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e-adlirez · 10 days

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Treasure Seekers 2 go brrrrr

So this sequel... exists :D

Welcome to the second entry in the Treasure Seekers trilogy that I'm gonna ramble about for the next six hours (in me time, in you time it's probably gonna be like thirty minutes or less), if you wanna read it yourself before reading this ramble, here's an Archive copy. Otherwise, enjoy the ride :D

So our story begins with the Thea Sisters locked in a basement in the dark, with Russia's penchant for matches (and the basement's lack of a smoke alarm) coming in clutch. Seems like another vacation's gone awry for them :3 How could it have possibly turned out this way?

Flashback: so the girls are vibing in Moscow, visiting all the cool sights and all that, Pam is wanting to try some Russian cuisine, when they spot this girl that's wearing what appears to be a barrette that used to belong to Aurora's sister Hannah Lane. They follow her a bit, find a THUG JUMPSCARE, follow the girl, Cassidy and co into the building they're heading into, and oh dear door with passcode is in the way. They find this dood Sergei, explain to him the situation, deal with him being like "who is u, and wth are you on about mate" until they hear a scream and oh dear turns out that girl with the barrette is Sergei's sister Irina and she's in trouble.

Sergei opens the door, they go in, walk in on Cassidy, Stan and Max (who I will from now call SM for simplicity) doing their whole thug jumpscare thing and kidnapping Irina in 4K. SM somehow rolls a high enough strength roll (or the girls roll a low enough initiative) that two roughly intimidating guys successfully trap six people into a basement without breaking a sweat get yourself some self-defense classes girls oml, and that's the end of that.

Luke's up to his shenanigans again, and it seems that he's targeted Irina Lenenko for the same reason the girls double-taked at the sight of her barrette: Irina (and Sergei in conjunction) is a descendant of Hannah Lane, and Hannah Lane may or may not have known a thing or two about one of the seven treasures. It's such a shame tho that Irina doesn't wanna spill any of the tea. What's this about a "queen's jewel"?

Oh also Luke has Aurora's third diary. I would like you to pay attention to this detail in particular. Oh and he's keeping Irina ratgrabbed until she tells them what he wants to know from her. Oh naur

Meanwhile the girls infodump all of the TS 1 LANE LOORRREEEE to Sergei in one whole sitting and finally manage to get around to "what the hell does this have to do with my sister". Sergei thinks it's not really possible for Irina to know anything about great-grandma Hannah's involvement with Aurora, but Irina's still in trouble soooo time to solve this nerdy-ass science trivia keypad puzzle to get outa the basement. Irina's nowhere to be found in the lab itself, so they regroup at Sergei's place to use his phone tracker app on his computer.

Bad news, SM dumped Irina's phone somewhere in the lab so the tracker app is useless; good news, while looking for some Lane Lore™ to get some context about the situation, the girls find some Lane Lore™ :D

Turns out Aurora was looking for one of the seven treasures again, y'know just updating her sister on that, who'd moved to Saint Petersburg with her husband Ivan.

Seems like Aurora's quest at the time involved "the queen's jewel", which Aurora said she was 1000% down to ramble about to Hannah, maybe when she's done finding all seven treasures and hiding them from Jan.

I would like to take this moment to remind you that Aurora is a British Amelia Earhart, and if you dunno what that means, look up what Earhart was famous for and then look at this with that given context :']

With that lead, the girls plus Sergei take a ride on presumably the Krasnaya Strela night train to Saint Petersburg, read some Lane Lore on the way, Peter-Griffin upon realizing that they spent the whole night reading AO3 fanfics Aurora's diaries and it's like 2AM now, land in Saint Petersburg, stop by Nevsky Prospekt Street to have some breakfast (I think they went to Venezia?), and discussion.

(For the rest of this review, please assume when I say "the girls", I'm including Sergei because Sergei tags along with them and helps them out in their entire journey. It's okay, Sergei may be biologically male but he is an honorary female in our hearts /j)

Aurora mentioned the queen's jewel in her diary, and when you're in Russia, the first queen that comes to mind is Catherine II, so maybe something relating to her? Some Lane Lore of Aurora taking interest in Catherine II's Amber Room in her palace specifically confirms their theories, sooooooooo it's time to go to the Amber Room to see if Aurora left any clu--

The girls are about to walk out of the Catherine Palace to Peter Griffin in private when SM JUMPSCARE--

So SM is stalkin' around the Catherine Palace looking for something, so the girls stalk them back and follow them out of the palace, into a car (the girls called a separate taxi to follow them), and to a little gray building in the outskirts of the city. They don't follow SM into the building because it might be dangerous, but Irina's scarf lying around near the premises confirms that Irina was in fact there and possibly being held hostage in the building.

