[Coldsaturn]

apropos of nothing, i think i am just going to decide for myself that Resonating is very much a two-way street and the reason our gal gets all murder-vamp around Sylus is because we just fall into his mindset, because we're constantly trying to vibrate on his wavelength even if we don't realize it (and even when we couldn't do the big connect).

like, our girl is just always trying to matchy-match her environment - she gets into an argument with a fruit-seller over the price of apples and two minutes in, she's Resonating at him without meaning to and even without an evol to hook into, her personality shifts that tiny bit towards 'haggling fish-wife'.

which would, extrapolating for five more seconds, mean that the LARGEST personality with the STRONGEST evol in her vicinity is going to dictate how far the personality warp/merge goes.

/just thinking, don't mind me.

FURTHER FURTHER thought -- the stronger we get, the more we warp everybody around us to match what we want them to be. :D  Sylus probably doesn't need to worry, but Zayne might have to plant his feet a little harder.

---

going to have to hand wave the high-tech micromacro-evol thing myself i guess - its ugly, honestly.  if you have a mutant superpower, how the FUCK  HECK do you stick it into a gadget at all? they just shouldn't have use the word 'evol' there, and just made it a flat out gadget with heading-for-dark-gray ethical considerations.

again, extrapolating out to world building, that would probably means anybody with an evol that can protect against brain modification (null-shield/field evol?) would be in high demand across all business corporations in both underground and overworld settings. maybe part of corporate espionage is getting rid of the pesky secretary with the dampening field, or bribing them to stop at the crucial moment of the negotations.  oooh, Inception!

Considering how MC really seems to match each LI to the point of almost changing personality, I like this theory. To resonate you need to somehow attune yourself to the other person and make yourself someone who vibrates at the same wavelengths. And how she starts changing the LIs the stronger she gets is also really interesting because it's not like she's bringing them back to her baseline, because she also changed at the start to get closer to them. So what happens is that they just spiral further away in some direction lol

In my mind it's singularly because of the micromacromecro evol that we have those gadgets shooting out evols. Because if we could just put powers into things, we'd have them all over the market and people without evols would be buying them, or people with a certain evol would buy others to create combos or something. Instead what you find on the market seems to be protocores and protofield manipulation. This is the only point that I remember where it's mentioned shooting up a random evol through a gadget. So I'm going to say it's because of the girl's power that this is possible.

Worldbuilding implications: I do entirely think that in this world you get and lose jobs (even/especially illegal ones) based on your evol skillset. I don't know if you're familiar with the world of Boku No Hero Academia, but the concept is the same with a society packed full of superpowers to the point where it's the new norm. And based on your needs, you might look for people with certain evols rather than others.

---

/spends half the evening annotating the Card Deck with little symbols for the protocore polarities so its handy

Considering how protocores can be swapped between LIs (the only situation where you're forced to have a deck full of protocores is with the Senior Hunter Contest, but that's endgame material and I haven't cleared it entirely yet), for now you might be good by simply getting 1-2 SSR protocores in each main section: def, atk, hp, etc.

I do find many people brute forcing high levels with high ATK protocores more than anything else though. Especially because with a substat like DMG to Weakened you already get back part of that reward you'd get by putting the "right" protocore on the LI.

As of now there are certain battles where I'm finding that having a high Crit Rate, Oath's Recharge (hit it 3 times in a single battle and it's magic), and Oath's strength really changes things, so don't ignore those substats.

[ChicletPrime]

it would be something of a binary star system -- every Resonance would be a spin around a new, central balance point.  her power level, their power level, how involved she is and how much she's throwing into it would all be factors. yeah, i gotta write something at some point incorporating this idea.

i have travelled past Hero Boku No Academia a bunch of times but never achieved even a glancing orbit around it, sorry. the closest thing i can think of that i've had exposure to where superpowers are the new black would be City of Heroes which is just another MMO and had its own loosey goosey take on it.

---

i have been having a bunch of random "but what about .... " and "hang on, if this is that, then this must be..." thoughts since the weekend as my back burner continues to churn lore butter.  now there's a mangled metaphor!

this is rambly because i have half sentence constructions on all of this, and nothing tidy but:

If Traceback II was trying to fix whatever mistake Traceback I created, but lost their way and fell into the wormhole because that's what happened and that's what always will happen, because Traceback I had to fail so Traceback II could exist at all, then its all predetermined and immutable. Traceback II arrives in the past on an Earth that is tech enough to latch onto the Wanderers that ...came with?... or were created by?... the Deepspace Tunnel, starting the race to immortality now that EVER has access to huge power sources, a race for longevity that eventually cracks the world.

