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solsays · 6 months

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okay guys hello hi so a (more serious) post before we’re back to the sillies but like I’ve seen a bit of this in the QSMP community recently and I feel like it needs to be addressed

you’re free to dislike a creator/cc’s fanbase, but don’t lump them all together. Every fanbase has its different parts, and that means that not everybody is the same. I’ve seen this most with Wilbur and Phil mains, how people are like “oh you’re oblivious and don’t care to watch other streamers” or whatever it is, and often they get accused of summing characters/creators up to all they know them as through Phil or Wilbur or their relationships with other characters. This isn’t to say that doesn’t happen, but it’s not nearly as common as many seem to think!

This is coming from someone who has been watching Phil for going on four years now; we know more than you think, and often there are actual reasons for why we don’t watch other ccs. For me, it’s because I can rarely tune in when people are actually live thanks to school and work and such, so I take to watching vods and clips to keep caught up on the events. I am also not fully bilingual (English, and I speak partial Spanish but fast Spanish still confuses me sometimes) which makes it hard to watch people like the Brazilian or French players (I don’t speak either language) outside of clips where they’re playing with the English or Spanish speakers! As a result, my knowledge of many of them (Mike, Bagi, Antoine, etc) is pretty limited. I try my best to keep up with everyone on character stuff, but it can be hard if we’re busy. Another thing is that a large part of (especially) Phil’s fanbase are adults, who have families or college or work and they can’t always keep up with every minute detail or trait of characters, and I know this is true for many other cc’s fanbases as well.

of course, everybody is allowed to have their own opinions, and it’s okay if you aren’t a fan of a cc or their fans! All I’m asking is that we don’t hate on those creators or their fans, especially if it’s because you’ve had not great experiences with some of their fans. Often I think the former DSMP members fans are seen as stupid little kids who are toxic and childish, while in reality most of us are over 16 or even adults. Phil, Foolish, Slime, Quackity, etc were never really the problematic part of the dsmp fanbase, which was kind of split into Techno’s friends and their fans (who were always pretty chill for the most part) and then dream’s friends and their fans (who were and still are pretty problematic a lot of the time). I never was a huge dsmp enjoyer, so I never really watched the lore and preferred to watch their other stuff, but I always disliked the dream team and their little group, they always rubbed me the wrong way.

I only truly watch Phil’s streams, but I’ve taken up watching Cellbit and Fit as well, even if I can’t understand Cellbit sometimes, so remember that we won’t know everything niche about characters because of the language barriers! Don’t be a dick or rude to people who are unaware of certain parts of lore and such because they don’t watch multiple creators, we want to keep the QSMP fandom a chill safe place where people don’t feel hated or excluded just because of which creator(s) they watch, so in summary just be nice to everyone and don’t hate on people just because they don’t do things the same way as you. This community was created with the purpose of bringing people together and breaking barriers, so let’s try and keep that moral in mind while interacting with other fans!

TLDR: you’re free to dislike creators or their fans, just don’t lump them all together and say they’re all clueless or don’t care about any other characters! Let’s keep the point of the QSMP fandom what Quackity intended—breaking language barriers and bringing people together/lifting them up instead of putting them down :)

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tsams-confessions · 3 months

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Shit my first time doing this, uhhhh-

OK so! I've been watching tsams since the end of August of 2023 and honestly, I don't know what the fuck is going on at this point!

I stopped watching gaming vids (with some exceptions) just so I can focus on the lore and I am still lost! I forget details very easily myself, so when somebody points out something from a video (especially an older one), I'm like : "oh shit, for real?" 'cuz I don't know how to react otherwise-

But I also notice a few details during lore episodes (especially older ones) that (just maybe) we're forgottened by accident? Or something?? Maybe it's intentional that they're left alone and never spoken about again? I don't know. Sometimes, it does tie back to a certain event or a thing a character has said but doesn't always get executed properly in the show-

And so I have detached myself from these characters for the most part because of this and decided to just listen to the people making theories here and ONLY watch the lore vids. I have agreed in the past and even now that Eclipse deserves redemption and it's so irritating how in the story he's still shown acting the exact same way with no development! In the present, I get why he's like this, cuz he's a copy, but also: HE'S A COPY! Does that make sense?! He could change cuz he ain't the same old guy; but it isn't surprising if he DOESN'T either! He was built to act like his original. Use the same old bad habits that he 'remembers' doing once..