The girls do a little tactic I like to call "the Ding Dong Ditch": Pam and Nicky knock on the door, SM answers it, do a little Metal Gear exclamation point "HOW DID YOU GET HERE", Nicky and Pam book it so SM chases them, and that's literally how the other girls plus Sergei sneak into the building to get Irina out. (You dunno how badly I wanted to make a videogame reference for this but I couldn't find anything so here we are--)

With that, the girls plus the Lenenko siblings book it outa there without SM being none the wiser (seriously it doesn't even cross their mind that there are more than two Thea Sisters, that's how dum they are). Irina books a hotel room at a friend's place and gives them some extra Lane Lore that she never told Klawitz despite the interrogations:

Hannah Lane was once visited by Aurora unexpectedly, a little after Hannah and her husband moved to a house near the Ob River, in Siberia. Possible lead :3c? The girls think maybe, so they decide to head on over to the exact address in Novosibirsk, Siberia.

In Siberia, the girls cross the frozen Ob River in Novosibirsk to this abandoned little house, where they find this little note with a riddle that talks about Cleopatra and an emerald she had at one point, and CASSIDY JUMPSCARE--

Cassidy busts in, snatches the note and books it away on her snowmobile before the girls can even react. You may be wondering, how the hell did Cassidy get there and know where they were? The answer is the same as the reason behind the SM jumpscares in Russia and in book 1, and that is Luke.

Luke Von Klawitz is doing a little segment that I like to call: Luke Touch Grass, where it becomes increasingly clear that Luke's spent way too much time on 4Chan (/j but you'll see what I mean). Luke hears about SM's failure and facepalms. Then he calls his friend Petrovski, who has access to the database of all of Russia's airports, for help tracking down "six mice leaving Saint Petersburg". Petrovski gives him results in minutes: the girls and Sergei are leaving Saint Petersburg and heading for Novosibirsk, Siberia (most likely Tolmachevo Airport). With that intel, Klawitz looks into his own database of Aurora Beatrix Lane, finds a picture of Hannah and Aurora together, and uses his own version of Google Lens to figure out the exact coordinates where the picture was taken, which happens to be in Novosibirsk, Siberia.

No this man does not in fact canonically touch grass on the regular, who's asking

Anyway so he sent Cassidy the coords, instructions and Aurora's diary to go, and that's how Cassidy walked in on the girls in that little abandoned hut next to Ob River. Only thing is uh, she dropped her purse on the way out. A purse that just so happened to contain Aurora's diary that Luke gave her.

So the girls scoop that puppy up and assume that the treasure is Cleopatra's emerald, thus they think it's in Egypt.

So the girls go to Egypt :D (29 and a half hour flight there good god no wonder they conked out in the plane--)

The girls read some Lane Lore, something about Aurora finding the treasure and hiding it somewhere in a desert, in an "expanse pure and white" that a star compass will lead to. First thing the girls think of at the desert bit is the White Desert (Sahara el Beyda), specifically a spot near Cleopatra's pool, so they leave the airport (not realizing Cassidy is following them now) and head over to a market to buy some supplies because might I remind you, they initially went to Moscow, Russia for vacation.

While in the market, Pam meets a guy named Omar. Pam tells him a little bit about them going to Cleopatra's pool in Sahara el Beyda, and she finds out that Omar just so happens to be an Archaeology major in Oxford University who's here on his summer vacation and works as a guide for Sahara el Beyda, and is more than down to give the girls a tour. Talk about lucky :D

The next day the girls take the scenic route and after a while make it to Siwa, where Omar books a room in a hotel for them, and the girls find this interesting myth there about Cleopatra that I will summarize here:

Cleopatra was once given a jewel that maxes out the owner's rizz and the effect is supposedly indefinite. Cleopatra liked the jewel so much that she wore it on her crown at all times... until she grew a bit self-conscious about the gem's maxxed rizz effect and how everyone kept eyeing the emerald a second too long for comfort, so she decided to hide away said rizz in a spot where none of her rivals could get to it. Oh and uh Cleopatra wrote up a dedication to Ra that's hella cryptic too.

One long rest later, the girls go to Cleopatra's pool on a donkey cart. Yes, a donkey cart. It was Omar's idea. Speaking of Omar, prepare yourself buddy because the girls have dubiously decided to give you some Lane Lore to chew on. O-oh you like it a lot. A lot a lot. Well okay cool, maybe you can help out, cool.

The girls manage to figure out the riddle in Cleopatra's dedication, find a little stone coffer that has the queen's treasure and-- SM JUMPSCARE

With a donkey as the girls' only escape method and Omar having suddenly disappeared, a scuffle ensues where the girls play hot potato with the box until SM gets their hands on it and opens it, and here we get a very accurate depiction of what SM and the girls found in the box once it was actually opened.

