is there LOVE in OUTER SPACE?

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$5 x 3 meals a day = $15

$15 -> cash conversion fee 45% (15 / 0.55) = $27.27

$27.27 for 3 days = $81.81

$81.81 -> paypal fee 32% (81.81 / 0.68) = $120.30

$120.30 -> ko-fi fee 5% (120.30 / 0.95) = $126.60

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I'll lead with what I was thinking based on my own first experiences, to whatever extent that I can separate it out neatly at this point. I think Phantom was created before the Citadel fell and Lace was created after. I don't think the two of them were ever intended to meet, so it isn't like Lace was raised around Phantom and then they were separated. Lace would have been created after, as an attempt for Grand Mother Silk to finally have her perfect daughter. I'm ignoring any implications around the Organ Sleepers, as cut content.

I wonder if they would be obviously perceived as divine? I definitely feel like Lace looks strange (in an "unnatural perfect" sense), and Phantom would have, once. Even bugs who didn't properly notice that would just kind of sense something off about them, but I don't know that they would have been perceived as divine. And I never really imagined either of them formally or intentionally interacting with Citadel bugs at large; I pictured them as sort of existing on the fringes. Encounters would have been fleeting and frightening and unwanted (on the bugs' part).

I don't think GMS would have needed any kind of intermediary or to try to win back worship directly, and the Citadel was keeping her trapped. If Phantom or Lace had tried to interact much directly (though this more applies to Phantom, before the Citadel fell), and were identified as what they were, I think the Conductors would have known enough to want to stop them, rather than welcoming them or offering them power. So I don't see either of them having been regarded as royal or divine or as much of anything by the Citadel bugs. They were, ultimately, unseen. So what were they meant to be, to GMS?

For me, the piece that I feel is missing regarding Phantom's situation is actually: why did they never leave? It could be just shame, possibly due to their appearance and/or some genuinely lingering over whatever it was that got them banished. It could be fear over what would happen if they tried to escape. I suppose it could have just been not wanting to fade - if they left their tank, even to seek death elsewhere, there was no guarantee they'd find anything, so it was better to stay with their tank in the organ, and hope someone would come to them.

(Maybe hoping that one day, Lace would come back and be able to grant their wish herself?)

Anyway, I just feel like knowing that would help me Make Up something more specific about what happened to them in the first place, and I think that it could be related to the kind of reception they would have had in the Citadel and what their role was.

Though they may have been some kind of outlaw? I feel like that fits further with the entire phantom thing - Phantom of the Organ when we see them, but once they were the Phantom of the Citadel, servant and saboteur of Grand Mother Silk, perhaps before she gave up and fully resigned herself to haunting. And then they were captured and pressed into the Citadel's service instead?? It wasn't that GMS was the one to banish them, but she did abandon them for their failure, and (presumably) they never showed their face outside of the organ again.

I had a discussion about this at one point, and in a scenario like this, whoever was in charge was able to identify Phantom as a child of GMS when they were captured, and gave them the tank because they had some sympathy for another child hurt by her (not Just to keep them at that post forever. Though there is that element), and they were deemed no longer a threat. Perhaps they used to be under watch or otherwise actively imprisoned, but eventually no one was left to do that.

For Lace... her knightly role initially felt to me like something she took on herself, to try to get her mother to look at her, to see her as a worthy daughter? GMS seems exacting and also like she'd get bored pretty easily. Possibly some of the Weavers' "advantage" was that there were more of them, so GMS wasn't just looking at one individual and getting tired of that one; she may have had a few favorites, instead, and switched who she was showing her favor to at any given time? Probably unfortunately for that Weaver.

So yeah... what was Lace supposed to be, if keeping the Citadel quiet wasn't actually her job, if she wasn't supposed to be a protector? Was she literally just supposed to dance and sing, the doll in the bed of flowers atop the music box? Was she just there to worship, or otherwise keep GMS entertained or lift her spirits? Not knight, not princess, but jester without the privilege... Frankly I feel like there should be more than that, but how many real parents absolutely have children basically to treat them like a dress up doll and get tired of them once they become people? GMS seems to have been very given to wallowing, so I think she could have done something like that and basically got bored of Lace and left her to her own devices (not even worth the effort for GMS to end, or - more likely I think - unwilling to truly let go of any of her creations)?

So Lace is "relieved" of her duties somehow. Goes down from the Cradle, wanders around the dying Citadel, alarms some bugs for sure but is perhaps perceived as another especially strange Haunted thing... Ultimately she meets Phantom.

And learning about Phantom and what they did, decides to try to follow in their footsteps... Sabotage what remains of the Citadel, silence the pilgrims... Please their mother, with or without Phantom's approval of this idea? Though I think they would have supported her and tried to help her, so that she could avoid their fate, and their advice was uh. Maybe not always good for either of them.

But no attempts to damage the Cogwork Core?? Was this some weird thing where GMS was unwilling to damage the Weavers' legacy? Not that they made the core, but their craft is sort of what led to it... I do think they made the First Architect at least. But then, if Lace wasn't really supposed to be a knight, and that was more her being left to herself, and she was perhaps starting to feel those stirrings of disloyalty... Maybe she would not, in fact, have tried too hard to wake her mother.

