#meta analysis stuff

the discord jumps on checking Leon's namemc and get a better look at his tattered skin:

(^ courtesy of Aces! also this, which is not relevant but makes me laugh):

what with the end of the season on the horizon, the telescope, and Leon's physical state, we jumped straight to Moon Big jokes. then, another teaser:

what's it?

oh, frig, the Stronghold book. remember that thing?

fun fact: in an Avid stream i don't have energy to track down the clip of (7/18/24), he mentioned he was the one that wrote it OOC. i don't remember what else he said about it, but it's still around and is being kept at spawn. neat.

then Leon's premiere goes up and Rex notices something in the description.

out-of-body experience?

finally, the premiere itself.

One chilly, rainy evening. I had just finished admiring my pile of diamond tools. Before calling it a night, I decided to head upstairs and sit by the fire for a while. Rest the bones, warm the feathers, yaknow. When all of a sudden... A gust of wind, a burst of flame! Then, nothing. I blacked out.

[phantom screech] One quick thing before I go--

This wasn't like with the chorus fruit. This was very, very different. When I came to, I had this feeling of dread, of- of fear and- and paranoia, that I just couldn't shake. Constantly in my mind, constantly, I couldn't stop thinking: Something out there is.. watching.

and then his speech at the end.

I know you're out there. Fool me twice, shame on me, I'm not falling for this again! You got me before, but this time I'm standing my ground. I love this world and the people in it, and I swear on every fiber of my being you are not going to take this from me! He's out there, and I know it.

so.. not only is Leon being watched, but it's something he has history with.

[legundo voice] WELL THAT'S OMINOUS.

wait, hey, that's a fun transition. speaking of Legundo...

let's take a quick detour into the series Leon was in before SBK, UHC Generations. the core concept is that you're in ultra hardcore (so no natural regeneration), but when you die you pass the world on to someone else. Leon was the third generation, and after over half a year of owning the world he decided to end the series on his own terms, intentionally fell to his death, and passed it on to Josh CodeNeon. Josh later died himself and passed it onto Legundo, but not before building a little spot around a campfire where he was able to summon the ghosts of previous generations to talk to them.

cut to last month and Legundo's episode 5, "I Need To Fix This...", where he decides he needs to build a gold farm. one of Leon's big contribution to UHCG was redstone farms, so Legundo summoned his spirit for a quick chat as he showed off his idea on how to get the farm to work. there's some fun things from their conversation, though:

Legundo: How’s unexistence? Leon: Aw man, it’s a lot of void. I’ve missed this place Legundo: Some firm ground underneath your feet, nice memory Leon: It’s lovely, I haven’t felt the warmth of a campfire in a while, yeah

[Leon gets attacked by phantoms.] Legundo: Oh no, they don’t like that you're back Leon: Oh no, oh no, my ghost body is being eaten by phantoms Phantoms: [screech]

and, most importantly...

Leon: Ok, ok, well, you know on that note, one quick thing before I go, just uh, wanted to let you know. Legundo: Yea [zooms in on Leon’s face.] Leon: Will is coming.

(transcription by ComposerNicholas, just edited for formatting)

an out-of-body experience, huh?

One quick thing before I go.

Legundo called Leon back to UHC Generations while Leon was on Skyblock Kingdoms. Leon passed out on SBK, helped Legs out on UHCG, gave Legs a warning, and then woke up on SBK with sudden paranoia.

and we're still not done! because at the end of Leon's SBK episode, we get this:

(image brightened for visibility, sorry about the artifacting)

and ComposerNicholas pointed out that Leon's first UHCG episode has this in the intro:

in his UHCG finale, Leon describes the flashes of alternate realities and glitches he's been subjected to as the world nudging him to move on. it's tired of him, it needs new blood and to grow and change with fresh faces and new ideas. so it's time for Leon to go. Legundo himself later mentions "the will of the world"-- the world is as alive as the people that make it.

Legundo's episode ends on him giving himself a timer. either he dies before the timer ends, or he follows in Leon's footsteps and dies on his own terms to pass the world on. after all, he'd pretty much found a way to eliminate all risk of ultra hardcore, and Leon had reminded him what the true point of UHCG was. he can't stay here forever. as the generations say: death is inevitable.

..in ultra hardcore, anyway. not so much in Skyblock Kingdoms, no matter what the thing watching Leon wants him to think.

You got me before, but this time I'm standing my ground. I love this world and the people in it, and I swear on every fiber of my being you are not going to take this from me!

to try and wrap this up, here's some more words from Leon as we go further into insanity:

anyway, this is what i've been able to scrape together so far. as usual, im just able to collect the pieces and maybe tape some of them together. we got a very brief Nukeri in Viking's episode the same day as Leon's, and now we've.. i dunno, got hints about Legundo? but the more focal thing seems to be that the UHCG world may have convinced Leon to pass it on, but that doesn't mean he's free of it. part of him is always going to be there, in the memorials and by the campfire.

oh yeah also quillbee did a video where he rebuilt founder's town from memory and invited leon on to help

the one that came up a few times is that their armor has new names! their elytra is back to being Lightning Rod (Rue misplaced it for a while), but the sillier names its armor had, and Rue's work uniform, is now Past, Never, Present, and Future.

there was also a comment made about how she was using very specific colors to trim them with. Past, the helmet, is blue. Present, the pants, is purple. Future, the boots, are red. and Never is untrimmed on suggestion from chat, but was going to be either black or white.

sighs. opens Clocktower transcript.