... And Zayne has memory-nightmares of corruption, both of the people around him and his own ice infected with black particles
... Xavier speaks softly of immortality until he too falls apart and returns to starlight and dust with a promise that he'll find me again
... and Wanderers die and disappate into blue particles and an energy core that can be used and corrupted
... and Xavier kills someone he knew in an alley, a monster that calls him a traitor before dying in a burst of black dust
... and crystals grow in people's hearts which weakens them, but its possible to add more to it and make it somehow better or at least not worse...

How the hell does this all hang together? It seems like it should just be staring me in the face, the links between long life, repeating time, energy and dust but I'm missing something vital that welds the links together or I'm too busy staring at forest to see the right tree.

And evol spelled backwards is love, and Philos was dead until it was alive again.

---

Oh. OH, on the protocores. So... you just have/build a stable of SSR level cores and just keep swapping them in as you deal with different fights? 

I got my first four gold ranks yesterday (cleared level 6 I think it was on the Core Hunt but 7 says it wants level 60 cards and my first stab with Abysswalker at 50 was pretty close but I ran out of time).

I'm running into a problem with not enough 5* cards of the right colors for each boyfriend. Other than Caleb who has 1 and Rafe who has 3 for some reason, I have no other 5* in a primary color. I also only have a 5* card in a secondary color for Xavier and Sylus.  I guess this is one of those #goals thing, to try and get something useful in somewhat of the near future, otherwise I'm just going to have to sink more into some 4*s to fill the battle void.

[Coldsaturn]

Ignore the bnha reference then! The general point was a reflection on what a society where superpowers are not "super" anymore because basically everyone already has them would look like. And the evol gene looks like that setup, especially because it doesn't look like evolvers have a special social status compared to everyone else, so they're completely absorbed into society.

Those are definitely the correct puzzle pieces! Consider that you still have quite a bit of content to consume to put things in order. Some of the questions you have will require some of the LIs' myths to get answers. A lot will be in the anecdotes and world underneath texts (that's where most of the revelations came from for me). And of course in terms of main plot we're still missing the last two sections.

protocores:
Yes, you're absolutely invited and advised to swap protocores from one fight to the next as you change companion and cards.
Do not worry about building your 4 stars as well while you wait for the 5 stars. Just keep an eye out so that you don't risk throwing too many resources on 4 stars past lvl...idk, 60 or something. They get very expensive past lvl 65, and at that point you're better off spending all that stuff on a 5star than a 4 star. The cards will come (I'm currently stuck on Zayne and Caleb's orbits because they just don't want to come home and I don't have enough cards with them to get past the boss levels where I need two times for each companion /shrug), it's just a matter of time. If you're terribly unlucky and can't seem to pull a decent 5 star, you can always look for what you can buy with blue gems. They usually have non-primary colors, but sometimes the rotating cards are.

[ChicletPrime]

i feel like i'm sitting in a dark confessional, talking to a shadow i can't see as i whisper my shipping sins.

if this was a real story.. i mean, like a novel, where the point is the story itself and not the gatcha money grabbing thing this actually is ... if this was a real story, then i am the protagonist and will solve the problem and defeat the evil.

but what if. just, what if. the earnest biomedical researchers, trying to find a way to keep humanity going so they can reach the stars they've discovered exist out there, the biomedical researchers who maybe cut a few corners here and there to make it happen faster. maybe run a few experiments that have words in the reports like 'acceptable collateral damage' and 'mortality rate'. the experiments who maybe had names once upon a time.

and maybe there's a little girl with the power to enhance those around her, maybe a little girl driven to go higher and higher, implanted crystals in her heart that fail to shatter even under harshest duress. a little girl that isn't from this now perhaps. a little girl who perhaps came on a ship that shouldn't have, leaving behind a home and a place, arriving with a people who could say what was to come, no death, no sorrow, just unending miraculous life - at least for those born to it. and a boy perhaps too, while we're considering this what if, who can distort the grip of the world itself.

and the lab blows up and gravity screams with a new instruction and a hole in time is opened, back to home and light and love maybe. and the earnest biomedical researchers are blown clean out of themselves, covered in crystal instead of hoarding it inside, driven all but mad by it. and a second ship follows, looking for what was lost on the first but its too late, its already happened and there's nothing that can be done that might not make it catastrophically worse. the wrong point in time, let us suspect, too late or perhaps even too early and they must walk softly lest the world fall off to one side or the other.

and maybe the boy will grow up and maybe kill a world when he's given a new set of rules. and maybe the girl talked at least once to the eye at the center of the universe, which looked back.

[ChicletPrime]

2. New Discovery

• okay, mission very accomplished. so accomplished we're already back at base. oh hey, an actual time marker! "One Hour Later". nice.
  
• so no aether core found, just a bunch of modified protocores. Simone is disappointed.
  
• yeah, we're definitely chasing after this mysterious third aether core as the goal of this task force of... three. plus Jenna of course.
  
