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dp-marvel94 · 2 days

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An Unconventional Way to Get a Cat- Part 2

Summary: It turns out, Danny's bough of nausea after the portal accident was not just the stomach bug going around school. This must be the most horrifying, disgusting way to find himself a new pet owner.

Part 1 here

Word Count: 1,983

Also on AO3

For @wastefulreverie and @silentambiance

Based on wastefulreverie's prompt: Portal AU. Instead of gaining powers in the accident, the portal is fused inside Danny, making him the gateway between worlds and leaving him with the unfortunate ordeal of vomiting up ghosts. Maybe someone catches him in the act. And Chaotic_french_fries's prompt: danny gets a ghost cat Chapter 2 incoming! The warnings for angst, body horror, and vomiting remain, though enjoy the introduction of more kitty adorableness. Happy reading!

For a long moment, Danny stared at the cat.

“There’s a cat in the bathroom….” The animal, just as glowing as it had been since it …appeared…., blinked up at him in kind. “A green cat.” Like the ectoplasm, like in his parents’ lab, like in the defunct portal, like…”A ghost. You’re a ghost.”

Said ghost yawned, flashing needle sharp teeth. The inside of its mouth was completely green too.

“A ghost cat… that I threw up.” He shook his head, wide eyes drifting away in disbelief. “This can’t be happening.” It had to be a dream, some kind of sickness induced hallucination.

Again, he furiously shook his head. Nose wrinkling, he turned back to the toilet. The sour-smelling vomit floated menacingly in the bowl. Eyeing the content suspiciously, he flushed. The disgusting biohazard swirled down the drain and disappeared.

Danny let out a breath, his stomach churning in an oddly cold dread. Tensing, he turned his head back to the floor and… blinked. The ghost cat was gone.

Shakedly, the boy pulled himself to his feet. He rinsed his mouth out, washed his face, and took a long drink of water. All the while, his eyes flickered, on alert for the bathroom’s other recent resident. But there was no sign. No fluffy tail, no quivering whiskers, no sharp toe beans.

Maybe it really was a hallucination.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Danny mindlessly scrolled through his phone. He’d gone downstairs, picked at a sandwich, and sipped a cup of water. Now, he was sat on his bed, trying to distract himself.

His stomach churned, icy unease growing…. No. Nope. He wasn’t going to think about it.

Oh, that’s cool. They were making another Nightmarica Movie. Maybe he could-

He burped and an acidic taste welled in his mouth. “Oh no.” Danny swallowed painfully, sticking out his tongue at the taste. “Not go-”

A popping noise startled him. “Ah!”

“Meow!”

The boy’s head jerked to the side. He blinked, then scowled. The cat, the green ghost cat, sat on the floor beside his bed, tail swishing gently.

“Great.” Danny rolled his eyes. “You ag-”

A gag cut off his words and the boy lunged for the trash can. He scrambled, reaching for the plastic bin and bringing it up to his mouth just in time.

Ectoplasm surged up his throat, thick and slimy as a slug. Something inside squirmed and Danny shivered violently.

He coughed, pounding at his clogged chest. Something wet plotted into the trash can.

Instantly, the nausea ebbed. Danny just sat, panting for a while. His eyes closed, he felt the bed shift with the movement of tiny feet. A fuzzy head brushed his arm. Then the thump of a paw batting at the trash can.

Nose wrinkling, Danny opened his eyes and peered inside. A green blob-shaped mass sat there and the boy let out a breath of relief. At least it was just ectoplasm this time.

Then the ectoplasm blinked. The cat sprang, batting at it.

Danny blinked, stomach churning with dread, while the ghost cat grabbed the blob in its mouth, darted literally through the trash can, and then under his bed.

“What did Mom and Dad’s portal do to me?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Eventually, Danny managed to stir himself out of his existential dread. Still eyeing the trash can suspiciously, he placed it on the ground. There was no sign of the blob now, no stain of green. But it had been there, just like the throw up in the toilet earlier. Just like the cat. Thinking of the cat…

The boy lowered himself to the floor, kneeling to look under the bed. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting to see but…

Rapid movement. The cat laid on its side, the blob held between its paws. The animal flailed wildly, back legs kicking at its prey. Then the ghost cat froze. Eyes wide, ears back, it startled, practically leaping to the other end of the bed, and throwing the blob toward Danny. The blob smacked the boy in the face.

“Ew.” Danny flinched, wiping at the spot.

Meanwhile the blob let out a sad whoosh, like a balloon deflating. The boy blinked, looking between it and his hand. There… was no residue on his face, none on his hand. It had been cool but… not wet.

Tentatively, he reached, poking at the green mass. It gave under his finger, the surface solid but the inside malleable. Like a balloon filled with cornstarch slime.

Danny muttered. “Weird….”

A flicker of movement, something neon green, grabbed his attention. His eyes snapped up meeting… round, green eyes. The ghost cat.

The animal froze, one paw lifted in mid-step. It tentatively lowered the leg and stretched its neck towards him.

What was it doing?

Ears up and alert, the cat sniffed. Its whiskers quivered, cautiously curious. Slowly, the ear swiveled forward.

Tentatively, Danny put a hand forward. More eagerly, the cat sniffed. Then the furry head bumped his hand.

“Nice kitty.” The boy grimaced, unsure.

It head-butted his hand again, then looked up, fixing wide begging eyes on him.

“Alright?” Carefully, Danny patted the head.

A rumble started up and the boy petted the cat, first cautious and slow. “Nice… ghost cat?”

It was just… acting like a normal cat.

Another head-butt to his hand. “Good kitty boy? Girl?” He had no idea…

No answer came, of course. The cat just rubbed against his hand and purred, like any living cat.

Gaining confidence, the boy scratched behind the ears. “Good… Fluffy?.... That’s stupid.”

The purr deepened, rumbling up through his fingers and Danny found himself smiling. “You like that, huh?” He rubbed the back of the head, down the side of the neck. “Feels nice, doesn’t it?”

A green paw suddenly batted at his hand. “Alright. Alright.” Danny whipped his hand back. “That’s enough for now.”

The cat stood up, stretching its front paws. It yawned, flashing its teeth. Then its ears twitched. Its head turned, fixed on something Danny couldn’t see. It leapt away and ran, taking a lap around Danny’s room.

The boy just sat there on the floor, perplexed as the cat started attacking one of his dirty socks on the floor.

“Alright. You’re a ghost but you’re just a normal cat….”

Said animal batted at the dirty fabric, attacking with its teeth. It jerked its head up, nose wrinkled, mouth slightly open and lips curled in, as if in disgust. Then it went back to playing with the sock.

“How is this my life?”

The cat abandoned the dirty laundry, flopping onto its side.

“Well… I guess you’re a girl cat.” Danny eyed the visible dark spots running down the cat’s belly; he’d seen similar when Sam’s cat had been nursing her babies. He frowned, a stab of sadness pricking at him. “What happened to you?” A mama cat, without her kittens…

The cat kneaded at the air, paws reaching towards him. Despite his somber thought, the corner of the boy’s lip turned up. “Oh no, I’m not putting my hand down there.” He waggled a finger. “I know that’s a trap, missy.”

A knock sounded at the door. “Danny! Dinner!”

The cat jumped up, form turning misty and then disappearing. Invisible…. That’s how she had appeared out of nowhere before and vanished just as fast. But now… the air in front of him swirled, just the slightest bit different from its surroundings. A cool spot lingered at the edge of his consciousness, a clear sign of the ghost’s presence…

Huh. That was new.

“Danny!” Another knock.

The boy shook his head. He’d have to figure all this out later.

“Coming!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So… Danny had a ghost cat now.

When he came back from picking at his dinner, the animal was still there. The cat laid on his bed, half curled into a circle and paws folded against her chest.

“I have to admit that’s cute.” He muttered.

This past day had been so weird, what with throwing up ghosts…. Danny shivered at the thought… the ghost cat still being there was almost normal.

With a shrug, the boy plopped back into his desk chair. He turned his attention to his computer, determined to not think about ghosts or portals or vomit, and losing himself in video games.

And yet, the cat’s soft snores echoed softly. A chill lingered in the back of his mind, swirling softly in his lungs. And the nausea….

The cat jolted awake with a loud meow just before Danny’s stomach lurched. He lunged for his trashcan and threw up again. In the can, something chirped and clicked. He peered in, eyes narrowed. Some kind of bird.

The cat sat up, eyes narrowed into slits and ears twitching. Danny eyed the animal suspiciously, gaze flitting between it and the bird thing. But, before the cat could act, the other ghost flapped panickedly. It half-ran, half flew out of the container and across his room, phasing through the wall.

The cat turned tail, silently following after and disappearing into the night.

Danny sighed, head in his hands. Three times was a pattern. This was really happening. And… it would keep happening.

The dread hit him, tears welling in his eyes. What was he going to do?

He sat, legs pulled to his chest. Despair clawed, questions circling. His parents’ invention… the portal did something to him. It must have. But what? How? How was this even possible?

What was he going to do? He… he had to tell someone, right? But… Sam and Tucker were out of town for summer trips. How would he even….

“Yeah, Tucker, how’s tech camp? You blowing everyone’s minds? And Sam, how’s your trip? You haven’t killed your parents yet, right? Oh me…” He laughed almost hysterically. “I just walked into my parents’ broken portal, like an idiot. And now…” He giggled. “Now I’m throwing up ghosts. Yeah, yeah. Those ghost’s that Jazz always said didn’t exist.”

