VERY long Ramble incoming
honestly now that I'm looking at the auraboa lore situation, I'm just disappointed. There was such POTENTIAL in the idea of the Loop and the horror of a new generation inexplicably being disconnected from it, forcing the newly hatched children into a world totally separate from that perceived by their parents (I mean, hell, they perceive TIME differently!).... but then the writer(s?) just fell ass backwards into Icky Tropes.
I feel like I can see what the idea was, especially with the recent alterations to the Encyclopedia entry... It seems like staff fundamentally understands the true Horror potential here, but... Instead, through the short story, they proposed it through the lens of a condescending outsider character, turning the fears of the older generation into something trivial. And also weirdly demeaning the Auroboa's situation by portraying them as overreacting.
Why... why would you do that? Like, from a storytelling perspective? What's gained from that? Why not embrace the true horror and even Emotional significance of that disruption? Why instead go for "ohh we NEED outsider help we NEED to be saved because we are so helpless and it is so Silly that we, creatures who have never experienced such things, do not know what sleep is"????
And if they WANTED to have a condescending outsider, I feel like they COULD have done that, but it would have to have that character realize the horror at some point. And make it obvious that their attitude towards distressed parents and children facing Eldritch Shit and the Sudden Deconstruction of it was not cool!
(or at the very least be a bit more...idk. Consistent with said outsider character? Juniper just goes from "omg I am so honored that the fascinating creatures of the behemoth have chosen me to speak to" to "oh their wasting my time because they don't know what sleep is. I'd rather be sleeping!! 🙄" like girl... c'mon now. Why are we trivializing it like this. Do you want me as the reader to be invested in their plight or not.)
I mean come on. They're beings connected through one networked hivemind-like system, yet each still maintains a silver of individuality that allows them to move freely throughout the Behemoth that they care for. And they've got an eldritch understanding of time that no other dragon could understand. They're seeing the future, past, and present unfold simultaneously. They're witnessing the birth and death of the world at the same time, and have no way to communicate it to other dragons. The best they can do is maintain their home, and even then, they see its roots spread and decay all at once.
And then the newest generation is suddenly disconnected.
An inherent link between parent and child and all dragons in-between, that has existed since the creation of their species, is just suddenly GONE for the newest births. With NO explanation for it.
The children have no easy way of communicating with their parents. The children are experiencing time in a way that was not meant for their species. They've forcefully been shoved into a circadian rhythm that they are Not! Built for!
The only way a parent could communicate properly with their child would be when the latter is sleeping, something that is also completely foreign to this species. It would be terrifying for all involved!!!
They are literally experiencing eldritch horror from the perspective of the eldritch being forced into the mortal.
Like why WOULDN'T there be panic!!! And why would that panic be trivialized! Why are we only shown the perspective of an outsider who looks at this situation and goes "Oh the silly tree beasts are being so silly over nothing, it's no big deal!"
That and the way the auraboas talk to outsiders. Like. There was such potential there. Real opportunity to explore how ancient, time-bending beings would communicate to someone who couldn't even BEGIN to understand the intricacies of it.
Instead we got what feels more like baby talk (even described as though they were hatchlings enunciating their first words, which... I dunno man, maybe we don't want to compare them to children like That) and less like... Beings that experience all of time at once. I mean, the hatchlings and the adults speak the exact same way, and that doesn't make any sense given the literal time barrier going on.
I totally get why people thought there was just a language barrier and that auraboas had their own language, thus causing the disjointed speak, and not that it was because They Do Not Experience Time Like We Do.
And I feel it would've been far easier to get it across by just... I dunno. Do anything else?? I saw someone on here suggest they speak in the "wrong" tenses, or using multiple tenses in the same sentence, which I think would've been far more clear.
Like, as opposed to "saplings wilt! saplings silent!" just "the saplings will wilt in silence, they've wilted in silence, they are wilting silently." Said all at once like all things are true simultaneously. And if we're going for hivemind, have each auraboa speak in a different tense, all at the same time, and have them switch it up every time.
Have our outsider get confused and be like "which is it? are they wilting now, or have they already wilted?" and the cluster of auraboas respond in a cacophony of yes's, no's, and maybe's all at once.
