation and the Faceless One (/Hybrid) they descended from had manage to take a full human form, with faces and all, their descendants shouldn’t be turning into essentially empty FO vessels.

Thus Valkyrie not turning into a kith but into a harpy instead makes sense. But since the Grimoire confirms that Abyssinia was right and her family are descendants of the FO all of her grandchildren that have been activated should have turned into monsters fitting their personalities too. Same goes from anyone from the other four bloodlines.

2.

Why is Strosivadian the only one that actually looks monstrous? Is he the result of an attempted activation gone wrong?

3.

Why did the Edgley family, that has been interbreeding with mortals for generations, produce Children of the Faceless while the bloodlines that remained among mages and thus should have more potent magic did not?

4.

Also why is Val (and probably Alice) and the Unnamed (Aby didn’t seem to come close to his power and Caisson seemed even below average) so powerful while the descendants of the other bloodlines are average (Temper) or slightly above average (Of The Unveiled Siblings)? I could explain the Unnamed by him keeping his blood pure and Abyssinia being weaker bc her blood got mixed and then Caisson is even weaker bc his blood got mixed again. But Val’s blood is super impure, so why is she so powerful?

5.

If Val’s bloodline is so potent then why were there people in her family that couldn’t use magic?

6.

Do the other families know that they have FO blood and not only FO genes?

7.

Who were the first two bloodlines and why were they so unimportant that they aren’t even named. Like, if you got FO blood you gotta be destined to do great things even if these great things are pretty horrible.

[tigerkirby215]

5e Renekton, the Butcher of the Sands build (League of Legends)

(Artwork by SixMoreVodka Studios. Made for Riot Games.)

So I’m a dumbass who didn’t realize that May 31st falls on a Monday. Guess you get one more Shurima’s champ out of me. Honestly it’s only fair since I did Nasus such a long time ago. "Die like a dog."

GOALS

As I live, all will die! - In the heat of battle the strong survive by Culling the Meek. Helps when said culling gives you strength to keep fighting.

Who's next on the chopping block? - We need to be able to get onto our enemies to Slice and Dice them like the Ruthless Predator we are.

Now you will know agony! - Isn’t it nice to just slap a button for 550 extra HP?

RACE

I’d love to be able to use Christopher Zito’s Envie race for Renekton but unfortunately I swore off homebrew for this account. With that being said there are several different races I’d like to use, but let’s get the Tasha’s stuff out of the way first: whatever race you end up using aim for a +2 to Charisma and a +1 to Strength. Charisma will be used for Intimidation, and Strength is what you’ll use if they don’t care about your Intimidation!

With that out of the way there’s three races I’d suggest for Renekton:

RACE 1 - LIZARDFOLK

IE “the obvious one” that’s the closet to an alligator. The truth is that Lizardfolk doesn’t offer too much for this build. You get Cunning Artisan to craft bone weapons, but why would you use them when you have some of Shurima’s best weapons on hand? (IE Renekton doesn’t really make bone weapons.) You can also Hold Breath for up to 15 minutes at a time but Renekton isn’t an aquatic ambusher.

Hunter’s Lore is nice (I’d take proficiency in Perception and Survival) but Natural Armor is completely wasted as we’re going to be wearing Heavy Armor in this build.

The only ability we’d really be using is the Bite and Hungry Jaws which could serve as a recreation of Cull the Meek‘s lifesteal effect. But it’s honestly the worst option we have and other options that come later in the build that recreate that ability better.

This blurb basically exists to say Lizardfolk would be the best race to choose if you want it to be blatantly obvious that you’re playing Renekton. But it’s really not that good for the actual build.

RACE 2 - RAVENITE DRAGONBORN

If you want to keep the scales but actually be practical in combat the Ravenite Dragonborn from Wildemount is a pretty good pick. This does mean you get a  Breath Weapon which is a problem because uhhhh... Renekton doesn’t have a breath weapon? But you’re more than welcome not to use it, especially since as a (likely) Green dragonborn your breath weapon does kekw Poison damage.

As a Ravenite Dragonborn you trade Damage Resistance for Vengeful Assault, letting you make a weapon attack as a reaction if someone hits you. This is a very good way to get more damage output but you can only use this ability once per Short or Long Rest.

Oh you’d also get Darkvision, so you probably wouldn’t go insane in the dark with Xerath. Oops.

RACE 3 - ORC?

It seems very out of left field but an Orc (either an Orc of Eberron or Orc of Exandria, as they’re just objectively better than the Volo’s Guide Orcs) honestly has the best racial traits to recreate Renekton. The most notable trait of Aggressive serves as a very good recreation of Slice / Dice since they basically serve as a dash towards enemies. Primal Intuition is also nice for free skills (again I’d go for Perception and Survival); everything else on the Orc race is more of a ribbon ability so I’m not going to talk about them much.

tl;dr I personally made Renekton an Orc as that’s the best recreation of his abilities in League of Legends. Lizardfolk would be the best recreation of his appearance but has few practical abilities. Ravenite Dragonborn is a good middle ground of looking like Renekton while still being useful.

ABILITIES

15; STRENGTH - Wars are won with blood on the sand.

14; CHARISMA - Charisma is still tied to Intimidation for whatever reason, and “intimidating” is certainly a word to describe you.

13; CONSTITUTION - Top laners are meant to be tanky and you are certainly no exception.

12; DEXTERITY - You don’t get two dashes without having at least a bit of dexterity.

10; INTELLIGENCE - Military tactics were done by your brother... WAIT! YOU DON’T HAVE A BROTHER! RAAAAHHHH!

8; WISDOM - Xerath broke your mind, turning an already violent croc into the true butcher of the sands.

BACKGROUND

You were a Soldier... but I like having backgrounds that don’t reference long-dead civilizations, so Outlander works well enough. You get proficiency in Athletics but I’d swap that Survival proficiency out for Intimidation to still be a Soldier at heart. You also get a Language (Celestial for Ascended) and I guess a musical instrument? But I’d change that instrument out for a tool of some kind. Or maybe another language.

The reason we opted for Outlander is because Wanderer makes far more sense for you. You’ve been looking to kill your brother for long enough you also know how to hunt for food and find your way around important landmarks.

(Artwork by Alex “alexplank” Flores. Made for Riot Games.)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - FIGHTER 1

Starting off as a Fighter because that’s all you’ve ever known. You get some skill proficiencies so take proficiency in Perception and Survival... unless you already have them in which case uhhh... I guess Acrobatics and Insight works? Honestly if you got skills from your race we’ve got all we need. But more skills never hurt!

You know what does hurt, though? A Fighting Style like Great Weapon Fighting, which will allow you to reroll 1s and 2s on a Greataxe. Because I’d reflavor your cleaver as a Greataxe!

The Great Weapon Fighting style is kinda bad though, even though more damage is the most fitting for Renekton. Defense, Superior Technique (take Trip Attack), and even Blind Fighting fit as well if you want something more practical.

For more things that don’t hurt Second Wind will let you carry a refillable potion into lane to heal for a d10 plus your Fighter level as a Bonus Action.

LEVEL 2 - FIGHTER 2

Second level Fighters can unleash their Fury in an Action Surge, letting them take two actions instead of one!

LEVEL 3 - FIGHTER 3

Third level Fighters get to choose their Martial Archetype. You share one thing with your brother, and that’s your Ascension. So take the Rune Knight archetype like your brother for true Dominus! You gain Bonus Proficiencies in both Smith’s Tools and the Giant language but let’s be realistic that’s not what we’re here for.

Your Ascendant powers manifest some Rune Carver abilities; you technically have to inscribe these runes onto your armor but what’s important is that each rune grants some passive effects and you can activate either of these runes once per Short or Long Rest:

The Frost Rune gives you advantage on Intimidation checks (and Animal Handling checks, I guess?) You can also activate the rune for a +2 bonus to your Strength and Constitution checks and saves. This mostly just means Athletics but it does also boost your Concentration checks, which will be important later!

The Fire rune gives you expertise with your tools, which is neat I guess. But if you hit an enemy with your weapon you can not-quite Stun them by chaining them with fire! They take 2d6 fire damage and have to make a Strength saving throw to resist being restrained. If they’re restrained they take 2d6 Ignite damage at the start of their turns, and can attempt to break out of the chains at the end of their turn. It can last up to a minute though, and if anyone’s cooking through Ignite for a full minute then they’re probably dead.

But come on: what we’re really here for is Giant’s Might for some Dominus! As a bonus action you become Large (along with anything you are wearing, unless you lack the room to become Large), you have advantage on Strength checks and Strength saving throws, and once on each of your turns you can make one of your attacks deal an extra 1d6 damage to a target on a hit. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses of it when you finish a long rest.

LEVEL 4 - FIGHTER 4

4th level Fighters get the first of many Ability Score Improvements: Strength is used to be the Butcher of the Sands, so get more Strength to truly butcher your foes.

LEVEL 5 - FIGHTER 5

5th level Fighters get an Extra Attack, letting them both Slice and Dice on their turn.

(Artwork by SixMoreVodka Studios. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 6 - WARLOCK 1

Be it your Ascendant blood corrupting or Xerath’s influence, but you’ve got some abilities that can only be described as magical. (Which is to say I can’t give you Lifesteal and Stuns as a Martial character.) Warlocks get to choose their Patron at level 1 and I hope you bought Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, because I sure didn’t! That’s why I’m still using the Unearthed Arcana version of the Undead Patron (and definetly not because I’m writing this build before Van Richten’s came out.)

Regardless the influence of the Undead means that your Reign of Anger manifests into a Form of Dread for your foes. You can activate this ability as a bonus action for one minute for the following bonuses:

You gain temporary hit points equal to a 1d10 plus your Warlock level. Be it a second Second Wind or Conqueror healing more bulk is always appreciated!

Once during each of your turns when you hit a creature with an attack, you can force it to make a Wisdom saving throw. If they fail the target is frightened of you until the end of your next turn, as they should be!

And you’re immune to the frightened condition, for it’s your foes that should fear you!