• a who what now? Herte Knave. isn't that something out of Honkai Star Rail?
  
• oh. a hunting uniform wrapped around just the head of a Wanderer? although "flat, round object" was kind of misleading. Simone pushed it away with a pen so i guess whatever it is, its small.
  
• no protocore apparently. guessed to still be with the body, wherever that is.
  
• ooookay. beta-curve somethingwhatsit on the head and now a storytime
  
• Linkon Bridge's main pier disappeared for twenty minutes a month ago.
  
• did... did the bridge fall down? i think the bridge would have fallen down. apparently not worth mentioning - i guess the loss of life is really so last month.
  
• other stuff appeared where it wasn't supposed to, in different spots but all at the same time
  
• and an entire store flipped itself from top to bottom
  
• okay, so the linking thread here is all had betacurve protocore fields and the Wanderers producing them all were capable of distorting space.
  
• okay, this little mini picture of what i guess is supposed to represent the betacurve field looks a FUCK of a lot like the images we've been getting that i thought were of Philos, cracked apart. 
  
• eh?  although micro to macro isn't that big a jump.  stuff coming apart. 
  
• "An aether core is involved."  nooooo. you don't say.
  
• oh shit oh shit.. Caleb, do you have an aether core now too? still?
  
• oh crappity hell.. what was that line previously. a planet pulled out of orbit.... damn.
  

this is me, staring into space, trying to remember that particular little nugget

• found it - just like a planet that strayed away from orbit, only to be ripped apart by gravity. 
  
• that seems like a very important lego piece right now
  
• betaprotocurves are predicted to be more frequent going foward (okay?) and "that's where new aether cores might appear."
  
• they... they generate spontaneously? in the middle of fields? although come to think of it.. isn't that what a Nexus Flux thing is? a field generator, powered by an aether core(?), allowing for Wanderers to exist in a distorted reality. a distorted phase of reality. but if that's what a Flux Nexus has or creates, aether cores should be a dime a dozen. The one that Zayne helped destroy on Mt Eternal would have been huge for the field it was generating.
  
• my apartment is SO swank. not Sylus' level of heydonism but still, that's a lot of stuff i got draped everywhere.
  
• maybe Hunters make more than i thought they did. or the living standards of Linkon City are just that high.
  
• as if it wasn't hammered home enough, yes, third aether core out there, that isn't mine or Sylus'. possibly incomplete, granted.
  
• they seem to waffle in the language between aether cores being hard to find/hard to get/somewhat rare, and talking about them as if they are available at the corner bodega.
  
• maybe it just fragments are everywhere to various degrees of power but whole ones are tricksy?
  
• Flashback Jenna: "Hey, I don't know what you went through in the N109 Zone..."
  
• oh BOY, have i got a story for you! and only some of it involves trivial details i might have noticed outside of being dragged across a floor and sexily choked by a really hot mafia boss who is probably not in the least human.
  

ALSO: random aside because Xavier is sleeping on a table in the coffee shop -- why DOES Xavier have to sleep so much? although its fucking adorable and slightly heartbreaking when he mumbles  "..come home.. with me..{custom petname}"  another yet unexplained mystery no doubt buried in a card i don't have yet

SPECIAL OPERATION

• well, THIS is new! an envelope mission instead of the usual banner. let's click it and see!
  
• no jammies and tea first. THEN we click it.
  

• oh. Choose Your Own Adventure! I LIKE IT!
  1. Investigate crystal shard of the monster
  2. Investigate high profile, suspicious tycoon
  3. Pursue the Wanderer causing 'disappearances'
  
• i don't care about tycoons if they're not Sylus, i deal with Wanderers for my day job - lets to investigate crystal shards for clues
  
• oh, this opens a completely new story set. I LIKE IT!
  
• oh, these have to be themed or centered around the first three boyfriends - Land of Secret Flames and the backdrop is a big lagoon / fjord thing? gotta be Rafayel!
  
• changing my mind, if this has anything to do with Raf, we're doing that one first.
  
• i am psycho... psychic! MO ART STUDIOS my beloved third.. fourth hangout spot. hello, boyfriend #2, are you here?
  
•  i'm apparently after Maxwell, person extraordinaire yadda yadda.. exceptional jewelry appraisal skills...  hey, i got this crow brooch from somewhere that its best you don't know about. could you give me a rough number on it, particularly if i had to sell it quickly under un-ideal circumstances for fast cash? oh, no reason. just a girl trying to figure out her options.
  
• oh, he's having a wedding anniversary soon? private island. wealthy celebrities. nice. who do i know that is a wealthy celebrity who might get invited to a private island? and who leaves his gate half open all the time because who can be bothered to do anything else?
  
• in retrospect, maybe he really did need a bodyguard.
  
• in retro retrospect, ohhhhh no, i don't think so.
  