Yeah, that conversation would go so well. Danny rolled his eyes. Jazz would think he was crazy… or having some kind of trauma induced hallucination. And his parents…

His eyes widened, hope suddenly flickering. His parents… his parents’ work did this to him. If anyone knew what was happening, how to stop it, it would be them. He could tell them and-

The cold in his belly flipped, rushing to his chest. His skin tingled and he fell through his chair.

The boy landed on the floor with a thud. He stared, eyes wide and terrified. His body shimmered, bluish tinted and immaterial, with the chair sticking through him. He scrambled away, as if burned.

“No. No.” His insides churned, a queasiness that had nothing to do with vomit.

Cold rushed out and he fought back a scream, his body flickering in and out of visibility like a dying light bulb. Like a…

“No. I’m… I’m not…” The tears let go, turning into quiet sobs. “I’m not a ghost.”

Except… all that pain, electricity… how could he not be dead? No one could survive that. He… he couldn’t have. He couldn’t.

“I’m… I’m dead.” His chest heaved, paradoxically straining for breath.

He… he was a ghost. That was the only explanation. That… that stupid “portal” killed him. And… now he was like it. An un-living portal, letting ghosts into the world.

His stomach lurched suddenly and he gagged. Ectoplasm rushed up, dripping down his lips. He spit, mind begging it to stop. Please. No.

“Mrow.”

Paws on his knees. His eyes snapped to round green eyes. The cat stretched his neck forward, rubbing up against his leg. The creature rumbled softly.

Danny panted, trying to catch his breath. His stomach settled.

After a long moment, he whipped his mouth. Tear tracks still stained his face. “Thanks… thanks…. I guess I should think of a name for you.”

The cat just purred, the boy rubbing her head. “Good girl.”

Note: Unsurprisingly, despite planning for 2 chapters, I am still not done. My goal is to wrap this up in to a satisfying conclusion before the month is over and I dive back into my Invisobang story! Wish me luck!

#Danny Phantom #Phic Phight #Phic Phight 2024 #Body Horror #Ghost Portal Danny AU #my fic

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givehimthemedicine · 1 year

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Big Analysis Part 1

Gates, Demogorgons, and Tunnels

[ Part 2 ]

My attempt to iron out explanations for a variety of how-and-when type questions pertaining to.. well, it's there in the title. this is super long, but I really hope you take a look because I think I've got viable explanations if not The Answer for a lot of big questions.

Topics:

The difference between gates and portals

Is the demogorgon Henry?

Is S1, S3, S4 all the same demogorgon?

Why no more portals since S1?

Is Dart the slug Will coughed up?

Where was the demogorgon for seasons 2 & 3?

How the Russians captured the democreatures & particles

How did Dart get in Dustin's trash?

What's the deal with the tunnels? is that the UD?

The significance of the library in the UD

Why do some gates close and others spread?

Theory about the mothergate

Theory about it was a seven / 8:15

this post deals mostly with the literal and not so much predictions/symbolism/character analysis type stuff, but a few topics in the second half start to form theories that flirt with potential spoiler territory, so if you prefer to be surprised about the subject of Will's vanishing in s5, probably don't read.

these sections are ordered to build logic and Realizations as you read straight through, so although I tried to make it browsable, it REALLY makes more sense if you read all of it.

1. Gates and portals

distinguishing gates from portals is not at all my idea, but let me nail down the differences between them because it's super important for the logic of this entire analysis.

both are doorways into the other dimension, both are separated by a goopy pink membrane, but their other qualities aren't consistent. besides who made them and from which direction, some have vines coming out, some don't. some leave no trace, others do.

here's a list of all the different holes I can think of and different qualities they have.

grey is for things we weren't shown, but I filled in based on the logic of the rest and the fact that if it was otherwise somebody would've mentioned it.

so here's the distinction I'm making for the rest of the post:

GATES are opened by humans. they have vines and may be inclined to close or spread, but when they do close, they leave scars:

list of what I consider gates:

'79 in the rainbow room

'83 in the lab (the mothergate)

'83 in the classroom

'84 in Russia just for a minute

'85 under Starcourt

'86 Chrissy, Fred, Patrick, Max gates

most of these are explicitly referred to as "gates" on the show. "door" is also used sometimes to mean gate by both Henry and Alexei.

*vines are always characteristic of gates with the single exception that I'm not certain we saw any in the Starcourt one. it's clearly a legit gate - closing it makes the monster die. I guess it would have vines but doesn't yet, because Alexei says it's not open but openING. I'll remind you when this becomes relevant.

**it looks most logically consistent to me to say that gates always leave scars, but we were never actually shown what either of the laser gates looked like after closing.

PORTALS are small holes opened by the demogorgon which never have vines, always close up pretty quickly, and never leave a trace. list of what I consider portals:

the Byers living room wall, living room floor, living room ceiling, Will's room wall, hallway floor

the Nancy tree where the demogorgon yoinks the deer

the school hallway

the wall in the shed where Will got yoinked

the ceiling of the Lab elevator where the scientist got yoinked

the pool where Barb got yoinked

I can't remember anybody on ST ever referring to one of the temporary holes opened by the demogorgon as "a gate", even though they never explicitly discuss a difference either.

in contrast to gate scars, they make a point of showing that no trace is left behind when portals heal.

"but wait, the demogorgon is totally Henry, doesn't that throw off the data in your stupid little chart?"

no, not the way I understand Henry to "be" the demogorgon. I'll explain more in Is the demogorgon Henry?, but I believe all these portals are being, in deed though not in purpose, opened by the actual demogorgon.

"but wait, what about the time Will opened that portal in the wall??"

no he did not. that was the hole where the demogorgon came through to attack Joyce before - Will found it just before it finished healing.

now, one more huge thing: gates enable portals to be opened.

where am I getting this?

well, if Henry can make a demogorgon open a portal to yoink Will in 1983... why wouldn't he have just done that in 1979? why Henry's whole thing about needing El to open a gate for him, if portals are a thing?

just think: Will got taken when the mothergate opened, but he wasn't taken through the mothergate. the demogorgon didn't grab him in the shed, drag him 2 miles down the road, in the front door of Hawkins Lab, down the elevator [Will and the demogorgon awkwardly listening to elevator music], through the mothergate, back through the Upside Down version of all that backwards, all the way back to his house where they started. no, Will was taken right through a portal in the shed to the UD shed. so what did the gate even have to do with it?

the fact that the demogorgon never opened any portals until immediately after the opening of the mothergate tells us that it couldn't until then.

2. Is the demogorgon Henry?

for sure. but in what sense is critically important. I can think of three ways that we could say Henry "is" the demogorgon:

Henry shapeshifting? This doesn't work for me because I don't think Henry can shapeshift. I don't think what he does to Max in s4 is literally, physically changing his appearance, but rather changing Max's perception of his appearance, like what Kali can do.

and even if he could shapeshift, I don't think that explains what's going on. like wearing an Eleven Halloween costume doesn't grant you telekinesis, Henry shapeshifting as a demogorgon would not personally gain its abilities. and the demogorgon must have abilities Henry doesn't, otherwise he wouldn't need to involve it at all.

Henry tricking observers into perceiving him as a demogorgon? Nah. it showed up in Jonathan's candid photo.

Henry puppeting an actual demogorgon is the only way that makes sense. I believe the demogorgon of s1 is an actual demogorgon that Henry is controlling after possessing it with the Mind Flayer, just like he did to Will.

we see the Henrygorgon open portals a bunch of times, so by whose ability is this happening: the demogorgon, Henry, or the Mind Flayer?

it can't be Henry, because if Henry could open portals himself, he wouldn't need the demogorgon. and it can't be the Mind Flayer, because again, why involve the demogorgon.

portaling can only be the demogorgon's ability, and that's why it's very important that the Henrygorgon is physically a legit demogorgon that's taking orders from Henry, and not somehow Henry in disguise.

"but wait, if portaling is an inherent demogorgon ability, why hasn't the demogorgon been terrorizing Hawkins since forever?"

because you gotta have a gate in order to open portals, and there wasn't a gate open long enough for it to come through until 1983.

3. Is s1, s3, and s4 the same demogorgon?

No.

the one El dispatches in s1 is all burnt because of Nancy & co setting it on fire, but the s3 postcredits one has pristine skin. s1 and s3 are different individuals.

the s3 and s4 look very different, but this dialogue in Hopper's last supper scene explains how they're the same one:

You know why they feed captive predators live prey? Because if they don't, the predator gets bored and stops eating. It needs the thrill of the hunt. And this food isn't to make us strong. It's to make us plump. So we're full of the nutrients and protein that a growing monster might need.

in the s3 postcredits we see them feed a captive prisoner to it, and that's why it's skinny - it's bored. in 4, now that it's been hunting prey that can fight back, it's filled out, muscular, battle scarred. it's so buff Mike would have a poster of it if only it had nipples.

4. Why haven't there ever been any more portals since season 1, if demogorgons and gates are still both a thing?

I first theorized that the demogorgon's ability to open portals gets switched on when at least one gate to our world is open, and off when none are. but if that was it, then the Russian demogorgon should have started portaling all over the prison the moment Chrissy died. I had to get up and take a walk because this ruined my whole thing, but I think I've got it now.

the answer is in the very first scene of the show.

the scientist comes fleeing out from the gate room. but then the thing he's running from is somehow ahead of him, already in the elevator.

to pop out into the RU elevator, the demogorgon had to come from the UD. but we know it was in the RU once already before that, because it already scared the scientist. so how'd it get to the RU that time? it could not have come through a portal to the RU straight from its eternity in the UD, otherwise it would've been doing that since forever.

it's a chicken/egg situation that's only solved by the demogorgon coming in originally through the gate.