Description: a hand made of salt shaped in an upside-down "ok" symbol, circa 1920s-30s.

The sheer whiplash of this leaves both sides of the conflict losing enough HP that they're all on red-- SM is blaming the girls for this (how dare >:[) and dip. Omar is gone, and all the girls get as compensation is the empty box and a letter from Aurora telling them that they'll know to read the hidden clues. The girls head back feeling very hollow and dead inside, and this is the one time one of the girls questions how the hell did SM know they were at Siwa. I mean they never get any answer to this (kinda), but it is a milestone! They're aware of it now!

Once they get back to Cairo, they ask around and find that Omar's completely up and vanished, and they decide they'll just head back to Moscow since their investigation has come to a dead end. On the way, Pam comments about the falafel she bought being hella salty, which leads Violet to an epiphany that hey, the Sahara isn't the only desert that exists, let alone the only desert known for how white it is (like how Boracay Beach is known for how white and fine its sand is, but it's not the only white sand beach that exists). A quick Google search (and a long flight (35 HOURS CAIRO TO SUCRE???)) leads them to the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia.

Nicky reserves a room for them at Hotel Luna Salada (a real place you can book a stay at actually :D), and they make a friend by the name of Adriana, a local waitress in the hotel restaurant. Adriana helps them pick out a dessert, fills them in on some stuff about the Salar since the girls came here 100% out of impulse, and talks about possible itinerary locations to go to, like the Isla de Pescado, Tiwanaku (the "Gate of the Sun"), Lake Titiaca, and Laguna Colorada. Y'know, typical tourist stuff, and Adriana was so kind to show them pictures she took when she visited said places herself! :D

Anyway so while the girls long rest, Luke is mulling about in his base waiting for updates. Someone calls him about the whole Egypt thing, and Luke calls the girls incompetent? Rude, oh and something about the caller being Luke's "secret weapon". Cassidy calls him on a theory she has about the gemstone being in Cleopatra's palace, and since the girls are currently long-resting (which means they aren't doing anything), Luke figures that a little diving trip in Alexandria to search for the gem with Cassidy won't hurt. Besides, he still has his secret weapon.

Oh yeah and he knows the girls are long resting because he has a drone in Bolivia spying on them and showing him their every move. Touch grass, Luke. No, going on a diving trip in Alexandria doesn't count, there's barely any grass there /j

Morning comes in Bolivia, and the girls head out early to search the Salar as much as they can. They look around the flat white desert, eat some late breakfast, toy around with forced perspective camera shenanigans for a bit, and read up on some LANE LOOORREEEEE

So Aurora's been to Pumapunku and Tiwanaku which is cool, she paid a visit to the archaeological site probably and that's really cool. She says something about hiding the queen's treasure in a fish's stomach covered in very fine thorns. Sergei ends up having an epiphany, and that leads the girls to Isla de Pescado, which just so happens to be "Fish Island" in Spanish, and has cacti on it, it's all coming together :D

Oh and the fish drawing Aurora made is coords to the treasure seemingly so that's cool-- OMAR JUMPSCARE

The girls are very surprised to find Omar joining them, and Omar explains that he booked it when SM came over and lost his cellphone as a result. However, he managed to figure out that Aurora's riddle was about salt and not sand, and decided to head on over to Bolivia since he assumed that's where the girls are going. How did he find them? It was just out of pure coincidence, and also the fact that the girls are extremely recognizable. Hm.

Anyway, Paulina plugs the coordinates into her GPS and leads the girls plus Omar to a little cave at the bottom of a little embankment. The girls find that, lo and behold, there's an old tin box containing a bright green emerald!

Meanwhile Luke is not finding anything in Alexandria haha L, LVK L get dunked on Luke, Cassidy girlie that's not a man to simp for find someone else gurl-- oh dear Luke is alerted that the treasure has been found and now he's planning on heading over to Bolivia? Now how could he possibly know that?

In the meantime, I dunno what's up in the air or if it's the Archaeology major speaking in him but Omar's really invested in this treasure, even more so than the girls to the degree that the girls are a little freaked out by it-- RHEA JUMPSCARE-- Paulina calms the big bord down and gets it to not trample Omar please, he's still a friend of theirs. Colette picks up this blue notebook Omar seems to have dropped.

The girls plus Omar head back to the SUVs, and Omar is really trying to persuade the girls that he should bring it back to Cairo. The girls are not jazzed at the idea because Omar bringing it back alone will be too unsafe, y'know with Luke and Cassidy and SM and all. They gotta think about this rationally-- WHOA OKAY OMAR calm your man tits buddy why are you demanding they trust you like you automatically deserve your trust-- ohh that's how Klawitz has known about the girls' whereabouts, Omar was working as a double agent.