You can transform a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Of course as a Warlock you get Spellcasting as well. You learn two cantrips from the Warlock list: Sword Burst will let you Cull the Meek around you, and Toll the Dead is a ranged attack that isn’t Eldritch Blast! (Put simply Toll the Dead makes far more sense for Renekton. He doesn’t normally have a ranged attack to begin with so be thankful I’m ever giving him a ranged option.)

Armor of Agathys will serve as Thornmail to both increase your survivability and damage foes, and Hellish Rebuke will let you retaliate if anyone dares to hit you hard enough to feel it!

LEVEL 7 - WARLOCK 2

Second level Warlocks get Eldritch Invocations and Ascendant powers. You’re going to get Concentration spells eventually so Eldritch Mind is good to pretend that you’re Xerath, but we’ll be leaving our other invocation empty for a bit.

You also learn another spell: Expeditious Retreat gives dashes to those who didn’t wish to be an Orc, as I am obliged to do so.

LEVEL 8 - WARLOCK 3

Third level Warlocks get to choose their Pact Boon and you a sworn to the blade, hence make a Pact of the Blade for a magic weapon! Speaking of said weapon take the Improved Pact Weapon invocation now to make that weapon a +1 (unless you already have a +1 weapon in which case I dunno. You’re going to swap this out in 2 levels anyways.)

You can also learn second level spells now like Misty Step. Good ol’ Flash!

LEVEL 9 - WARLOCK 4

4th level Warlocks get an Ability Score Improvement: you’re still a Fighter first and foremost, so more Strength would let you swing that axe hard!

4th level also means another spell, and another cantrip! For your leveled spell take Hold Person to stun a foe (or two!) before butchering them, and... fiiine. You can take Eldritch Blast.

LEVEL 10 - WARLOCK 5

5th level Warlocks get more Eldritch Invocations, and veterans of this Tumblr will know one thing: I really like Eldritch Smite! Look it’s just the easiest way to give Renekton an on-hit stun, though the extra damage definitely didn’t hurt. But if you want to hurt more I’d suggest replacing Improved Pact Weapon with Cloak of Flies for Dominus’ damage aura effect.

And since we got a rage-induced Ruthless Predator, how about a rage-induced Cull the Meek? Vampiric Touch will give you some lifesteal for tougher teamfights.

LEVEL 11 - WARLOCK 6

6th level Warlocks are Grave Touched, which I’m again going to reflavor as Ascendant Touched. Regardless if your brother locks you in a dark room you won’t need to eat, drink, or breathe in there. But more importantly you can turn any attack you make into Necrotic damage to get around resistances, and if you’re in your Form of Dread you can roll one additional damage die when dealing Necrotic damage. Remember how you’re using a Greataxe? That means your hits will be doing 2d12 damage!

You can also learn one last spell so how about even more damage? Spirit Shroud will make your attacks do an extra d8 damage, and has a nice added bonus of slowing people down near you.

You can also maybe replace some of your old first level spells, notably Expeditious Retreat which isn’t that useful. Look Phantom Steed isn’t really in-character but it’s still a super cool spell that doesn’t get enough appreciation.

Disregard this part if Van Richten’s cut Phantom Steed from the Undead patron. I’d be sad if they did, but...

(Artwork by SixMoreVodka Studios. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 12 - FIGHTER 6

6th level Fighters get Ability Score Improvements instead of class features. I’ve kinda ignored that uneven Constitution score of yours so grab the good ol’ Durable feat for +1 to your Constitution and more healing with your hit die!

LEVEL 13 - FIGHTER 7

7th level Rune Knights have to pretend to care about their minions. When another creature you can see within 60 feet of you is hit by an attack roll, you can use your reaction to create a Runic Shield and force the enemy to reroll. Fun fact: this isn’t Disadvantage, so technically you can turn a regular hit into a crit. Just an interesting note. Regardless you can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

You also get another Rune Carver option: the Hill option gives you advantage on saving throws against poison and resistance against poison damage. You can invoke the rune to resist bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage for 1 minute. See, this is why we didn’t take Barbarian levels! You’re allowed to Rage as classes other than Barbarian!

LEVEL 14 - FIGHTER 8

8th level Fighters get another Ability Score Improvement... or Feat. The Great Weapon Master Feat is always good to do big rage-filled damage! GWM has two effects: if you crit or reduce an enemy to 0 health you can make an additional attack as a Bonus Action. But more importantly you can choose to reduce your hit chance by 5 to add a whopping +10 to the damage of an attack with a heavy weapon (such as a Greataxe!) We’ve been stacking a ton of damage modifiers so an extra +10 will really "Shred their fragile bodies!"

LEVEL 15 - FIGHTER 9

Level 9 Fighters pack QSS, and can use Indomitable to reroll a failed saving throw once per Long Rest.

LEVEL 16 - FIGHTER 10

10th level Rune Knights stand at a Great Stature of Ascension. Your height increases! ...Oh and I suppose Giant’s Might now does a d8 of damage.

You do also get another Rune option from Rune Carver. The Storm rune lets invoke some of your brother’s knowledge for advantage on Arcana checks and the inability to be surprised. You can also invoke the rune for 1 minute to be able to spend your advantage to give someone advantage or disadvantage on an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw. In short you can almost guarantee success in combat, or even outside of combat! "The slaughter will never end!"

(Artwork by Sean McNally. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 17 - FIGHTER 11

What’s better than one Extra Attack? Two Extra Attacks! Swing your axe three times or six times with Action Surge!

LEVEL 18 - FIGHTER 12

12th level Fighters get another Ability Score Improvement. I could take the Charger feat for those who didn’t opt for Orc to give you Slice and Dice... or I could increase your Charisma for stronger Warlock features.

LEVEL 19 - FIGHTER 13

13th level Fighters get a second use of Indomitable per Long Rest for twice the QSS!

LEVEL 20 - FIGHTER 14

Our final level is the 14th level of Fighter for one last Ability Score Improvement! You can cap off your Charisma to make Hold Person and Cloak of Flies all the more deadly, or you could grab a feat like Tough for more health. Honestly by total level 20 it’s up to you what you do.

FINAL BUILD

PROS

I will spare no one! - So let’s do a quick tally of how much damage you can do in one turn: with no abilities you can already do up to 3d12 + 15 damage... but now let’s add Great Weapon Master for an additional 30 damage. And we can then add Giant’s Might for an additional d8 of damage. Then there’s Grave Touched to double your d12s while in Form of Dread. And finally we can add Spirit Shroud for an additional 3d8. This means that with all your abilities active you can do a grand total of 6d12 + 4d8 + 45 damage. If we average that out you are doing about 107 damage every turn. This doesn’t even account for your Fire Rune or your Action Surge! All that Fury’s gotta go somewhere!

All will suffer as I have! - Despite not investing too heavily into Constitution you’ve got enough bulk to shake a stick at. Heavy armor is always good for keeping your insides inside, and you have many different ways to bulk yourself up between Form of Dread, Second Wind, and the Hill rune. Not to mention that d10 hit die means you can easily have around 160 health.

What? Do I have someone in my teeth? - You’re not a skill monkey by a long shot but your runes do augment your abilities quite a bit, notably your +11 to Intimidation having permanent Advantage thanks to the Frost rune. Renekton can be the perfect character if you want to play the bad cop!

CONS

Destruction approaches - Big damage is nice and all but it takes awhile to build up all that Fury. It takes up to 4 Bonus Actions to activate all your abilities (Giant’s Might, Form of Dread, Spirit Shroud, Cloak of Flies) and additional Bonus Actions to activate most of your Runes.

I'll leave them in pieces! - “Running on fumes” is an understatement. Almost everything you do is tied to limited resources that only come back after a Long Rest, and while you probably won’t need to activate Giant’s Might or Form of Dread more than once per combat you’ve still likely got 6 fights max to go all out.

You are not my brother, traitor! - Dumping mental stats doesn’t exactly help you when dealing with issues outside of martial combat. Your skill checks are low and your saving throws aren’t much better. You’re just an Enchantment spell away from turning on everyone you once cared for.

But a blood bath takes awhile. Battle is constant and you relish every second of it! Cut down armies with a single swing of your axe and keep fighting until you find the one who took everything away from you! Maybe you can remember a little something when you find them...

(Artwork by SixMoreVodka Studios. Made for Riot Games.)

[firebunnylover]

LoSH S2 discussion

I love Legion of Superheroes. And i love season 2, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think about how it could have been improved. In terms of quality, it varies more than season 1. Some parts are top tier while others… eh.

Season 2 is darker than season 1. And there’s the inherent stigmatism that darker means better. But it’s not true.

A horror schlock film is not inherently better than an animated film.

I don’t blame the staff on all its shortcomings. Kids WB was on its deathbed, so they probably had less time to work and iron out ideas. And executive meddling.

The second season had a lot of good elements, but there are things that weighed it down. I am here to discuss how to improve said things.

Heads up: ended up editing part of this post after rewatching the episodes.

This first bit is more of a personal preference, but instead of the 41st century, maybe move the original source of conflict to a farther region of space, one that the UP doesn’t interact with, and has been growing in terms of turmoil until they finally resort to bringing the Legion over. In other words, it has just been put aside by everyone else to the last minute.

Parallel to Brainy’s relationship to Brainiac. He doesn’t want to deal with it. He never brings it up. But maybe if he did, he wouldn’t have gotten corrupted.

This place still has plenty of old documentation of the original age of superman, so Kell is disillusioned with the ideal glory days. Keep Kell Edgy.

Kell’s home and K3NT still gets destroyed - reflects Krypton’s own destruction.

SPEAKING OF KELL:

Make his story more apparent that it’s one realizing that kindness is not an inherent weakness. And neither is being soft. He was raised for fighting and killing Imperiex, and was taught to think that they were weaknesses. Have him realize his identity can be beyond the Clone of Superman made to kill Imperiex. Or rather, have him react more to realizing that he’s moving beyond his given identity.