Brenner goes down to look at the gate, some guy says "is this where it came from?" and he says "Yes." why TELL us that? the audience can't just see "gaping eldritch hellhole" and "monster on the loose" and put two and two together? this must be REALLY important to be so underlined.

it is. they're showing us that the demogorgon became able to open portals between the UD/RU not just by virtue of the gate existing, but by coming in through it.

the Chrissy gate didn't make the Russian demogorgon able to open portals because it didn't come in through Chrissy's gate. more on that later.

5. Is Dart the slug Will coughed up?

definitely not. those things grow up very quickly, in a matter of days. Dustin found Dart as a pollywog almost an entire year after Will coughed up the slug so there's no way it's the same one.

6. Where was the demogorgon for seasons 2 and 3?

the Henrygorgon of season 1 is either dead or minding its own business in the Upside Down. I don't think it's dead because the same treatment didn't kill Henry.

"but wait, the mothergate was still open, if the Henrygorgon wasn't dead why didn't it just come right back in?"

the process of dematerializing it could also have exorcised it of the MF, so that it was no longer the Henrygorgon. or maybe Henry just didn't want to do season 1 all over again after he already got his ass kicked.

so if season 1's demogorgon is retired, where's the Russian one been during seasons 2 and 3? :)

you know how I said the Russian demogorgon isn't able to open portals because it never came in through Chrissy's gate? well, it never came in through any gate.

how could a demogorgon possibly get to the Rightside Up WITHOUT passing through a gate? there's only one way.

being born on this side.

:) :) :)

The Russian demogorgon is the slug Will coughed up.

"but wait, those slugs grow up to be demodogs, not demogorgons!" they're factually the same animal. here's an interview detailing the creative process for all its life stages from slug to demogorgon, in which ST's VFX supervisor states that the demodog is, quote, "an adolescent model of the Demogorgon."

I'm not saying "wouldn't that be a hoot," I'm saying it can't be any other way. the Russian demogorgon can't be the original one, because it isn't burnt. there were manymany demogorgons born in season 2 (Dart & friends) but it can't be one of them because they all died when El closed the gate. some demogorgons were born at the end of season 1, but all except one were born in the UD where their hosts died (we'll talk about this later), and aren't in play. that leaves only one unaccounted for.

Will coughed it up and it went down the sink, into the sewers of Hawkins. over a matter of days it matured into a demodog and started digging the tunnels of season 2.

7. How the Russians captured the democreatures and particles

Enzo tells Hopper that he's "heard rumors of a monster from America" and in season 3 Erica looks at a steel cage in the Russian bunker and says: "Hey Dustin, how big did you say that demogorgon was?" this spells out for us that the Russian demogorgon was captured in Hawkins and transported to Russia.

this is another reason the Russian demogorgon has to be Will's, and not merely one of Dart's generation that was allowed to grow up instead of being put into suspended animation in those tanks - they want us to know the Russians caught a demogorgon that was already an adult.

I think this is why they made a point of the Starcourt gate being "openING" instead of open - to rule out the possibility that a new demogorgon came in.

since the Russians never opened a gate long/big enough for any democreatures to come through, the demodogs had to be sourced from Hawkins also.

I figure the Russians captured them both underneath Hawkins in season 2.

"but wait, underground Russians were a 3 thing, not a 2 thing!"

you know how long it takes to move that much earth? to have that humongous underground fortress finished and functional by season 3, the Russians had to be well underway during 2. the scene of the failed Russian gate which necessitates them trying again in Hawkins is set in June '84 (that's between 1 and 2). they could have started any time from then on.

In 3x4, we see Hopper look at some land deeds - the people who own Starcourt (Russians) buying up farmland because they "want to expand" - dated 11/13/84. for context, that's like a week after El closed the gate in season 2. the Russians built Starcourt in 1984 to conceal their real construction project, the underground fortress.

so in the process of digging sometime between July-October of 1984 while the mothergate was still open, the Russians must have run into those tunnels that ran all underneath Hawkins. and at that time, the tunnels contained the adult Will-demogorgon and lots of demodogs. they captured the adult and several juveniles - possibly at younger stages when it would've been easier - and put them into suspended animation. they kept the demogorgon awake, and shipped them all off to Russia, where they started feeding the demogorgon prisoners.

"but wait, the Russian demodogs can't be from the s2 Hawkins batch! they all died when the gate closed!"

hang on, I'm about to explain.

now, how on earth did the Russians capture a hunk of the particles?

I can't think of an easier way to capture it than packaged neatly in host bodies. the demodogs the Russians captured were possessed,

"hold it right there, how'd they capture possessed demodogs? wouldn't they just portal away? wouldn't they be all rabid and invincible?" juvenile demogorgons aren't able to open portals. if they could, Dart would've escaped Dustin's cellar that way. and possession doesn't make demogorgons of any age invincible, it just controls them mentally. demogorgons can take 900000 bullets because they're just like that, possessed or not. strong skin or something. but juveniles aren't so tough yet - see Hopper taking out several of them with 1 shot apiece as El closes the gate.

anyway, they took a handful of possessed demodogs back to the facility in Russia and burnt the MF out of them, trapping their combined particles in that holding tank, and then placing the exorcised dogs into suspended animation.

the Russians definitely know about he-likes-it-cold. it's how they're keeping the swirling particles contained behind glass: they've got the area outside its holding tank surrounded with heating elements. it isn't captive because it can't break glass, it's captive because it doesn't want to go toward the heat.

this explains how these several captive demodogs don't drop dead as a result of gates closing: not just because they're in suspended animation, but because they're no longer possessed at the time the gates close.

think of Will in season 2 - they had to hold off closing the mothergate until they burned the MF out of him, otherwise as a part of the army, Will would have died along with all the demodogs.

see, the "democreatures all dropping dead when a gate closes" thing isn't because the creatures just inherently die of homesickness or something, it's because they're almost always possessed by the MF, and the MF is what "dies" (falls down inert) when gates are closed. if the MF "died" while inside Will, Will would have died, but exorcised Will survived the closing of the mothergate just fine, and so did these demodogs. in fact, the exact piece of the MF that was in Will was the piece that was in the flesh monster, and it did "die" when the Starcourt gate closed, which made the monster die.

s4 spells out for us that demodogs/gorgons can and do get possessed by the MF exactly how Will did (the dying Russian guard says that "the shadow went into them"), confirming for us the mechanism for s1's Henrygorgon.

we know the demodogs aren't still possessed while in suspended animation because the shadow wouldn't need to go into them if it was already in them.

"but wait, are we sure those demodogs were possessed in the first place if they were born in the tunnels and not in the actual UD? how did the MF get to them?"

they definitely were possessed because they acted as a part of the hive mind, but I am a bit shaky on how. my best explanation right now is that since the tunnels went right up to the mothergate, the MF could reach into the RU tunnels like it reached through when El was closing the gate, or the demodogs passed freely in and out of the gate and got possessed while in the UD.

8. How did Dart get in Dustin's trash?

my best guess on this one is disappointingly mundane. I saw that shot of Hopper seeing the dead raccoon in the tunnels, and I thought, how about if a raccoon was rooting around in Dustin's trash and coughed up a slug?

this led me down a much more important avenue of thought: where all those demodogs came from. by season 2 there are a LOT. I'd say 20-30 just in that one shot of them falling dead in droves when El closes the gate.

while we do have one demogorgon in play at this time, demogorgons themselves can't reproduce as far as we know. those slugs are planted by a vine.

live bodies are needed to incubate those slugs, but Hawkins is a small town and dozens more disappearances would've surely been mentioned. how then?

animals. Will's demogorgon yoinked any number of animals from the woods to host those slugs, and the slugs soon grew into demodogs which fed on their hosts' bodies.

only they weren't yoinked to the UD, but to the tunnels. that's what that area littered with bones was were Hopper got trapped, the place he called the "graveyard". a demogorgon nursery.

9. What's the deal with the tunnels?

the tunnels act as sort of a bridge area between the RU and the UD.

it's physically the RU, but so heavily infiltrated by the vines and spores due to proximity to the gate that it's functionally the UD. (like how vines and spores spread a little ways into the Lab through the gate, hence hazmat suits needed to even approach it).

it can't be the actual UD, because the hole Hopper digs through to access it doesn't act like a gate/portal. if the tunnels were the UD, if Hopper was even able to break through with his shovel (which humans can't do), he would have fallen into a gravity-reversed UD copy of that pumpkin field. instead, he broke through to a physical tunnel in the dirt.

10. The significance of the library in the Upside Down

ok this is one of my hair twirlingest sections in the whole thing

you know when Will pointed out that spot in the tunnels, and said it was important and the Mind Flayer didn't want him to see there?

and Hopper saw on the soldiers' video feed that they were in "the graveyard," that place Joyce and Bob rescued him from earlier? the demogorgon nursery?

but it turned out Will was just lying about it being important to get those soldiers sent to their deaths?

Will wasn't lying. It really is an important place.

the graveyard is where the ambush happened. and the graveyard is directly underneath the library.

not just because of the X clue, but because, remember how I called the graveyard a demogorgon nursery a minute ago?

and remember what happened to Will in the library?

as above, so below.

the library is the demogorgon nursery of season 1's Upside Down. all six of the yoinked were taken there to get slugged, not just Will.