So yeah Omar snatches the box from Colette and drives off in his SUV, leaving the girls in the dust. The girls freak out and are feeling that EMOTIONAL DAMAGE, but Colette for some reason is very calm about Omar booking it with the emerald. And that's because SHE HAS IT :D she did a lil' switcheroo so now the emerald's with her while the box is with Omar.

For context about how Colette knew about this, remember the blue notebook Omar dropped? Yeah that notebook was a company LVK notebook, straight from Luke himself. Then after Colette saw it, everything about Omar became incredibly sus, so she performed this precautionary measure.

So now the girls talk to the local authorities about how the whole thing with the emerald is gonna go down, and soon the girls are waiting for a plane back to Moscow.

As for Omar, well, he goes over to Luke's super-fancy hotel in La Paz, Bolivia, and he hands the box to Luke, explicitly stating that he decided he'd let Luke open it before he himself can appreciate it.

Luke opens the box, and here we see an accurate depiction of what Luke sees.

Description: an upside-down "ok" symbol drawn in strawberry pink lip balm, signed Colette [insert last name], circa 2018.

Luke punts the box (prolly with the lip balm still inside it) into the swimming pool, tells Omar to get out, and that's the end of that. Haha Omar L Luke L

The girls head back to Moscow to drop Sergei off when SURPRISE PARTY BY IRINA'S SQUAD :DDD

Then the girls are about to return to Whale Island to presumably Peter Griffin in their dorms, when Colette suggests they make a journal a la Aurora Beatrix Lane, and they do. In a pink notebook because it was Colette's idea so we might as well give her that

And they take a black-and-white group picture of them wearing adventurer clothes like Aurora would've done. The brainrot is real, these girls are mentally ill /j

And that's the book :D

... Honestly it's the most meh out of the trilogy besides the big-brain bits in the middle and the end imo

The writing was so much more stilted in this one, even for Scholastic standards, and everything feels pretty..... kid's book. Even more so than the usual in the book's English translations. I do readings for the books in some of my Discords, and this book did not read well at aaallll. And I haven't even mentioned the typos in the book (they're not a lot, but they exist, and they're kinda egregious :D) and some grammar errors if I'm remembering things correctly. It might just be a translation thing-- I worry a bit for the translator who had to put this together.

Luke's character here is also kinda wonk? For one we see him directly contradict his anti-friendship spiel in TS 1 since he literally greets Petrovski like a friend (maybe it's a "friendship doesn't exist except in 4Chan" thing, I dunno). Then in the middle of the book, he gets... very Disney villain-y. The most egregious example here is the chapter "Lurking in the Shadows", where as you can see

I am confusion?? Luke has been described as a to-the-point brat who hardly cares for the means to his end (unless it will impact his ability to achieve the end) and is so fixated on his goal that he doesn't touch grass. Is this not-touching-grass behavior? Yeah, definitely, but this??? This is too Disney villain???? Why does the man break into an evil cackle in front of Cassidy???? I understood it in book 1 because man thinks he's doing a "You may think you have outsmarted me but I have OUTSMARTED YOUR OUTSMARTING", but this one?? Maybe it's my personal taste, but it's too cartoonish and too... deviated from what we know of him up to this point.

ALSO TWIRLING HIS MUSTACHE? WHAT MUSTACHE IS HE TWIRLING THAT THING IS NOT TWIRL-ABLE

Also time to address the one big plot hole in this book: Aurora's diary.

So in this book there's only one diary, which is infinitely simpler than the two we got in the first book. This diary supposedly contains Aurora's records of her mission in hiding Cleopatra's Rizzmerald, and the details are supposedly vague enough that Luke felt the need to kidnap and interrogate Irina, a Hannah Lane descendant, to fill in the blanks. However, when you look at the contents of the diary itself (which lord knows how many times Luke himself has looked through it), there's hardly any blanks that need to be filled, at least if you're Luke.

The diary itself is mostly in the background-- like I said, not as much Lane Lore here as the previous book, the girls mostly rely on Aurora's letters to Hannah here-- but there's one specific entry the girls read in the latter half of the book that explicitly mentions Pumapunku and Tiwanaku, and how Aurora is there for her mission to hide the emerald. Complete with coordinates hidden in a little drawing! My one question I have for Luke is, why didn't he go straight to Bolivia and started searching there? Why did he go through all the effort of kidnapping Irina, tailing the girls around Sahara el Beyda, letting SM fall for the salt replica gambit, left his base to touch grass and go on a dive with Cassidy in Egypt; all if he could've just gone straight to Bolivia to look for the treasure there? Sure, Aurora did a good job hiding the coordinates in the fish doodle, but someone as observant and as obsessed about the outcome instead of the journey like Luke would rather have sidestepped all the Aurora shenanigans and beelined straight to the goal if he was able to.