Would've probably gotten across the "alien" vibe they were supposedly going for far better than wide-eyed desperation for an outsider's guidance conveyed through disjointed, in-world described as baby speech.
And also maybe would've had less accidental connotations. Because as it stands, I completely see why people have made the connections to the real world where they have. This doesn't read like eldritch timey-wimey intrigue, or even a respectful look at how younger generations can become detached from their families' cultures over time and the struggles that come with it.
It reads like a culture being perceived by an ignorant outsider who (despite supposedly respecting these dragons) scoffs and rolls their eyes because the tree beasts with their funny words are being silly again, and that Hey, isn't it actually a great thing that the children are fundamentally different in all manners now? Because now they can join the rest of us in the "real world."
Yknow. Ick.
(I Personally think it would've been better to have the perspective be one of the Auraboas themselves, especially one of the children, to really understand what was going on here. Give us the full brunt of the mind of a creature experiencing all of time interwoven as one shape. The waters fall and the oceans crash with waves. They've now fallen to drought. The ocean has yet to be born. Caves have been carved out through the waters' currents. And when I break from this timeline, I open my eyes to see a child, the child not yet born, the child born now, the child born yesterday. Why can't I hear it? Why couldn't I hear it? Why won't I ever hear it?)
I dunno. People more qualified than me to speak on this matter have already torn the lore apart, I'm just... dropping my own two cents. Potential got weirdly squandered and we ended up instead with unfortunate implications and tropes that could be connected a liiiittle too awkwardly to irl situations.
*Also, before anyone points out: Yes, I know the hatchlings aren't COMPLETELY detached from the Loop and can join it when they sleep. But the fact is, these thangs never had to sleep before. That wasn't in their species' nature. So that's still weird and foreign for them on both sides. And since the hatchlings now have a circadian rhythm, they can't stay connected to the loop permanently. And also Also, seeing as the previous generations aren't experiencing time linearly, who's to say they even recognize when their child joins the loop? They'll speak with an echo of their child when that child was last asleep ages ago, not knowing that it's not them presently, because there is no 'present' for the older generations.
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the other side of the war
summary:
Scott likes to think he is a sensible person. Because of this, he doesn't find it at all unreasonable for him to start freaking out when he catches a glimpse of a Homeworld ship passing over the Crastle.
Owen is rather certain that he is a sensible person. Because of this, he feels as if his response of dropping his recording device onto a rock and breaking it instantly upon seeing the sapphire that exits the large castle is entirely reasonable.
or: owen, beks, and eloise go from homeworld to find the deserters on earth. owen very much recognises scott. title from story of tonight (reprise) by lin-manuel miranda. au by @chrisrin. fic is life on earth by @sixteenth-days. read the tags!
(ao3 link)
(2,593 words)
Scott likes to think he is a sensible person. Whether that is true or not is entirely subjective, but he's quite sure he is one of the most level-headed gems currently residing on Life, if not the most.
Because of this, he doesn't find it at all unreasonable for him to start freaking out when he catches a glimpse of a Homeworld ship passing over the Crastle.
"Glimpse" is a loose term—he both sees it in a vision and then sees it out of the corner of the window only a few seconds later, almost too fast to catch and not looking like it was planning to stop. The vessel was yellow in colour and rather small, which at the very least tells him that it's not another colonisation attempt or scouting expedition. His relief from that realisation is very quickly undercut by the strangling anxiety at what it could be instead, and his efforts to try and pry into the future to see what could be on the ship are suddenly interrupted by the knowledge that Jimmy was going to come barreling into the room from the window in a few moments.
He does so with as little grace as Scott saw, his foot catching on the ledge and making him lose his balance on his way inside, all the while yelling, "Scott- Scott, I saw another ship fly by-
"I know," Scott says coolly, pretending like there aren't fractals crawling across the wooden boards around his dress.
Jimmy fixes himself from somehow being tangled up in a stone slab. "You know?"
Scott grips the sides of his dress. "I saw."
"Oh," Jimmy says shortly, shoulders slumping. He looks back out the window as if expecting the ship to come around again—which it very well might- before turning back to Scott. His wings are refracting the light of the sun onto the ground, making their trembles all the more obvious. "What do we do?"
