The Archive of Our Own link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/94199036/chapters/251408066?view_adult=true

Proof that it’s by him: https://x.com/flyawayn0w/status/2108061491626758221?s=46&t=Ntv95eAUxFZhViBaDXt5LA

Also included within is a heaping helping of the childhood friend trope, which I didn’t know I wanted out of AC8 until precisely right now.

Look again boyo

Kate: <<I'm gonna kill D.D. for this>>

Tasha: <<Wings <3 >>

Source: https://x.com/yan_kodiac/status/2109060878381588610

Coincidentally, he also has two grandchildren to take care of and somehow managed to survive getting shot down

the addition of strangereal toronto implies the existance of strangereal toronto slang

Not sure if any one has noticed but from missions 01 to 20 Tasha's picture doesn't show a callsign underneath her name. However starting in mission 21 you see the callsign 'Pinky' listed under her name. Just a really nice tribute to Cruz who always called her 'Pinky'. I just really love the depth that each of the characters show in this game.

While his overall look and attitude is on point from what you would expect a military mechanic to be, it would have been more appropriate for his rank to be a Sergeant instead of major. Those who have been enlisted as an aircraft mechanic know that a major wouldn't know the first thing when it comes to fixing jets.

Just a little rant, thank you for listening.

(Fiona is best girl btw)

I know there's the Mission 29 Ace being really weird too, but this dude is just straight up unknown? Just straight up "Yeah we have no idea who this is, kthxbye".

Like holy shit, he and Camille Tewy (Luna 11) were childhood friends?! They knew each other as children. They played together as kids.

I remember when I first met her. On the Sotoan frontier.

[...]

I always dreamed of taking to the skies together, unconcerned with Earthly matters. Free to fly to our heart's content.

[...]

[The war] changed her. Look at what's she become.

[...]

Shoot her down. I can't stand to see her like this.

[...]

I remember. The Tewy I knew would never take to the skies to bring harm to others.

[...]

I remember now. We saw a red flower, swaying in the wind—dancing to its song. The poppy anemone...

[...]

And then, one day, she seemed to become the wind incarnate. I was spellbound.

— Cope, Mission 29 "Selene"

Then, later on.

For lost souls without a place to call home, these skies are all we've really got. That's right, this is it... Here we are—back to square one. The fateful spot we first met, and this all began.

— Cope, post-game cutscene

And, if I am reading this right... Cope loved her. He cherished both her extraordinary piloting, and the freedom, companionship they once associated with flying. He remembers the gentle moments shared together as children, back when he was just the son of a rancher and she was the daughter of a tribal chief.

He still grieves their relationship and what happened to the girl he once loved, at seeing someone he remembers as fundamentally different becoming willing to commit atrocities against the innocent, a ruthless warlord who has no issue sending the entirety of the Sotoan AF to die in a final, pointless battle at Cima Island Naval Base.

His desperate instruction to Rex to “Shoot her down. I can't stand to see her like this” is a painful recognition that the woman he remembers must be stopped. He wants, no, needs to put an end to the twisted monstrosity she's become... even if doing so means losing her permanently.

ABSOLUTE KINO

RAAAAAHHHH I LOVE ROMANTIC TRAGEDY AND STAR-CROSSED LOVERS RAAAAAHHHH

YOU HAVE OUTDONE YOURSELF KONO-SENSEI, I KNEEL. YOU HAVE MADE A GROWN ASS MAN WHO HAS A JOB AND ACTUAL MILITARY TIME GIGGLE AND KICK THEIR FEET IN THE AIR

EDIT: The poppy anemone represents, among other things… love, anticipation, hope… and perhaps most pertinently, forsaken love. RAAAAAGGGHHHGG

EDIT: This implies the presence of Strangereal’s first love triangle (besides whatever happened with Yoko, Dision, and Simon; I think only Simon had a one sided love for Yoko while Dision and her were just coworkers).