..But it would be so interesting if, somewhere in the future, he cracks a little and shows something more different! Maybe he's too insane for that to happen now and he's mainly trying to do what he's already familiar with from the get-go still. You see this sort of behaviour in other characters too. But still; I think it would be so cool and would add nuance to him (current version) that he isn't all just evil and/or insane (ying yang bullshit) and has no chance to change AT ALL!

Also, no more new characters I think (there's too many)! The current ones should already be focused on more instead of adding new ones for the sake of angst and stuff and at such a quick pace! Their dynamics, habits, everything should be further explored more (with less drama and better/more development instead)! It would add so much detail to the full picture instead of doing it like this!! That doesn't mean I don't want a new character to make sense of the narrative or help it, it's just that it gets so chaotic so fast (physically in their life and the stuff around them)! Or maybe that's just me idk.

I haven't checked every corner of this fandom and I don't plan to either. Too much stuff going on. I'm sure others will either agree or disagree with me. Maybe both. Doesn't mean it isn't fun to watch/participate in sometimes! It just gets too dramatic at one point when it's all fictional characters in a fictional world and, apparently, artists are getting flunked over by other fans for certain ships and/or opinions and headcanons which is not good! So yeah... (other people have talked about it already so I won't go into further detail myself).

This was nice doing at 2:32 in the morning by the way, it's refreshing! I'll probably do it again in the future.

(maybe not at this hour hopefully and with an english test ahead that I haven't studied for properly cuz I'm a massive dummy :">)

10/10, would recommend!

#the sun and moon show #sun and moon show #tsams #sams #tsams confession #< block this if you dont want to see these #mod 4bones

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mako-neexu · 2 months

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please do give a summary!! and thank you 🥺❤️

i got busy with dream striker asdsjkfh but heres the summary:

basically 80% of the Servants take their leave and return to their home countries- or at least where they're located considering the earth is bleached. And Santa Martha picks Nemo to be 2023 santa this time so he's named Nemo Porter. After taking on the role of santa, Nemo insists on guda and mash to stay and fully relax in the border then after nemo leaves BB helps guda and mash secretly assist santa nemo by making sure his route is safe wherever he goes.

over the week, we get to learn that nemo took on being santa because he wants to give someone a gift. you see how even king hassan himself warned nemo about it then later on merlin stops nemo for a while because of just how risky the operation is and tells them that its practically near-worthless given what they're going to do, then BB with guda and mash not to ask nemo about what hes planning.

nemo's objective all along is to gift guda their chaldean uniform- the very Master from years ago who collapsed right after a battle simulation as soon as they came to Chaldea. its really sweet...

it was a highly risky voyage considering time travel itself is near impossibility and could absolutely destroy Nemo's saint graph into nothing should he even breathe wrong during the Zero Sail or during his time at 2015 chaldea. so "no changing the past" is something that was absolutely integral to the time travel. even telling past-ritsuka about how special the uniform is would cause everything to fall apart. (this is also why the event is named like this btw 7 days of preparation and delivering presents and 8 years of traveling back far into the past)

after going through against the harsh upcurrent (and even seeing guda's nightmares especially Garden of Lostwill), nemo and the crew eventually safely travel back to the past, with nemo wearing meuniere as a disguise. there, he sees cerejeira, some old staff... and finally Romani Ar- "Man in a Lab Coat".... which the Man almost instantly realize its not "Meuniere" beneath but maintains friendliness regardless. they have a chat- a small chat of world fighting for survival to which the Man in a Lab Coat expresses his opnion that there is no right and wrong in a battle for survival. that the victor only gets to have the right to see what happens next.

then the conversation finishes and "Meuniere" asks the Doctor for two pairs of white gloves. to which santa nemo gives to the present guda and mash as his christmas present for both of them, after having delivered past-guda's uniform for them to use later on.

ok cut now for lore stuff

basically the most striking detail albeit small, changes everything.

"Announcer" - Prologue of the Fuyuki singularity

"CHALDEAS" - Christmas 2023 event

this basically means that it wasnt an accident that Fujimaru Ritsuka became Humanity's Last Master that day. it means that CHALDEAS itself literally planned for fujimaru to pass out in the simulation to delay their arrival from the bombing, setting the battle simulator to "Senior" or highly difficult on their first day.

CHALDEAS. CHALDEAS itself chose ritsuka that day. it could probably be because no one was highly as compatible with servants as much as Fujimaru Ritsuka themself. and considering its true purpose is to fulfill marisbury's grand order, it must have chosen them for that reason? theres not much info on chaldeas that i remember but if you consider this, then that changes everything from the start.

