Okay so there's this dp x dc tumblr post about the JL finding the Ghost King's family tree or something and lots of misunderstandings happening but I can't find it anymore and would be grateful if someone would send it to me... Anyhow I was inspired by it and this is the result!
Also on ao3 if you wanna check it out there!
The Family Tree
"So you're telling me this is just a family tree?", Green Lantern asked with a frown on his face.
Bruce could see Constantine's eyes twitching at that question. As always, leave it to Hal Jordan to annoy people.
"This isn't just anything", the sorcerer said with narrowed eyes. "It's a Class-X magical artifact. If this thing is used as a focus for a ritual, the magnitude of magical energy would rise by at least 80 factors. For those of you non-magical or unfamiliar with magic, that's fucking huge."
Beside him Zatanna nodded, her gaze still fixed on the ancient manuscript. She hadn't taken her eyes off the scroll for more than a minute since she got to the Watch Tower and first saw it spread out on the containment room table. Constantine was the same. Captain Marvel was not present, working along with Superman, Hawkgirl, and Aquaman on a case, but his reactions have always been dissimilar from his magical colleagues, so his case might be anywhere between staying the hell away from it to trying to inhale it.
It was clear to Bruce that Zatanna coveted it, but was sensible and cautious enough to stay away from it. Constantine had no sense so he was a tossup. From where he was standing between Wonder Woman and Martian Manhunter, the Gotham vigilante resolved to keep an eye on the two magicians. They most likely won't try to steal the artifact, considering the heavy dose of 'not messing with that thing' overshadowing the desire to possess it, but the scroll itself might be enchanted to encourage covetous feelings on those nearby. It wouldn't be the first time. Better safe than sorry.
It was Diana that stepped up towards the two JL Dark members to seek more clarification. As both a Demigod and as someone familiar with magic, she was usually the one taking point on such issues.
She gestured to the scroll innocently sitting inside the runic circle the two mages had constructed around it. "You have told us that the artifact is not destructive, that it is merely a record, and that the information it contains is not a spell, or a runic arrangement, or a magic circle. You have also told us that the strange energy readings coming from it are mostly due to the material it's made out of than any catastrophic sorcery enchanted into it. You have at last decoded it as a record of a family tree. Yet it is dangerous, a Class-X relic as you've said. Given all this information, I suppose the correct question to ask here is this: why is a family tree capable of raising magical energy output by 80 factors?"
The two magicians looked at each other. Zatanna finally pried her eyes away from the scroll and faced the room.
"Magic is a force that simultaneously has laws but at the same time adheres to none. It's confusing to explain but for the time being just keep that in mind."
She walked to the center of the room, followed by Constantine, visibly trying to collect her words. Bruce prepared himself for a complicated explanation and activated another one of the batsuit's recorders. He felt the urge to sigh, for a supposed unchained force, Magic was needlessly complex at times, and practically incomprehensible to non-magicals.
At the front, Zatanna took a deep breath and began.
"As you know there are multiple dimensions. But magical dimensions come under a different category. Depending on the overall magical potential of a particular magical dimension, we call it the World State Stable Thaumaturgical Output Capacity, we can classify these dimensions in grades and levels, as either higher or lower, with relation to each other. These levels are dependent on a multitude of variables like space, time, gravity, Events, Proximity, etc and as such are non-linear, and unfixed. That's the first thing."
Bruce could practically see the capitals on the last two. Looks like they would need to hold another meeting to clarify a lot of these concepts. Seeing the dawning of lost expressions on some of the members however, Bruce mentally amended that to many future meetings.
Zatanna continued. "Magical objects from higher dimensions become stronger in lower ones. The inverse is also true. This is all in relation to the Overture and the same polarity orientation of course but we don't need to get into that now-"
On the contrary Bruce thought they really needed more explanation on all of that.
"-In simple terms, a child's toy from a higher dimension could become the focus for an apocalyptic ritual in a much lower dimension, while an apocalyptic artifact from a lower dimension might as well be paperweight in a sufficiently higher one. There are ways around it, but if those methods are not implemented, then this is how it generally goes. The larger the level difference, the higher the power."
Now that wasn't concerning at all. Bruce really needed to update his contingency plans regarding magic.
Constantine continued from where Zatanna left off, looking like he'd rather be anywhere but here.
"The second thing is that when it comes to magic, things that are indefinable or unquantifiable become definable and quantifiable. Stuff like love, hate, happiness, despair, fate, necessity, authority? All measurable. Not always needed of course, But definitely possible and frequently used in a variety of magical fields."
The sorcerer leaned against a nearby chair. "One such thing is Significance. The magic contained in true names for instance is mostly based on significance. A true name is significant to you, its a doorway to your soul, and therefore it holds power. Significance is also what we call a positive, additive factor in magic. In the absence of interfering variables, significance as a quantity is directly proportional to magical output. In other words-"
"-the more significant an object or an event, the higher the magical energy output, and consequently higher the magical power", J'onn finished. He looked towards the scroll. "The information recorded on it, the family tree as you've said, valuable in significance, most likely in terms of whose family it's a record of. In addition, the artifact is from a higher dimension with relation to ours, and that has a cumulative effect."