"Tell the others, if they haven't seen already." He kicks his legs to break the ice sticking his dress to the floor before it becomes unbearable. "Hopefully, it'll just pass by without encountering us at all."
Jimmy tilts his head to the side like a bird, which are quickly becoming one of Scott's favourite things on Life. "I don't see why it would fly this close to the surface if it was just passing by."
"'Hopefully,' dear," Scott says with a weary smile. "I said 'hopefully.'"
"Ah."
Scott laughs lightly, the warmth in his chest chasing away his anxiety as Jimmy giggles to himself, face turning a slightly darker shade of blue. He reaches out to lay a hand on Jimmy's arm—
—and then there's a small ship in a forest, there's orange and green and blue, there's weapons and shouting and a lapis falling to pieces in front of his eye—
—and Scott's grip on Jimmy's forearm turns almost violent in its intensity. Jimmy looks down at him, concern preciously obvious in all of his body language. Scott doesn't look up. His hands are shaking.
"You saw something," Jimmy says softly, immediately crouching to be at eye level with Scott.
"I did."
His face is pinched with concern and worry and stubborn, stubborn love, a fierce protectiveness that has lead to his hypothetical death in several timelines in Scott's vision. "Was it about the ship? Was it bad?"
Scott shakes his head on instinct before catching himself and leaning more into a head-tilt, like the birds. "They're coming. They've spotted us. There's only three gems, I think, and they're going to land in the forest in front of the Crastle."
Jimmy's face goes pale. "Could you tell what type of gems they were?" Scott shakes his head, and Jimmy immediately pulls him into a hug, which has been his thing lately. Spontaneous displays of affection—though this one, Scott supposes, is not that spontaneous. He hugs Jimmy back and does his best not to touch his wings so as to not drench his arms. "It's gonna be okay, Scott. We'll be alright. We always end up alright."
Scott simply hums in return. The amount of confidence he speaks with is almost hilarious, considering how many times Scott has saved him from shattering without him even knowing. It would be hilarious if they weren't visions of his flower dying gruesomely branded onto the inside of his eyelid. "I know. Just stay close to me, okay? Don't do anything stupid."
Jimmy pulls back but leaves his hands on Scott's shoulders. "I never do anything stupid."
Scott is not content with giving him a look that he will not be able to see. He pushes his bangs out of the way and fixes Jimmy with the most lightheartedly withering glare he can manage.
Jimmy bursts out laughing. Scott can hardly help himself but follow.
-
Owen is rather certain that he is a sensible person. If the contrary was true, he is almost certain that he would have been shattered ages ago, or at the very least, reconditioned due to his innate value. He is almost completely positive that he is one of, if not the most level-headed gems that has ever stepped foot into consciousness.
Because of this, he feels as if his response of dropping his recording device onto a rock and breaking it instantly upon seeing the trio of gems that exit the large castle is entirely reasonable.
There is a jasper that positively towers over him, a lapis lazuli that is shooting him and his company a very distasteful look, and a sapphire, front and centre, just like him.
He gazes into Sapphire's bangs, and Sapphire stares right back.
They're both frozen, the plant matter around Sapphire's dress freezing so quickly the lapis begins to try and kick it away and the matter around Owen's dress cooking to a light sear. The vision of El and Beks' confused expressions flashes like a spotlight into the front of his mind, and he can see equally as perplexed looks on Sapphire's friends' faces.
He cannot believe what he is seeing—it shouldn't even be possible for him to be seeing this. This is wrong, this is terrible, this is—
"Owen?" Sapphire says, taking a step forward. Beks immediately matches the step, but Owen holds out his hand to keep her still. "Owen—Padparadscha, is that really you?"
"Yeah," Owen breathes, before clearing his throat and fixing his posture to be more straight. He glances at Beks and she immediately snatches up the pieces of the broken recorder. That was entirely his fault, be will admit—a reasonable response to seeing a friend currently siding with a bunch of deserting rebels he was sent to interrogate, but his fault nonetheless. "Yes, Sapphire, it's me. What are you doing?"
Sapphire's demeanor almost seems to brighten at that. "Oh, Owen, you wouldn't believe the things we have out here—I go by Scott now, by the way."
"'Scott?'" Owen repeats, rolling the name around in his mouth. "Why? That has nothing to do with you or your cut."