To clarify; they do address his development in the show a few times, but I want more continuous development instead of the rapid nods we get. Have him try to interact in a more humane way with others. Especially with other members of the Legion. Where they have to take a double take in seeing him acting not that edgy. Maybe offer more flashback of him fighting Imperiex in comparison, and how he treated allies then.

Also put K3NT’s story under the microscope. I doubt Imperiex just came out of nowhere with his attacks. Plus the fact they went far enough to send a hitman after a fucking child? That screams yikes and maybe we need to double check the story.

And an overall issue to be addressed is what rights do robots have and what conditions need to be met? Because let’s face it, we make robots to do complex work for us. But Colu is a culture where the main people ARE robots. Like in Transformers. What line do we draw between non-sentient robots vs the sentient ones in the 31st century? And what about cyborgs/people who give up their original bodies for robotic ones?

Plus Imperiex himself came to be because of the perfected combination of organic tissue and robotics. This topic of robots and individuality/personhood could have been a fun topic to explore.

Don’t sideline the girls. Leave TG alone. 

Don’t put SG in a coma for nearly the whole season - seriously it’s the reason why the guys make one bad decision after the other. Although with that said, it’s because she’s not around we got the majority of s2 plots. She’s the goddamn mom of the squad. Just make her busier and unable to keep an eye on her idiot boys for the plots based on bad decisions to happen. 

Or have her deal with after-effects of what Esper did to her. Maybe after a whole season of being the emotional support character, have her be the one in need of emotional support or not being able to help directly, especially when the group needs emotional support. Emotional support paradox.

Maybe don’t make Cosmic Boy appear as much as a dick in the episodes where he does show up. He’s trying to hold this goddamn team together, and there’s a goddamn tyrant trying to conquer the galaxy. HE’S FUCKING TIRED AND STRESSED. AND IM SURE THERE ARE A BUNCH OF JERKS WHO WANT TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THAT TO DISSOLVE THE LEGION. Better yet, throw in some more backstory with him and his little brother Pol!

And in regards to Imperiex… The dude has a lot of potential. I like his voice actor, Phil Morris. The guy voiced Dr. Sweets from Atlantis.

But his writing needs help.

In the original DC comics, he’s the embodiment of Entropy. Anyone who’s seen Madoka is probably familiar with what that is. But if you're not, here’s a definition: “ the measure of a system’s thermal energy per unit temperature that is unavailable for doing useful work...” He’s the embodiment of that energy that cannot be used for anything. And Entropy grows over time.

Another definition of what Entropy is “lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder.”

In the comics, he’s more of a cosmic being as a result of him being an embodiment of unusable energy. He’s been in existence since, well, the beginning. He had destroyed the universe and recreated it multiple times. Okay, so that lines up with how the show portrays him. And technically, he does get the universe to reset itself in the 41st century when he alters the 31st century enough.

But I personally feel that making him a cosmic being is kinda… meh?

I personally prefer more personal villains most of the time. Don’t get me wrong, an Eldritch being done right makes a great character, but I can’t see Imperiex as one. At least not LoSH’s version.

Plus I like it when the protagonist sees the villain has a point and has changed as a result for the better.

You know, over a year ago, I used to think that it was impossible to make a tyrannical villain who’s presented as real evil seem complex.

And then… I was introduced to TFP Megatron.

Now for you LoSH fans who haven’t watched Transformers Prime, Megatron was once Megatronus. A low caste member who worked in the mines and Gladiator games. He wanted to fix the growing corruption of Cybertron. To make things better.

But his worse personality traits took over, and he lost that good motivation. Now he’s just fighting to win and defeat Optimus Prime. 

But despite the change of goals and ideals, he doesn’t want to simply abandon his relationship with Optimus. He and Optimus, or as he used to be called, Orion, were fighting for the betterment of society. And they meant something to each other. Megatron doesn’t want to just get it over with. He wants fanfare for his victory over Optimus. And he doesn’t want anyone else to rob him off that. But he isn’t opposed to getting Optimus/Orion back on his side. It’s because of this you can still argue that there is a remaining shred of good in him.

They were the best young lovers anD NO I AM NOT CRYING OVER THEM!

Also, the fact we know he was part of a minority group in the form of the lower cast  that was enslaved can make us sympathize with Megatronus of the past, as well as understand how he came to be.

It doesn’t mean we forgive him for his actions - and he has done a lot of shitty things. And I mean a lot.

But his history is more understandable. TFP Megatron’s a fall from grace.

OK I’m done dissecting TFP Meg’s writing.

We know Imperiex was a slave, and was originally organic, who’s from a society where his purpose is literally just to fight, and was gradually stripped of his original body. He was originally stripped of any agency before then though.

But he says this was a good thing. Calling his original body a weakness. And refers to his old self as a pathetic slave.

He gave up whatever softness he had.

Also, this is where K3NT’s story needs to be reexamined. Imperiex was made during what K3NT described as “A Time of Extended Prosperity”. That time had freaking slaves. And K3NT says that when Imperiex did rise up, they were unprepared. So… they were prosperous, but lacked defense to prevent anything like that happening? Or perhaps those who were in charge were that unpopular that it was easy for Imperiex to start the war.

What made him decide conquering the galaxy was the next thing to do after he had every bit of his original self stripped away? Why go as far as destroy it?

What I’m trying to say is that they could borrow a few pages from the Megatron book. Maybe he was once trying to better the society he was part of, but he decides to play the violent card at some point. And somewhere along that strategy, he starts to lose sight of the initial goal. With that, being the victor and in control becomes the main one.

Or perhaps he has grown cynical of the galaxy as it is and decides it just needs to go all together, and then start from scratch.

Like the second definition of Entropy, he gradually declines in predictability and descends into disorder.

Maybe to juxtaposition the fact that Brainiac became the main threat at the end, make him the opposite or foil to him. Rationality or logic do not serve as first-or-second influences to decisions under pressure. Emotions and his own perceived ideas do.

Speaking of Brainiac, maybe offer more of the OG Brainiac. Give us more of that smooth-voiced Corey Burton. 

Or TFA Megatron.

Seductive Bastard.

I’m sorry I have fallen for the shady-business-mafia-boss-but-morally-grey robot.

Also, the members of the legion that only get one episode focus? Give them more screen time. You can’t just introduce superman’s new adopted son Karate Kid and just not bring him for another speaking role again!

Actually, that brings me to another point.

As @spandexinspace​ pointed out, his episode is not the best, and is arguably the worst written of the whole series. Things that are issues do get brushed off to the side.

So a proposal on potential rewrite:

First, have the legion look over its current rules and what exceptions/changes they need to make.

Explore the subject of kids having to participate in these fights.

To clarify, kid shows are meant to be escapism for kids.

Shocking, I know.

So it makes sense that some characters would be the same age as the viewers. 

But while this is good representation, as you get older, you find yourself going “WHY WOULD THE ADULTS LET THEM ENDANGER THEMSELVES?!”

Kids having to fight at that age does have consequences. Batman Beyond certainly addressed it. So did Steven Universe Future.

Steven ended up being responsible for so much, that when he no longer needed to take care of things, he was unsure of who he was. And then there’s the fact he ended up with PTSD because of him having to fight so much. Then you have the fact that Greg and Rose never intended to raise him like their caretakers did... but as good as their intentions were, they still caused damage. Rose for… all the gem stuff. And look, Greg is a great dad, but not enforcing anything for Steven when he’s growing up still has it’s cost.

With Batman, he’s obviously going to do his damn best to keep kids safe, including the Robins. But sometimes, it’s not enough. He wasn’t able to keep Tim safe in the event with the Joker in Batman Beyond. Where he was held captive and tortured.

But the Batkids are never expected to resolve this stuff by themselves. Because Batman knows how much you can get screwed up as a kid. He fucking cares.

And to be fair, in most continuities I’m aware of, the other sidekicks came out pretty okay overall.

Except Jason Todd.

So my proposal?

Have Val originally with Grimbor, as a sort of Protege. But have the legion capture him, only to go “uhhh this is a child with no powers”. And Superman, being the good, wholesome paragon we all love, takes him under his wing.

In all honesty, I want Superman pulling a batdad for Karate Kid in his intro episode the whole time. That was the best part of the episode for me.

Plus after the events of “Cry Wolf”, the Legion should examine the no-killing rule. Because they do need to kill Imperiex to save the universe. But that goes against the code. But they can argue it’s a necessity. But Mar Londo is also a monster. He’s the everyday monster some of us have grown up with.

When do you need to make exceptions to kill someone?

And my final main suggestion:

Add more Mekt.

What the heck were you guys expecting? You all KNOW me by now. I LOVE MY GARBAGE BOY.

Joking aside, here’s what I would do.

Have the Chained Lightning episode pushed back, but have Mekt with Imperiex earlier. Most of us would yell “Why the heck would you join the guy whose main goal is to destroy the galaxy?!” But this is one of the easiest things to address.

Explore more of his past. Use the comic sources with him being outcast for being a solo on Winath. With that in mind, him deciding to side with Imperiex can make sense.

Why try protecting something that has done nothing but hurt you?

There’s actually a pretty good reason why he would side with Imperiex, as seen in Champions and Lightning Storm. Remember, Mekt was willing to cheat to get ahead of the sports competition he was introduced in. And also was thrilled when fighting Garth and was beating him on his own. He likes being in power.

Imperiex offers him that.

As for why Imperiex would bother with Mekt? That’s a little harder to answer. He knows that Mekt has a soft spot for his brother, and in turn sister, which proves to be the reason why the Tachyon Cannon fails. You’d think Imperiex would remove a huge fatality.

But he doesn’t.

Maybe he could hold another type of value for Mekt. Perhaps... nostalgia?

I’m still sold on the idea that they were sleeping together.

Also, give us a conclusive answer on where Mekt stands with the LSV. In the comics, he was the leader, but that role was given to Tyr in the cartoon more or less.

OK I think this has been polished enough for me to post now. What you guys think? Feel free to add on!

[queen-in-blue]

Rules and Background

Hello to all!

