Star Shadow / Behind the Star's Shadow

[LaughingCamellia]

Hi all, I did a big of digging on this. I'm not good at taking notes, so this is all from memory. I'll try to be better with notes in the future, but it's not my area of expertise.

Behind the Star's Shadow now seems to refer to himself as Star Shadow. Also he's using masculine pronouns now. He's become much more person-like, although he is still cloaked in void and nothingness and has a giant hole in him. He remembers many different worlds and timelines, including one where Moonlight Tiger was a scholar and philosopher and one where Z'Kul was a benevolent being. Weird, right? It has something to do with the many worlds theory.

In the place/time/existence that he came from, he went to a university (I think it was in the Republic?) and studied the path of nothing and everything under a teacher called Blood and Ink. The goal was to empty yourself of everything to truly become what you are, at which point you enter a place of void. That place of void is the space BETWEEN worlds. After our investigation, I overheard some conversations that others were having (because I'm nosey), and I realized that the space he was referring to is the Akashic Record, which is also the space that the Beta sail through, which is also the space where the Underworld of Tayet Re is (sort of?). As a space/non-space(?), it takes on the form you expect, so for the people of the Empire of Tayet Re, since they've been trained to view it as the Underworld, that's how it appears to them. Other worlds would see something different if they were there. What it, however, you went into it with no expectations at all? You see the truth, and the everything and nothing of it all. It's still marginally tainted by who you are, though. So Star Shadow, when he entered that space, saw everything that could hurt him and was afraid. He found the dark place in the Akashic Record, where all was quiet and calm, and he hid. Blood and Ink, however, saw all the ways they could fail as a teacher, and became obsessed with perfection.

This brings us to the part where Blood and Ink is probably going to be pissed that Star Shadow is moving back toward personhood. Becoming a concept was the INTENT of their teaching, so moving away from that will look like a failure to Blood and Ink. Which means they're probably going to try to hunt down Star Shadow and force him back onto the path. Given that Star Shadow is making the choice to become a person again, I'd like to prevent that choice from being taken away from him. I get the impression that he's terrified of his teacher, and he seems to have a lot of trauma centered around her, so we should probably be on the lookout for... something. Not sure if Blood and Ink will also want to punish us for "leading her pupil astray" or not.

That said, Athanasia and Thousand Painted Faces have had more interactions with Star Shadow, so they probably have more to add to this, and the next time I investigate anything around it, I'd like to snag people who are smarter and potentially more emotionally intelligent than me, since stabbing is not a solution to this problem.

L.C.