"No, no," 'Scott' says, shaking his head. "It's an alien name. I chose it myself, do you like it?"
"Do I like—Sapphire—Scott, whatever, do you realise how serious this is?"
Scott falters a bit, taking a slight step back as the lapis frowns at Owen. Owen stares directly at him, and he shrinks a bit but still asks, "'Serious?' What makes this so much worse than all the other trips out here?"
Scott elbows the lapis in the thigh, and before Owen can really process the fact that this...group of gems have encountered the other missions, El steps forward and clears her throat. She has been furiously tapping on a holographic screen ever since Owen broke the recorder, most likely transcribing the entire conversation. She doesn't even look up as she begins to speak.
"The Great Diamond Authority has recognised the presence of living and functioning gems on this planet that have not returned to Homeworld after several scouting and retrieval missions. The three of us are here as an extension of their luminescent grace and power to decipher and report upon the locations and intentions of these...missing gems."
The word 'missing' is dripping with distaste and scorn, and Owen is rather sure everyone felt it. Scott takes another step back and Owen stamps out the resulting twist in his chest. It isn't his problem if Scott decided to run off onto some planet and desert his home for...whatever reason. It isn't his problem that the sapphire has seen this writhing, damp, cluttered mess of a planet to be worth more than his life and the lives of those that took the mission with him. He is not going to think about it too hard because he is sensible and would prefer to remain that way.
"So what does that...mean?" the lapis asks, fiddling with his fingers.
"It means we're here to get answers, moron," Beks snaps, leaning on the hilt of her greatsword. "Though I honestly think the fact that you're not begging us to take you home is answer enough."
All three of the gems standing across from them (including Sapphire, and Owen really is trying to wrap his head around the idea that Sapphire is over there and he is over here and they are enemies?, he supposes?) make some sort of scowl, and he sees the water in the pond not too far from them start to ripple, except that was about ten seconds ago and now the surface of the water is choppy and the lapis' gem is starting to glow.
"Owen," Scott says quietly.
"Padparadscha," Owen hisses, digging his fingers into his dress and staring down the lapis lazuli. He feels lightheaded. "No deserter is a friend of mine."
"Stars, Homeworld gems," mutters the jasper, who has looked nothing but mildly intrigued this entire time and is now gazing down at Owen with an unidentifiable expression that makes his skin prickle. "So dramatic."
"There's really no need to get overly-hostile, here," El says nervously, though the fact that she actually glances up from her holoscreen is sign enough that she is ready to bolt at any given moment. "We just want to ask some questions."
"No, I think the quartz may have been right," the jasper says, stretching in a way that cracks her knuckles and other assorted joints audibly but plays it off like a normal stretch. "We've given you answer enough."
"Are you suggesting we fight?" Beks asks, though she sounds more like she's gleefully proposing something rather than asking a question. "'Cause we're not leaving until we complete what we've been told to do. Unlike some, we still have a modicum of responsibility left in our rays."
"Beks," El says irritably, shooting the quartz a glare. "Stop antagonising them."
Beks stops leaning back and forth on her sword and instead properly wraps her hand around the hilt, raising an eyebrow. "I'm not doing anything. I'm just talking."
"We'd appreciate it if you stopped," the lapis insists.
"We'd appreciate it if you shut up," Beks snaps back, the tip of her sword digging further into the ground, piecing through the layer beneath their feet. Owen can't stop staring. "Really, I mean—a bloody lapis? And a sapphire? I mean, I wouldn't expect anything more from a jasper, maybe even a lapis under insane circumstances, but a sapphire? For this? This disgusting, pulsing planet?"
Owen blinks, and he can see serrated spikes rising from the water's surface.
Scott blinks, and he can see that same image of a lapis shattering in front of his eyes.
For a moment, the two of them are in sync again.
And then the spikes go flying, and Owen shouts out Beks' name as she lifts her sword to attack and the lapis kicks into the air with his wings. El immediately shrieks and ducks away, dress snagging on the sharp edges of the terrain as Beks' sword goes swinging in a terrifyingly wide arc in front of them. The only thing Owen can do is yell, really, until he realises he can do more and throws himself into Beks' back as hard as physically possible. He lands on top of her, and then falls straight onto the forest floor, something sharp digging into his abdomen.