This is an rp blog for my new character Itara, the Queen in Blue. So here in my first post im going to lay down rules and reveal some background info.

RULES

1. This is an rp blog, not a fandom blog. While I love the Lovecraftian and Cthulu mythos, I do not like fandoms or the drama they bring. Do not bring your fandom bs on to my blog or you will be blocked. Hands down, no question. Yes I am aware Lovecraft was a racist prick and I don't appreciate his views, at all nor of course do i share them. Im just on here to have fun not talk about the morality of hippopotamus Lovecraft (if you get the reference, you get a cookie lol)

2. Itara is my own creation, as is my idea of Hastur having ten wives. The other wives may be mentioned but I don't intend on putting them on here. You may ask about them and I'll answer as best I can. The story is still somewhat in development, but I'm working on it. They aren't fully developed so please be patient.

3. I love to ship, and im a rather romantic person. However please ask before starting any NSFW scenes with me. Im demisexual and ill only do sex scenes in rps if they contribute something to the plot. I am not a porn blog, please respect this.

4. Crossovers are definitely welcome! No matter the fandom or idea, im willing to try just about anything. I am not an exclusive blog, as I find those to be kinda stingy. RPing is supposed to be fun and not meant to be taken so seriously. They're also tools to help one write better.

5. Might not always get to threads on time but I will try to answer within a week. Please keep in mind that I'm trying to get my writing career off the ground so this isn't my whole life.

6. I do not own anything in the cthulu mythos, I just have my own character and I love her to pieces. I always thought Hastur was kinda cool so I made him a wife...sort of. More on that in a minute.

Background and FAQs

1. Who is Itara?

Itara was once a human woman whos family was a part of the cult of Hastur. This was back in ancient times, when the Great Old Ones would frequent the planet when humanity was just beginning civilization. Itara is actually Hastur's fifth wife and comes from our world, which is why she takes on a human like form.

2. How old is Itara?

Thousands of years old. She was "claimed" by Hastur when she was about twenty and stopped aging due to his essence, which also turned her into an eldritch being.

3. Is it okay to ship with Itara? What about same sex ships?

Absolutely! Itara may be married, but Hastur is her husband, not her jailer. He has nine other wives to tend to and she isn't always the favorite. She loves being romantic with anyone and everyone. She loves to receive gifts and offerings, and favors those who worship her.

4. Does she have any children?

This...is kind of a tough question to answer. With Hastur she's had a few but they're more like soldiers to her than children. Hastur is training them for war against cthulu, so there's the need for many wives of various species and races, most of which are unknown to man. However, since Itara does frequent earth, she's had affairs with mortals before. Most famously she had an affair with a plague doctor back in the early years of the black plague and they had a daughter, Elizabeth. Elizabeth is the one child she truly sees as hers.

5. Im not familiar with the cthulu mythos, so what should I know?

Most of this can be Googled but basically it was a universe set up by HP Lovecraft that a ton of other writers have contributed to over the years. In reference to Itara's story, she's primarily a tool in the war against the great old one, Cthulu. She is the wife of Cthulu's half brother, Hastur, the King in Yellow. In my story he's taken ten wives, Itara being among them.

6. Why blue? What about the other wives?

In my story, Hastur has ten wives, each of a different race represented by a different color and attribute. Some are positive and others are negative. The queens see each other as sisters but that doesn't mean they always get along. A lot of the time, they fight to gain Hastur's favor, each being eager to bring their king victory against his enemy, and eventually become his one true wife. Itara herself doesn't care too much for Hastur, and has only ever truly loved one man.

As for blue, kind of a personal choice. It is my favorite color and I thought it was a good counter to the king in yellow. Yellow is one of, if not my least favorite color. So I thought it was fitting.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading! Now...let's have some fun!

[raeynbowboi]

How to Play as Tokoyami Fumikage in DnD 5e

anyone who knows me knows Raven from Teen Titans is my favroite super hero of all time. She’s a big component of why I really love “Dark is Not Evil” as a trope. As such, Tokoyami is a huge personal favorite minor character because he has a similar vibe to my main home girl. So, I want to see how best to play as him in DnD 5e.

The Jet-Black Hero: Tsukuyomi

I’ve been dying to build a Kenku, and Tokoyami  is the perfect candidate. Kenku are a raven-looking avian race that are completely flightless and can mimic human speech. Crows in real life are actually able to learn to talk, and are intelligent enough to problem solve, recognize faces, and hold grudges. So, this is a great fit for the strategic dark bird boi of Cass 1-A. Kenku get +2 DEX and +1 WIS, the ability to masterfully mimic handwriting and people’s voices, and get 2 bonus proficiencies in Acrobatics, Deception, Stealth, or Sleight of Hand. Kenku however have a bad trait that they can only mimic things they’ve heard, which I’d ditch personally to allow him to speak freely.

Tokoyami is very noble, humble, and honorable. He has no aspirations of fame or glory, and does good just for the sake of doing good. When Bakugou is taken by the League of Villains, Tokoyami is among the ones to agree it should be left to the pro heroes.

For background, we’ll be going with the same as the gay disaster boyfriends as City Watch to be a patrolling super hero that stops crime and catches bad guys.

Seat 14 in Class 1-A

PALADIN     Oathbreaker You get access to Inflict Wounds which you can cast with CHA which makes your Sentinel Raven extremely good at dealing a ton of touch-range damage at longer range, and by level 7, fiends within 10 feet of you become stronger. Your Raven Queen Spirit isn’t technically recognized as a fiend, but Dark Shadow is called a shadow demon, so you could talk to your DM about treating it as a fiend. Sorcerers and Warlocks also get quite a few demon summoning spells to empower Dark Shadow in multiple forms. You can also add your CHA stat to your melee damage, which reflects Tokoyami’s Black Ankh fighting style. It’s also worth mentioning that Tokoyami’s official fighting style is listed as being melee.

Paladin Fighting Style:     Interception While the range may need to be extended because 5 feet is pretty small for Dark Shadow’s amazing range, you can intercept an attack meant for an ally. As Tokoyami’s best trait in battle is his ability to block and defend his allies, this is a great fighting style, reducing damage by 7-16 at level 20. Talk to your DM about possibly extending the range to turn Tokoyami into the ranged guardian of his team.

SORCERER     Shadow This subclass gives you built-in Darvision and lets you summon a hell-hound which you could talk to your DM as reskinning as Dark Shadow flanking you in combat. Later on, this subclass can teleport between shadows and become an intangible shadow.

WARLOCK     Raven Queen the obvious choice for Tokoyami’s main focus, Dark Shadow is an extension of him. Spells like Vampire Touch with a Touch range can be cast through Dark Shadow, allowing Dark Shadow to be the one dealing damage. Dark Shadow can also coat Tokoyami like a layer of armor such as with Armor of Shadows, and Tokoyami can reskin weapons as being Dark Shadow’s umbral claws.

Stats and Proficiencies

Charisma will be number one. Because Raven Queen Warlock is the obvious choice, and both Sorcerers and Paladins cast with Charisma. Dark Shadow makes Tokoyami’s AC very high, so a high Dexterity is important to block damage with your spooky friend. The rest of your stats can be relatively even between Strength, Constitution, and Wisdom to make Tokoyami a formidable hero-in-training.

Arcana Insight Perception

Name: Tokoyami Fumikage (Tsukuyomi) Race: Kenku Background: City Watch Alignment: Lawful Good Class: Raven Queen Warlock (12)             Oathbreaker Paladin (8) Base Stats: Strength: 10 (0) Dexterity: 20 (+5) Constitution: 12 (+1) Intelligence: 10 (0) Wisdom: 14 (+2) Charisma: 20 (+5) Saving Throws: Strength: +5 Dexterity: +10 Constitution: +6 Intelligence: +5 Wisdom: +13 Charisma: +16 Combat Stats: HP: 131 AC: 18 Speed: 30 Initiative: +5 Number of Attacks: 2 Hit Dice: 12d8, 8d10 Proficiency Bonus: +6 Passive Perception: 17 Dark Vision: 120 feet Proficiencies:    Acrobatics (Kenku)    Arcana (Warlock)    Athletics (City Watch)    Insight (City Watch)    Investigation (Warlock)    Stealth (Kenku) Skills: Acrobatics: +11                  Medicine: +2 Animal Handling: +2          Nature: 0 Arcana: +6                         Perception: +7 Athletics: +6                       Performance: +5 Deception: +5                    Persuasion: +5 History: 0                           Religion: 0 Insight: +8                         Sleight of Hand: +5 Intimidation: +5                 Stealth: +11 Investigation:+6                Survival: +2

Equipment    Leather Armor    Shield    Short Sword x 2

Damage Resistances:    Necrotic

Condition Immunities:    Disease, Fear

Paladin Feature: Fighting Style    Interception: When an ally creature within 5* feet is attacked, use your shield to intercept 1d10+ Proficiency Bonus amount of damage.

Warlock Feature: Pact Bond    Pact of the Blade: You forge a bond with a weapon, and gain the ability to summon and dismiss it at will. The weapon counts as magical.

Warlock Feature: Eldritch Invocations    Agonizing Blast: Eldritch Blast deals +5 damage on hit.    Armor of Shadows: Cast Mage Armor at will    Devil’s Sight: 120 feet of normal and magical darkvision    Lance of Lethargy: Eldritch Blast casts the effects of Slow on hit.    Superior Pact Weapon: Your pact weapon deals an added +2 damage.    Lifedrinker: When you hit with your pact weapon, deal +5 Necrotic damage.

Warlock Feature: Mystic Arcanum    Eyebite

Spell Slots 1st (4) 2nd (3) 5th (3)

Tokoyami’s Spellbook

Cantrips                          2nd Level                         4th Level     Blade Ward                     Aid                                    Summon Greater Demon     Eldritch Blast                  Crown of Madness       5th Level     Mage Hand                     Darkness                          Infernal Calling      True Strike                      Locate Object                   Negative Energy Flood 1st Level                             Magic Weapon             6th Level     Arms of Hadar                Shadow Blade                   Eyebite     Detect Evil & Good         Spiritual Weapon     Detect Magic              3rd Level     Hellish Rebuke               Fear     Heroism                          Fly     Inflict Wounds                 Hunger of Hadar     Mage Armor                   Summon Lesser Demons     Shield of Faith                Vampiric Touch

Actions:

Divine Sense Detect Celestial, Fiend, or Undead. Detect Holy or Unholy energy. Lay on Hands Pool of 40 HP to distribute or 5 points to cure poison or disease.

