sol & lilac post-Ragnarok

[2:20 AM] Leafia_Barrett: it occurs to me we haven't really discussed Lilac's reaction to Sol's condition post-Ragnarok
[2:21 AM] Leafia_Barrett: and a thing that comes to mind is this train of thought - "if her soul's barely there after all that, she can have part of mine"
[2:22 AM] Leafia_Barrett: I don't know how that would work functionally
[2:22 AM] Kiri: I mean... so far, the implication has been that since this is literally Skeletron's territory
[2:22 AM] Kiri: he takes the fact that she has not burned the part of her that loves Lilac as 'well she's clearly not dead yet, so I'm allowed to weave her soul back together'
[2:22 AM] Leafia_Barrett: ah
[2:23 AM] Kiri: since there's a lot of just.. pink, sparkly mess drifting in the air after that last attack
[2:23 AM] Leafia_Barrett: I wasn't sure how much he had fixed
[2:23 AM] Kiri: presumably 'enough that he can pull something together that means there is a Solacia to revive'
[2:23 AM] Kiri: the problem being that... you know.
[2:23 AM] Kiri: her body.
[2:23 AM] Leafia_Barrett: and mind
[2:24 AM] Leafia_Barrett: how much of a person's mind is their brain and how much is their soul? that's kind of an important question for this context
[2:26 AM] Kiri: I don't want to put words in Asz's mouth since this is still his thing but
[2:26 AM] Kiri: this largely only works suggesting the brain is just an organ that makes the body do the moves
[2:26 AM] Kiri: and the soul is where the person is
[2:26 AM] Leafia_Barrett: mm
[2:26 AM] Leafia_Barrett: fair
[2:27 AM] Leafia_Barrett: how bad is the damage going to be when she first wakes up? like, is she still going to know how to speak?
[2:28 AM] Leafia_Barrett: a neat thing about the brain is that given enough time, it can adapt existing parts of itself to take some of the functions of damaged or missing parts
[2:28 AM] Leafia_Barrett: but that can take years
[2:29 AM] Kiri: She has a Vy more or less capable of weaving and intigrating even the body's most complicated tissues for her
[2:30 AM] Kiri: so the process is accelerated by let's say 'a little bit'
[2:30 AM] Leafia_Barrett: yeah, that was a thought I had right after posting that
[2:30 AM] Kiri: that said, she wakes up and it's like... she can move her one good arm enough to half-hug Lilac.
[2:30 AM] Kiri: and maybe whimper a bit while she does it.
[2:30 AM] Kiri: that's like, day 4 or 5. when she's finally woken up.

[2:37 AM] Kiri: like... Solacia is pretty much entirely out of the picture until literally the middle of the Devourer fight
[2:37 AM] Kiri: at which point she bursts onto the scene because 'holy fuck I can see, that means I can help'
[2:37 AM] Kiri: but this is like... a matter of weeks, even with Vylieth's help
[2:39 AM] Kiri: she can probably like... 'cheat' see by feeling around for magic auras, which is how she could 'fight hell blindfolded' and all, but
[2:39 AM] Kiri: her eyes don't work for the better part of one and a half or two months
[2:41 AM] Kiri: it takes about a full week for her to remember how to speak, at which point it's... the barest of minimums. Simple, stammering sentences.
[2:41 AM] Kiri: hearing comes back maybe a little before that. like a day.
[2:41 AM] Leafia_Barrett: going back to the hug thing when she wakes up, I just had the mental image of
[2:42 AM] Leafia_Barrett: Lilac is sitting on the ground against the bed and Solacia wakes up and sees her
[2:42 AM] Leafia_Barrett: and just kinda reaches over and ruffles her hair a bit
[2:42 AM] Kiri: 'ruffles' is a range of motion she probably doesn't have
[2:42 AM] Leafia_Barrett: probably
[2:42 AM] Kiri: it's more like 'presses her hand against it almost like she wants to touch it'
[2:45 AM] Kiri: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iET-Oyxopo For the record this is absolutely the song I have in mind for like, everything Sol does in the days of Ragnarok
[2:45 AM] Kiri: I forget if I've linked it to you before
[2:48 AM] Leafia_Barrett: you have not and that's quite the thing
[2:50 AM] Kiri: It's so good

[3:29 AM] Kiri: so for the record
[3:29 AM] Kiri: I was thinking about Chrys the other day, if you remember her
[3:30 AM] Kiri: and I had this train of thought about just, like
[3:31 AM] Kiri: my mental image of her has always been, like... a lot more straight-faced than Solacia. Like, she's not a total stick in the mud, but when she shows the more playful side of her, it usually comes with a lot of deadpan or no-selling jokes
[3:31 AM] Kiri: And probably way less anime references than her, too.
