Vasan

Vasan, also known as Doctor Corvid (or Lạeċe Cravisc in Anglic), is often referred to as 'pigeon' by other members of the Etceteraverse story. They are most prominent in the Buzz ARG, being the main character of the arc.

(include character draft here)

Non-Canonical Appearances:

The Green Blues is an album by Case and Rover Red, and the music video for We'd Joke, the album's first song, the character of Doctor Corvid can be seen. Doctor Corvid also commented on the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic in May of 2020, speaking Anglic. Doctor Corvid returned in the the video DR CORVID RETURNS, where they apologised for their absence, and offered insights into the pandemic.

These earlier appearances appear to be lore-neutral. It seems unlikely Vasan would join a band recording so close together, given later reluctances to be within six feet of other beings.

Canonical Appearances:

Vasan's first appearances come early in the Etceteraverse. They are a dimension hopper who manages to make it to Jupiter's moon temple. Truncating horrifically, they supply Jupiter with drugs. Some Stuff Happens, Vasan gets lost in a dimensional jump, and ends up at The Crossroads, facing Jupiter Cornelius Vandevelde.

They have pre-Jupiter backstory (but for the life of me I can't recall it now, so I guess that'll need to be added at some point).

In the Buzz ARG

Their first ARG-related appearance appears to have been this teaser trailer for the BuzzARG. They then appear in the music videos for Drugs Drugs Drugs, Entropy, and Byzantium.

They subsequently appeared in the bandcamp descriptions of each track in the Buzzified: Systematic Suburbanite album.

From the Album page:

Dr. Corvid, an interdimensional plague doctor comes to Earth to try to fit in, and quickly decides this version of humanity is not worth talking to.

Why? Their most privileged, influential, and interconnected class of people is obsessed with nihilism. As they grow into responsible figures, their nihilism is growing into the same negligence that lead to the rot they are so disgusted by. The fate of the species has fallen into an entropic feedback loop. What we see as a plague is merely a symptom.

Dr. Corvid sees this as a terminal condition.

Drugs Drugs Drugs:

Upon arriving to the earth at 3:7, Dr. Corvid awakes in a rusting, flaking, dilapidated auditorium. The Doctor wanders until they are barged in on by a wandering soul. Dr Corvid is unsure how to introduce themselves, but the other masked soul has no confusion, "Jupiter Cornelius Vandevelde," They lightheartedly coo, "and I believe we've met before."

When asked how that could be, Jupiter explains the interdimensional nature of the location they have arrived at, that they are stuck here, and offers to catch them up on the workings of this universe. They cover everything, from light, to matter, music, life, civilization, culture, technology. They cover the abstract and the concrete, how things were, and the way things are now, including our economy's demand for money.

Dr. Corvid asks for space to start a homeopathy clinic as an income stream. Jupiter obliges, in exchange for rent, and a promise to help them fix an interdimensional curse tying them to the crossroads.

That secondary goal falls by the wayside as the first shipment of horse dewormer sell like hotcakes, and the two begin to enjoy their status as back-alley dealers.

Entropy:

Clients come and go, patients suffer complications, go without proper treatment, and die. Dr. Corvid begins feeling wracked by the business practices of their clinic, and confides in their business partner and landlord about their moral dillema.

Jupiter replies that the decisions are bringing in profit, and that that profit reduces both of their stress, so this should be a net good from their perspective.

Dr Corvid objects, "It is not just my wellbeing that I am responsible for, it is also theirs." They pause to a silent, masked stare. "Am I not supposed to care for them?"

"What is the use in preserving life if everyone dies eventually anyway?" Jupiter informs, "All things must face the entropy. No use in keeping them."

Dr. Corvid begins to realize that maybe this dimension is not properly sentient. With every patient and every conversation, it feels like the values at the root of a conscious mind are simply lost on these humans.

Byzantium:

Dr. Corvid shares a prognosis with Jupiter. "You say this is business as usual. If this is the usual, if all of your systems operate like this, your society is going to rot."

"It's already rotten." Jupiter snaps.

Dr. Corvid twists their head, incredulous, "It is rotting, but is it not an innate sense that cells have to mend the damage for the benefit of the whole?"

"We are not cells of a whole anymore." The masked soul replies, "We are the mycelium, Doctor. We are what is breaking it down."

"All of you? From the top down?" The Doctor raises their voice, "A species hellbent on ravaging every connection to itself?

"There was a time when those at the top acted like we were connected, and we all shared a vision, and had people to look up to, things to look forward to" Jupiter shrugs, "But that golden age is over."

Sweeter:

"I am leaving." The Doctor threatens.

Jupiter's brows furrow, the sense of income stream deep in their soul taking this as a threat. "How? Where would you go? What about the clinic?"

"There is nothing I can do to help anyone here." The doctor shrugs.