Features:

Aura of Hate You, Fiends, and Undead within 10 ft add +5 to weapon damage Aura of Protection You and allies within 10 ft. get +5 on saving throws Channel Divinity: Control Undead An undead within 30 feet of you must pass a WIS throw or obey you for 24 hours. Channel Divinity: Dreadful Aspect Choose any creature in 30 feet to become afraid of you for 1 minute on a failed WIS throw. Channel Divinity: Harness Divine Power Use Channel Divinity to restore a used 1st Level spell slot. Divine Smite Sacrifice a spell slot, deal (x+1)d8 radiant damage, +1d8 on fiends and undead. Expert Forgery: You have advantage on making forgeries. Interception Fighting Style: Reduce 1d10+PB damage on nearby ally. Mimicry: You can mimic voices, contested by Insight vs your Deception skill. Mystic Arcanum Cast Eyebite once per long rest without spell slots Raven’s Shield Advantage on death throws, immune to fear, resist necrotic. Sentinel Raven Darkvision of 30 feet, Add CHA to perception, the raven gets its own initiative rolls can can wake you as a bonus action. Soul of the Raven You merge with the raven and become small and able to fly. You can only dash, disengage, dodge, help, hide, and search in this form. Watcher’s Eye You can find and recognize guard stations and criminal hideouts.

While the build isn’t perfect, I thought that this was a rather strong build for Tokoyami as Dark Shadow is easy enough to incorporate into his combat with enough flavoring. How do you think I did? Do you have a character you’d like to see me build? Let me know, and I’ll add them to my list.

[tokiro07]

I was thinking about Medaka yesterday as I am wont to do, and I realized something 

Her Skill, The End, is way more broken than I ever gave it credit for

Consider the fact that she copies Aka’s Five Focus Skill by HEARING about it. This process is described as playing Telephone with other people’s powers, which implies that Medaka can actually customize the exact parameters of powers she gets. This is already somewhat true anyway, as The End’s specific ability is to perfect abilities and techniques, but now she doesn’t even have to have to start with an accurate base and could potentially create new abilities by thinking of them

So what if she were to cross over into other contexts?

In the Dragon Ball world? Medaka could definitely master any given ki technique: Kamehameha, Dodonpa, Destructo Disk, Hellzone Grenade, Special Beam Cannon, FInal Flash, Spirit Bomb. Everyone has ki, it’s just a matter of knowing how to use, Medaka can definitely do it easily. Abilities that are specific to certain races? You’d think she can’t do those cus she doesn’t have the physiology for it, but given that she has witnessed many Skills from Ajimu that allowed her to alter her physiology to match various animals, it’s not hard to imagine Medaka being able to alter her physiology to match aliens, even if she has to create a new Skill for it on the spot. In doing so, she’d have access to Namekian regeneration and asexual reproduction, Majin pliability and absorption, and most importantly, Saiyan transformation. Given that she has perfected versions of both Maguro’s Analysis and Naze’s Remodeling, she could very easily determine the exact biological mechanism of the Super Saiyan form (gathering S-Cells to a specific point at the base of the neck) and then remodel her own cells to have the characteristics of S-Cells. This would probably be especially simple for her because she already basically has her own human equivalent of Super Saiyan in her War, Altered and End God Modes, so she’d probably combine the concepts to create Super God Mode. Even if she can’t do that, it probably wouldn’t matter, because she’d have absolutely no problem learning Ultra Instinct (which is very similar to the perfected form of Auto Pilot that she got from Takachiho) and attaining divine ki to enter a new form that she’d probably call True God Mode (being that she’d be using the literal powers of a god)

How about One Piece? She could definitely learn Haki, and would most certainly have Conqueror’s Haki (”she’s not used to standing in front of others, she’s used to standing above others”, Hitoyoshi, chapter 1), but the much more pressing question is whether or not she could copy Devil Fruit. The short answer is no, but the long answer is that she doesn’t have to. As I said before, all she needs to know is that a power exists in order to copy it, she doesn’t need to have a complete understanding of it. Since Ajimu has an inexhaustible number of abilities, chances are good that any ability that can be used by a Devil Fruit (being made of rubber, turning into a specific animal, etc.) is something that Ajimu is also capable of if she didn’t demonstrate it directly to Medaka, so while Medaka wouldn’t become a Devil Fruit user by interacting with one, she would definitely be able to replicate the abilities of their Devil Fruit without losing her ability to swim

Naruto? Any given jutsu, for sure, and as we established earlier, Kekkei Genkai should be no problem. Not that she’d need to bother with something like the Sharingan, since for all intents and purposes, The End is a perfected Sharingan: not only can she visually break down any technique or ability she sees through Observation and then perfectly replicate it, she also improves it and doesn’t even necessarily need to personally witness it in the first place. The only advantage she’d get from the Sharingan would be unlocking the Mangekyou Sharingan without needing to witness the death of someone close to her, but even then, she’s literally watched Hitoyoshi die twice, so she’s got that covered too

Bleach? She’d need to awaken spiritual sense first, but given that normal people did so just by being around Ichigo for an extended period of time, that’s not too much of a stretch. After that, any given kido or reiryoku technique would be easy enough, but anything beyond that is a bit trickier. I think she could copy the abilities of a Zanpakuto, but she wouldn’t necessarily manifest one just because she’s copied one. That said, if Medaka were to get an Asauchi (a blank Zanpakuto base), she would most likely be able to use the Shikai and Bankai of any Shinigami she faces (even if they don’t have their Bankai yet, I’d imagine), and would possibly be able to use the abilities of Arrancar as well. I’m willing to bet that her Zanpakuto would actually be Asauchi itself, as they are ostensibly considered the “ultimate Zanpakuto” due to their infinite possibilities. Though obviously her mother was never attacked by a Hollow, it’s not hard to imagine Medaka being able to use Fullbring just from being exposed to Hollow reiryoku, which would definitely linger on any Shinigami even in miniscule amounts. I imagine that she’d choose either the flowers from completed suggestions or the Medaka Box itself as her Fullbring, given how much weight they hold for her. Getting a Hollow mask and become a Visored would probably be a simple task too just from understanding how to manipulate reiryoku and knowing what a Hollow is, which in turn would likely allow her to use the specific powers of any Hollow she meets or learns of. Quincy techniques are generally related to specialized equipment, but with enough control of her own reiryoku, she could probably recreate any generic Quincy technique and even Yhwach’s Letters

Shaman King? Same deal as Bleach, she needs to unlock spiritual sense first, but once she has, she would definitely be able to master both Hyoi Gattai and Over Soul in no time, as well as being able to act as a medium like Anna. Now, when using Over Soul, the resulting abilities are based on a number of factors, such as the identity of the spirit in question, the medium channeling said spirit, the imagination of the shaman, and the quality of the spirit. While Medaka could probably make something like O.S. Spirit of Sword with just any spirit and any medium, the Over Soul itself would lose potency by nature of the incompatibility of the shape, the spirit and the medium. Of course, that’s assuming that she’s using any old spirit. We already know that Medaka’s mother Hato, who is of similar monstrous skill to Medaka, was able to manifest herself to Medaka in her inner world, so if Medaka were able to commune with the dead, I think it’s fair to say that she would, without question, enlist Hato as her guardian spirit. With that, all issues of compatibility go out the window; the combination of the two of them with their superhuman abilities would, without doubt, allow Medaka to recreate any Over Soul she wants without difficulty, likely all channeled through something like her signature fan

The only power system I can think of that may pose any semblance of difficulty to Medaka would be Hunter X Hunter’s Nen, but even then, her nature more than makes up for any deficit. Right off the bat, Medaka would be a Specialist capable of at least 100% proficiency in all six Hatsu categories. As demonstrated by Ging copying and extrapolating Leorio’s Emission Hatsu, Medaka could very easily deconstruct and recreate the mechanisms of other Nen user’s Hatsu, but she could not use The End to perfect a Hatsu. Since Hatsu are empowered by their weaknesses and limitations, the act of removing those weaknesses would make a Hatsu less effective. She could potentially add her own limitations to increase their output, which she would probably do anyway, but striking the balance between limitation and impracticality might still prove somewhat difficult for Medaka, especially since most Hatsu are highly personalized. That said, this is only a problem if Medaka constrains herself to using Nen in those contexts; if Medaka wanted to reinterpret a Hatsu as a Skill, there’s very little to stop her from doing so. Kurapika Chain Jail? Chain conjuration Skill + enemy is powerless when bound in chains Skill. No limitations needed. Beyond that, simpler Hatsu would be easy; Reinforcement Hatsu very rarely use limitations because of the nature of how basic Nen manipulation works, Transformation Hatsu just change the characteristics of one’s aura, and Emission just removes Nen from the body, all very simple techniques to recreate. Manipulation and Conjuring would be more difficult, but again can be circumvented through Skill Creation

Even Undead Unluck, where abilities are granted by one’s metaphysical connection to an eldritch manifestation of natural laws, Medaka could again easily just create a Skill to approximate the ability. It’s not like immortality and luck manipulation haven’t been explicitly shown in the context of Medaka Box.