[3:32 AM] Kiri: except, I had a really good thought where just, like
[3:32 AM] Kiri: whatever theoretical thing she'd even be in, she's staring down some final boss-tier DoG/Omnicide tier threat and her whole thing would just be like
[3:42 AM] Kiri: https://pastebin.com/YxfNk0ep
[3:44 AM] Kiri: It's both an extended dumbass Super Saiyan 3 joke, and almost directly quoting what Solacia said when she did her final Starlight Violet against Omnicide at the end

[5:08 AM] Leafia_Barrett: okay, so thought
[5:09 AM] Leafia_Barrett: Solacia was using magic in general to run her body, it just happened to mostly be drawn from burning her soul, right?
[5:09 AM] Leafia_Barrett: in this context
[5:09 AM] Kiri: yeah?
[5:10 AM] Leafia_Barrett: so if she were to have a source of magic during her recovery, would that help her out any?
[5:10 AM] Kiri: 'the actual physical components of my body are no longer responsive or functioning as intended, so I'll just use magic to move my limbs like that isn't a problem'
[5:11 AM] Leafia_Barrett: like, is "repairing the body" among the list of functions that that would aid
[5:11 AM] Kiri: she doesn't really know how to put her anatomy back together.
[5:11 AM] Kiri: she just knows how to force herself to function with it existing at a minimum
[5:11 AM] Leafia_Barrett: mmh
[5:12 AM] Kiri: having more soul might help her heal faster though in general
[5:12 AM] Kiri: I don't know
[5:12 AM] Leafia_Barrett: so uh
[5:12 AM] Leafia_Barrett: do you remember that one item we made at some point
[5:12 AM] Leafia_Barrett: that let the wielder feed mana directly to a target
[5:12 AM] Kiri: oh yeah
[5:12 AM] Leafia_Barrett: along with buffing the target's magic
[5:12 AM] Kiri: the thing that made Vylieth my best friend even in gameplay
[5:12 AM] Leafia_Barrett: you see where I'm going with this, yes?
[5:12 AM] Kiri: yeah
[5:14 AM] Leafia_Barrett: of all the things to suddenly be important beyond gameplay, I didn't think that would be one, heh
[5:14 AM] Kiri: yeah, I entirely forgot that was a mechanic until you said it out loud
[5:14 AM] Leafia_Barrett: I thought of it basically right when I said "I have a thought"
[5:15 AM] Leafia_Barrett: that was a placeholder to make sure I didn't get sidetracked by the video
[5:15 AM] Leafia_Barrett: because knowing me I probably would have
[5:16 AM] Leafia_Barrett: have we established how the passive... mana pool, I guess? is that a thing, just actual excess soul that's free for use?
[5:16 AM] Kiri: That's basically the vague outline that we have yeah
[5:16 AM] Kiri: it's just, soul that exists in excess of the body that otherwise has no real job
[5:17 AM] Kiri: in most humans it's strictly speaking about 10% of total soul
[5:17 AM] Kiri: thus 1,000% of normal magical output is 'everything I am is currently magic'(edited)
[5:17 AM] Leafia_Barrett: like okay, so I know for a fact not all of Solacia's soul got used over specifically with the space nuke
[5:17 AM] Leafia_Barrett: she burnt a nonzero amount right on the main battlefield
[5:18 AM] Leafia_Barrett: so she's still missing a fair chunk even after Skeletron's intervention
[5:18 AM] Leafia_Barrett: that just got solved
[5:19 AM] Kiri: I guess the question then is how exactly does that thing work
[5:20 AM] Leafia_Barrett: though someone will probably have to keep tabs on Lilac to make sure she doesn't overdo it - she's not going to use up her soul completely but all the same she doesn't want to be running herself ragged, those glowing blue veins on her arms aren't just for show
[5:20 AM] Leafia_Barrett: I mean
[5:20 AM] Leafia_Barrett: if we assume that the excess soul can be just manipulated, which is the case for any magic usage
[5:20 AM] Leafia_Barrett: then it stands to reason that it could be channeled raw as well
[5:21 AM] Kiri: I suppose
[5:21 AM] Leafia_Barrett: the question becomes can a target just absorb that energy if it's channeled to them
[5:22 AM] Kiri: ... maybe the normal answer is 'no'
[5:22 AM] Kiri: and the thing is just
[5:22 AM] Kiri: Solacia is no longer normal.