"but wait, if they were all taken to the library, wouldn't Hopper and Joyce have seen their bodies there?"

they did. people seem to forget.

"but wait, how can Barb be dead in the library if Nancy saw her in Steve's pool in s4?" dead Barb in the pool was a vision Henry gave Nancy to torment her, not current or literal footage.

now check this out.

the Duffers have specifically listed the first Indiana Jones movie as one of their inspirations. remember that scene where they're searching everywhere in that old library for a "ten" marking the location of a tomb? and you know what a roman numeral ten looks like? and Indy finally finds it....

on the floor? and they pull up a tile and drop into a catacombs tunnel full of bones underground beneath the library? that scene sure was neato!!

more X / ten library refs

now remember in the Hopper-stuck-in-the-tunnels part, there's also a moment where he sees a spot of dense vines and tries burning them away and digging his way out? well the vines grow densely like that to cover holes - we saw them quickly grow over and conceal the hole Hopper originally dug into the tunnels. that's why he couldn't find his way out before.

does this not indicate that there was a preexisting but sealed-up hole right there in the graveyard... not another branch of walkable tunnel, but a smaller tunnel leading UP...

to the library??

someone PLEASE Indiana Jones the library floor in s5. it's tile.

"but wait, as far as we know, those tunnels didn't exist until s2, and only demodogs dig, and the only demogorgon in play was already an adult."

right, I am thinking that the slug Will coughed up went on to become the founder of the tunnels, which means that neither the tunnels nor the theoretical library-hole would have existed at the time of the s1 yoinkings.

either Will's demogorgon or any of Dart's friends could've dug the library hole (assuming there wasn't some preexisting ancient tomb under there) but why? why would they need a tunnel from the graveyard to the RU library? and from which direction was it dug? could the five UD demogorgons have dug it down from where they were born in the UD library? I don't think alterations made to the UD affect the RU, but could there be some loophole here given that the tunnels are almost like a bridge dimension? I need to think more.

I'll leave you with this:

remember where Henry found the black widow nest that ended up being his whole life's inspiration? in a vent under the floor in the bathroom? it's giving me Indy under the library floor BIGTIME.

see how the nest is also full of egg sacs? remember how Max stepped on some of those and little baby spiders came out? I just read a little about black window spiders and their egg sacs take about 30 days to hatch. would this be a fun time to mention that Will coughed up that slug 26 days after being rescued? and that Victor Creel said the family had "a month of peace in that house" before the horrors started?

I'm thinking the library was already a significant place for Henry in order for him to take the yoinked there. I'm pretty sure the tunnels were started after the yoinkings, so the graveyard was placed under the library, and not that the library was chosen for being on top of some geographical spot of preexisting importance.

this is where I'll need to hand this topic off to a better analyst because I tend to be too literal, but I think we need to talk about the possibility that something happened to Henry at the library, maybe in the basement. if that's where he took all the yoinked, it must be a significant place for him.

11. Why some gates close and others spread

does the opener of the gate determine its nature? that can't be it. El opened multiple gates that behaved very differently.

the Mothergate started as a crack in a wall and grew enormous. the Lab's controlled burns barely slowed it down its spread. but the rainbow gate was just big enough for Henry and then sealed back up in less than a minute. same with the classroom gate, it sealed up so fast that we didn't even see it.

so what's the difference? why was one huge and spreading and the others small and temporary?

I'm gonna get a little more abstract here than the rest of the post, but bear with me while I take a guess.

the mothergate was created when El made psychic contact with the demogorgon and experienced extreme fear, right? and Chrissy, Fred, Patrick, Max's gates are created when Henry made psychic connections with them and tortured them with fear, despair, hatred, guilt. notice how those are the gates that spread.

the rainbow room gate was created when El overpowered Henry by harnessing her single happy memory of her mother's love. the classroom gate was created when El had such protective love for her new friends that she was willing to sacrifice her life for them.

may I suggest that gate behavior depends on which emotion fuels their opening.

Fear, guilt, bitterness, hate festers. Love heals. but both types of wounds leave scars.

Stranger Things is a live action Monsters Inc

I'll grant you that this symbolism doesn't explain the two gates opened by Russian lasers, but maybe those sidestep the issue due to being artificially created.

anyway if 8-year-old El had successfully overpowered Henry using the power of her sad/angry memories instead of switching to love, that rainbow room gate might have been the spreading sort, the events of 1983/1986 could have happened immediately, and with baby El out of commission, the world would have ended in 1979.

warning - if I'm right at all, we're drifting towards what might be considered spoiler territory for the rest of this.

12. Why did the mothergate open where it did?

when Henry opened gates, they were all formed on the exact spot of the victim's body. and both times El opened gates, they also formed on the exact spot of the victim's body - the wall right behind Henry, and the chalkboard right behind the demogorgon.

if El was the opener of the mothergate, why didn't the gate open right on the "victim" - the demogorgon? and even if we've got it backwards and El is the victim, why didn't the gate open right on her water tank either? Instead of either location, it randomly cracked the wall several feet away.

the boring answer is they probably just hadn't thought out all this gate lore while they were shooting season 1, which was meant to be a standalone with no continuing story.

and while I think that's true to some extent, it doesn't even interfere with the FUN ANSWER, which is:

how about if the mothergate DID form exactly where the "victim" was, and the "victim" was Henry.

Henry, standing in the Upside Down lab during El's Russian spy mission. remembering how she opened a gate in 1979 and trying to recreate it - bracing himself against the nearest wall, knowing that if his plan works, and he can connect with El while she's psychically receptive and get her to experience extreme terror again, another gate will open.

13. It was a seven / 8:15

that seven could be more important than just to show that Will won't lie to Mike.

there are a bunch of other sevens on ST. now, this whole section could be a reach because plenty of them are unrelated, but I can't help notice that a handful of them pertain at least sort of to the bikes/Mike's garage.

"It was a seven"

the 7 on the license plate in the Wheelers' garage

what day does Hopper find Will's bike? the 7th

when the gang has to ride the Wheelers' bikes to Eddie's trailer, he says it's 7 miles away

and if we widen the search to include ones pertaining to DnD, we get a couple more,

Lucas cuts off the thessalhydra's 7 heads at the end of the same campaign

Mike takes 7 points of damage in the s3 DnD campaign

that's like half of the ST "seven" references that I can think of (though I'm sure there are more I've missed) that have some topical overlap with "it was a seven".

PS, the show that's on Ted Wheeler's TV is Knight Rider, and an episode of Knight Rider really did air the night of November 6, 1983. the 7th episode of the season :)

ok, now hold that thought.

s4 Robin says to Nancy, "I know your house is creepily frozen in time, but haven't you always had bikes?" so they take the Wheeler family's bikes to the trailer, and we get one of the coolest cinematic shots in the whole show.

Eddie is on Mike's bike. Nancy is riding her own (unless I'm forgetting, we only ever glimpse it in the garage-bat-practice scene; we know it's hers because it's a girl bike frame). Robin and Steve are on two adult bikes that must be Ted and Karen's.

IF I'm onto something here, this scene came [Vecna voice] so close to the truth, Nancy.

they didn't show us the gang finding and getting on those bikes. they didn't say there were only those four available.

what if I reminded you that we know a specific time frame on Nov 6 1983 - pretty wide time frame actually - when there were more than just four bikes at the Wheeler house.

between roughly 10am-8:15pm, during the ten hour DnD campaign, the party's bikes were there too.

how many bikes does that total? 7.

did I go all that way just for another obscure 7? maybe, but the part that makes me itchy is...

why did s4 have to borderline retcon the idea of Karen and Ted having owned bikes during s1, instead of just putting Steve and Robin on the party's bikes that we saw there canonically? it must be important that they didn't take those specific bikes. hold that thought.

now work with me here...

Will rolled the 7 at 8:15... 7 bikes at 8:15...

this ties in with my eightfifteengate hunch: 8:15pm is the exact time at which the Upside Down is frozen.

IF the 7 bikes thing is important, the Upside Down couldn't be frozen any later than 8:15pm, because the party went home right after Will rolled the seven, so any time after that there wouldn't be 7 bikes there anymore.

now, what doubt I have about the scenario I'm about to pitch isn't at all because it isn't feasible, but because the optics are delightfully goofy depending what we imagine Henry looks like in 1983.

I don't have a solid map of Hawkins, but I know the Lab and Will's house are closer together than Mike's house is from either of them. and our first two sightings of the demogorgon are at Hawkins Lab and then in the road near Will's house. Mike's house would've been significantly out of the way for a stop in between.

what if.... the demogorgon didn't stalk Will home. the lights flickering in Mike's garage? what if that was Henry himself.

I know, that immediately creates a problem: if Henry's at Mike's house, how could he be at Will's house in time for the vanishing? he can't teleport. Will's biking at a fair pace and even raced Dustin part of the way - Henry would have to haul ass the entire way?

you know what means of transportation is available that goes at least as fast as Will's bike?

Will's bike. the upside down one.

THIS is a scenario where it gets important for there to be 7 bikes. for Steve and Robin to have taken Ted and Karen's instead of party bikes.

if the UD is frozen at a time when there are >4 bikes in the garage - and we're certain it was that way at 8:15 btw - Henry could've taken Will's, Lucas's, or Dustin's bike without screwing up the timeline. so that Nancy, Steve, Robin, and Eddie could walk into the UD garage 2 1/2 years later and still find Mike's, Dustin's, Lucas's, Nancy's, Ted's and Karen's bikes.

