Ca1ypso0 - Ca1yps0

Franchise: Toy Story - BattleSaurs Character: Reptillus Maximus

I took a few liberties with Tucker's design here lol like I know he wears a beanie (I think) but i really liked the hat on him! it matched the rest of the outfit imo

What do yall think

I'm a sucker for playlists and am wondering if you have one for The Archive Undying?

I mostly listen to OSTs when writing (lyrics distract!!) so I can share that I listened to a lot of:

the Anthem OST (really wish i'd had any interest in this game bc the aesthetic is in so many ways pitch perfect for Archive)

Jack de Quidt's work for the Divine Cycle of Friends at the Table, particularly counter/WEIGHT

a bunch of battle map music from Fire Emblem: Three Houses for mech fights

various music from Mushishi

folks have also sent me music that reminds them of the book and I really have to make a playlist out of all that bc 1) i love it, thank you, 2) their taste is generally fantastic and i would like to incentivize ppl to feed me more

(the playlist i built for the Archive sequel is kind of an exception to the rule! i do have more songs to share bc lol some of them have taken on multiple meanings, and by this i am terribly pleased.)

Songs of Origin was crazy /pos

Hey!! What would Jazz look like as a ghost in your style?

I haven't thought about it yet but I drew a Jazz Phantom.

It seems sunai is that good at handjobs

He’ll always be her little brother

having spoilery thoughts about The Archive Undying in the context of that post that someday the queer couple that says "let's fuck it all and run away together!" should actually do it:

Sunai and Veyadi don't actually run away but I do think that's what emotionally/ethically happened in the last quarter or so of the book?

Sunai's initial motivation was to prevent the totalitarian state from getting to keep an enforcer mecha to oppress his home city. Made perfect sense. Despite the emotional upheavals and betrayals and murders, that kept being true pretty much up until the Maw eats him. We learn that the Passenger trying to help him do this is the same entity that has caused Corruption aka the deaths of AIs who became tyrants.

And there's a whole ethical quandary there bc the AIs who died were tyrants and Iterate Fractal ate people and there should be some force that can stop even gods. But also the Passenger killed these AI in ways that led to the deaths of millions of people and left their corpses as weapons that could be used by the Harbor and left their remnants as hungry scavengers who kill people.

And so as various characters align with/against the Passenger I am just lost on how I should feel. It's cause is noble in abstract! It's methods cause great suffering! It's unclear why the Passenger cares about killing the Maw at this point given that it is no longer controlling a large group of people. Perhaps it is just that Sunai asks and Veyadi asks and Ruhi asks and the Passenger always answers when people ask because that is it's purpose.

And then Sunai is one with the Maw, who is a remnant of Iterate Fractal and that larger plot goes out the window. His friends want to separate them or mercy kill him or kill the Maw with him as collateral damage. He can't be separated from the Maw, who had always wanted him as their conscience and thus horribly abused him his whole life. Veyadi, on realizing that they can't be separated decides he wants to protect Sunai more than he wants to kill the Maw. They fight the Passenger and Ruhi, who remains laser fixated on the larger cause.

And that's the point where the pair of them decide to leave and they leave. Sure, the Passenger might be the only force capable of protecting humans from tyrant AIs. But they no longer care about that compared to the fight to live and get to be together. They imprison it and Ruhi (and, if I understand correctly, entomb Ruhi alive in eternal torment??) to prevent it from ever trying to kill them again. They survive together. The End.

And, well. The gays sure did run away from their problems together for once! but boy howdy was I unsure of how to feel about that final arc.

the beginning

I just finished TAU and I loved it! The fact that the empire has AI that isn't corrupted is super interesting and makes me wonder what makes them special. I know you probably can't say much about it, so I can't wait to hopefully learn more about them in the next book.

Maybe something you can talk about: while it seems common for salvagers to travel from city to city, what about the average non-salvager? In addition, is there much immigration between the Harbor and the Empire? Is there a formal system of citizenship within the cities/nations?

OH HEY GLAD TO HAVE INDULGED YOU and i can answer a number of these questions! the absence of corruption in the empire is something i will indeed hold my tongue about though :P

travel between city-states is extremely uncommon, and is generally only done by professionals or folks experiencing some manner of duress. alternatively, a number of downworld caravans still exist and travel through the wilds between city-states as a matter of course.

there is little in the way of immigration between harbor states and the empire, though it certainly happens now and again -- there are even post-harbor aigatan communities within the empire! immigration away from the empire is most uncommon, as the empire is in many ways the most civilized place on the downworld, in terms of technological sophistication and access to resources. or at least, that's how it's been for the past few generations. things are getting a bit, uh...unreliable.

citizenship as a system used to vary more when more AIs were actively in charge of their city-states. now folks more commonly have either harbor or imperial citizenship, with a large number of people having neither, officially speaking.