10. Their most defining moment vs your favorite one of them
Oooh that one’s tricky. Mostly because Jay has so many goddamn moments and exists in every AU ever. For the purposes of this question, though, I’ll look at strictly canon Usher!Jay and Cyrin!Jay.
For Usher!Jay, most defining moment is probably… mm, either a choice he is yet to make regarding the ‘pocalypse and the circumstances surrounding it, or… dammit man all his good defining moments haven’t happened yet. Bro’s still developing his character. One of my favourite moments though is probably the conversation on the roof of Castor’s apartment building. It was a fun little examination of Jay’s values and conflicts between his wants. For now, I would also call it a somewhat defining moment, too, as it marked his decision not to go to the Circus forever in order to keep himself ‘safe’.
For Cyrin!Jay, a big one would be when he makes the choice to help rather than hide. Up until a certain point, he might have been able to run, to keep his life separate from the whole mess that he stumbles into; his existence is still known now by several factions but not the most dangerous ones. By helping, he puts himself on the radar of the latter, but it also represents a shift out of trusting the propaganda. Being somewhat vague here because you don’t know the details of that plotline aha and I want this to be at least someone comprehensible.
Modern symbol of the Resistance; inspired by imagery of Cana, a rather controversial choice.
[ID: a sketchy silhouette image of the head and neck of a snarling wolf. The shape is made up of monochrome swirls, some stretching down from its eye. The shape of a broken crown overlaid upon a sun floats between its open jaws. End ID.]
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Been a hot minute since I made a massive loredump post so I figured it was Time, and also I kind of went insane in @v0idspeak's dms after watching far too many character analysis videos. Ahem. Anyway-
Before I start, if any part of this makes you ask "hey wind, wtf are you talking about? Corynen? Cyrin? Protusol? What are you on and can I have some?", I direct you towards this tag, in particular the following posts:
- General Overview
- Protusol (+ Corynen briefly)
- Cyrinism
All set? Okay, cool. Without further ado, on to the convoluted lore! My favourite!
PRE-MODERN ERA
The roots of the anti-Corynen resistance reach back further than their current leader's birth, and even before the Corynen's founding itself. Originally it was a movement against the current Havel government's participation in the Panta-Kirata war, which settled a little once Tornis came onto the scene and began making concerted efforts towards peace. His presidential campaign was heavily supported by the then-Resistance, and he came into power on an overwhelming popular vote. When he did indeed fulfill his campaign promise of peace and healing, the Resistance largely simmered down into nothing, save for a few surges here and there in the peak of scandals and rumours surrounding Protusol and its projects.
This brings us to roughly a decade before the modern day. Myrus and Santos, the famous treaty-born twins and Tornis' symbols of progress and peace, were beginning to grow disillusioned with their father's plans. This was before the ethics overhaul within Protusol, and Cyrin research subjects were still experiencing some pretty... questionable treatment. In Tornis' eyes, it was all in the name of science and common good, but his now late-teenage children saw it differently. They released a public statement about the conditions within the labs, before leaving together and going into hiding in the aftermath.
Their statement resulted in an absolute PR NIGHTMARE, as you'd expect. Unfortunately for Tornis, his future PR guy was still his barely-out-of-preteens son, who, yes, had been groomed as his successor for several years now, but wasn't quite in a position to deal with this mess quite yet. Instead, Tornis swept it under the rug within days through several deals with other young factions such as FEI, which spurred many of their current deals and partnerships. The press conferences and promises to overhaul Protusol's ethics protocols was enough to largely placate the public, but the twins were left cut off from their family and former resources and stirring with anger at their father's hasty cover-up of everything surrounding their disappearance.
Their initial partnership was a joint one; they both came upon the sputtering embers of the post-war Resistance, and set about stirring them aflame once again. However, this partnership was not meant to last. It didn't take long for a rift to appear between the duo, as they quickly found themselves with very different ideas of what shape a rebellion against the Corynen should take. They fought, first with words, then physically. Myrus easily overpowered her brother, but refused to kill him; she did not share his worldview of violence and death being the only catalyst for change, and left him to run or rot, whichever happened first.
Santos did neither. He didn't need his sister to get what he wanted. Instead, he quickly rose to become the leader of the Resistance, and a prominent figure in Havel's (and particularly the capital Misan's) criminal underbelly. Myrus, meanwhile, faded into the shadows, focusing on her own smaller-scale operations and trying to do what she saw as true good rather than Santos' view of 'the ends justify the means'.