Luke hardly has an excuse here because he owned the diary at the start of the book, and most definitely read through it many times (and we know he's the type to do this, see TS 1). The plot hole is plot hole-ing, it seems :/

Maybe it was just an excuse for the girls to get a giant glowing arrow pointing in the direction of the treasure? It certainly feels like it.

Anyway, the things that carry this book and made it memorable when I first read it (and allowed me to ignore the iffy bits) are the gottems and Omar as a character. Aurora setting up a salt replica of the Rizzmerald as a gottem in a time capsule, only to be opened almost a hundred years later to still be as potent as intended when it was made so long ago? That is amazing, like c'mon, pure comedy material.

Even funnier is Colette doing the exact same thing, only with her lip balm. Luke is quaking in his bougie-ass leather boots.

Now for Omar. This may be a hot take of mine here, but Omar's sus-ness is actually at a decent level compared to the girls and what they usually deal with. On one hand, Omar is incredibly suspicious with how incredibly lucky the girls are to find an Archaeology Oxford major working as a Sahara el Beyda tour guide; but on the other hand, the girls had almost the exact same situation with Diego in Mexico (I didn't mention him in the first review, but he came in clutch in TS 1).

The girls met Diego in Merida, Mexico, and he helped them with their research into "the invisible place", which happened to be Uxmal, along the Puuc Route. Diego also just so happened to be a tour-guide-in-training for the Puuc Route, which was the place the girls just so happened to need to go to find Aurora's second journal.

In comparison, the girls meet Omar in Khan El-Khalili while they were looking for supplies for their trip to the Siwa Oasis. It comes up in conversation that the girls are headed to Siwa, and Omar just so happened to be a tour guide for Sahara el Beyda, which was where the Siwa Oasis is, and it just so happened to be where the girls needed to go. When you stack them up together, it made perfect sense that the girls thought they could trust him-- Diego didn't know much about their trip and helped them the best he could (which was a lot), so why wouldn't Omar do the same? He's an Oxford Archaeology major, too, for crying out loud, the girls struck gold in the end!

Gold that was too shiny and too good to be true. Gold that was, in the end, nothing more than pyrite, fool's gold.

Omar is a good case for why you should be careful with who you trust, and when you should start thinking a little bit when you're getting a little too lucky with the people you meet. When the girls got to know him a little more and decided to trust him and tell him the deal with their trip, he got way invested in the gem-- too invested to not be a little bit suspicious. Maybe the girls mistook it for his passion for his archaeology major, maybe they mistook it for something else-- but whatever the case, Omar pulled the cheesecloth over the girls' eyes and really only fell apart near the end, when his alibis and behavior started becoming more and more suspicious; and by then, Omar didn't need to be as inconspicuous, and the girls had gotten to know him too much to readily say to him "okay buddy can you kindly f%ck off, your vibes are not vibing here".

The girls probably should've been suspicious when Omar reappeared in Bolivia out of nowhere, but I guess his alibi was just good enough (and the girls at this point were probably running on adrenaline, caffeine and a brain on 70% capacity at most) to pass the Deception check.

Fr tho there were some bits where the girls should've found him sus but they didn't (him accidentally saying "I did it" when they uncovered the emerald, and also him handling the emerald the way he did), so shrugs. It could be a translation thing, but it could also be something else.

Anyway, kinda meh for a sequel, but it does have its standouts that allow it to somewhat stand on the same level as the first and third books. Kinda.

Hey, at least it's not as bad as Crystal Fairies-- that's the bar of bad-ness I'm setting. It's not as bad as Crystal Fairies and that's what matters--

Also special thanks to @ishmeowwow (it won't let me ping you for some reason bestie <:[) for making the lil' artworks haha

#geronimo stilton #thea sisters #thea stilton #book review #book rambles #book rant #thank you ishmeow for making the gottems for me :D #you came in clutch while my ipad is still dieded thank you bestie <3 #in the book it's just the lip balm but ishmeow decided to go all-out with the gottem gag and i can't be more grateful lmao #same goes with the gemstone in aurora's gottem (it's just the fake tiara plus fake gem) but hey the more salt the merrier :D #book 2 luke is so jarringly different from his other depictions but at the same time #he does not in fact touch grass and he does crack an evil cackle at least once a book so #i dunno how i feel about it . .#on one hand it adds to him not touching grass #but on the other hand it doesn't connect with his “this villain is supposed to make you shnit your pants at how intimidating he is”#he's intimidating because of his connections his ability to basically spy on the entire world and control everything from his base #and y'know he can tell his goons to do whatever and they'll literally wreak havoc to fulfill said requests #he was so intimidating in concept that they had to nerf him with incompetent goons lmao #after doing last minute research i am deeply concerned for the girls' wallets and their mental and physical health :D #like good god i thought a ten hour flight was unbearable and made your body stiff but holy damn #i'm not complaining too much about the timeline tho because this is hilarious and makes the girls look so neurodivergent #“what do you mean we flew a total of 64 hours by plane feels like it's only been a day to m--”#*dies*

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autisticlee · 1 year

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I know I need to "just do things by myself" like literally everyone tells me, but I really wish I had someone I can always ask to go places with me even if it's just to one store for one quick thing.