• oh god, i haven't seen Rafayel in so long! HI BOYFRIEND! i forgive you for abandoning me, it's okay.
  
• oh wow, aren't we dressed up for the ball! so many little buttons everywhere! did i come at a bad time?
  
• it would take me so many minutes to peel him out of that. so many lovely minutes.
  
• obsessing over fashion here... his cuffs are cut to expose a veritable swatch of flowing lace. superb. perfectly square knot in the collar tie. impeccable raised detailing in the fabric.
  
• you're going to throw me a concert? NOW?
  
• amado novio sirena, i am here to be your captive audience, no question.
  
• stop playing with your hair, you're perfect.
  
• ... what is he DOING? 
  
• he's... he's coached the seagulls to sing!?  bwahahahahah! oh AH-MAZING! you are the greatest, mi amigo, mi querida loca, i am in awe.
  
• i am an audacious audience, feeding the orchestra before they were finished.
  
• "the rare display of honesty and underlying assertiveness catches me off guard."  hello, glimpse of the real Rafayel, so nice to meet you, as it were.
  
• oh, that was good of me. asking him to tell me which things he's alluding to might need my attention more. direct me, sirena. give me a target.
  
• oookay. "breaking the shackles of time requires patience. haste makes waste." these last few chapters have been speedball after speedball.
  

[Coldsaturn]

- If your theories don't end up being right they should at least being put to good use and make a new story.

- Whether aether cores can autogenerate is something that I'm still piecing together, but I think yes, they can. Up until now we've been used to correlating them to Wanderers, but they can exists outside of them, in objects, people etc.

- "why DOES Xavier have to sleep so much?"
You'll find out! You can actually deduce it even now with the info you have. It's a very basic and logical answer, then they stack on top of it something about his lore, but the basics are pretty straightforward. He's not narcoleptic, if you were wondering lol

- Indeed those are three branches, each dedicated to one LI! You'll play them all in the end, so start with whichever you want.

- Rafayel's branch <3 Oh how I love it and how important it is.
It's not a problem you've already started it, but it's chronologically relevant if you watch Ebb and Flow first, unless you've already unlocked it (it's a Bond moment, it unlocks at affinity 55), because it happens before this branch. It's very short, just 30 minutes, but it establishes an important thing MC has to find out about Raf.
You can watch it here 


- "it would take me so many minutes to peel him out of that."
I cackled. That, or a violent tug to send them all flying

- "he's... he's coached the seagulls to sing!?"
People don't talk about this nearly enough, this guy is a Disney prince and straight up talks to several animals.

[ChicletPrime]

- If your theories don't end up being right they should at least being put to good use and make a new story. 
Your lips to my limp creative drive.

- "why DOES Xavier have to sleep so much?"
You'll find out! You can actually deduce it even now with the info you have. It's a very basic and logical answer, then they stack on top of it something about his lore, but the basics are pretty straightforward. He's not narcoleptic, if you were wondering lol

He's old as balls and needs to rest all the time like a grandpa?

Ebb and Flow ahoy it is! I don't have this unlocked yet, Rafe is sitting around 45 affinity or thereabouts, Zayne just dinged 50, Sylus sucking the hind teat and Caleb nary a twinkle on the horizon. I can.. probably watch this while I'm at work.
/eyeballs the parking lot, sees no customers, goes for it.

also: " It's very short, just 30 minutes..."   what have you got queued up for me where this qualifies as "short"?!

EDIT: SO NOT SAFE FOR WORK
/checks parking lot again. eeeeee.

[Coldsaturn]

Lol fair. He is old as balls after all, and there certainly are side effects to being so far from Philos for so long. But the most direct link is that he's always sleepy because he does things that tire him out.

Short compared to other Memoria that are close to an hour long! I was not kidding when I said you will have to organize movie nights.

Fhjsdjhdakjdhs I don't consider ebb and flow nsfw because this damn game has kicked the standard all the way to the left, but my mind is flashing me Raf taking MC's hand and slowly dragging it down his chest lmaooo
I'll do better next time and warn you

[ChicletPrime]

/grabs YOUR hand and stares earnestly into your eyes.

please DO NOT warn me, good gravy. i would like to be kicked into overdrive out of nowhere, like god and whoever wrote and animated this intended. Rafayel's voice is just.. something else, holy shit.

But the most direct link is that he's always sleepy because he does things that tire him out.

please say that "things" is codespeak for "me".

[Coldsaturn]

LOL
absolutely fine by me, just keep a little alarm in the back of your mind whenever you're about to see or hear something from LADS while you're in public. You never know how or when or if things will suddenly escalate

I'm once again asking for Raf's eng VA to get a raise and an award. The range he has!

"please say that "things" is codespeak for "me""
asdfghjkl I sure hope so!