Nancy naturally would choose her own. Steve and Robin would probably prefer the adult bikes. and Eddie, the newcomer, takes his pick of the kid bikes.

"but wait lol, if Henry had first pick of all 7 bikes why wouldn't he take one of the adult ones?" because he's a cheeky bitch and it'd be just like him to pick Will's bike? also Ted and Karen don't store their bikes in the garage and Henry didn't have time to go rooting around their shed or wherever they keep them while Will was already starting to pedal away.

PS someone please draw for me: Henry, in full Vecna mode, grumpily riding the only bike left in the garage because the timeline got screwed up: a tiny pink tricycle belonging to Holly Wheeler

anyway, 8:15 being the only moment during that night that they timestamped makes me so suspicious about it, because in order to call back to something later for a Big Reveal, you need to make note of it at the time - just not too noticeably. that's why Karen Wheeler opens the basement door and says "it's fifteen after!" and then they bury the "8" in a separate scene, later, when Joyce and Karen talk on the phone. they really wanted the fact that Will rolled the 7 at 8:15 to be documented but not obvious.

I'm still figuring out actual support for the idea beyond that and bikegate but I will keep these lights up until the day I DIE if there's a chance I can prove the UD is frozen at 8:15.

part 2 soon to follow :)

tagged: @mlchaelwheeler @himynameis4 @steviescrystals @strangertwistoffate

#some of this isn't me cracking mysteries it's just me understanding things we were supposed to understand all along #but I promise some of it will be new for most of you #givehimthemedicine analysis #mine #how the upside down works #analysis #givehimthemedicine big analysis #im /hj about the bike part am I wrong probably is it hilarious to imagine yes

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sasusakucoded · 7 months

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Sasuke found Kinshiki and they attacked each other as soon as he arrived at his location. He was still recovering from their previous fight. His visual prowess was not at its full capacity but he knew he had to do everything to send him away to another dimension.

Sasuke was losing so much chakra because of the Susanoo. He also knew that Kinshiki could subdue him any minute, so he decided to give his all. "Indra's arrow is my last chance," he thought. Sasuke moved to corner Kinshiki without him knowing.

Kinshiki realized this too late and saw the huge arrow formed by the Susanoo. With no way of countering it, he decided to open a portal and escape.

Sasuke's energy was drained. His only hope was that Kinshiki would not go back while he's passed out.

---

Sasuke: *feels warm as he wakes up* /thinks/ Where am I? *jolts as his "bed" moved*

Katsuyu: Oh, you're awake now, Sasuke-kun!

Sasuke: Y-You're..

Katsuyu: *giggles* It's been a while since a human visited the Shikkotsu Forest.

Sasuke: So, this is the legendary Shikkotsu Forest?

Katsuyu: Yes, dear.. *moves away from him to get something*

Sasuke: /thinks/ Good. It was comfy but I still don't like slugs.

Katusuyu: *with louder voice* Sasuke-kun, you better eat now or Sakura-chan will get mad at me. *giggles*

Sasuke: *looks up* Th-That's your actual size?

Katsuyu: Yes. Lady Tsunade and Sakura-chan can only summon one-tenth of me. *giggles* Enough about me, you have to eat now. Sakura-chan told me what you can eat.

Sasuke: Sakura told you about me?

Katsuyu: Of course. We rarely see each other nowadays but when we do, we talk about her family.

Sasuke: I didn't know about that.. *smiles*

Katsuyu: Sakura-chan's only request is to help and take care of you or Sarada-chan if in case I come across you two.. *splits more Katsuyu clones to get the food*

Sasuke: *sees plant leaves, stems, fungi, giant worms, and strawberries being brought by the clones* Lady Katsuyu.. What are these for?

Katsuyu: Sakura-chan said you can eat strawberries but it will be rather rude of me if I don't offer all these delicacies.

Sasuke: That is so nice of you but I'll take the giant strawberries only.

Katsuyu: Are you sure? The worms and fungi combination are tasty too.

Sasuke: I– I'll stick to the strawberries, thanks.

Katsuyu: Well then, enjoy your food, dear!

---

Sakura: *summons a small Katsuyu*

Katsuyu: Sakura-chan! It's nice to see you!

Sakura: Ah, Lady Katsuyu! I've been meaning to see you. Thank you for taking care of my Sasuke-kun.

Katsuyu: It's nothing, Sakura-chan. *giggles*

Sakura: He's boasting that he has seen your true size. I'm envious!

Katsuyu: Aww, if I could just take you with me!

Sakura: One day, I'll be able to go to your forest.

Katsuyu: Yes! Or you may also have enough chakra to summon my entire size.

Sakura: That's a long shot but nothing's wrong with hoping. *chuckles*

Katsuyu: Sakura-chan, thank Sasuke-kun for me too. He helped me stock up my strawberry leaves and stems using his Susanoo.

Sakura: Really? He didn't tell me..

Katsuyu: Yes, he was very efficient. So, thank him for me.

Sakura: I will! *smiles*

---

Aoda: You seemed to be very amused with Katsuyu, Lord Sasuke.

Sasuke: *lessens his enthusiasm* Yeah.

Aoda: ...

Sasuke: ...

Aoda: But I'm the better summon, right? The best, I mean.

Sasuke: *nods*

Aoda: I can get you giant preys too for your food.

Sasuke: No thanks, Aoda.

Aoda: You can make me your bed. My scales are cold, you'll like it.

Sasuke: I have to go.

Aoda: Lord Sasuke—

Sasuke: You are my best summon. No one will replace you, Aoda. So, please keep protecting me and my family.

Aoda: Of course, Lord Sasuke.. But if you want a giant rodent—

#sasusaku #sasusaku headcanon #ss headcanon #uchihas #sscoded no 221

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will80sbyers · 1 year

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What I understood about the Dimension X + Upside Down + Vecna + Mind Flayer + what Will can do for now from the show:

This is more for myself than anything else because I wanted to do a recap in my mind lol

Dimension X is a planet in our space or a planet in a complete different universe, it had all kinds of different species living in it:

The mind flayer -> alien particles that communicate between them with a shared mind called hivemind and with the capacity to take over the bodies of different hosts if used by Henry to do that, he shapes them as a spider that he drew when he was little

Demogorgons -> They (and the VINES too) existed before the Upside Down Hawkins was created

and are amphibian non-aquatic predators that are similar to sharks only for how they attack following the scent of blood, they probably survived eating those yellow eggs before arriving to the UD and seem to be born from the vines in the UD. To reproduce, the vines place one of those little slugs inside someone that is used as an incubator and then those grow up to become Demodogs and keep evolving until they reach the Demogorgon stage that is basically them being adults when they start to walk on two legs instead of 4 and lose the tail

The Demogorgons can open gates between the upside down Hawkins and the right side aka our world but they don't stay open, it's not clear if they can because of Vecna's powers being connected to the hivemind or only on their own - Vecna said he couldn't find a way to open the portals on his own and keep them open so he had to steal Eleven's abilities.... so he probably was using the Demogorgons before because of that so that he could go back to the upside down without risking of remaining stuck in the Right Side part (? Not clear enough to me)

Demobats -> we don't know much about if they are from Dimension X or a entirely new creation from the UD once it started mutating (we now know!!! They are from Dimension X too and Henry ate them to survive) but they are all controlled by Vecna with the hivemind.

ALL the creatures of the upside down that are connected to the vines and the hivemind have one big mind and can see in all places the others are at once

All of them hate fire and hot temperatures and prefer cold ones.

The vines CAN go in cold water without problems because we know the Watergate in s4 exists and we see one of them in the water but we haven't seen how the Demogorgons or the Demobats react to that

We saw that in Russia they had the Demogorgons floating in some liquid that looks like water with something (SALT?) added into it

And they kept the particles of the Mind Flayer that HATE hot temperatures caged in by putting heat all around them

We saw that the particles starts to swirl around when they are subjected to hot temperatures because they don't like it and the vines gets destroyed by fire but they also regrow fast, so it's not a permanent solution...

The Demodogs made the tunnels in the earth under Hawkins so that the vines could expand and make the "weird Flowers in the cave" aka the Flowers that attack by sprying the toxic particles in the air that look like snow or ash and are probably toxic for humans because Hopper felt like shit after and puked a lot

We see that Will is currently connected with the hivemind and with Vecna's mind, and he has the ability to "shadow walk" in season 2 and travel between different dimensions with a sort of projection (copy?) of his body... He can get inside the hivemind to see what all the creatures are doing in a precise moment in season 2 and that's how he finds Hopper because he could see in the tunnels because the vines were there

We don't know if Will had this ability before he got the vines inside his body but we do know he had it before he got possessed by the mind flayer because of the season 1 finale when he has the first vision in the bathroom

Also we know that when the particles of the mind flayer possess someone or an animal they change their whole DNA and make them be able to drink things that to humans are extremely toxic like the chemicals the people in season 3 were drinking and they can transform their meat tissue into anything they want, Vecna decided to build that Meat monster from the people of Hawkins to attack Eleven in season 3

The connection of the Hivemind with the Mind flayer particles stays active if the Mothergate is open, if the gate closes or if Vecna gets hurt he loses the control over that and the animals still connected in that moment die!

The Mothergate was first opened by El and she kept the psychic connection with it until season 2 and kept it open without realizing it...