I barely have the ability to function enough to take care of myself daily. leaving the house for any reason is basically impossible most days. I don't have the energy and ability to drive, find the thing I need at a store, interact with people, and do the checkout dance, then drive home, all while acting "normal" (or appropriate/presentably human enough) in public with the added bonus of sensory overload. for most people, going to the store is one single task. that's all it is. for me, it's hundreds of simultaneously occurring steps I need to remember to do and maintain the entire time....

it's so hard to explain this to people. no one gets it. but i need someone else to do the human-ing for me and I just follow along. they drive, answer or ask questions and let focus be on them, lead me to the thing I need, let me copy them so I dont stand out with my weirdness...so many times i'll go to a store to get a few things alone. the sensory cacophony of everything hitting me at once makes me forget what I'm looking for, tunnel vision on the offending sensory input and can't see where i'm going, can't find things even if they're in the same place they've always been, i've run into people and things, knocking stuff over, because my body disconnects from my brain and it's hard to control. if people talk to me, I can't process their words or respond. I can't ask questions if I need to. i'll wander lost for way longer than I want to be there.

this whole time, i'm trying my best to put on a mask and appear "normal" so I can blend in, but i'm struggling and it's probably obvious because idk how to act "normal" or as expected when alone. so many times I come home without one or more of the things I needed from a store even if I had a list in hand.

I completely space out and dissociate way more often than i would like. not even stores when i need to go in and out quickly, but anywhere. if I try going to a thing that's supposed to be fun, like say a festival or aquarium or anything else, and I go alone because I don't have a friend to go with, I spend the whole time in a sensory overloaded, dissociative state, while being required to perform "normal human" rituals and masking. then get home, realizing I didn't enjoy it or retain much of it because my brain was overworking and i got exhausted as soon as i got there. i didnt get to relax and enjoy any of it because it was so much work and my brain shut down while there to try protecting itself. it's a whole brain exercise that exhausts me beyond belief. this whole time. i'm trying my best to put on a mask and appear "normal" so I can blend in, but i'm struggling and it's probably actually very obvious because idk how to act "normal" when alone and don't have someone to copy and follow.

if I have someone familiar with me, especially someone comfortable who i dont have to lead or entertain, I can ground myself better and focus more on them. I follow and copy them so I dont have the try as hard to be a human and think about doing human things. it's easier to copy someone doing the things than to try to think of the hundred steps you probably forgot and perform them alone. they always answer people so fast before I even processed half the words that were said to me.

it always surprises me when people do that. they'll answer a question before I even processed it was a question! I always need someone to be there for me to answer for me because i'm too slow, they get impatient, and/or I answer incorrectly, if i'm able to speak at all being semi-speaking. at least half the time if I do get words out, they don't hear me or mishear me. for example, just yesterday, I made my mom go to a new sushi restaurant with me. the waiter apparently asked if I was ready to pay, my mom was gesturing to me ans asking if im ready or something and the waiter was looking at me, but my brain couldn't make any of it out at all. I was staring between them like ???????? and gave up and just shook my head no. my brain was trying to figure it out and process anything at all, but i got incredibly confused and completely froze up. my mom answered "not yet" and they left. I was like, what was that about ? She said "they wanted you to pay now. you're ready to go right? now we have to wait again." I didn't get any of that, and if I was alone, that would have been even worse because I wasn't able to figure out anything or even say words. I need someone with me at all times to cover my perpetually lost and confused ass lmao

but it's also a struggle when the other person is like this too, puts too much attention on me, or expects me to lead us both. it causes the same effects as if i'm alone, plus the added bonus of needing to entertain and/or advocate/answer for and lead THEM, when I can't even do it for myself! I had a friend like that and it was annoying and immediately exhausting every time we hung out.