Basically, while it seems like one could say “Medaka is only OP in the context of Medaka Box,” the fact that The End is effectively meant to be “plot armor as a super power” makes it vague enough to be applicable in any given context, circumventing the limitations of other universes. It can easily be extrapolated to be used on the physical, genetic, mental, spiritual, and even magical level, and even if it can’t, all that revelation would do is reveal to Medaka that The End is imperfect and thus needs to be further fine-tuned to perfect itself. The only real limitation on The End is Medaka’s own ability to understand how both it and the target actually work (since she wasn’t able to copy Styles until she learned how to actually use one of her own and has never been shown directly creating a Skill despite the fact that she should be able to with The End or Hanten’s Skill Creation ability)

I guess what I’m really trying to say here is that any “what-if” match up against Medaka is inherently doomed to end either in her favor or a tie at best if the opponent is similarly OP because her character was literally designed to be capable of overcoming anything in a similar vein to heroes like Superman or Goku, and there’s a certain schoolyard joy in knowing that the protagonist of my favorite series can stand shoulder to shoulder with the likes of them

[rowanthestrange]

Doctor Who Meta: Cyberium AI Meta Masterpost

@grassangel​ said: A thought for you because of your meta: the Cyberium as the fluid in the opening credits.

It definitely does have a resemblance, doesn’t it. And that fits in with the Chibs style of ‘if you think it’s odd/wrong it probably serves a bigger purpose’.

The Cyberium AI is weird as hell. It’s clearly really important, not just as a plot device, but as itself. It’s got characterisation. It’s got a mirror important enough to be in the first episode - Tzim-Sha’s Gathering Coil, the first thing this Doctor ever faces.

And it mirrors the Doctor and Timeless Child’s ‘Power’. I mean it really mirrors them. To the point where, like with the Lone Cyberman and Rassilon, I’m not sure if it’s mirroring the character ridiculously heavily, or if it just straight up is the character. Just like working out Clara was going to be the Doctor with a TARDIS - I knew the result but I didn’t know what form it would take, literally the character or not, until the end. Cus that’s Doctor Who and its shapeshifting for you.

You know how my preferred method is to just point out all the metas as I see them, so you can draw your own conclusions if they’re different to mine, but I will actually put my thoughts as to what this all means at the end.

So click below for every bit of Cyberium AI meta from not just Series 12, not even just Series 11...but all the way back to Season 25)

(Under a cut because there was so much more than I thought there was)

In episode order then:

The Woman Who Fell To Earth

(The Gathering Coil as double-layer, mirroring the Cyberium AI’s role itself; but also therefore as its Doctor character mirror, and Timeless Child ‘Power’ mirror)

-See the title of the episode. The title with at least three references now.

-It crashes into a train when we meet it. A few moments before the Doctor does.

-“What are you? Okay, you don't like questions. More the private type, I get that.”

-Its data is absorbed into the Rassilon-mirror Tzim-Sha.

-In doing so also implants into him - and I quote the Doctor - “Micro-implants which code to your DNA. On detonation, they disrupt the foundation of your genetic code, melting your DNA.” Sound familiar?

-It’s being used - against the laws of the user’s species - in order to attain leadership. (Like Rassilon/Tecteun)

-Looks like one creature but is actually a huge number in the appearance of one. (The Doctor).

-The Gathering Coil might look like an Eldritch horror, but it never actually kills anyone on purpose. When it first shows up, the woman driving the train dies from shock, (“Shock” get it? Like...) Grace dies in an attempt to stop it by electrocuting it. The most damage it itself deliberately does, is short-circuit a crane.

----

The Haunting Of Villa Diodatti:

(Heavily as Timeless Child ‘Power’ mirror(?))

-The Lone Cyberman confirms the Cyberium AI to be both a lifeform and ‘weapon of some kind’. Like the Ux.

-We meet it already inside Doctor-mirror Percy Shelley - suicidal, social activist, and a great believer in the importance of society having Hope even if not so good at it himself. He is not trying to use its powers, but as Guardian of them doesn’t want others to take and abuse them. The word ‘Guard’ is also used by Mary in regards to the child. (And we could leave this episode and say how Irish Metaphor Doctor was a ‘Garda’ but you get the point).

-It hides in a house that appears to warp and change and shield and use a perception filter - theorised to be the Cyberium AI warping the perceptions of people in the building, even though none of them are remotely Cyber in any way. Shelley says directly only some of the changing is his doing. On a practical level, it must have strong telepathic abilities - like the Doctor. On a meta level, it hides itself in a place that mirrors a TARDIS.

-The Doctor can’t find it at first because it’s “hidden away, cloaked, too big to register.” Like the Timeless Child memories.

-The Doctor seemingly genuinely didn’t know what it was a minute ago, when she was asking Ashad what it was. But now suddenly she does know: “Cyber technology. The knowledge of the whole cyber race and AI from the future, containing the knowledge and future history of all Cybermen”. Almost as if she’s remembered.

-This next bit’s important and connected so we’ll just do the whole lot and break it up afterwards:

Percy: “They scorched and split the sky. Built the army of all armies. Left behind only pain, rage, fear and death.” Mary: “How is he seeing all this?” The Doctor: “The Cyberium is burning through his mind. It'll destroy him if it stays in him much longer. An epic battle. The Cyberium at the heart of it, controlling data, strategy, decision-making. Clever! Very clever. Someone took it from the Cybermen, sent it back through time here in an attempt to change the future.” *The Lone Cyberman tries to break in* The Doctor: “In an attempt to protect you from that.”

-Like Donna with the Doctor’s memories, this is burning Percy up. -An epic Battle, like with the Ux - a great battle referenced and not explained. The Cyberium AI instead of the Ux at the heart of it, used to fight it. (If anyone’s still assuming the Timeless Child(ren) thing was simply about regeneration power, there should be more focus on the Division and the Child as weapon). -The Doctor again coming in with extra information. -Possible Future Meta: Someone attempted to change the future by taking the source of power from the Rassilon (see the mirror).

-Thirteen tells the Doctor-mirror to just let the Rassilon-mirror have the power. (Reminds me of how the Timeless Child ‘would not yield any secrets’). But the Cyberium AI has been sending Shelley (Doctor-mirror) symbols and numbers. So Possible Future Meta: It wasn’t just the regeneration power Rassilon got from the Timeless Child, it was also information. (Of course - the Doctor, especially this one meant to mirror all this, is the Builder And Destroyer, after all)

-We confirm the Cyberium AI’s own sentience, separate from its host, (and its reluctance to leave). It changes the mental map of the house specifically to avoid the Lone Cyberman.

-The Lone Cyberman believes the host must be killed in order to get the power out. Mary Shelley immediately talks to the Lone Cyberman about fatherhood, and how he doesn’t want to do this. (Rassilon/Tecteun)

-The Doctor convinces the Cyberium AI to leave by showing it Percy’s future. (The mercury-like substance exits Percy quite like the poison with Ten. Given the amount of Ten-era-mirroring, this one’s cute).  (Possible Future Meta: The Doctor meeting Timeless Child self, like with Martin!Doctor).

-The Cyberium AI goes to the Doctor, who calls herself its “true Guardian”. Says it feels “Very at home”. Going with how she seemed to remember what it was without ever being told earlier...

-The Doctor, when her friends and the planet is at risk, decides to give it over the the Lone Cyberman, and the Cyberium works with her in a way it refused to with Shelley, meaning she didn’t need to die, even though she says it had already started fusing.

-Next after the Doctor-mirror/Doctor, the power enters the Rassilon-mirror.

-(Yaz restarts the Doctor-mirror’s heart. That’s not important to this meta, but it sure is important to other ones).

-We talk about ghosts just as we enter the Ghost Monument.

----

Ascension Of The Cybermen:

(Both as Doctor mirror and Timeless Child Power mirror)

-Cyberium!Ashad says “The Cyberium does know you. Both you and humanity will be destroyed, and I shall bring the Cyber race to its greatest ever glory.” - the Cyberium AI has already seen the Doctor’s death before. Or it’s lying.

-The Doctor’s blatantly obvious talking-to-herself therapy speech is to Cyberium!Ashad.

“The Cyberium has given me understanding. It has distilled my purpose. I am the perfect vessel.” - A container, a ship for the Cyberium AI.

“Everything is in me for the ascension of the Cybermen, and beyond. ... All your deaths. The death of everything is within me.” - First, mirrors the ‘life’ within the Timeless Child. Second, considering before this was previously an AI trying to avoid conflict and entering Ashad, the fact that Ashad and his death particle gets convinced to go to the Master and Gallifrey, makes me wonder how much the Cyberium AI was forced to go along because that’s its nature and it has to follow instructions, or whether it was planning and pulling the strings. Or both - TARDIS-style.

----

The Timeless Children:

(Heavily as Doctor mirror, minorly Timeless Child Power mirror)

-“Oh. Oop. Excuse me. Check my notifications. Oh, goodie! The Cybermen are here, at the Boundary. Better extend the hand of friendship. Breaker 1-2 calling all Cybes.” So the Master knew that the Cybermen would come. How? They haven’t interacted from our perspective at all.

-The Master says to Cyberium!Ashad “I want you to think of me as your new best friend.”

-Master to the Doctor: “Don't heckle, dear. I can always decide to cut you short.” -Master to Cyberium!Ashad: “Oh, shoot. I should've said, somebody needs to cut you down to size, then zapped you. I was just trigger-happy. I'll use it next time.” (Plus, a ‘next time’ - we haven’t seen the last of him).

-The Cyberium AI is revealed to have been the one to create the Death Particle. Which again makes me question who’s pulling whose strings. As the Master points out Ashad is more organic than most, and Ashad simply says that he’ll mechanise when the process is over - ignoring the point that this didn’t work before. And Ashad seems to think it will wipe out everything, ignoring the reality that its coverage is only a single planet.

-The Master is clearly talking to the Cyberium more than Ashad at points.

Ashad: “The Cyberium will process and dictate the strategy.” The Master: “The Cyberium. I've heard a lot about that over the millennia. The heart of all your power. The centre of all Cyber knowledge.” -Sounds very like the other Timeless Child(ren) mirror - the Ux.

-The Master actively flirts with it. “Oh, come on, Cyberium, show us some leg. What do you actually look like, hmm?” And after shrinking Ashad without so much as a close-up, like he’s been nothing to the plot, “Well, aren't you pretty? And fast. You made your exit very swiftly there. Worried, were you?”