#ask #fgo #fate grand order

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pinkyjulien · 1 year

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🟨 DATABASE: Mitch Anderson 🔧

▶ PROFILE | APPEARANCE | CYBERWARE

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▶ OBLIGATORY DISCLAIMERS 🛑

*This is a fan work and in no way related to or endorsed by CDPR.

*This is entirely based on my own experience with the game and the character. In no way or form am I claiming the informations presented here as *the* canon and never have been. All of the informations presented here are my own headcanons based on my own experiences and analyses of the character and his surrounding.

*If any of the informations presented here upset you, please feel free to hide and/or block me.

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▶ Personal shtuff under read more 😖

AAAAAH... So- this is actually kind of old ghfhghf

it's still one of the thing I'm the most proud of 👉👈

I updated it slightly, fixed some stuff, some phrasing here and there, but I wanted to repost it, mainly because it used to be on a side page that I ended up deleting last year, and since I cannot search anything anymore on my now flagged main blog, I wanted to have it somewhere accessible!

It's a surprise to no one that Mitch is my favorite ghfhgf

He's actually the first fictional character I've been this much passionate about! He unlocked a lot of creativity, learned a ton of new skills and met a ton of new amazing people thanks to this pixel man...

Hyperfixating on him and the game helped me through a lot of shitty events those past years- I'd even go as far as saying he pretty much saved my life, in a way?

And spending time exploring his (small, but still present) lore and trying to expand it in a canon-compliant way has been my own way of.... "thanking him" ??? AND I KNOW HOW THAT SOUND, absolutely batshit insane ghfhgf

I really appreciate his character, how he was written and built, what his role is in the game, how the devs sprinkled all of this interesting info surrounding him, in his expressions and body language, small details in his tent and car...

He means a lot to me gfhgfh OK THATS IT THATS IT 🤡🤙

If you made it through all this-- HI Thank you for reading ghfhgf

and remember that this is only my headcanons!

#Cyberpunk 2077 #Mitch Anderson #Aldecaldos #DATABASE #Fav #long post #about: Mitch

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alpaca-clouds · 5 months

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BG3 and the Second Sundering

You know what? I might ramble a bit about DnD Lore, because I am recently starting to get really into the lore. And I think that the Second Sundering is super interesting in terms of how it might connect to BG3 and its characters.

Quick refresher for everyone who (like me) never really had any contact with the lore of DnD and specifically the Forgotten Realms prior to 2023.

The Forgotten Realms is more or less the main setting for DnD and describes a collection of worlds that are technically speaking connected to our world. The main world most of the lore happens is called Toril, though frankly: Toril mostly consists of Faerûn (where most plot happens) and then an assorted collection of stereotypical settings that are mostly "Fantasy-East-Asia", "Fantasy-Egypt", "Fantasy-Africa" and "Fantasy-Aztecs".

The Forgotten Realms have magic (the Weave) and a wide collection of gods. And most worldwide storylines can be best described as: Bhaal, Myrkul, Bane, and Shar do some bullshit. And: Ao (who totally is not based on YHW) has issues.

Most of the recent events within the lore are all connected to those things. To give you a quick rundown:

The laws of the Forgotten Realms were written down by Ao in the Tablets of Fate, and about a hundred years ago Myrkul and Bane stole those tablets trying to give themselves more power. This made Ao angry at all the other gods and throw them out of the Astral planes. Stuff happened. More stuff happened. The Tablets of Fate were found again and Ao decided to destroy them to prevent something like that from happening again. Which lead to the Spellplague among other things. But we are not talking about the Spellplague today. No, we are talking about the Second Sundering, which happened just a few years ago from the perspective of Baldur's Gate 3.

Because Ao decided to reforge the Tablets of Fate to properly put the worlds of the Forgotten Realms back into order. And here is a thing you need to understand about the gods in the Forgotten Realms: They all, with no exception, strive for more power. No matter how Lawful Good or Chaotic Evil they are, they strive for power. And they all knew: When the Tablets would be reforged, the gods' powers would be more pinned down compared to how free they were without the tablets. So, all the gods tried to get more powers by getting more followers. To archive this, they all got themselves more chosen, so that they could be more present on Toril, which is how this most notably affected the people on the world.

The main events of the Second Sundering happened between 1484 and 1487 DR. (BG3 takes place in 1492 DR.)

