#haunted skyblock

god. i'm still reeling from this and i'm not sure where to start. i've got a lot of things to cover and all of them damage me emotionally. holy hell.

Viking's been hinting at doing something with Wanderer for a bit now (and Rubyco confirmed on stream today that they've had this in the works for A While), so we knew something was going on. this got me thinking about Wanderer, and i remembered when Ruby made "is that a Rubyco reference?!" jokes when seeing Wanderer's clock (because, y'know, clock and compass). Wanderer had the clock as part of his design before Viking met Ruby, and therefore before their shared lore was established, but my little angst gremlin brain went "what if it was a Rubyco reference".

so i drew something. ...and Viking commented on it.

and now we have a video of Wanderer visiting Ruby's grave.

BUT, AS ALWAYS, THAT IS ONLY ONE PART OF THE PUZZLE.

because, obviously, the SBK Community Discord catches fire. and when SBKCD catches fire, Viking and Ruby are there to fan the flames.

(as a side note, Avid has mentioned the OSSHA arc is ending soon, and Viking has reacted with in-character confusion when the other Vikings are brought up in the discord.)

first theory: wait, is this Cherruby? the grave's in a cherry grove after all, Cherruby was from somewhere else before crashing into the Kingdoms, and he's mentioned that he misses his family. if Wanderer couldn't find them after the storm, he might assume they're dead when they're still out there--

oh, right. plus we still don't know what's up with Cherruby and hir opinions of Viking-- if ze has a counterpart Viking, then bringing up that she was told to not trust Summertime (or Viking in general, maybe?) is weird. the whole situation is weird. Cherruby what is your deal

...anyway, this means that, yeah, Wanderer's Ruby is probably dead.

second theory: wait, is this how Skyblock happened? after all, isn't it bad if a Ruby or a Viking that's part of a matched pair dies? i mentioned it in my explainer post of the spacetime siblings, but it's been mentioned in Twitch SMP that if they die, things cease to exist:

Sapphire: Hm! Death. The end. If you die, or if I die… Navigator: But you know what the end looks like? Sapphire: …things cease to exist. So. Death isn’t really… the best option.

we now know that Wanderer... had a Ruby, but if ze's dead then either they weren't doing the whole spacetime thing or things did cease to exist. after all, we don't really get a good look at the area besides it being maybe on a hilltop, and the two series Wanderer's been in have been a) post-apocalyptic and b) Skyblock. which is also assumedly sorta post-apocalyptic seeing as it's in the year 9600 and crosses over with Avid Adventures.

somewhere in the middle of that theorycrafting, Ruby said this:

...and we don't know what that means. it was after arya-saphira asking about how the "they're only demigods sometimes" thing worked, but that's still pretty vague. also, uh, this Ruby appears to be kicking enough to be able to leave ominous messages in the discord, so. maybe there's a ghost situation going on?