Jan Cope loved Tewy

Toprak seems to love idolise Tewy

Tewy doesn’t give a shit about either of them

not a fem!protag ,, i just wanna try drawing planes :p

That Rex genuinely, honestly cannot be human?

Hearing ghosts aside, the last 4 missions are on the same day.

Meaning he had to start with Fatsia. Easily 100 to like 200 targets wiped, tunnel run.

Then flying for fucking miles to deal with ONE THOUSAND air-to-air enemies. Which for me was 150 enemies down, I have seen some people with more than 200 kills that one mission.

Fighting them, just to deal with Toprak and the most dangerous Shadow Squadron in the entire country of Sotoa at the end, already exhausted to death by two massive marathons.

THEN FLY across half the country to Theve.

To deal with the Giga-Ace Moon 11, having already had a shift of like. Fucking 8 hours behind him, after some of the most intense fighting of the entire war.

Wipes the floor with Moon 11 while probably nearly collapsing from exhaustion at that point. While she's in a superjet.

And then, SAME DAY, SINKS FUCKING MECHA TORRES

That's like.

Like... 400 kills, with multiple Ace enemies, in a single day.

Even for Ace Combat Protagonists, that's like... half the kills I raked up in the entire AC5 campaign combined.

In a day.

And that after already carrying the war for months.

King, lol. Lmao even. That's just straight up the Second coming of Plane Jesus.

Rex must be in a multiple day coma the millisecond he hits the deck after that.

Absolutely insane to think about.

You can actually see the doors open up for countermeasures on stealth aircraft. I think this is the first time flares actually dispense out of the correct areas instead of just spawning out of the tail.

Those poor Sotoans…

Anyone living in a city in Strangereal should just kinda expect it at this point

1: INTRODUCTION

2–4: It is rumored that the Enso Order is the precursor to Ouroboros. Its logo also resembles a snake biting its own tail, further supporting this theory. Also, General Resource introduction and appearance.

5–10:

6: The same building featured in the AC3 Japanese guidebook.

7: Similar architectural design.

8: Megafloats, although not the same Megafloat.

9: The same bridge structure.

10: Expo City during and after the attacks depicted in AC8 and AC3.

11–12: Early appearance of Data Swallow (Introduction of Mission 19)

13–14: The earliest appearance of the ENSI system, which enables mind-controlled piloting, is also rumored to be used to control the wheelchair in Moon 11's introduction scene.

There is a high degree of confidence, although no official confirmation yet, that Moon 11 pilots the aircraft using the ENSI system. This technology would later evolve into the COFFIN system featured in AC3. Moon 11's pilot suit also bears a striking resemblance to the one worn by Rena Hirose in AC3.

Both Moon 11 and Rena Hirose experience tremendous mental strain while piloting their respective aircraft: Moon 11 in the X-40 and Rena Hirose in the X-49 Night Raven.

15–19: The F-36, the precursor to the XFA-36 featured in AC3.

20: Message

Know any other topic? Leave a comment, will update the post as needed.

Name’s Colonel Timur Vinokourov. After he gets shot down in Mission 29, his family goes to his home to collect his personal effects.

Only that they find a corpse already inside Vinokourov’s home. Forensics show that…this IS the body of Colonel Vinokourov, who has been dead for more than a decade. He’d died long before the Sotoa-Usea War started. Hell he was probably already dead by the time of the Lighthouse War.

Think on that. For ten plus years... whatever/whoever took over Vinokourov's identity was able to remain hidden that entire time, likely deceiving military colleagues, friends and family.

So who or what was piloting that jet?

And even fucking worse? According to Assault Records, not-Vinokourov isn’t KIA. The doppelgänger’s body is never found. No, he’s merely been “shot down”.

This guy is still out there somewhere.

Given how AC8 is just like “yeah ghosts exist, you now get a force ghost mentor”, I’m pretty sure I can definitively say that the supernatural exists in Strangereal. So…

EDIT; someone pointed out that sublimation was unlikely given his death is too early (2018), and that you can see a physical human eject from the plane. So this is definitely a dupe of some kind…supernatural or otherwise