Now, I will not go into too much detail of what happened. The tl;dr is that the usual people (the dead three and Shar) did their usual bullshit, some of the chosen were kidnapped and at times killed, there were several wars, some of the effects of the Spellplague were reversed, and some dead gods came back (including Mystra, but that is a story all on its own).

Within the world not all people even learned what was going on. Like, sure, people would have known about the wars and some might have heard some rumors about the chosen running around and stuff, but they would not have learned exactly what was going on with the gods and with the tablets of fate.

Still, some of the characters in BG3 would probably have known of - and even been involved in - in the events. Most notably of course Gale, who as a chosen of Mystra would be involved into everything in one way or another. Again, Mystra is probably a topic on her own. But yeah, Gale would have been involved somehow.

Chances are that Wyll's entire thing with defending the city from the Tiamat people, was also probably somehow connected to it.

The same goes of course for Shadowheart. She might in fact not fully remember this - but she was most certainly somehow dragged into those events by Shar.

The other three origin characters would not have been that involved. I firmly believe that Astarion knew next to nothing about what the fuck was going on, due to Cazador keeping the Spawn kinda away from the outside world except for hunting. And while the Second Sundering did involve some events in the Hells and on the Astral Plane, I doubt that Lae'zel or Karlach were very involved.

Ironically, someone who might well have been deeply involved would have been the Dark Urge. Because Bhaal was fairly involved in everything going on. Heck, chances are that even Gortash and Orin were in some way involved. Not quite sure about Ketheric. But those two? Yeah, probably involved.

And, you know. I think it is kinda a funny thing to think about. With everything happening there and how the characters - and in fact the events - being connected.

#baldurs gate 3 #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #dungeons & dragons #dnd #forgotten realms #faerûn #second sundering #dnd lore #wyll ravengard #gale of waterdeep

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fluffypotatey · 9 months

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Hello there! I hope the month has treated you kindly enough. I don't have much questions right now, but there are a few buzzing in my head:

Why did Wukong tell MK at the start of S2 that he was going on a vacation, instead of maybe just saying that he has some unfinished business, maybe a serious one, that needs attending to now that MK can sort of look after himself? Probably to set the tone into something less alarming but I think if he went with that kind of excuse maybe MK wouldn't feel so resentful about his mentor apparently chilling while away. Or rather why not say that he's going to the Celestial realm and that he may not be available for a while because time runs differently between the two realms?

What effects do you think that being imprisoned inside a mountain has on Wukong instead of being trapped under it like in the OG JTTW book? I mean, both are pretty bad but at least the one in the book gives him fresh air and sunlight instead of complete darkness in the isolation.

Do you think that just like the battle that lead to the Havoc in Heaven 2.0 is different in LMK compared to the original book version, the peach thievery and banquet disruption also has a different story to it than the book one?

How's your writing for SWK and The Reaper series going? If you're having a bit of an inspiration fatigue, take your time to recharge. But are we going to see the White Impermanence's successor in that series though. How would the s4 and its specials' events go?

Have a great week, eat your meals regularly and not too late, take your medication if you have any, and eat your fruits and vegetables!

oh dear, oh honey, you’ve done it now :3 the floodgates are open :) hope you don’t regret it

imma have to answer these by short answer to long, so that first one is definitely placed last

anyway,

How's your writing for SWK and The Reaper series going?

tis marinating my good friend! tis on the slow cooker rn and might be for some more days or weeks depending on my uni stuff and motivation levels T^T but yeah, it’s not abandoned (far from it!) just needs some more mental plotting (ESPECIALLY because I added Xié Líng to the story and kind of want them introduced in the upcoming chapter/installment/part(?))

Are we going to see the White Impermanence's successor in that series though?

so yeah, you will see the White Impermanence’s successor soon! their involvement in the story takes place more in what I have in mind for s4 :3 and I don’t remember what I mentioned about them, but Xié Líng is basically Júhua’s only friend in the underworld (not to mention that the two are basically soulmates no thanks to what they have/will inherit). they aren’t that big of a fan of Sun Wukong but tolerate him bc it’s Júhua’s uncle (a label she only ever confessed to Xié Líng). also, hoping they will help me explained Júhua’s magic a bit more since I now have 2 reapers in this verse :)

and for s4…..no, I shan’t say…….more Diyu and Júhua playing sleuth while MK goes through the horrors

I honestly would not be surprised if that was the case. lmk already differentiates a lot from the book with specific details or chapters (Red Son’s chapter/Samadhi Fire lore, the reason behind Guanyin’s vase, how the JTTW crew met Pigsy, how they met Sandy, LBD’s chapter). so, while the feel of the show sticks with that adventure and high stakes and moral dilema that JTTW had, it also is its own piece of work (which you could argue for many JTTW adaptations tbh since there are sO many and many are very different from each other)

anyway, yeah, I have an inkling that the stolen peach story is not exactly book accurate.