"Are you not counting yourself? That kind of self-deprecation is toxic." Jupiter muses.

"I don't need to be talked into telling myself sweet, suagry phrases to cheer myself up." The Doctor snaps, "It doesn't make any of the problems go away. It just keeps us from mending them."

"I understand the stress," Jupiter stays calm and adopts a performative air of concern, "but you should understand you as an individual are not obligated to-"

"This is not about me."

"It is about you, you want to stop because you feel bad about what you're doing." Jupiter re-rails.

"I should feel bad. You should feel bad. What we're doing is bad."

"I think that's a really abusive thing to say to me, that you want me to feel bad." Jupiter jabs.

"We're killing people!" Dr. Corvid grabs at the sides of their head. If there was hair they would be pulling it.

"Yeah, and?" Jupiter shrugs, "Sugar kills people. Alcohol kills people. They're enjoying themselves, though, and that's what counts."

"How do you sleep at night?" Dr corvid screeches.

"You gave me pills for that." Jupiter answers.

Waking Up:

Doctor Corvid has not arrived at the clinic.

A group of senior homeopathy patients waits outside in the cold as Jupiter scrolls through their phone at a receptiion desk behind a locked door. The line is building and their shivering gets worse.

The Doctor is incensed by the lack of empathy upon arriving.

"Why are they not in the waiting room?" They ask.

"You were late." Jupiter answers, one hand holding their chin up and another holding their phone.

"What is wrong with you?" They dart to the door, unlatching it and letting the herd of groaning, mooing, waddling suburbanites into the seats.

The first patient to leave makes a comment about a painting on a wall before deciding to simply lift it off it's hooks. Their spouse laughs this off with, "oh, hahah, the drugs keep making him do that. Can't take him anywhere!" The absurdity of the moment freezes Doctor Corvid before Jupiter calls back another patient.

Jupiter returns with a motivational poster to put up in its place, with a stock picture of a family gathering and the quote "I believe in a world that doesn't care, and people that do."

Dr. Corvid emerges to see the new poster, and on the verge of a mental breakdown, cancels all appointments for the next day, and every day after.

Jupiter shoes out everyone left in the waiting room. Dr. Corvid sits on a chair with their head as much in their hands as they can manage around their mask.

"Why did you start a clinic if you react like this to everything?" Jupiter jabs, unempathetically, "Some doctor you are."

"I didn't think it would work this way here." The Doctor's voice shakes, "None of you care. "

If-Thens:

The Doctor barges into an empty clinic, where Jupiter is waiting, "Why are you like this?"

"Good morning, Doctor." Jupiter responds.

"Does none of this phase you?" They continue.

Jupiter looks around the empty room, "None of what? Nothing's happening."

"I mean yesterday, the day before, our conversations."

Jupiter shrugs, "Today is a new day, you just keep moving forward."

The doctor shakes their head, "We have no more patients. There is no forward."

Jupiter smiles through their mask, "Now, are you lacking patients, or patience? Because you seem a little curt to me."

"A little?" The doctor shakes, "I'm losing my mind, human."

"Hey," Jupiter stops them, "Don't go calling me slurs, now."

"I simply do not understand how any of you built a civilization like this if you all act the way you do." Doctor corvid redirects.

"Stay in line, do what you're told, serve your purpose, fit where you fit." Jupiter shrugs, "It's that simple."

"That is the problem. I am an alien. I do not fit. I assumed that there were things that concious beings had in common, that i could fit." The doctor shakes their head, "I was wrong. You are entirely foreign to me."

"I guess that's why." Jupiter says, pulling their phone up to scroll as their voice trails into an abstract autopilot, "You grow into the box you get put in, you do the things put in front of you. If you're in the wrong box, or don't get those opportunities..."

"You lose your mind." Doctor corvid finishes.

"Yeah," Jupiter nods, "We all do, but they're the right kind of crazy, you know? And you're not."

You Are So Bad:

The clinic is still empty. The doors are locked, but Jupiter stays at the reception desk every day.

The care being given is no longer medicinal, but conciliatory, and it is not the doctor giving it.

"I am at a loss for what to do here. I don't think I have a place in this universe." The plague doctor laments.

"Sure you do. It's here." Jupiter muses. "The sooner you get back to your doctoring, the sooner we can be comfortable again."

Doctor Corvid shudders at the idea, "I am not opening the clinic again."

Jupiter tilts their head, "But you're DOCTOR Corvid, you're going to feel empty if you walk around with an unjustified identity."

"What does my identity matter?" The doctor snaps, "What does that matter at all? I would rather have a title that is inaccurate than serve to justify my name by feeding the sick bootleged horse drugs."

"Well, you know," Jupiter crosses their legs, "As an artist, i've always been struck with this feeling of impostor syndrome, you know? like I have to justify everything."