In season 3 the Russians re open the Mothergate for a bit but it's unstable and it closes up again and then they find a way to keep it open during that year and start capturing Demogorgons from the Upside Down Hawkins and studying them and their anatomy, they get stopped by Joyce and Hopper but had already taken Demogorgons and brought them from Hawkins to their base in Russia and they also somehow took the particles of the Mind flayer

Vecna (the Communist) let them do it probably because he wanted the gate to stay open so that he could go to take El's powers and start his plan to open the 4 gates in Hawkins and keep that big ass gate open

So Henry/Vecna/One takes El's powers and idk practices a bit for 8 months (because he was still weak from the fight in s3? because he wanted to do it in a precise date? Idk) and then he starts his plan and starts mind stalking his victims that are people with a lot of trauma that he thinks are weak, because of that so he kills them and he creates mini gates in those points in Hawkins so that when he has 4 gates he can connect them together and keep them all open at the same time with the psychic connection!

We also know that the Upside down Hawkins seems frozen in time because either it is in some way... or because it is only a copy of Hawkins made the 6th of November the night El opened the Mothergate and no one was there to change stuff around after

and not long after that gate was opened, Will was kidnapped so we don't know if Will with some secret powers is the one that created that copy... because he just wanted to go back home and was scared, or if it was El opening the gate in Hawkins that created a reflection of it... (I think it's Will that did it)

In the UD Hawkins you can hear the voice of the people in our world and you can see the lights appear even without the physical light source being present in the UD - Dustin and the others have the lite brite light up in the Right side world and Nancy etc in the UD saw only the light...

So it's like the light travels between the worlds too, somehow, they are like gates on their own in a way and that allows people to communicate...

The lights are on screen being focused on when Dustin is saying this:

Will finds a way to also use the radio or the phone to communicate on the other side but we don't know how exactly

About Henry/One/Vecna:

it seems he got his powers either by being born like that (and they manifest during puberty) because of a mutation connected to the chemicals that his father used during the war

From the spiders in the house (meh idk seems weird?)

He can get inside the minds of people and take their abilities and memories and super capacities, he can make them have nightmares and visions of what he wants and he can move things with his mind and he also can freeze time or go back in time because of the shot of the clock spinning (but this is not confirmed yet)

Henry was taken by Brenner and Brenner found a way to block his powers and used him as a lab rat to make something that if given to other people and pregnant people gives them powers, the powers of the people directly injected were weak but the powers of the kids born with them were strong, so they took the kids away kidnapping them to create the little army of anti-Russian people with superpowers and train them

Brenner kept Henry as a prisoner but he also made him participate in creating and watching over these kids so he was probably involved in Eleven's birth because he was working for Brenner in the labs - he got punished if he tried to escape or if he did something he wasn't supposed to do like maybe be in the control room (and secretly turn off the cameras so that the kids could attack Eleven and make her think Brenner wanted her dead so she would help him escape)

Then the Hawkins massacre happens and El sends Henry in the dimension X

where he somehow finds a way to stay alive by mutating and fusing with the environment and finally takes control over the mind flayer particles becoming part of the Hivemind of Demogorgons+Vines+UD creatures himself.

Then Brenner makes El search for him without telling her and she finds a Demogorgon and opens the gate with a psychic bond that goes to bond with all the other creatures through that Demogorgon, so Henry feels that in the hivemind and understands he can finally go back and uses the Demogorgon to go in Hawkins and take Will (not confirmed but probable because we see someone opening Will's door with psychic powers )

Henry also tells us that his objective is to destroy the current world to remake one as he wishes and reign over everything else because he thinks he's superior to all the other people without superpowers that are just weak and fragile and deserve to be prayed upon because "it's the natural order" of things - he wanted to be a predator like his spiders because he feels superior

NOW THE QUESTIONS:

So why did he need Will for this plan of remaking the world?

Being involved in Brenner's recreation of people with powers did he maybe know that Will or Joyce were involved in the experiments somehow and Will had a big probability of having superpowers too...?

but maybe these powers didn't manifest completely yet because Will was too little and wasn't going through puberty and he's a late bloomer in that sense, so he let Joyce and Hop save him and let him grow before he could really use the full force of his powers ?

Did he know about Will's abilities to create new worlds or travel and project in them before Will himself knew because maybe he can see sort of into the future sometimes? Or he can sense the people with his own powers in them?

#stranger things #will byers #el hopper byers #henry creel #vecna #the upside down #the ud #dimension x #st recap #will byers has powers #byler #<- target audience #will80sbyersgifs #my gifs #st lore #stranger things lore

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grigori77 · 2 months

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Critical Role, Campaign 3 Episode 86

Matt: "Don't ask." Yes, probably best ...

Maps! Yay! I love maps! Oh! Czepeku! I love these guys! Nice! And now the costumes make sense. Matt: "What's happening?" Yeah ... we're with you. And now he won't say their name ... Marisha: "Say it, bitch!" LOL

A Luxon D20 with a LIQUID CORE?!!! OH MY GODS ... so cool ... O.O

Liam O'Brien delivered a truly BIZARRE Jester impression there ... cue OG turn from Laura to show us how it's really done ..

Oh yeah! Fearne's in another dimension ... so where is she?

Perception check? Nat20! Nice ... oh yes, US the portal still there? It is ... oh thank fuck ... in she goes ... and she's BACK!!!

Yeah, actually sleep sounds good. They really need it. Goodbye mist form, but still ... like they really are on the verge of exhaustion ...

BTW I am going quietly nuts over Marisha's look tonight ... it's genuinely adorable ... :3

Through the mouth? Is that an EXCUSE, Fearne? Are you being sneaky flirty?

Yes! Anchor a line with the rod. Good idea. It WOULD probably pay to check this out. Be a good retreat point if needed ...

Oh yeah, good point. Would that transfer thing be a potential beacon for Otohan?

So Imogen gets an extra Sorcery point? That is pretty cool ...

Ah yes, Chetney's tools. Affixing a piton for thd rope. Meanwhile Fearne takes the tethered Immovable Rod ... while still a leaf sheep sea slug? Not gonna work ... no, Orym takes it while she guides him through ...

Wow ... Liam STILL doesn't know zll his stats that well ... XD Messy ...

They're trying SO HARD to make Matt accidentally describe this as passing through a weird magic butthole ... XD

Travis: "Chetney's leaving to pursue his fortunes elsewhere."

Aha ... so they ARE on Exandria? Interesting ... but WHERE?

Turning into clouds while still in the water would probably be a bad idea ...

Discussing Fearne and Werewolf Chetney's "sexy time" ... yeah ...

On the shore of this strange lake ... ah yeah, Nature Check! Smart ... pine-trees ... higher altitude ... this is VERY NEW to them ... interesting ... are they on Tal'dorei, perhaps? Near Vasselheim, maybe? THAT would be interesting ...

Mist once more ... heading UP!!! So what do we see?

T-shirt shenanigans ... oh Samuel, you are playing with fire ... XD

A village! Nice ... heading down again ...

Street level! Here we go ... well into the evening ... the place seems to be abandoned ... strange ...

Dusty empty general store ... looks like it's been empty for a while ...

FCG suggests they're in an alternate dimension ... unfortunately much what I was considering ... not that I LIKE this idea any ...

Overgrown gardens ... yeah, another suspicious sign ... some of the buildings are collapsed ...

Ria'doin village ... Lake Umamu ...

It's somewhere in Marquet? Issylra, maybe? Hmmmm ...

Ashton checks out the most expensive house ... which seems to have been ransacked ... but a long time ago ...

Imogen picks up shoreline pebbles snd loose bits of wood from the town.

Grim Psychometry! Here we go ... no joy ... hmmm ...

Chetney joins Ashton, starts checking the house for hidden rooms, etc. Small compartment under the bed, but already emptied ... yup ...

Laudna finds mention of people disappearing ... a whole slew of families leaving ... no, DISAPPEARING ... rumor, conjecture ... then nothing? Weird ...

It's all very X-Files, really ...

FCG casts Speak With Animals on a local bird ... oh, he really does HATE birds, clearly ... talk about trauma ... XD

Matt Mercer ... master of creepy looks ... LOL

FCG has to mark off a Stress Point ...

People walk into the lake? Oh boy ... yeah, this place is CURSED!!! I fucking knew it!

Chetney DEFINITELY wants to sleep here now, just to see what happens ... yeah ...

Aha! Yes, is Imogen picking anything up with her telepathic abilities right now? Nothing ... hmmm ...

Deciding to sleep in the expensive place. It's serviceable fir the night, at least. Setting in ...

Oh dear ... worst time for intrusive thoughts ... XD

Examining spoils ... a Ring of Life Awareness ... whoops ... well THAT'S not a good thing at all ... does thr Ring have tracking? Crap ...

His new feat? Oh yeah, his deal with Nana Morri ... of course ... Master Craftsman! Ooooooòoooooh ... O.O

First watch, Fearne and Chetney ...

Nothing happens ...

Second, Orym and Imogen ...

Orym is attempting to communicate with Caleb Widogast ... oh fuck me it WORKS!!!

CALEB!!! THE DIRT WIZARD LIVES!!! I mean obviously WE know this already, but still ...

Imogen casts Sending to Caleb ... and it WORKS ... then tries to Send to Keyleth ... fuck, it worked AGAIN!!! Sweet!

Catamaran Reach in Issylra! Yup! They were right!

Okay, so she's gonna try snd meet up with them? That's smart ...

Awwwwwwww ... such a sweet moment for these two ... :3 Orym DESERVES a break, so he needs this.

Holy fuck, it's Jester! Oh my gods!