So after all that...

I have my doubts but hammering away at it is part of the fun <3

I'm increasingly agreed on both the siblings not truly having a place in Citadel society. Phantom in particular… being denied the ability to have a normal life, forced to live unseen in the margins… yeah that's just Thematically Correct for the reference, isn't it? Oh!! And Phantom as saboteur! Given OG book Phantom's backstory is that he was an servant/spy/executioner for a tyrant, it works. it works scary well actually.

Phantom being found out by the Citadel's bugs is also something I've been playing with myself. Basically, what I was envisioning is that Phantom was living a double life for a while. They'd been GMS's shadowy agent from the start, but after taking a mask they started getting bold about walking about openly in the Citadel's halls.

Then someone pulled off their mask in front of everyone. and oops. they don't have a face under that. In a single terrible moment they were both exposed to mortal bugs as a fake, and GMS was alerted to the fact that they had taken said mask. Cue the whole house of cards crashing down in spectacular fashion.

The aftermath though, and why Phantom didn't leave… that's still the frustrating/tantalizing missing piece for me too. My first impression was "oh there's no way GMS would allow mortal bugs to mess with one of her precious children" and so their banishment was entirely a punishment meted out by her. And yet, and yet, the Organ exists primarily for the benefit of the Citadel's mortal bugs, not Her…

Perhaps, it could be a dash of one, a pinch of the other? First GMS did her own thing, attempting to "fix" Phantom by breaking their connection to the mask, and probably other attempts to excise their independence too. But when her alterations failed to take, Phantom was deemed unsalvageable, and abandoned for Citadel bugs to capture and do with as they pleased. At which point all GMS cared about was that Phantom was locked up to stay somewhere out of her sight while she wallowed in grief over losing yet another child to betrayal.

How many Citadel bugs were left at this point is another big question for me. For the extra drama, I use Phantom's downfall as the trigger for GMS to fully unleash the Haunting and to silence the Choral Chambers. Maybe this destruction was now in full swing, and Phantom was found by a group of survivors who would have preferred kill the hated saboteur, but they were in such desperate, dire straits to keep the Citadel's systems functioning that they put Phantom to work instead.

Hmm. Some promising angst potential. "This is all your fault!" + Phantom being too weak and shell shocked by their whole life collapsing so fast to resist. And then one survivor taking pity on them to allow them the small kindness of the tank. Aww. Though it still leaves the question of again, why doesn't Phantom just hit the bricks later? Especially when they stopped getting Silk from the Citadel. Hmmmmmm.

*continues rotating*

Very agreed on Lace's role as a knight and protector being something she took on herself! Again, it just feels thematically right. She was created to be frail and mad and childlike, it would make sense if all GMS ever expected of her is that she be a beautiful and helpless doll. "the doll in the bed of flowers atop the music box" <- this imagery!! One of those music boxes with a little ballerina that twirls atop as the music plays. Yeah, that's Lace and the Citadel.

…In that light, I wonder if Lace aspiring to be a knight at all was her first very small and subtle rebellion. She was meant to be something eternally protected not a protector. I don't think either she or GMS would have seen it as such but. it's certainly another way that Lace is far more than what she was created to be.

Although. "otherwise keep GMS entertained or lift her spirits" - I've occasionally thought of Lace's deepest psychology as being oddly akin to a comfort/therapy animal. She was spun to be attentive and loyal and soothing to another Higher Being's needs at a very fundamental level. Except, the Higher Being she's bound to ended up neglecting and ignoring her, so of course she's now tearing up the carpet and chewing the furniture.

Also it can't help that Lace is still Pale, technically. Good job, GMS, you created a being that's twisting itself into knots because it has conflicting instincts both to dominate and to serve.

…Hm. A knight is both a figure of power and strength but also a figure of loyalty and devotion. Another potential reason for her to gravitate toward it: she can satisfy both aspects of her nature. At least in theory.

"May those who accept their fate be granted happiness, may those who defy their fate be granted glory." - Always loved this Princess Tutu quote, and I think about a lot, when it comes to Lace. (And Hornet, it's really interesting to think about for Hornet too.)

Oh, I love the idea that following Phantom's footsteps is what led Lace to the idea of being a knight. "their advice was uh. Maybe not always good for either of them." <- my favorite dynamic for the siblings. They love each other and they're trying but sometimes they're both very bad for each other.

"But no attempts to damage the Cogwork Core??" Another thing I've wondered about too! I go back and forth between "the Core wasn't actually effective + what little effectiveness it did have has already been shut down" (it sure isn't singing when Hornet reaches the top…) and weirder ideas like "what if Lace can't actually do much about GMS's bindings because they would work on her if she tried?" (she keeps falling back asleep when we find her in the Cradle, after all…)

"Maybe she would not, in fact, have tried too hard to wake her mother." I mean. I don't think she was trying all that hard to kill Hornet either, so. Could very well be!

anyway, Does It Cohere? I think so. The foundations are plenty solid enough to build on!