-The Master hoped the Death Particle would activate and laments to the Cyberium AI that his “nice little gamble” didn’t pay off - as in it didn’t kill him. (Assuming Timeless Children plural, that may be the only thing that would work, and that he is telling this to the Cyberium AI again could fit nicely with the narrative idea that it knows what it’s doing).

-“Oh, sorry, were you close? Candidly, I think you can do better.” ... “Wow, that was quick. Wa-ha-ha! Whoa! Woohoo! At least buy me... dinner!” - (And considering we all had a giggle at the clearly intentionally funny ‘a piece of you is in me’ line that’s going to happen either in about a minute, or in the world of the episode and making adjustments for simultaneous storytelling, right now...)

-“I ransacked the Matrix of the Time Lords, distilled all the knowledge, all the experiences, all the discoveries, into these brains up here. All the Cyber knowledge, all the Time Lord knowledge. Put it together, what do you get? Absolute supremacy in the universe. Choose me.” - (The Master pointing out we’ve now got two sets of incredible knowledge. Rule of three has me wondering about the Timeless Child’s ‘Knowledge’.)

-After the power was originally in the Doctor-mirror/Doctor, it then went to the Rassilon-mirror(?) and then to the Master. If you’re a fan of Timeless Children Plural theory.

-The Master: “No, Doctor. As of now, I wish my enemies a long and healthy life, so they may witness my many triumphs, because they will be legion.” - (So, in case you’re not familiar with the Legion thing, two points: A Legion was a division in the Roman army of about 3000-6000 men. We will be coming back to Rome - oh God will we - but just slot that information away for later. Point two - For another use of Legion, we need to head to the Bible, Mark 5:1-9. ‘Who cares, Rowan?’ Well, this is the story in which there is a man living among tombs, who no-one can bind, not even with chains. He cries out and attacks himself, and on seeing Jesus in the distance rushes over and kneels before him, screaming that he’d put him under oath not to torment him. Jesus doesn’t talk to him, but to what is possessing him, ordering it to come out, and asking its name. And it, not the man replies: “I am Legion, for we are many.” (Fun fact, we eventually get rid of the demons by exorcising them into animals who then run off...a...cliff. *sighs* Ok.)

The Doctor: “You're looking peaky.” The Master: “Oh, yeah. The Cyberium lives in me now, Doctor. Yeah. Yes. See, I've been looking forward to seeing your face about that. I can feel it flowing around in me. The information, the strategy, the... the... the consciousness. It's a beautiful thing. And look at us. I have broken you and created a new race. And now? Now I shall conquer... everything. Oh.”

-“See, I've been looking forward to seeing your face about that.” - This is a quiet point that exemplifies a major one. The Master’s story is different to ours. He knows things that we do not. The Doctor in theory (though I doubt in practice) had never come across the Cyberium AI before, she hasn’t mentioned its name or anything about it to the Master. In theory (again press x) the Lone Cyberman carrying the Cyberium AI just turned up when the Master dragged the Doctor through to Gallifrey as pure happenstance, he should know nothing about that incident with the AI and Shelley (and yet he quotes him). Why has he been looking forward to seeing her face in regards to that? What does he know about it that he expects her to remember? Just like with the Timeless Child infodump, we are fools if we take all this at face value, because the Master planned for all of this. And it seems like the Cyberium AI _itself_ is planning too.

Ko Sharmus: “You didn't start this. I did. I was part of a resistance unit that sent the Cyberium back through time and space. Though obviously we didn't send it back far enough. So this is my penance. Mine to finish. My journey ends here. But the universe still needs you, so I suggest you run.” (Ko Sharmus is treated way too important. We’ve got to see him again.)

----

Done? Done.

Well no, no actually we’re not. Because there is one final episode.

But we have to go back, just a little bit, to the Seventh Doctor. Stick with me. I promise you’ll be glad you did.

Silver Nemesis:

-A story revolving around a thing called Validium.

-To quote the TARDIS Wiki: “It was living metal that could think for itself and was capable of speech as well. When destroyed, it could reform itself.”

The Doctor: “Validium was created as the ultimate defence for Gallifrey, back in early times.” Ace: “Created by Omega?” The Doctor: “Yes.” Ace: “And?” The Doctor: “Rassilon.” Ace: “And?” The Doctor: “And none of it should have left Gallifrey. But, as always with these things, some of it did.”

-Catch that hint of the Cartmel Masterplan where it’s clearly meant to lead you to ‘And? The Other One’. It’s ok, you’re not reading too far into it, I promise.

-“It should never have left Gallifrey, but some of it did. A piece of validium fell to Earth and was found by the Lady Peinforte.” Can you guess what she did with it? Why, she moulded it into a statue of herself.

-A silver lady statue.

-(You remember how we just seemed to abandon Barton? Who is somewhat not human? Was involved with creatures from another dimension? And that statue? Seemed set-up for a cyber plan? Saw nothing wrong with a bit of familial murder? Ooh hoo. Welp.)

-Nazis are involved. Ill-timed notifications. The Doctor forgetting. A cellar. (A fez). A meteorite containing the validium crashes by a barn. On November the 23rd. Happy Birthday. We blow things up. A lot of things.

-The villains of the piece? Besides the nazis and the Time(travelling) Lady? Well it could only be the Cybermen. A bit of the Validium is held by each of them

-The Cybermen take their bit of the Validium to the tomb of the Lady, with an inscription “Death Is But A Door”. The Lady is not buried there, and it doubles as a pun, with a hidden door.

-One of the lead nazis betrays his fellow to be turned into a Cyberman. “Supermen are all very well, but the giants are the master race.”

-The Seventh Doctor is mirrored with the Lady, who describes herself as evil. They even have mirrored scenes with their equivalent companions.

-The Lady: “All power, all power past, present and future, shall be mine. Why, I shall be mistress of all of that is, all that shall be, all that ever was. Yes, all! All!” - Oh, doesn’t she sound familiar now...

-Point Of Interest: Like many of the concepts Chibs has been playing with from Classic Who - the Morbius Doctors, almost certainly the Valeyard - this was apparently a fairly controversial episode among the old guard. Why? Because well...

The Validium: “I am beautiful, am I not?” Ace: “Yes. You're very beautiful.” The Validium: “It is only my present form. I have had others which would horrify you. I shall have those again. You are surprised I speak?” Ace: “I know you're living metal.” The Validium: “I am whatever I am made to be. This time Lady Peinforte called me Nemesis, so I am retribution.”

-I mean this is all cute but it doesn’t explain why it’s here and-

The Validium: “And I'm to destroy the entire Cyberfleet?” The Doctor: “Forever.” The Validium: “And then?” The Doctor: “Reform.” The Validium: “You might need me in the future, then?” The Doctor: “I hope not.” The Validium: “That is what you said before.” The Doctor: “Enough.” The Validium: “And after this, will I have my freedom?” The Doctor: “Not yet.” The Validium: “When?” The Doctor: “I told you when.” The Doctor: “Things are still imperfect.”

-Oh well that’s...Hmm.

Lady Peinforte: “You are nothing. Only the Doctor matters, and he is but a pawn in the game of my making.” ... Ace: “The Doctor's not just going to give you the bow. Tell her, Doctor. Tell her.” Lady Peinforte: “Doctor who? Have you never wondered where he came from, who he is?” Ace: “Nobody knows who the Doctor is.” Lady Peinforte: “Except me.” Ace: “How?” Lady Peinforte: “The statue told me.” Ace: “All right, so what does it matter? He's a Time Lord, I know that.” Lady Peinforte: “Well, Doctor?” The Doctor: “If I give you the bow,” Lady Peinforte: “Your power becomes mine, but your secrets remain your own.” ... Lady Peinforte: “I shall tell them of Gallifrey, tell them of the old time, the time of chaos.” ... The Doctor: “You had the right game, but the wrong pawn. Check.”

-What used to be the Cartmell Master plan is now the Timeless Child Master...plan- Is this why it’s involving the Master? For a pun? Whatever, either way the Seventh Doctor is now a treasure trove of useful ideas - I did wonder why Chibs chose Ace in particular as the companion who should get a ‘Thirteen meeting them again’ book - trying to lure people in for a second look, clearly.

-So what happens in the story? In the Timeless Child, the Master ends up absorbing the Cyberium. In Silver Nemesis, the Validium absorbs our Lady Mistress Of All. How neat.

-The Doctor ‘wins’ by giving the Validium the Cyberleader’s instructions, confirming it understood them, and then the Cybermen let it fly off to their fleet. Which then blows up. Because it chose to disobey them. (As he knew it would).

-The Validium is left floating in space, until the Doctor calls on it again. I’m not saying this relates to opening titles full of goop, but I’m not saying it doesn’t either.

So. That’s a lot. While I would usually doubt the Validium would literally be the Cyberium, and that it would be for fans to join together as they wished or not... Honestly, given the use of lore in Chibs Who, I don’t actually feel certain of that anymore.

But either way, there’s your meta masterpost, you can commence your theorising now.

****

I know no-one comes to these things for my stupid conclusions, but in case you did, here’s a couple of my very disparate fever-brained thoughts, that I’m too ill to put together more...smartly, and might have to come back to if you’re ever going to actually see this post:

-The Doctor/The Other/The Timeless Child had a hand in the weaponisation of the Cyberium AI (forced/cajoled/whatever).

-The Time Lord empire, in at least one version of reality, is inextricably linked to the Cybermen empire, with the Cybermen showing similar levels of technology to Time Lords (a cyber carrier ‘more advanced’ than very far future humans have ever seen - “Coming out of vortex now”, implies it has time vortex travel. And “That’s my home planet - that's Gallifrey”. Immediately the image cuts to Cyberman, then straight back.)

-The Timeless Child was chosen as a vessel to save some form of living knowledge, rather than just being a mystical alien.