"Yeah exactly", said Constantine with a raised eyebrow. "Which means that if that hypothetical toy Zatanna mentioned? If that happened to be important enough, like a first toy, or a cherished gift or something like that, its significance increases, its potential increases, and in the right hands, or in the wrong hands really, that potential could be harnessed at a lower level."
There was a bout of thoughtful silence as they absorbed all of the information.
But Bruce felt as if he had been quiet enough and took the chance to ask a question of his own. "You mentioned something called the Overture, and polarity orientation. What do they mean?"
Constantine just sighed. "For fuck's sake Batsy those things aren't really important to the discussion..."
Bruce just stared.
..."Fine", the mage said in defeat. "There are many names for it, the Overture, Exordium, Legerdomain, Nascence...but the most accepted two are the Beforebirth, and the Womb. It's not a something as much as it's a someplace, but then again it's not really a place either. Simply put it's the birthplace of Magic, where it all began and all that. It can't be accessed without the Key and that's been lost for a long time. It's actually a mission for many magicals to find it you know? A holy quest for a lot of them. Some of them are straight up crazy though."
Bruce field that information safely away. Figure out a plan to combat fanatic magicians trying to find the birthplace of magic for sinister reasons. "And polarity?"
"Well", Zatanna began, "its how magic is classified according to the nature of...magic? Or rather the essence? It's hard to put in mundane terms...Anyhow broadly speaking there are two main polarities, the Obverse, and the Reverse."
For a moment, she struggled with the explanation before brightening, seemingly having found an idea.
"Picture a number line, but like on the y-axis! Zero is the Overture, Obverse dimensions are the positive number side, and Reverse dimensions are the negative numbers! The higher up the obverse dimension, the larger its magical output! Similarly, the lower down the reverse dimension, the higher its magical output."
Bruce had hardly parsed through that when their resident speedster spoke up.
"Guys", the red clad hero said, "I feel like we missed the obvious follow up question after Ollie over here...like I feel like this is important, but where exactly is the scroll from?"
As one everyone turned towards the artifact.
Constantine grimaced and Zatanna winced. They looked at each other as if asking who wanted to bite the bullet. Finally it looked as if Constantine lost. The sorcerer cursed under his breath.
"Well which dimension is the scroll from?", asked Wonder Woman.
Constantine took what looked like a fortifying breath.
"It's from the Infinite Realms."
Silence.
"What?", the Green Lantern asked intelligently.
"It's from the Infinite Realms. As in Infinite. As in end of the figurative fucking line, number line whatever!"
Everyone stared at the magicians as understanding slowly dawned.
There was what was essentially a magical nuke in the Watch Tower.
"Now", began Martian Manhunter, "this is unfortunate".
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you know what since I was talking about the rain world ending and i rambled a little about the karma system and how its all fake.
Big spoilers ahead and whatever I will be talking thoroughly abt the game lore (excluding downpour i don't consider it canon).
Karma in rain world isn't real and we've all been tricked to think it matters at all.
Here's a list of things we should consider regarding the information about karma.
We start on the lowest karma, and as slugcat rests it goes up until it caps at 5. Each of these karma levels represent the basic animal urges. Violence, lust, companionship, gluttony, survival.
The ancients are the ones that considered shedding the base natural urges of an animal necessary for ascension.
The ancients are also the ones that proposed the idea of ascension, and declared that the cycle of life, death, and rebirth is so awful that no creature would want to be a part of it.
(light blue pearl, outskirts)
Now, a lot of this game is about religion- and in the case of the ancients it touches upon the idea of the opressiveness of religion and exploitation therein. Anytime I think about how the ancients left behind the iterators to "solve the problem" for the rest of the creatures, it makes me think of how missionaries go to places to try and "save" the people there.
The ancients' religion is a manipulative cult. First, they convince (almost) all of their people that life is awful. Then, they continue with proposing the idea of solving that problem- no longer living. But there's a catch! You have to die correctly. You have to EARN this "blissful" release from the horrible fact of living. Either by rigorous torture (living off of tea and starving yourself) or by paying money.
(Bright red pearl, farm arrays)
Then, they make it a societal norm- an HONOUR to die in the way They Think Is Correct. But you HAVE to do everything they say to shed yourself of those nasty animal urges and be ready for ASCENSION. And they put a price on it.
But we have to remember, not only did they create a religion that convinced them all that living is horrible...
They destroyed the entire ecosystem that used to be there and replaced it with ruins or whatever managed to descend from purposed organisms.
The ancients were able to alter cells of creatures- the ability to do such a thing at all is described here.
