#bery blithers

Day - 30 hours

Unit - 425 days

Eleven units - ≈ 140,256

Honestly I'm proud of this one. It's easily my favourite insofar. It also had the fewest drafts, totalling at three! The usual number is between four and infinity, so, you know! :)

But also, I was very much inspired by the sound page where we see Echidna, in all of her glory as she speaks with Kanaya (Page 7,635), and it's just... breathtaking. Echidna is so very... elegant, in her way.

I often think about the earlier scene where both Calliopes' interact with each other, and Calliope shares her story with Calliope. Calliope shares how she'd managed predomination, how truly rigged their session was, and lastly, her interaction with Echidna.

The exchange with Echidna was very straightforward: Echidna offered Calliope The Choice, which appeared to be the option to either stay in this session and try to win, or abandon this timeline altogether and "win" the game in a different manner. Calliope chooses the latter, and is killed by Echidna. Her task from there is simple: She must wait for a signal, in the form of Calliope's appearance in the dream bubble. Once the signal is given, it is time for Calliope to act.

With this song, I really wanted to express the broad majesty of Echidna, with the pedal pressed for the entire song, and low notes conveying a sort of power. The higher octaves are used to add a sharpness to the repeating melody, like a needle.

The break from that status quo is almost a disturbance, but it all fits in so smoothly it's as though it was never there to begin with. This session, this timeline—it was never meant to be. Both Echidna and Calliope are aware of this.

A Choice is given, with two options—but the answer was already there. It isn't a hard decision, nor a slow one, and is already finished before the game can even properly doom it's Player.

The choice, chosen, and the Muse of Space is killed, sent to wait in a vast and secluded dream bubble. The status quo returns to Echidna's lair, but the session falls apart without a player.

So there's a few things that pile into this silly little song. This silly thing. Silly. Silly.

The beginning is an F major scale, then the final notes are shifted a half step each iteration (×2 iterations, three runs total). I wanted a scale to reflect the sort of... Calculated and precise nature she gives off. A scale is simple, yet necessary to be a good musician. You use them to practice, to tune, to warm up... they're paramount to any form of success in playing or singing. It seemed fitting for her to say the least :0

Anyways I also frequent the notes G, Bb, Eb, D, and F. These notes are funny. You may recognize these notes in another format and arrangement as the cascading piano portion most noticable in the beginning of Flare. I believe they are ALSO present in Three in the Morning.

So why is this a thing? Well it's to sort of tie in the void and space together. You've got one use of these notes to represent the literal embodiment of a universe, and another one used when detonating a bomb that creates none other than the Green Sun. The green sun is also in heavy relation to her, and the green sun is tied, often, to two themes: Flare, and [Other portion of the title]/Green Sun (Dark Rose, Black Hole, etc).

Then there are several points where I simply disobey the key signature because I can, should, and will, and then I DID.

I also have a few points with slow notes, almost taking up an entire measure, with the pedal pressed. It echoes, then falls silent. Sound carries infinitely and finitely in a void relative to space, especially with oneself being the only inhabitant of a vast dream bubble.

That little cascading down bit is fun to me, because I don't know about anyone else but I feel myself being pressed down when I listen to something like that. Almost crushing, suffocating. But in a good way! There's just something... impending, erm, just- like being under a weighted blanket. It's soothing, yet the pressure is there.

Due to the sun getting older and gravity shifting, the orbit of their earth has gotten much closer to the sun! About 40% closer, harle did the math because he's cool like that. Since their sun is also almost dead (the supposed ideal nesting conditions, according to Aranea) it can ALSO be said that the luminosity has increased quite a bit—the luminosity of the cherub earth sun is ABOUT 5.88792415E+45 (5.88792415×10^45 being the form without scientific notation). My math could easily be wrong, as I am a sixteen-year-old girl who spent a few hours on google and with a notebook trying to crack that.

Anyhoo, this is all to say: Earth is closer to the sun by quite a bit, thusly reducing the time it takes to make a full revolution. The orbit is likely to have also changed slightly, but I haven't taken the time to calculate that because we simply don't have enough information. Their sun is also brighter, making the temperature of the planet's surface a LOT hotter and colder. Like hundreds and negatives, hot and cold. Big time difference. I'm gonna try to figure out those numbers later!! :)

So okay. Why's THAT matter? I've already told you how long a unit is, why is Bery still talking? Is it some convoluted scheme to tell you about her obscene amount of math? Maybe. No, ahah- there's a point to all of this.

Namely that Calliope would have noticed how human years are different and commented on it. And then would tell Caliborn about it, noting the differences between their time and the humans' times. They're different enough to not be a separate time zone, and this also seems to be one of the conversations Caliborn cares about! And maybe he even gets around to proposing to organize their OWN form of time. It would be interesting if the actual creation of the "unit" was Caliborn, as he IS the Lord of Time.

That's what I've got on units so far. They don't make much sense by themselves, as there is no indicator of any sort of time being tracked ok their devices aside from the possible alternian/human times. The alternian and human times aren't related at ALL to cal and Callie and aren't accurate measurements in the slightest, due to their sun being, well, itself. It also wouldn't make sense for it to be an all-cherub thing, due to their asocial nature and differing times and the likes. Every planet is different, after all! :)

If it weren't for the fact that they're ASOCIAL, it would make a lot of sense for the term "unit" to be used interchangeably for ANY measurement of time, but it simply wouldn't make sense.

This is my take on how units could have been made by these two! There isn't exactly a lot to work with (glares angrily @ hussie) but I think I've made it work!

bery here

i like callieohpee and made a playlist for them

B o o m.