She gained a following of her own, largely due to being a genuinely kind person at her core, despite (or perhaps because of) her willingness to fight for those under her care and general take-no-shit attitude. She truly wants the best for those around her- and in a way, so does her brother, but Santos is far more willing to inflict suffering to those he sees as less important to the cause in order to benefit the rest. He caters in particular to those who wish to feel significant, who want to make large, violent, immediate change. Myrus wants to stop her peoples' suffering- Santos wants to free them from those who have caused it, at any cost. The difference is subtle, but the ripples are massive.
Santos' initial methods essentially involve stirring up shit; great big displays of pushback and power. However, he learns quickly that being obvious about it gets you kicked back down VERY hard, and he becomes more subtle, executing plans more carefully, and from more of a distance. It's effective- but it's not what those within his organization want, creating a very politically unstable situation where Santos is forced to be constantly putting out fires while maintaining his illusion of poise and control, ironically making it much more difficult to get anything else done.
-- -- --
PRESENT DAY
However, overall, the Resistance works. They raise awareness, place Cyrin children in foster homes, and make massive strides against Cyrin trafficking and illegal metastabilizer* and biorase-derivative drug manufacturing. Well. Ahem. Rather, they take control of the manufacturing themselves for a massive profit and greater control of the island and underground, but shh, we don't talk about that one. They're doing good! They're helping! And if it means a little questionable things here and there, well, that's just the price of attaining their final benevolent goals! Right?
*metastabilizers: specialized drugs intended for stabilizing Cyrin metamorphosis, developed by the Corynen and vital in their treatment of such. Often illegally used in conjunction with equally illegal biorase-derived drugs to lessen their lethality and deteriorative effects on the human body.
Naturally, when the Summit comes into play, Santos immediately sees it as the opportunity it is- a change for one massive play, a game of sabotage and large-scale destruction with the end goal of dissolution of the other factions and a power vacuum to insert himself and Myrus into. He's convinced himself that he can get Myrus to see reason and join him, once she sees the results of his methods. They both want the same things, after all. The ends will always justify the means.
The greatest threat to him is ultimately Kyano, but he underestimates him, seeing him as someone who could be tempted by a place of power at his side and generally controlled and reasoned with. Besides, if that fails, he could always get him out of the picture too!
Throughout his meetings with the other factions, he keeps his plans concealed, searching instead for information and indications of those who could be swayed to his side. He's thinking ahead- he can't run a country alone, and will need administration, allies. FEI suspects him of planning something, but the Resistance is such a political dumpster fire beneath the surface that they keep getting misleading information, and can never quite get the details for what he may be planning.
That doesn't stop them from deploying some... contingencies, of course. One can never be too careful.
Ultimately, Santos and the Resistance have good intentions; but they run into the issue that through making such an incredibly bold and violent move against the Corynen, with so many innocents caught in the crossfire, they've changed themselves (and ultimately, Cyrin) in the public's eyes from innocent victims fighting for freedom from oppression to monsters who are a threat to the public and must be wiped out for the greater good. Santos is so blinded by what he's seen, so furious (and largely rightfully so), that he fails to see that he's become his father.
The ends justify the means.
Isn't that what Tornis always said?
-- -- --
That's all I've got for now! Please please please send @v0idspeak or I any questions you have about this! If anyone asks, I'll be happy to elaborate on any events or references in this post, as well as talk about how the Resistance took on Cana as a symbol- something rather revolutionary, if you'll pardon the pun.
Want more? Check out the #storystuff tag for even more rambles and lore! Or send an ask! Do both!!
Hi hi hello oh gods you have NO idea how enthusiastic I am to share the brainworms that have infested me for the past six years
Fun facts, you say? Hm, that implies they have to be fun, so I suppose my essay on how the environment the pov culture developed in influenced their culture and mythology and superstitions even into the more secular modern day will have to wait. I'll get back to you on that one (please ask me about this I am frothing at the mouth going insane-)
Ahem. Anyway. Here we go:
The base concept is that there's a certain subset of humans that are born with the genetic potential to develop abilities! This is a recessive trait with far too much detail on the genetics front because genetics fixation? Aha what's that? In any case, these people are referred to as Cyrin!
These abilities can develop at any point in their lives- from the moment of birth to the golden years of old age. However, it is usually triggered by a period of high stress accompanied by an adrenaline response, and thus usually develops somewhere between preteen and late teenagehood, because school is hella stressful and so is Being A Teenager. Hormones have a little to do with it, but moreso that they facilitate the higher stress levels rather than trigger ability development (coloquially referred to as the Change, but in a scientific setting is called Metamorphosis)
Metamorphosis is, biologically, a massive spike of a hormone called Metamorphase (creative, I know), but colloquially shortened to the sort-of correct Biorase (which is, technically, the name for it after it's been extracted and processed. Which I will get to.) that a) triggers one's abilities and b) triggers the bodily changes to accommodate said abilities. It's a little like really horrible puberty that lasts about a week and can happen at any time in your life and has a high chance of Killing You, Actually
Metamorphosis, for a long time, was pretty lethal. Certain abilities' development is easier on the body, and so Cyrin with those abilities were vastly more common due to, well, Not Dying. Symptoms vary depending on the ability, but usually involve an extremely high fever, widespread autoimmune response against new tissue growth, severe migraines and occasionally swelling around the brain, dizziness, and severe nausea and digestive upset.