Sapphire: It’s the… past. The future. The now… and the never. Four concepts of time! Just like the four directions. North, south, east, and west. You should know, don’t you.

once again: Cherruby's getting put in the time blender. that's been noted for a while now, but now that he's awake again we're getting more confirmation on it.

there was also a couple other things! Anathra showed Ruby and Doovid around Icekea's break room, and Ruby paid a lot of attention to the clock and compass on display for decoration purposes. especially the clock. normal Ruby behavior at this point tbh, but worth taking note of.

what isn't Ruby behavior is... whatever happened between them and Dr. Tube when they briefly showed up to stop Ruby and Doovid from clowning around in Acacia. first we get Ruby staring at them and saying they remind her of someone-- this could be the whole clone thing, but Ruby immediately in-character clocked them as being Tube, not Trog, and being mysterious about them reminding her of Trog would be weird considering they're both very aware of each other by now.

after fae leaves is when we get the part i don't know what to do with yet besides gesture at it.

Bye Tube! Much love! Ah... Never gonna say b- uh, got to say bye to my own Tube. Hm.

look. Cherruby has been weird ever since che got untubed. there's whatever happened with Endbyco on Avid's stream (link includes the convo abt Sapphire but not Endbyco being sus about "normal kingdom behavior"), there's whatever happened with cher and Yellow in Viking's episode, and now there's this entire interaction with Dr. Tube. Cherruby being weird is very "fork found in kitchen" at this point but, man, what is going on.

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?

first off it sounds very similar to Through the Void while still being its own song and i love that. this is probably a case of him having a saturday morning cartoon opening again like he did with Skyblock Kingdoms and i am so excited for that

cabin pressure nominal navigation optimal nebula's phenomenal just a year or two, that's all they say

Avid gets hired for some kind of space mission. he's not told what for, or basically anything about it, just that it's gonna take a year or two. but even with that lack of information, things are going well! i keep imagining Avid looking out the window all starry-eyed (heh) at getting to see sights he'd never get to experience if he hadn't been hired/signed up/however he got involved in this.

but something went wrong, a meteor storm anomaly onboard, you do not belong

and then things start falling apart. this is pretty straightforward: ship gets damaged, someone's here that's not supposed to be (solar and i immediately made among us jokes. sorry avid)

oxygen on low, one by one they fold now i'm on my own but i do not belong i do not belong

everyone dies except for Avid, who is somehow the only survivor.

the thing i'm thinking about here is like-- okay, last night i mentioned wondering if Avid was the anomaly responsible, that he sabotaged everything and is responsible for everyone's deaths. but

i took the only escape pod now hope's the only thing i've got

the way these lines are sung, and also "now hope's the only thing i've got", is making me lean in another direction. bc i think Avid didn't do it, or if he did he didn't do it on purpose. but he's the new guy, so when the ship gets damaged everyone is looking for someone to blame and they settle on Avid. he's the anomaly in the sense of being the less-experienced newcomer, so clearly if he wasn't there then things wouldn'tve gone wrong

but he's the only one that survives. and he internalizes that ("you do not belong" -> "but i do not belong") because survivor's guilt-- he's not supposed to be here, and maybe if he wasn't there then nobody would've died.

Avid flees. now he's lost in space hoping that he won't die out here too.

okay hold on lemme get a clip. right before this Ruby says "Yeah, if I could- I- I'm currently very much so, um, suppressing something, can I just- Can I- Can I--"

and then:

Ruby: [relieved sigh] That's... That's a lot better. Um. Acorn: Ohh~! Anathra: Oh. Oh! Ruby: I've- I've spent enough time here to kind of, ah... Anathra: This is... Acorn: You look so warm and cozy~! Ruby: [laughs] Thanks! Anathra: You... Ruby: Um. This kinda form just keeps me immune from cold, I guess. Um. I- I don't know why, um, that's just something that my family and I always did that wherever we went, um, we would just acclimate to everything, hence why, um, you might've seen me as a monkey or a- or a witch at some point, that's all just... Anathra: Uh-huh. Ruby: Ah, to kind of, y'know, uh. Anathra: Is that like why you were... having an issue with water? Ruby: Yeah! With the End Kingdom, right? Right.

which, as usual, answers some questions and raises more because??? mimic Cherruby real!! and its a family thing? like, it's not just Cherruby. they just.. naturally acclimate to places. it can be pretty drastic in Ruby's case, as seen with her first transformation being monkeyification, and Endby especially becoming an enderman hybrid complete with water allergy.

we also don't know a lot abt Ruby's family outside of this and something they say later on in the same conversation about not being sure if their family even exists at this point. that's probably worthy of a post all on its own though.