I don't know if any of this is making sense. i'm sure at least one person's gets it, though, right? how it's hard to consciously and appropriately act human in public when alone, but copying or hiding behind another person makes it easier than thinking about it all yourself, while sensory overload! if i can I just exist along with them and the focus isn't all on me like it is when i'm alone, it's a lot easier.

acting "normal" like a human, or basically what's "appropriate" in public spaces around others takes so much brain power that most people don't have to even think about! because it's automatic for them. so they can't fathom how much i'm struggling and it's so easy for them to say "just do it/you don't need help/you don't need someone to do it with or for you/you're being lazy!" plus adding on sensory overload you can't ignore, while everyone else is able to completely tune out and ignore the horrible lighting, the squeaky cart wheels, the crying babies and screaming kids, the 50 different conversations, the loud phone ring tone a few aisles over, the annoying music playing, someone dropping a box of something, crinkling of wrappers, the cash register beeps, the air being a bit too chilly, the annoying seam on your socks, the scratchy material of your jacket, the overly bright display of products, etc. everything all at once in great intensity. people who can ignore this don't know how lucky they are. they also don't understand what it feels like. it's exhausting.

i'm like a cave gremlin seeing light and the world for the first time ever, every time I leave my room. everything is confusing and overwhelming, but because i'm human shaped, everyone expects me to have the expected human behaviors and they freak out when i dont meet those standards. they don't care how difficult it is for me and how much i'm struggling. they won't help or accommodate me. it has to be my fault I made them uncomfortable.

exposure doesn't make it any better and arguably makes it worse because more sensory overload and more need to use my brain to overthink every word and movement I do, leading to a very deep exhaustion immediately 😫

this is why functioning labels or comparing me to my "good" days/experiences sucks and shouldn't happen. I often need help/support and people expect me to ~do it myself~ and refuse to help me so I struggle and fail to exist correctly.

#autistic #autism #lee rambles #actually autistic #neurodivergent #audhd #autism things #sensory processing disorder #sensory overstimulation #sensory overload #i copy pasted this from where i first typed it and somehow pasted it in the incorrect order because tumblr app is a nightmare #it kept jumping as i was trhing to paste so things pasted jn the wrong spots. but i *think* i fixed it. apologies if not lmao #its one of those days. where i wish to go a place and do a thing but have no one to ask so i will not go #i need a dedicated beat friend i can always ask who preferably has the same work schedule as me or flexible time #or become rich and hire someone to do things with me l m a o #why is tumblr app such a nightmare though why is it jumping around while i type #and why does it turn a whole paragraph italics when i only highlighted ONE WORD.#and dont even get me started on trying to rearrange pictures in a post lmao #this has been a rant within a rant #autism stuff

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kind-of-a-shitty-wizard · 4 months

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hiii i got a little insane over haskills characterization in the other elder scrolls games / material. teehee rambling abt these ^ quotes under the cut (long). also im not that serious abt any of this tbh im just glad haskill appeared in any other elder scrolls material at all LOL

OKAY. okay. about these quotes. idk why other TES media does this, but in these quotes from elder scrolls legends + the interview with haskill it seems like the writers are pushing to give the impression that haskill slightly resents or is even indifferent to his position / the isles / sheogorath ?? (unless haskill is being a little bit more flippant or hyperbolic than usual...?) which is characterization that is NOT what i got from playing oblivion at all skdskdjfn

like... when i played oblivion i thought it was very clear that haskill prefers to be in the isles, serving sheogorath, more than anywhere else. (<- i think this is actually the reason he's technically "mad" even tho he seems sane outwardly. if you enjoy being among madmen it probably means you're mad yourself ykwim). i think haskill does like the isles, his ass is just reserved abt it, like he is about everything... yknow just like jeeves, whose character he's been compared to lmao:)

i think unfortunately some writers take his annoyance with the player and his slight second thoughts about sheogorath's plan in oblivion, and mistakenly assume that he's just annoyed at his whole position. haskill does have his moments of exasperation, but the thing is it's usually only exasperation and it never verges into anger or bitterness or resentment like the top quotes seem to indicate. for example, haskill says this abt his idea of you mantling sheo / the clowns debacle:

^ This quote is a good reference point for haskill's view on sheo bc its pretty much the most critical-of-sheogorath quote from oblivion i can recall, and it tells us a lot of things. in this quote he expresses some exasperation about the clown idea (because he's a prissy bitch who doesn't want to get his outfit dirty /affectionate) and shows some apprehension about one of his lord's ideas (because it involves you, and haskill doesnt like you). but these 2 points he has beef with aren't really reflective of sheo himself but of other issues - ie he doesn't directly question sheogorath. and IN THE END Haskill defers to sheo's judgement because haskill trusts him and values sheo's ideas. in all of his oblivion dialogue, this is the most critical toward sheogorath he gets, and he never outright insults or shows resentment toward him or the isles like in the above quotes bc his loyalty to sheogorath eclipses it

on the contrary (and i dont know why the writers for non-oblivion elder scrolls content dont seem to see this??), theres so much evidence that haskill actually does, you know,,, enjoy being in the isles. here are just some snippets i can think of:

"the isles are hardly a place for anyone, really" <- i BEG to differ, Haskill likes it here, he likes listening to prisoners being tortured in xedillian, he likes wearing his ridiculous frilly high collar outfit emblematic of the fashions of the isles, he doesn't care about morality and it suits him just fine that it doesn't matter here!! (the end quote might be him being a little facetious about relmyna but to be honest i wouldn't be surprised if he thought decency and morality WERE provincial notions because he certainly has no problem killing people lmao). and again, to enjoy doing these things / being around madmen probably says something abt haskill being mad himself. lol

not to mention he likes a bit of joking around. which i imagine sheo does a whole lot. when YOU rib him a little he says this:

his derision in the first bit i think indicates, "i cant believe you would joke around at a time like this," and the upturning of the "very good" i think indicates, "it was a good joke / maybe they could mantle sheo after all". he's not all dour - he appreciates a good joke, especially from (someone who's about to become) his Lord!!

and going a little deeper into haskill actually liking the isles... haskill clearly holds what sheogorath and the isles represent (chaos, free will, individuality) very highly. a good example of this is when you ask him about dyus, and he gives this snarky reply:

^ he says this with such VITRIOL its so funny :p and the amount of disdain in this line indicates (to me) a real conviction in his belief in the free will, chaos etc that sheogorath represents.

this is why i dont think this quote makes sense. "i cant remember why i put up with [sheogorath]" <- haskill wouldnt say this bc he understands fully why he puts up w sheogorath, and his own convictions in sheo that lead him to keep doing it, and even if this quote is him being hyperbolic, i dont think he'd joke about his faith in sheogorath like that because, yk, one of his characteristics is that he's extremely loyal, and moreover he never said anything to this effect in oblivion sdkjskdjs

him having a strong belief in what sheogorath / the isles represent is also evidenced by the language haskill uses when talking about sheo. whenever haskill mentions him, there is an element of poetry and respect to his words that shows that haskill thinks about him highly at the very least:

^ haskill constantly stresses sheogorath's intrinsic unknowableness and power and unique wisdom in a way that feels very respectful. saying "to attempt to fathom [sheogorath's will] is a foolish endeavor" shows that he knows there are unexplainable aspects to sheogorath that he takes note of, respects, and knowingly keeps his distance from... he gets sheogorath and reveres him (at least more than most others or the HoK). in these quotes especially, it feels a bit like hes trying to illustrate how impressive sheogorath is to the HoK, hyping up his boyfriend if you would. who said that. and combined with this respect is (i believe!!!!) a deep care. he is invested in the isles and sheo and wants to help them out of more than just duty. he gets fearful and even loses his composure at some points in the story when sheo/the isles are threatened which i think indicates that he deeply cares for them both!!:

i think this is a care that, combined with the respect he has for sheo, makes it really unlikely for him to get more than exasperated with his behavior and verge into resentfulness. i dont think anyone truly understands sheogorath, not even haskill, but haskill respects sheo as a god, and also gets him in a more familiar/personal way i think - like the way that a cat owner loves their cat but gets exasperated with it when it gets its head stuck in a tissue box. he doesn't angry or anything because he understands that it's the cat's nature to get stuck in the tissue box / sheo's nature to be wild and unpredictable and messy. (the difference being that sheogorath is an all-powerful god cat..... do u see my vision???)

anyway this got crazy long JHDSHFSD... to finish i wanted to look at this extra bit of characterization i found that was wild to me:

^ like. i truly dont get where they got THIS characterization LMAO sheo constantly calls haskill faithful and smart and knowledgeable in oblivion, he practically begs you to summon haskill for help, hyping up his boyfriend so to speak, they care for each other your honor so of COURSE sheo trusts haskill to do his job. what are the legends writers doing in there!!

ANYWAY dear god this got long im going to bed <3

#rambles into the void #haskill #tes #this is all lighthearted by the way just my interpretation of the dialogue #if anyone else has thoughts abt this then be my guest to disagree <3 love to talk abt him #and honestly im just glad he appeared in legends at all..... like that card art??? im still bonkers about his card art #does this all make any sense!! lmao #i just think its more interesting if haskill is a snarky person but only to people he doesn't like. which is the case (i think) in oblivion #i think these lines are a l m o s t there but misdirect his snarkiness... that mans loyal as hell i dont think hed talk like that...#i mean why would he stick around sheo if he didnt at least respect him and enjoy the silly things he does. this man voluntarily puts #on a bright red foot-tall collar every day do you think he wouldnt appreciate a little silliness!! SKDJSD #and it fits with why he'd be in the isles even if he doesnt look mad #the first thing i thought when i realized he was outwardly 'sane' was 'oh but he likes being around 'mad' people therefore insane'... ykwim #i cant believe how well developed he is actually. haskill my beloved. i love your 400+ lines of dialogue haskill

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