At the same time, Jimmy's name is torn from Scott's throat as he lunges towards the lapis, attaching himself to his legs and pulling him down, yanking him closer to the ground just as weapons make contact and suddenly, Scott is holding nothing.
Scott snatches Jimmy's gem off the forest floor (thank the stars, thank the stars, that was entirely too close and he can barely breathe and he is shaking so hard he's scared the vibrations might end up shattering Jimmy, anyway) and shouts, "Enough! Enough, please. Cleo, please."
Owen's vision shifts back to reality (after watching three shards of ice go directly through Beks' head as her sword cut clean through the lapis' neck) and he realises that he is at the end of the jasper's weapon—'Cleo's' weapon, apparently. He looks up at her and sits up, scooping Beks' gem into his hands and clutching it close to his chest.
"This...this will get us nowhere," Scott says through ragged breaths, and Owen blinks and he sees a lapis gem shattering from Scott's point of view- a disorienting past-vision of Scott's future-vision that makes him feel dizzy. He hasn't done that in so long. How long has Scott been out here? Owen knew he went on a mission somewhere, but it isn't that uncommon for those to take several months, or even years before becoming a real concern. How long has Scott been missing?
"I—I agree," calls El from several feet away. Her dress is shredded at the bottom and Owen is quite sure this is the first time he has ever seen her legs. He blinks, hard, and sees Scott holding the lapis' hand as they walked out of the castle in front of them. A deep, painful pit settles in his stomach. "Please, let's just sit down and talk."
Owen feels a bit ill. The present and the recent past are often a bit too similar and a bit too frequent for him to properly categorise, and he suddenly fears the idea of getting them very, very badly confused like he has done several times before. For some of those times, Scott was there to help him. He sees Scott pushing his hair back, staring at him, except when Owen actually looks, his hair is down and his hand is hovering by his chest. Around where his heart would be.
"Owen," he says quietly. "Let's go inside."
Owen blinks and sees Scott and this lapis encouraging each other, warning each other just behind the door, hugging each other, Scott standing on his toes while the lapis leans down and—
Oh. His vision shifts focus again. He's too dizzy for this. The sun is going down and the sky is painted in brilliant shades of yellow and orange and red and purple. It's black and tainted with trillions of stars in his vision alone.
"Yeah, alright," Owen whispers, looking down at Beks. He swipes his thumb against the face of the gem and holds her tighter in his hands. Scott is pressing the lapis to his forehead. The lapis is in a blue bubble within Scott's hands. Owen feels dizzy. "Let's go inside."
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actually ascension needs its own post since that's the one with the most details to speculate over and im starved for soho talk so i will talk to myself if need be
First the cover again, because I kinda can't get over it:
my only thing is that I had been hoping we might get Lizbeth on a cover again since she's never been on one of the boxsets before, despite being the 2nd person credited on all 4 of them (even if that's just alphabetical, still, she's the only one of the four main characters who never makes the cover)
But letting that go...
I know we already kinda knew the brief for this one but damn I didn't expect it to go quite this hard. Maybe that's just because the Parasite & Ashenden covers were (comparatively) similarish to each other and I was so pleased with Unbegotten's, and then got so used to it as the placeholder for Ascension while they kept postponing it, I wasn't expecting anything this colorful or detailed or with what I can't help but register as Fun New Outfits even though these are still like, pretty damn basic as far as costumes go. Still, it's a different vibe from everyone in suits and trenchcoats on every cover, technically. (Oh the woes of being an audio fan such that two characters owning sweaters actually does qualify as new information)
On top of just being visually delightful though, I know we knew religion was gonna be a fairly big part of this one, but I didn't actually expect to get quite this much of it - though I'm glad of it for a number of reasons. The BF twitter already made the ineffable joke so I don't have to, but also yeah I did very much spend all of season 2 episode 4 of good omens half convinced Samuel Barnett & Dervla Kirwan were about to pop up around any given corner (if you will go around being gay supernatural and horrible at your messy bureaucratic jobs in midcentury soho then I'm sorry, this is where my brain's gonna go) - so, fuel to that fire. But in terms of actual important things, at least one of my Soho wishes looks to be being granted because we have a Rev Edward Folgate on the cast list, which must mean we're finally meeting Norton's father, even if his mother & brother don't appear (which they could, technically, I've definitely seen BF not list all the doublings on their cast tabs before). Religion, domesticity, and the nuclear family are all things that absolutely fascinate me when it comes to Norton's character, so getting any amount of story involving his father & his church is something I've been actively hoping for for a long time now.