Yeah, she is as adorable as ever ... I love how she can just keep it up now with Unlimited Sendings ... XD

Orym tries to get through to Dorian ... gods I want this to work SO BADLY ...

No response, but he's sure he heard something OUTSIDE?!!! He thinks it might be Dorian ... oh fuck! Creepy horror movie vibes! DO NOT GO, ORYM!!!

No, Orym is just GOING TO THE DOOR ...

Laudna sends Pate to look for him ... literally CHUCKS HIM out the window ... oof ...

Yes, this is a super creepy situation and NOBODY should go ANYWHERE ... and now Ashton can hear something ...

Oh right, of course, clearly there is something IN THE LAKE that's trying to draw people in ... they need to IGNORE THIS FREAKY FEELING!!!

Hunter's Bane? Oh, smart ...

Chetney and FCG are going to investigate ... for fuck's sake ... and now more of them are going ...

Yeah, this is all going south SO FAST ...

Imogen casts Detect Thoughts ... oh shit there IS something IN the fucking lake! Great ...

Liam: "We are in Derry, Maine." Of fucking COURSE they are ...

Imogen tries to Command them all to return to the house ... it works, but not on Ashton ... CRAP!!!

Laudna sends Pate after him ...

And now the other two are going in again! Shit! And NOW Matt decides to call a fucking break? SERIOUSLY?!!!

Welcome back to SHEER FUCKING PANIC!!!

Imogen tries to hold onto Orym ... strength check? Somehow he STARTS TO BEAT HER in that, so they're now BOTH going in! Aaaaaaaah!!!

Fearne tries to Scorching Ray all of them ... but they're ALREADY underwater! Crap!

Laudna sticks her head UNDER THE WATERro try snd see boats? Hmmmm ... amazingly, there are FOUR sunken boats here! Wow ...

She PULLS ONE UP out if the water ... oh fuck she's BROUGHT IT TO FUCKING LIFE!!! And it can talk and crawl around ... bloody hell ... as is THE ROPE ATTACHED TO IT!!! She sends both to collect the others ...

FCG's going down to try and help ...

Weird underwater growth? Oh for FUCK'S SAKE it's some kind of twisted monster! Lovely!

Damn, it's COLD down here! And it's starting to have an effect on EVERYBODY down here now ...

Oh shit it's fucking HYPOTHERMIA!!! They are in DEEP SHIT right now!

Bones. Lots of bones. Yup, this is definitely NOT GOOD.

Mind Sliver? GO IMOGEN!!! 16 points of Psychic damage to this ... THING ...

Fearne bamfs out Mister ... who DOES NOT HAVE WATER BREATHING right now! Crap!

All but Ashton manage to snap out of the trance ... lovely. They are back in control but VERY MUCH lost in darkness and icy cold right now ...

Form of Dread! Undead pirate style! Sweet! And they DIVE!!! It's all gone very POTC with the crew of the Flying Dutchman ...

Dimension Door! Nice one Mister! FCG is now free ...

Laudna (pirate voice): "Arrrr! All aboard the Queen De Rolo!"

Imogen stand again, more psychic damage!

Blood Maladict! Chetney does some damage too ... it does not have blood, but he does hurt it. Now he's swimming for his life ...

Orym makes pushing attacks and succeeds ... he's got some "breathing" room ... and he sees the bones ... tries to grab a skull, but it manages to grab him again in the process! Crap ...

FCG grabs the boat's bough ... grabs his coin snd tries to Turn Undead ... BOOM!!! Unfortunately the creature manages to resist ... but LAUDNA IS EFFECTED TOO!!! Shit ... Nat19! Oh thank fuck ... she resists because "she's a dope underwater captain." XD

The rope grabs Chetney and pulls him up. Laudna: "Give yerself to the Kraken!" LOL ... He unleashes Turmoil and Blasts the beastie ... POW!!!

Marisha: "This is THE BEST SPELL and I'm so glad I took it!"

Now she's trying to frighten the thing with her Form of Dread. Travis: "You CAN intimidate this kelp!" Whoa, a fucken NAT1!!! Jeeze ...

This has become SO VERY SURREAL ...

Somehow BOATY SAVES HER LIFE ...

Shocking Grasp! Go Imogen! 12? Balls ...

Fearne tries to swim in to rescue Ashton ... that's a SHITE roll ... yeah, he is just TOTALLY obscured still ...

Orym breaks free, and now he can BARELY make Ashton out ... wait, HOW THE FUCK did he just move like that? He slashes through snd now Ashton's free ... but he just starts trying to claw his way back in again? Fuck ... Orym tries and fails to break him out again ...

Chetney swipes with Turmoil again ...

Fearne tries to snap Ashton out of it ... NO JOY, and it's BECAUSE OF THE HERO'S FEAST?!!!

FCG tries to flip the coin underwater ... and loses it! It sinks ... but then ACTIVATES!!! BOOM!! Somehow that manages to break Ashton out of the trance! Yes! He books it!

Laudna breeches the boat back to the surface!

Big boom! Everybody run! But YES!!! That's a good point! They need to stay and warn about the thing down below ...

Crap ... the bost and rope are NO LONGER alive ... they swim back to the shore ...

Well, at least they're all out again ...

Balls ... they can't send any more messages ... Chetney carves a warning on the dock. A very obscure warning ... hmmm ... oh, leave the skull for people to talk to?

Orym (spooky voice): "Dead gnomes make no toys!"

They're all so tired ... wait, they're going BACK IN?!!! Hmmm ...

They set up signs matking where yo go, then go back in ... the creature is not there at this time, so they can safely go back through thd portal ... back jn the cave, then ...

Laudna sets up for a watch ...

Orym wonders why Dorian didn't answer the stone ... oh no, don't do that to yourself, wee man.

Wow ... Laudna is having a weirdly profound existential conversation with Pate ... hmmm ...

Oh for fuck's ... DO NOT talk to Delilah, Laudna!

Disturbingly, the ruthless evil bitch is actually giving her some pretty good advice ... oh boy, and here comes the seduction, right on time ... back off, Delilah ...

Laudna: "Are you Pate?" Oh boy ... thankfully no ... oh for fuck's ... now she's SEEING HER ...

Thank the gods ... FINALLY a long rest ... morning comes ...

Oh fuck, greasy takeout sounds SO GOOD right now ... damn you, Ashton ...

Going up sounds like the smart move ... yes, as Orym's saying, "stay curious."

Leaving an arrow to follow ...

A Ring of Protection? Nice. The Tiny Tank (aka Orym) takes it ...

Laudna puts the Harness on and drains the other ring ... whoa ... she gets a permanent 2 extra HP! Sweet ...

Time to climb ...

Group Athletics Check ... great ... 2 Nat20s? Automatic success ... phew ...

FCG tries to Scry on Ira ... the connection fails ... interesting ... communications are once again buggered ... even more interesting ... seems like the Latticework is blocking the signal between worlds ...

Bane-worm? Crap ...

The tunnel just ENDS? Balls ... it's just a hard compacted collapse, no way through.

Oh yeah, can Ashton do something about this? Oh wow, he's doing it ... Ashton activates his Shard and goes all Dragonball Z again ...

Sweet, our boy is now a burrowing GOD ... that's VERY COOL ... he just powers his way STRAIGHT UP ... and surfaces headfirst into a massive dust storm ... he goes back down ... SUPERHERO LANDING!!!

Chetney ATTACKS ASHTON by chucking his chisel at him ... and HITS!!! Oof ... he just POPS IT BACK OUT and stabs it VERY DEEP INDEED into the wall ... that is VERY COOL ...

So they're going up? Okay ... he carves another diagonal tunnel for them up to the surface.

Still a storm up here, but lighter now ...

Scry balk is dark ... phew ...

Imogen tries to reach out to scan the area, Ruidusborn style ... now they have a path, but may also have broadcast their location ...

So goals ... find the Friends of the Volition ...

The Scroll? Ah crap ... read it! Put the protective magic up ... now they're theoretically undetectable ...

Imogen leaves a triggered message that can only activate if an ally passes by ... a Mind Egg? Hmmm ...

So now they're walking through the chappy dust and wind ... charming ...

A vibration in the air? Oh hell what's THIS SHIT?

EVERYTHING'S lighting up? Oh fuck ... IT'S A FLARE!!! FUCK!!!

Imogen and Fearne and now just PULSING OUT ... weird shit ...

It passes and Fearne's still glowing but Imogen's gone ... crap, she's HOVERING IN THE AIR and just SUPERCHARGED ... she snaps out of it and drifts down ...

They BOTH now have 15 temporary Hit Points? Awesome ...

Ashton is just CRUISING THROUGH THE GROUND ahead of them. Like a land shark ... O.O

Eventually he pops up and changes back ... and now he is A WRECK ... great ... TWO WHOLE POINTS OF EXHAUSTION?!!! Holy shit ...

FCG casts a 4th Level Greater Restoration to bring him back up to health again ...

Fearne turns into a direwolf and scouts on ahead.

A carved valley? Hmmm ... oh, an actual CITY ... that's Kreviris, then ...

And that's it for the night ...

Phew ... at least it's s chilled out end for once ...

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wellthebardsdead · 1 year

Text

Dragonborn: everyone, this is Miraak.

Miraak: *nervously steps out of the portal from apocrypha, the voice taken from him by the dragonborn until he can learn how to behave* hello…

Kaidan: hello. *slugs him hard across the face* that’s for all the focking stress you’ve put us through! I haven’t slept in 3 days! You sent dickheads out trying to kill us!! You’re lucky the dragonborn likes you!

