Elio

Cale wasn’t aware at the time, but Clopeh had caught wind of the fact that the former temple of the Sealed God now technically belonged to Cale, since he’d taken control of the building as his “domain” with the Super Rock’s power while fighting to seal the God of Despair away for good. Clopeh had quietly spread word of this fact around the people of Puzzle City, and secretly advocated to maintain “Cale’s” new temple where it stood in the central plaza in front of the City Hall as a part of history—or rather, of legend.

Cale wouldn’t realize until much later that this belief in the temple being ‘his’ was the reason the citizens of Puzzle City had requested that the temple remain in place and not be dismantled or moved even as the rest of the city was repaired and restored from the damages of the final battle. If Cale had been aware of it at the time, he might well have smashed the damn thing from the start and left its stones to be made into new rock towers—or tossed into a random quarry, for all he cared.

But Cale hadn’t been aware of this, and now he had a temple. Which worked, apparently, because he was starting to hear prayers and receive strength from offerings.

Money was quickly discovered to be the most effective offering to Cale, followed closely by food. The offerings actually disappeared from the temple when they were placed on the main altar along with a sincere prayer, the food directly nourishing Cale (though never touching his weight because it ‘fed’ him differently than food he actually ate the normal way) while any money spontaneously showed up in Cale’s personal spatial bag, which was slowly becoming…not a normal spatial bag. Just like the objects Cale had used to Embrace the fake World Tree, the monster statues, and his later ancient powers were slowly changing and growing stronger; just like the Super Rock Villa and was slowly gaining a subtle shine and glow, its protection growing stronger as it became more capable of defending any who would reside in it, who Cale would want to keep safe and protected.

Cale is slowly becoming more like a god, but because of his unique method of ‘ascension’ he doesn’t have the normal limits of existing gods. He’s also able to answer prayers much more directly than most gods, even though he only addresses a small percentage of the prayers he receives (and tries very hard to do so in secret without anybody noticing when he does answer or address a prayer). He would ignore them all, but sometimes he feels…moved to act. To Answer. (Cale firmly—desperately—ignores the obvious implications of this.)

People start making pilgrimages to Cale’s temple in Puzzle City, and the city once abandoned by the gods slowly, quietly becomes the center of a new religion and a ‘holy city’ in its own right. (Rain City has a similar change, but not nearly as much as Puzzle City, which was the place of the final battle, the home of Cale’s true Temple, and uniquely free from any other gods.)

Cale is absolutely horrified to realize all of this, especially when it turns out that the especially ‘devout’ have started to develop divine powers like the priests of real gods—with no input from Cale, obviously, especially since the first and strongest ‘priest’ is none other than Clopeh Sekka.

They’d have to contact the SITE, which is to say, the Organization for Transformative Works, to deliver a C&D order or a DMCA takedown order.

And the OTW is not going to remove fics because someone sent a letter that says “actually those characters belong to me and you can’t use them that way.” The OTW was created to FIGHT that kind of claim. They are ready. 

Don’t delete your fics out of fear. WE OWN THE SERVERS. They can’t threaten the hosts into deleting anything.

Because this ain’t new! We used to live under this threat constantly. It’s part of the landscape AO3 and the OTW were born out of.

like, what other song can make that claim?

The crowd cheering after the first stanza when they realize what they’re all doing

So many people audibly ‘doing the guitar parts’… like ya do

The sheer number of voices joining the rediculous falsetto (thanks, Roger)

How they all start jumping at the ramp-up “so you think you can stomp me”

There’s good reason why, nearly fifty years after the height of their career, Queen is still considered one of the best bands of all time ever.

Okay. You’re back? Welcome back. Unless you’re a trained singer, you probably can’t do it. There are too many long notes, too many key changes, and too many places where–if you’re singing all the parts–you’re just up and down the scale too damned fast. I’m saying this as a trained singer and I can’t do it. I always crack on “magnifico” and “leave me to die,” and I have a pretty decent range, but I know I sound ugly as hell on that final coda.

Okay. Now that we’ve established that, I want to talk a little about singing as a chorus. One of the things a lot of people learned during the pandemic is how hard it is to take twenty people, all in different places, and stitch them together to make a single coherent song with perfect pitch and timing. You’re all practicing on slightly your own tempo, slightly your own key, even if you’re all working from the same base track. (You can see this in a lot of the Wellerman compilations from Tiktok, where someone always says “Soon” a moment before everyone else on “soon may the Wellerman come.”) When you have a chorus comprised of many smaller choruses that are all traveling to be together, this is what dress rehearsal is for–to get all of you onto the same tempo so you’re starting and finishing at exactly the same time. This is a thing that normally only happens after at least several days of practice, and it is an important skill that must be taught. You’re not just born knowing how to do this.

I do not know how many people at that Green Day concert were trained singers. But I do know there is no way in hell all few thousand of them were a single group–they showed up a few at a time, maybe even flying solo for the night. Now go and listen to the video again. Listen to the ends of verses and the pickups. They’re fucking crisp as hell. Everyone is starting and ending at the same place. Not even a single note off. (And yes, you can hear when it’s a single note off, even in a crowd that big. A handful of people would be enough to throw it off.) And while a few in the crowd may be off-key, so many more are on-key that the cumulative effect is of the song being on-key. This isn’t even the band they’re there to see.

They don’t just know this song, this technically-difficult song, this long and complex song by a completely different band. They know it perfectly. They know it down to the fucking note. They know it so well that they did it in perfect synchrony, without a single chance to practice.

One of the many things I look forward to in TCF part 2 is the much needed much anticipated meet up of JOO HOSHIK and CLOPEH SEKKA which will inevitably spark their own brand of holy war because:

“KIM ROK SOO IS BETTER THAN THAT CALE HENITUSE. KIM ROK SOO IS MY GOD! I HAVE FAITH IN HIM!”

“THE ONLY GOD HERE IS CALE-NIM! YOU SHALL NOT SLANDER HIS LEGEND!!”

One of the many things I look forward to in TCF part 2 is the much needed much anticipated meet up of JOO HOSHIK and CLOPEH SEKKA which will inevitably spark their own brand of holy war because:

“KIM ROK SOO IS BETTER THAN THAT CALE HENITUSE. KIM ROK SOO IS MY GOD! I HAVE FAITH IN HIM!”

“THE ONLY GOD HERE IS CALE-NIM! YOU SHALL NOT SLANDER HIS LEGEND!!”