Modern medical advancements helped bring the death rate way down! But! In the process, they figured out what Metamorphase really is, and now it's... really valuable. Oops.
On the plus side, it's now in the government's best interest to keep all their Cyrin alive! The downside, however, is that all Cyrin basically have liquid gold in their veins that Everyone Wants.
Essentially, it's a catalyst of sorts that allows for widespread fine control over a body's cell growth, with the bonus ability to do fine pre-programmed adjustments to an organism's DNA and encourage the spread and growth of those modified cells. Useful for developing certain traits that allow a Cyrin to survive high temperatures or control flames with minimal skin damage- also very useful for a hell of a lot of medical applications. And it has proved almost impossible to synthesise. Oh dear.
Fast forward a couple decades, and here we have Protusol Labs, a government-run laboratory that the president sort-of heads and spends most of his time in because he doesn't really like being president that much. His son can handle the politics side of things for him! It's fine! This will have no lasting consequences!
Anyway one of Protusol's primary projects is Project Biomorph, aka, using Biorase (extracted and processed Metamorphase) to test directly on humans and Cyrin for applications of eliminating organ and limb rejection in transplants, and diagnosing and treating genetic disorders in developing embryos. The methods are questionable, but they do have good intentions. Mostly. Some of it is just 'fuck around and find out' and boy are they.
Each project is designated its own ID string! Because we love granular organization systems in this house yes we DO
One project, the one nominally testing limb and organ rejection, has the subject ID as follows: PB-GM-G(gen#)-M(mark#)
PB - Project Biomorph; GM - Grafted Metamorph; G - subject generation; M - mark, aka subject number within that generation, chronological.
One of our POVs, Aaron, is one of the GMs- one of the first, actually. He's also the president's son. This has absolutely no lasting consequences I assure you.
There's also another project, with the following ID: PB-CMW-G(gen#)-M(mark#)
CMW stands for Chimera Metamorph - Winged.
I wonder what that could be :)
Oh yeah there's also a guy who was designed and raised to be basically a fully biological android with no free will who follows orders unquestionably but his project was declared a failure when he imprinted on one of the scientist's kids as a toddler and developed free will and full sentience out of the power of We're Best Friends Now. He's fine don't worry about him there's absolutely no lasting consequences there either. None at all!
Said scientist's kid is an absolute ray of sunshine even as an adult now. Aaron fucking hates him. Their dynamic is glorious.
Hmm I think I might have lost track of the whole 'fun fact' format of this. Oh well.
I'll stop there before this gets stupid long because that's mostly just the stuff revolving around One Of The POVs. There's three others. Help.
Feel free to ask any follow-up questions, or poke me about other POVs or lore things or- anything, really. I can ramble about this story for hours. Clearly. Thanks for asking!!
Was going to roll a dice and pick one POV, but you know what? Let’s do one from each. Full paragraphs for whichever contained the word, because it’s more fun that way :)
1: Thatcher
“Real bad,” Thatcher agreed. “She found a stray while I was gone. Doesn’t even speak, just… sits there, staring blankly at everything. I don’t think anyone knows what’s wrong with the kid. Cors might be after him for all we know.”
—
2: Amber
“Mommy! I found a dead body in the bushes!” Kia chirped, patting happily at the body’s lax and pale face. “Don’t think he’s all the way dead, though. Can we keep him?”
—
3: Jay
Once, however, soon after Jay had been taken in, he’d found his once-cousin, now-brother in his room, hunched over an old photograph. Jay had been eight, and hadn’t fully processed what had happened yet; he’d known that something was terribly wrong, and that his parents had never picked him up from school a few days ago, and that his uncle Cas was going to be taking care of him for a while, but little else. So it had been a uniquely distressing experience when he’d stumbled into Zane’s bedroom, only to encounter shaking shoulders and muffled sobs.
—
4: Aaron
“Oh, yes it is,” Tornis said with barely-contained febrility. “I had my reservations, at first- so many attempts had failed, but it seems we’ve finally found a set of parameters to allow for the temporary integration of Biorase in non-Cyrin individuals. Well, mostly-harmless integration- it is a potent substance, as you well know.”