[5:22 AM] Kiri: Like, I don't know if this is actually something I've brought up, or just... something I've thought about really hard
[5:22 AM] Leafia_Barrett: I think you have
[5:22 AM] Kiri: but like, I've absolutely had it in my head that after this point
[5:22 AM] Kiri: she just kinda... can do 1,000%.
[5:22 AM] Kiri: Overloader or no
[5:22 AM] Leafia_Barrett: yeah
[5:22 AM] Leafia_Barrett: you've brought that up
[5:22 AM] Leafia_Barrett: just
[5:22 AM] Leafia_Barrett: she has to have enough there to burn for that
[5:23 AM] Kiri: like, she gets hit by Leviathan and has the revelation of how her magic worked
[5:23 AM] Kiri: she touches the nebula pillar and has this moment where she realizes the nature of magic in the universe
[5:23 AM] Kiri: she hits 1,000% and has the epiphany of the exact nature of her soul and how to manipulate it to its fullest at will
[5:23 AM] Leafia_Barrett: hit by Siren but yeah
[5:24 AM] Leafia_Barrett: Sol's a blue mage isn't she.
[5:24 AM] Leafia_Barrett: that just occurred to me
[5:24 AM] Leafia_Barrett: she can learn magic just by observing it
[5:24 AM] Kiri: vaguely.
[5:24 AM] Kiri: I mean it's less like she's doing that magically
[5:24 AM] Leafia_Barrett: or interacting with it, more I guess
[5:24 AM] Kiri: and more that she's just... smart enough to reverse-engineer magic by feel
[5:25 AM] Leafia_Barrett: the end result is the same
[5:25 AM] Kiri: the whole joke with the water spear thing was just, she noticed 'wait, this isn't just 'a very sharp spear made of water', this is 'a spear-shaped container for a fucking hydraulic cannon''
[5:26 AM] Leafia_Barrett: which she was able to gather simply from how it worked when it grazed her... was it cheek or shoulder or what, I totally forget
[5:26 AM] Kiri: cheek
[5:26 AM] Leafia_Barrett: okay yeah
[5:26 AM] Kiri: it touched her, she felt it about to fucking shoot out at her, she barely dodges on reflex and is just like 'oh my god I get it now'
[5:29 AM] Leafia_Barrett: ...so since we're on the topic of souls and magic, turning back to the channeler staff
[5:29 AM] Leafia_Barrett: presumably it's not as important when refilling vestigial soul bits, but
[5:29 AM] Leafia_Barrett: would there be complications to patching up a soul with a different soul element than the original?
[5:30 AM] Leafia_Barrett: Solacia's was basically raw Nebula, I think it was
[5:30 AM] Leafia_Barrett: while Lilac's is Vortex
[5:30 AM] Kiri: if anything it kinda explains why she can suddenly be Lilac's battery.
[5:30 AM] Leafia_Barrett: did I just literally link our character's souls together in a sense
[5:30 AM] Kiri: Literally, yes.
[5:31 AM] Leafia_Barrett: boy that all just fell into place didn't it
[5:31 AM] Kiri: it also explains that, what was it, Vortex Hurricane? was the one other spell we actually got coded for Sol
[5:32 AM] Leafia_Barrett: yeah
[5:35 AM] Kiri: ... also might retroactively explain Chrys a bit more if we want to look at it that way.
[5:35 AM] Kiri: :p
[5:46 AM] Leafia_Barrett: also true