(Gold pearl, Chimney Canopy)
So who is to say that they didn't alter the cells of their own people? That they didn't create all purposed organisms with that idea of karma inside of them? The gates respond to the slugcat, it reads something about its karma. Its a machine reading something within its genetic data. The guardians respond to creatures with karma- and in fact are hostile to anything NOT at karma 10.
But the guardians were made by the ancients to protect their temples. To prevent anyone "unworthy" from going down.
The iterators are forbidden from altering their own karma- how is that something you can do if its not an actual, physical trait somewhere within them? Somewhere within their genetic code that the ancients tampered with?
But most notably-
Cheesing your way past the guardians using flashbangs and throwboosts is an intended feature of the game, and you can go down and into the sea and ascend with no issue. If karma truly mattered for ascension, then why can we ascend without the approval of the guardians?
Slugcats are descendants of purposed organisms, they have this "karma" meter wired into their bodies.
So anyway karma isn't real and the ancients forced a mass suicide of their own kind as Im sure whoever benefitted from exploiting their own citizens had been long gone, leaving behind nations of people desperate to leave the world behind as they have been convinced its the only thing to save them from the horrors of living.
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Team Pirate Bible
So I mentioned that the bible/art book for Jake and the Never Land Pirates (back when it was called Team Pirate) was very hard to download. I waited a few hours for Mega to get its shit together and it paid off. Here's the art book for the series that would eventually be known as Jake and the Never Land Pirates: This book pre-dates the pilot episode I linked earlier this morning and it shows.
Characters:
Yeah, right off the bat it's clear that our group of Neverland Pirates was much different.
For one, the leader wasn't Jake, it was Slighty. Whether it's Slighty from the movies, or, much like Cubby and Nibs, a different character with the same name. I'm leaning towards that. Disney Jr's version of Slighty had Jake's role as the leader, who helps and guides his team. Something to notice is that the Sword of Forever isn't really a concept. It wasn't in the pilot that included Jake either. Jake/Slighty's object was a Spyglass rather than a sword given to him by Peter Pan.
There's also some insight on the development of Bucky. According to the series bible, he is enchanted by Pixie Dust, but not in what you'd expect. Instead of flying, he is alive! A sentient pirate ship who is part of Team Pirate, and communicates through ringing.
This totally shoots down my "Tinker Bell invented Bucky" theory but this is just as cool. Though considering Tink sprays Pixie Dust on Bucky in one episode, I'm now wondering the logistics of Pixie Dust in this world, but that's another lore post for another day.
Also, I adore how Hook has his movie design here.
Locations, Curriculum, and Stories:
What-the, DINOSAURS??????????????? IN NEVERLAND???
The first episode, The Mystery of Turtle Rock, seems to be what would soon become the Season 2 episode "Mystery of Mysterious Island!" The second one, I think is Pirate Ghost Story's beta version. But you can see how different things were in production between the final version, especially the dynamic between the characters/
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I just finished watching Philza’s vod about the syndicate’s finale, and I really liked it! I really appreciated Philza and Niki giving their characters a good ending, how they went out of their way to mentioned that Ranboo and Micheal were also safe. Hell, we even got an appearance of ghost!Connor, which I thought was really funny and very on brand. I think it is safe to say, that this ending is by far my favorite out of all the one’s I’ve seen from the Dream smp.
However, I’m now going to talk about the hard part.
Right at the beginning of Philza’s stream it hit me that this was the first, and now only, syndicate stream I’ve watched that wasn’t from Technoblade’s perspective. And that hit me hard. I had to pause the stream to collect myself enough so I could finish watching, but I can assure you, I had tears in my eyes through most of it. I loved when Phil walked around and fed the dogs, I loved seeing Steve, seeing Techno’s base again, and I laughed so hard when Niki and Phil rang the bell. I know it must have meant a lot to them, as well as all of us.
And at the end, as Philza looked around the syndicate room one last time before he jumped into the end portal, it made me start thinking about Techno, and how much he loved this server and the stories within it. How he wouldn’t shy from cracking jokes even in the midst of it all, how he would go out of his way to make sure people were included, how he was working towards creating more stories.
I don’t know how much of this is actually canon, but I do remember seeing somewhere that Techno’s character went on a journey as a way to explain his absence within lore. Whether it was to train, to find something, to explore, I honestly can’t fully remember. However, I would like to think that, within this journey of his, he made some discoveries. He found yet another stronghold, and maybe this one had more information about what lies within its walls. Maybe he found a book within the long abandoned library that talks about some kind of portal to an end. Maybe he took this book with him since it peaked his interest. Than maybe as he kept searching around the stronghold, he turned a corner, and hey look! Another cool looking table! Except as he looked at it this time, he realized that it was similar to a sketch he saw in the book. Maybe, out of curiosity, and maybe with the slightest feeling of adventure, he chose to test an old legend he found in an old book.
After Philza’s leap of faith into the end portal, and after falling through what felt like time and space itself, Philza finds himself on a platform. Before he can even get his bearings, he hears an utterly familiar voice say-
“Hulloooooo”
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