-((My nuttiest guess that is only 30% meta and 70% gut feel is it’s a TARDIS-kind, probably our own, which stayed with them because they carried her, and now she carries them. That concept, the little links we’re seeing with TARDISes and their sentience, the implied planetary genocide of all but a saved pair, cyberised humans and cyberised Time Lords - a TARDIS is a cyberised something, the question of living technology, the gloop of the vortex, the Ghost Monument, the Doctor’s agonised loss of her for her first episode that she then only finds at the end of the second on a dead planet ruined by space-fascists...))

-Are those two the same story? You could go in either direction. The stories are all about cycles and loops, so a strong case for mirroring, but at the same time we have a Lone Cyberman who can’t be converted properly and no-one knows why, which makes me think that is still Rassilon with either the ghost of a memory of an old plan, or - thanks to time travel - the old plan itself. That perhaps the Timeless Child’s Power would end up somewhat fused with the Doctor when they turned it into the weaponised Cyberium “AI”, explains why we see it in meta go from benign to weapon creator.

-The Cyberium AI created the Death Particle which would destroy all life and stop the Cyber-Time Lords from taking over. This feels like the exact thing the Doctor was trying to stop with the Time Lords in The End Of Time, and Day Of The Doctor, as their absolute last-ditch plan.

-Certainly the Battle that the Alliance are gearing up for, I would assume is the same battle that we keep seeing in mirrors, and is directly related to Gallifrey. It keeps coming up linked together, like with Ko Sharmus, and we first find out about the Alliance from the inside of a stolen Battle TARDIS.

-So perhaps that’s a point that history is hinging on, and someone - read: the Master - has chosen to interfere. Things all seemed to go wrong after he discovered the Timeless Child information - impossible Time Lords and TARDISes appearing, an Alliance, a Cyber Empire etc. Maybe originally the Doctor/Timeless Child (title, not necessarily youth) was used to control the Cyberium AI and win the battle. But the Master took them away from Rassilon so that couldn’t happen, so everything’s a catastrofuck of paradoxes.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

We got a long time to think about it at least.

[athetos]

I finished the Southern Reach trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer and I know that trying to explain the events of the books is both a hopeless and even meaningless task, but I’m going to try anyway because I’m a fool.  There’s major spoilers for the trilogy and possibly the movie (Annihilation 2018; i haven’t watched it yet so I have no idea if I’ll spoil anything in it).  This is one series you want to go into blind so please don’t read unless you’ve finished it yourself and are going “hey what the fuck just happened”

I absolutely accept both constructive criticism and counter-theories - there are a million ways to interpret this work and I’d love to see what everyone else has come up with, or if I’m way off the mark and have horrible reading comprehension.

I’m going to separate this into sections, and in no particular order - the goal here isn’t to make a chronological sequence of events but to analyze distinct elements to assemble into (with any luck) a cohesive whole

1. The Brightness.  Going to start with the big one.  First off, the Brightness is definitely an alien organism, and most likely a synthetic one.  A light-based organism creating by a hyper-intelligent alien race.  Based off the bread crumbs the novels leave for us to follow, this alien race was destroyed - completely wiped out by some cosmic event.  Many people believe the Brightness was created to terra-form planets into resemblances of their homeworld - and while thats a very valid theory, I also have some differing ideas of my own. I don’t think the Brightness was meant to re-create the alien homeworld, but that it was designed to heal whatever environments it ends up in.  As strange as it sounds, all the duplicates, the transformations, and time dilation were meant to restore the world to what the brightness believes is it’s true form.  How so? Well -

2. The Copies.  The duplicates all acted very... strangely.  The survivors of the last Eleventh Expedition are all emotionless, blank slates that are perpetually calm.  Why do they act this way? Because the Brightness is attempting to heal them, which somehow means removing all emotions and violent impulses.  What really sold me on this theory is that when the Director goes into Area X the first time, before the final eleventh expedition, she has cancer.  All the copies from the eleventh expedition have cancer.  That’s because they saw that she had cancer, and believed it was a normal part of the human biology, and so gave cancer to all the duplicates.  The Brightness is trying to replicate humans exactly physically, as well as to heal them of violence and pain by completely wiping out the ability to feel emotions.  The copies claim Area X was a safe haven because that’s exactly what Area X views itself as - natural and safe and perfect.

3. The Transformations.  Everyone who enters Area X ends up transformed in some way or another.  The copies are sent out through the portal at the bottom of the tower/tunnel, but the originals are consumed by the Brightness and created into either almost completely normal wildlife, or into eldritch abominations.  I believe Area X is attempting to assimilate all organisms that enter it.  The humans who enter it are usually brought to insanity and so can no longer be restored - their minds are ruined.  So they’re morphed into an animal or perhaps even plant that resembles their personalities.  Sometimes this goes wrong however.  The Brightness/Area X isn’t perfect, and mistakes happen.  The boar with the psychologist from the final eleventh expedition’s face stands out, as well as the giant leviation that the Biologist turns into.  I think that the more someone struggles, or holds out against assimilation, the more drastically  wrong the form they morph into becomes. 

4. The Crawler/Saul.  Saul is the very first vessel for the Brightness after it is freed from the lighthouse lens.  It slowly drives him mad, and causes him to write seemingly nonsensical verses (more on that in a bit).  At the bar, he begins to transition into the Crawler - the enormous energy he gives off and alien biology causes the other patrons at the bar to lose their mind, screaming and injuring themselves.  As time goes on, he becomes more and more inhuman, but a powerful shred of Saul continues to remain inside the Crawler.  Throughout the books, it is speculated that the message Saul/Crawler writes does not have an intelligible, proper meaning, but it is instead the act of writing the words that carries the meaning.  In Acceptance, it’s later stated that the writing arm his last scrap of humanity remaining, and that something horrible would happen if he stopped writing.  This is because, by writing and continuing to resist the Brightness in a small way, I believe he is able to create the border that stops Area X from spreading.  Out of his desire to protect the ones he loves.  If he were ever to give up completely, the Brightness would encompass the entire earth. As he weakens, and parts of Area X (the plant, cellphone, Lowry, Whitby) escape, the border spreads.

5. The Verse.  While many characters claim the verse is just nonsense, I think there are some very important tidbits hidden away inside it.  There’s many mentions of seeds and flowers, which represent the Brightness itself - it takes the form of a spiraling, 8 petal flower.  “...I shall bring forth the seeds of the dead to share with the worms that gather in darkness...” I believe this line is about how the Brightness is the seeds of the dead (the alien race’s invention) and is sharing it’s power with the worms (earth’s population).  “The shadows of the abyss are like the the petals of a monstrous flower that shall blossom within the skull and expand the mind beyond what any man can bear...” .  This is referring to how the Brightness is beyond comprehension by humans, and that such knowledge would rend the mind apart, as it often does to anyone who enters the area.  Lastly, “There shall be a fire that knows your name, and in the presence of the strangling fruit, it will acquire every part of you.”  This is how the Brightness assimilates everyone into the ecosystem.  It is able to understand our biology and know us more intimately than we know ourselves.

6. John Rodriguez/Control.  One very interesting thing that people far smarter than I have noticed is that he is only referred to as Control when someone else is controlling him.  Namely, either his mother, or Lowry, or even Ghost Bird.  This is important because at the very end of Acceptance, when he jumps into the portal, it clearly states “John Rodriguez jumped”.  He wasn’t forced to; he did it of his own free will.  John jumping through the portal very clearly changed Area X but it’s not made clear how.  Did it expand Area X to cover the world, or destroy it?  I think both are equally likely, and it’s better not knowing.  Perhaps, by jumping into the portal, and being surrendered to the Brightness, the organism realized that humans can be good, that it was doing more damage than healing, and that it’s task was fruitless and so gave up? Or was even destroyed? Or... the opposite? Either way, I’m pretty sure the Marmot at the end is John - although it would have been more thematically fitting to turn him into a rabbit or hare.

7. Whitby.  I’ll be real - I don’t think Whitby is a counterfeit.  I believe the Whitby we know and love and are more than a little scared of is the real deal.  But his sanity was completely destroyed by his trip into Area X, and the killing of his doppelganger.  I also believe that the Brightness did infect him via the blossom on the plant, and was essential in the border spreading further.  When John makes the comment along the lines of “Have you ever wondered if perhaps you’re one of the variables responsible for Area X?” he gets darkly silent and I truly believe that yes, he was a variable.  That entering and leaving caused very drastic changes, and that Whitby himself was aware of that.

8. The Titles.  Lastly, I want to bring attention to the importance of the titles of the novels.  The first one, Annihilation, is named after the hypnotic cue for suicide.  It could also link to the annihilation of the alien race, or perhaps future annihilation of the human race.  Authority is from the hypnotic phrase “consolidation of authority” which I believe iirc was to make the subject listen to, well, authority.  Very fitting since the entire book is about John being hypnotized and how authority has been very, very fucked up.  Finally, Acceptance doesn’t relate to any hypnotic cues that I can remember.  I think it’s referring to the fact that everyone must accept that the Brightness is incomprehensible, and that whatever happens to the earth will happen.  Accepting of fate, of the inevitable, of what we will never understand.  That causality and laws of nature are no longer valid.  And Ghost Bird and Grace accepting that things have changed, throwing pebbles perhaps forever.  

Things I still don’t understand:

Jackie Severance - what was her deal? She’s clearly been involved since the very beginning but I can’t figure out what role she plays. Was she a variable for Area X? Or was she just in the wrong place at the wrong time and then working to undo what was done? 

Lowry.’s phone.  The phone seems to have been moving of it’s own accord, and perhaps contains the Brightness inside of it.  I can’t figure out it’s purpose though.  Is it somehow a copy of Lowry? And the reason why modern technology can’t enter Area X?

Henry.  there is something very off about Henry and I can’t figure out what.  I know he’s important somehow.  How did he know about the lens? Did Jackie and Suzanne know as well? Were they all operatives from Central, or was Henry a lone wolf who truly believed in the cause?

Why are the stars in different locations and move quickly? Is it due to the time dilation? or is it possible Area X is more of a pocket dimension, somewhere else in the universe? 

I’m sure there’s more I’m forgetting to talk about but anyways.  Damn these books were amazing.