(I will say I'm a tiny bit bummed Saffron Coomber isn't on the cast list to play Mia again, but I kinda figured she wasn't going to be since Greg Austin's Armitage, who's making his first recurring appearance after originating in Unbegotten, was listed ever since the boxset was announced - presumably if she was also returning, that would've been handled in the same way. But since Unbegotten ended with Lizbeth and Mia going on a date, I still held out hope. Who knows though, maybe things did go well for them and Lizbeth just has a better work/life balance than Norton so she can date someone without them getting dragged into every scifi plot. I know that's not a very common accomplishment for any Torchwood agent, but a gal can hope)
At this point I know I'm completely in the realm of speculation & even wishful thinking, but I'm really really hoping we get some more clues as to Norton's overall timeline in this one, and I have a feeling that even if there's nothing as direct as dates given, the events of a plot like this one are going to heavily influence my personal interpretation of it.
To say that life & death are major themes for the soho crew feels wildly reductive, but even by Torchwood's standards and taking into account its origins as a piece of media with Jack Harkness & his newfound immortality at the heart of it, the living/dead status of this bunch has always been fantastically up in the air to me. Obviously Ghost Mission introduced Norton as kind of a ghost before revealing more obvious ghostly characters later on to which the title might have been referring, but his being from the past did beg the question of his survival into Torchwood's present era all the same, which Outbreak later alludes to much more directly, and his habit of showing up via hologram in multiple stories only further obfuscates any certainty we might have about where & when he definitely can be said to be alive and well. Then you've got Lizbeth and Gideon both being effectively 'brought back to life' via paradoxes that prevented them ever having died in the first place. Again, they are very very far from being the only Torcwhood characters this happens to (for a sprawling EU, it's really rather impressive how often & in how many different ways Torchwood as a whole manages to circle back to being about like. chaotic undead queers at the end of every day. though I suppose that consistency is part of why I keep falling in love with its different iterations again and again). That's without even getting into the question of Norton's dubious fate in God Among Us - and I say dubious because I know some people take that to be his ultimate death, but I personally think that reading something as vague as that as having any kind of finality rather goes against the spirit of this whole world/series, not just because I want him to live. (There are obviously other ways to make him survive/reappear, but I don't see this as a River Song scenario where we can safely assume one of his earlier-released adventures had to happen at the end of his personal timeline). But wherever God Among Us falls for him, he does very much meet God in it - or at least, a god, since the sentinel in Unbegotten is also described as a god of sorts, and even if he doesn't ultimately have the status of the god Jacqueline King is playing there, Unbegotten is still full to bursting with ghosts/undead/came back wrong/echo characters to continue underscoring that life/afterlife theme.
So all things considered, even allowing for the fact that we know Norton's twin hobbies are lying about himself and abusing time travel to suit his own ends/ever-shifting alliances, I find it difficult to believe we could get through a whole 6-part boxset about religion & death without something providing some kind of compelling evidence about where this adventure fits in among his other run-ins with apocalypses and gods and ghosts and dead-but-still-here characters/creatures, so I'm very much looking forward to any further exploration on that front.
And lastly, and least intellectually, I really want to know what the hell 20th-century Torchwood's obsession with Reginalds is. Reading through the cast list, I had to do two separate doubletakes over the character 'Sir Reginald Peebles' - firstly, because I had Reginald Rigsby on the brain, this being Soho (and the other Troughton brother being so active on BF's releases for this same month) - and secondly, because reading this in conjunction with the announcement for the July monthly adventure in which the new main Torchwood guy of the 20s is apparently called Sir Reginald Dellafield, there was a brief moment where I took that monthly release to be a tie-in with Ascension. I don't expect it to be, but damn. was it really so popular a name?
anyways, catch me thinking about those stained glass windows for the next couple months I guess (and knowing Torchwood Soho, for a long long time after it comes out as well lol)
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