"Your art is equally as harmless as it is unnecessary." The Doctor snaps. "And you justify it along your own arbitrary metrics to feel good about yourself."

"Then why don't you do the same?" Jupiter asks, "It's what we all do."

"Because my work has consequences." Corvid sneers.

"It would if you were still doing it." Jupiter guffaws, "And like, you know, not being so bad at it."

"You are not helping."

Eternal:

The clinic is cluttered with unused and detached equipment.

"You still owe me something for staying here this whole time. You haven't worked the last 2 weeks." Jupiter prods.

"I don't know what to tell you." Dr Corvid shrugs.

"You're just gonna be another one of those mentally unstable freaks leeching off of me and fucking me over, huh?" Jupiter jabs.

"I am not doing this as an affront to you." Dr Corvid defends.

"Yeah, but whether you wanted to or not, the consequence is you spent a month taking up rentable space and not making money." Jupiter folds their arms.

"I can't stay here."

"You also can't leave." Jupiter reminds them, "You had a mission here, and it was to fix something. You haven't fixed anything. You just got caught up in the chaos like everyone else and whimped out."

"Because the way you told me to help was not helping anyone, and you've been of no help to me other than to help yourself." Dr Corvid steps forward.

Jupiter reluctantly shrugs, "How do need me to help?"

The doctor immediately produces a hat, typical of a plague doctor.

"This hat is buzzing." Jupiter notices.

"It is, but weakly." The doctor nods. "You told me about all of the interdimensional energy this place can channel."

Jupiter nods.

"I need you to channel the rest of the energy into this hat."

"Why?"

"The buzz will let me phone home." The Doctor's mask covers the desperation in their eyes but cannot hide the shakiness of their voice as they make this request. "I need to speak to a soul I am familiar with, to tell me who I am and why I am here."

Jupiter nods, understandingly, reaching out to take the hat.

"Do this for me," The doctor relinquishes the buzzing cap, "And I will find the solution to whatever ties you here, as well."

"If I can find out who I am," Jupiter muses, "That will be the only solution I need." They flip the hat over to inspect it further. "I can stop getting caught up in all of this..."

"Even if I can only save you from this rot," A tinge of peace streaks through Dr. Corvid's tone. "this journey will have been worth it."

Still Feel It:

The Doctor stares out at the empty auditorium, on the stage, opposite the balcony they woke up on. Their hat buzzes a conversation with their subconscious.

"You're still here." Jupiter surprises them.

"I feel the same way about you." The Doctor removes the hat as Jupiter saunters up.

"What did it tell you?" The human inquires.

"A lot." The Doctor "About me and about you."

"What about you?"

"That I was half-right," The Doctor states, "My body is not meant to be here. My soul, however, is."

Jupiter nods. "And about me?"

"That you can come home now, pigeon." The Doctor says as they hold out their hat, an image of a bug etched into the top with a dim glow to the scratches, their voice rasping in an oddly familiar way.

JC Vandevelde eyes the hat in a frozen moment before the Doctor begins to walk away.

"I will see you around the crossroads." Doctor Corvid lets go of the hat and nods, "But for now, my message has been delivered, and I am needed elsewhere." The Doctor exits, stage left.

JC stays, frozen in place, staring into the hat. They look up at the empty auditorium, pull their hat, scarf, and mask off of their human face, shake their hair out of the bunch it was in, and sigh.

"You found me," JC says, to the open air, "I'm sorry I became what I did."

The air buzzes. With the doctor out of sight, JC feels a piece of their soul has been filled back in.

"I'm not coming back yet," They look down to the beetle scratched into the hat. The air buzzes louder. "I have work to do, here."

Elemental (Drekken mix):

A blue jay awakes from a nightmare, with a cloud of buzzing drones above it.

"Drones!" They exclaim, "What is happening?"

The bugs form a trail that leads to the doorway. The blue jay stops darts right from their nest, no preening or dressing, and follows them down some twisting halls, all the while thinking about how their routines have been thrown out of whack since they did not get the chance to meditate or pray first thing in the morning. This concern is shoved to the back of their head as they follow the bugs into an atrium.

And there, in front of this unkempt and naked blue jay, across a field of carefully cultivated culinary plants, stands a confused and beaten-up looking pigeon. A visitor, something the blue jay did not expect. No one has been here for years.

The blue jay, exposed and disheveled, immediately stances up as tall as their relatively un-imposing stature can manage, and speaks through a morning rasp with an authority no one else in their position would have, "Who are you, pigeon?"

The pigeon soaks in the moment and the atmosphere, and feels the experience of a million lifetimes slip through their memory, "My name is Usakasa Anankhe..." They can't help but voice their familiarity, "And I believe... we've met before."

[Harmonised]:

The pigeon consults the buzzing in the auditorium, and is told to start teaching the humans the basics.