#Kaidan skyrim #miraak skyrim #elder scrolls #skyrim #tes #miraak is on pack mule duty from now on he’s carting everyone’s stuff

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lollytea · 1 year

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So people have talked about Gus's relationship with Eda pre-show. Consider: he was not her best customer. He was her rival. She'd show up to some trash slug ready to mine some human garbage and find this tiny child had beaten her to it, skittering all over her haul as he stuffed his bag with as many treasures as he could carry. She and Gus find the same artifact at the same time and start haggling over who found it first, but five minutes in she realizes it's an illusion and he already took it.

ASGHFBKDGDHNK Honest to God the show never even touching on Gus and Eda's pre-series relationship is such a missed opportunity. A crime even. It would have been hysterical. Disheveled trash hag and this autistic 10 year old child she has intense beef with.

I completely forgot there were ways for witches to get their hands on human stuff without having to go through the portal. I wrote the Gus and Eda post with the assumption that Eda was the only one who could obtain junk and Gus had no choice to depend on her for it. But ohhhhh if he could get a hold of that stuff himself, he'd absolutely do it. Eda's prices are probably ridiculous so Gus would take matters into his own hands. Pisses Eda the fuck off.

It's so funny to think about. Eda would be 100% prepared to wrestle the artifact out of his tiny hands but he's a clever little shit and talks really fast and keeps the game up until he gets the chance to pull some trickery and run. Eda, the most powerful witch on the Boiling Isles who keeps getting outwitted by this relentless infant. That's why she keeps calling him Goops. He's a slippery little bastard.

Also very funny with the development that Eda and Perry were apparently friends in school. She meets him in the market sometimes and will point to his son and be like "YOUR KID SUCKS, PORTER!!!"

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drachenfalter · 6 months

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I can't help but think about the Boiling Isles having naturally occurring portals all around itself because of the properties of Titan's blood, spewing human trash in quantities large enough to sustain an ecosystem - to say nothing of the Portal Door, myths inspired by the Demon Realm, and Penstagram. It feels a little underexplored. If witches have so much human stuff (entirely independent of Belos, mind you) and so many indirect connections to humanity, then how has humanity been affected?

There are some interesting points here.

Personally, I like the idea that natural portals were more common in the past, because the Titan Blood is slowly seeping out and might eventually run out. This would mean that in the past there was more magic (and demons) in the Human Realm as well, leading to all the myths and legends, possible even allowing for some human witches to exist there.

So, on how much that affected humanity? Probably not a lot in an evolutionary sense, but it might have had big implications in a cultural sense. Myths, legends and superstitions, even Entire Religions might have gotten their start because of this.

(Some more thoughts on other parts of the ask under the cut)

On the other hand, I'd say the show can be very inconsistent when it comes to the question on how much the human realm influenced the Boiling Isles - everyone speaks English, they have TV and Phones and even social media and human trash is so common that the beaches are covered in it, but also humans are treated as this big mystery that no one seems to know much about, not even Human Experts. ("Planet of Humans? Preposterous.")

(-> I assume this is based on a rule of funny more than anything else.)

Bringing Belos into this context is also very interesting - I like the idea that he might have spread some misinformation on purpose (maybe to make sure he wouldn't be recognized as a human?)

But also, despite the wealth of human realm media and items that make it to the Isles, it seems that Belos doesn't have a clue on how the world has changed since he left.

The other thing I have to think about is that the amount of human trash is a somewhat recent phenomenon, so we have to assume that those ecosystems had to adapt to that in the last one or two hundred years.

Maybe Trash Slugs weren't always Trash Slugs. Eda says they grow until they "croak from too much salt", but that seems suspect for an organism that naturally lives on the beach (not too mention that most of the trash inside of them isn't even digested).

Which makes me wonder if those "Trash Slugs" maybe used to live of something else, like decomposing carcasses or dead wood/shipwrecks. Maybe they used to get older as well?

#this ask is bit older I just forgot to get to this #toh asks #the owl house #toh worldbuilding

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askvectorprime · 1 year

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What is the story of stardrive in idw2019?

Dear Stardrive Seeker,

Not all newly-forged Cybertronians spend their early lives on Cybertron—always, there are those Cybertronians born with an instinctual thirst for adventure, who yearn to venture beyond the confines of their metallic homeworld. Thus, in the years following the War of the Threefold Spark, the Cybertronian government authorized the creation of a cultural exchange program between the Cybertronian commonwealth and some friendly galactic neighbors, an incentive program where newly forged Cybertronians could study abroad on a diverse range of planets, assimilating the local culture and language as part of a possible career in Xeno-Relations.

I should comment, briefly, on the history of the Solstar Order—it originated corewards of Cybertron, not far from the barricaded region of space known as the “Quintessence”, and expanded outwards not through conquest, but by carefully negotiating trade agreements and alliances with alien civilizations and gradually building a strong federation of many diverse species: Elonians, Intriessians, Karkans, and more. By the era of the Nominus Edict, the borders of the Solstar Order nearly bumped up against remote Cybertronian colonies like Velocitron and Omicron. Despite their proximity, the two star-nations had only ever enjoyed a strained relationship. The Solstar Order consolidated much of its recent power by absorbing the defeated remnants of other empires, smashed to bits by Cybertronian hegemony—in particular, a large contingent of Szorian refugees who’d seen their homeworld obliterated by the Titan Waypoint eyed the Transformers with a deep and abiding distrust. More recently, tensions flared when unscrupulous elements of the Cybertronian government conspired with the ambitious Natalus to abruptly declare that the planet Probat was a Cybertronian colony, despite the fact that no Cybertronians lived there—deliberately smashing years of careful accession agreements that would’ve seen the citizens of Probat join their galactic government.

Into this already-tense environment came Stardrive—already a model mentee with a rare triple-changing bodyframe, a knack for languages, and eying a possible career in Xeno-Relations—who announced that she would like to study abroad on the planet Elonia. The request, while highly unusual, went through, and before long Stardrive had arrived in Solstar space and enrolled in a xeno-linguistics program on the planet Ofsted XVII, with a minor in astro-navigation. Although she faced prejudice and even outright discrimination from many of her organic classmates—and indeed, more than one lecture hall had to be renovated so that she could fit into their classrooms—Stardrive persevered.

One day, Stardrive and her class were on a field trip to monitor the unique phenomenon known as the “Quintessence”, a seemingly insurmountable barrier of electrical energy that prevented the Solstar Order from expanding any closer to the galactic core. Suddenly, while monitoring the phenomenon aboard an orbital research station, Stardrive witnessed a bizarre astrological phenomenon: what appeared to be a nebula somehow shifted into a massive portal that crackled with arcane power, a gateway through which a new kind of shapeshifting lifeform came to attack their vessel! The creatures, their slug-like bodies immune to conventional weaponsfire, easily breached the station’s hull and devoured many of the beings inside. Those who survived were infected with toxic biomatter and converted into more of their kind. However, the invaders hadn’t prepared to deal with a Cybertronian, whose mechanical biology rendered her immune to their necrotic touch, and whose tight-beam plasma blasters could simply burn through their arcane biology. Fighting her way through the hordes, Stardrive piled as many students as she could—including their professor, Rom K’atsema—into her space fighter alternate mode, then beat a hasty retreat as the station exploded behind her.

By the time Stardrive limped back to Elonia, it soon became clear that the Solstar Order faced a grave crisis. The “Dire Wraiths”, as they were now called, had launched coordinated invasions of outlying worlds like Xeres and Buras, and lightly-armed planetary garrisons had already been overwhelmed. Although the Solstar Order’s celebrated diplomatic corps had long since assumed that they could defuse any problem with negotiations, it soon became clear that they were fighting an enemy that had no obvious means of communications, and would accept nothing less than total extinction. It soon became clear that the Solstar Order would need something new to combat the hordes… and, eventually, all eyes fell upon the one Cybertronian in their midst.

Before long, Solstar scientists had gathered enough firsthand testimony and video recordings to draw up a weapon capable of meeting the aliens head-on: a full-body suit of armor forged from artificially-synthesized cybertonium that would be cybernetically grafted to one’s skin, equipped with a plasma-blasting “neutralizer” powered by a miniature energon reactor. While the scientists referred to their creation as merely an “anti-Wraith battle armor”, it was Rom who joked that the suit resembled the knights of old—and so it was he who volunteered to become the first organic to undergo the procedure, and emerge as “Rom, the Space Knight!” Inspired by his example, other courageous members of the Solstar Order stepped up to undergo the process, and over time the efforts of these “Space Knights”, supported by Stardrive herself, gradually helped push the Wraiths back.

It soon became clear that Stardrive couldn’t fight alone; fortunately, the Cybertronian embassy on Elonia was able to pull the strings that would allow Sentinel Prime to authorize the deployment of the Wreckers on the technicality that the Dire Wraiths posed a threat to Cybertronian territory—namely, their embassy on Elonia. Supported by a hundred Space Knights, Stardrive and the Wreckers took part in the effort to take back Xeres, which had, by this point, been turned into a grotesque hive-world where billions of fast-breeding Wraiths reproduced. Their victory was pyrrhic; they were able to cut off the primary source of the infestation, but only by destroying the planet and scattering millions of Wraiths across their member worlds. The Solstar Order would have to prepare for a protracted war against the alien infiltrators, who'd already put down roots on dozens of planets—but Stardrive, honorary Space Knight, gladly agreed to support the Space Knights in their quest.

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