What effects do you think that being imprisoned inside a mountain has on Wukong instead of being trapped under it like in the OG JTTW book?

oh ho ho! what a question 👀

I certainly think being trapped inside the 5 Phases Mt has a different impact than being trapped under it. for one, like you mentioned, book!SWK had the “luxury” of being able to see outside and breathe fresh air. lmk!SWK???? he is in the heart of the mountain. he is seeing nothing but rocks (stalactites and stalagmites), he can hear nothing but the drips of cave water, he can breath nothing but stale and dusty air….for 500 years :)

how do you stay sane in such conditions?

spoiler: you don’t!

you cannot stay sane or impassive to being trapped inside a mountain with nothing but rock and golden chains for 500 years!!! we all remember that clip of a freed swk, right?

see that? that’s the look of a monkey who’s just been released from a 500 year prison and is ready to tear the world apart just to feel better :)

so how would one stay some-what lucid in this imprisonment? my guess is the man hallucinated the shit out of it. bored of seeing nothing but rock and more rock and even more rock? how about visualizing that Macky returned after your horrible fight and is apologizing for snapping at you. how about believing that you good pals the Brotherhood and you didn’t fail your war with Heaven! how about thinking that the darkness and loud echos of the cave hold more creatures and demons who heard of your downfall and want to finish the job. how about envisioning being back at FFM, Macky and your monkey subjects are so happy to see you and you were actually never imprisoned! how about believing—

listen to me, listen to me: Wukong’s experience of being held inside the mountain, other than being smushed under it, is more psychologically impactful and I bet this monkey could not sleep well after being freed for centuries. Wukong sleeps with a night light still!

Why did Wukong tell MK at the start of S2 that he was going on a vacation, instead of maybe just saying that he has some unfinished business?

short answer: because he’s an idiot

long answer:

Wukong is very used to solving issues on his own. he is aware that MK is human (maybe) and a mortal (now debatable, but at this point, MK believed that and that’s what’s important). he is aware that MK’s an anxious kid and wants to prove himself but also has great power within him. he is very aware that MK still needs to complete his training and isn’t ready for what Wukong is about to embark on (also who Wukong would potentially fight against with no one being none the wiser to).

and, as I stated prior, Wukong is very used to solving issues on his own. he did it in his time before JTTW and even during JTTW because he was the overpowered stone monkey who was FFM’s trump card and the JTTW savior when situations got rough (barely any of the other companions are able to beat off an opponent without Wukong’s help). thus, Wukong is not someone to ask for help or even allow other to be aware that help is needed because he is not used to asking (he only will if push comes to shove and he is out of ideas, which he wasn’t in s2)

however, I’m sure we’re well aware of SWK’s almost allergic reaction to acknowledging help or admitting that something is most definitely wrong! but imma get that statement out of the way so that when I delve into the question, we all have what I said above in mind :)

now, why tell MK he’s going on vacation? why not give a lie that could be a little closer to the truth?

well, as said before, Wukong has an aversion to admitting when there are things going wrong that only he could recognize and probably worries that hinting to MK that Wukong is off to investigate something would possibly entice the kid to join Wukong or ask the monkey a lot of questions about it he isn’t inclined to answer. also, if Wukong were to say he needed to complete something in the celestial realm that would also bring on more questions he would not know how to respond to

thus, vacation! it’s already established that Wukong retired himself from helping duty by s1. and what do retired people do? go on vacation!!!! they hit the road, take the most tourist heavy sites, go radio silent and relax! therefore, if Wuking were to tell MK he is going on vacation, then MK would not ask him too many questions about where he’s going or ask if he can join! I would not be surprised if that’s Wukong’s thought process. this answer is merely the simplest way for Wukong to subtly get rid of the LBD problem while MK protects the city and learns more about how to hone his powers (it’s not like the kid needed Wukong, the kid’s a fast learner and his powers are growing pretty quickly).

‘course this undermines MK’s insecurities of not being good enough and brings to light his abandonment issues and his low self worth but, uh, yeah

in conclusion: Wukong dun fucked up for saying vacation because he’s an idiot

#lmk #lego monkie kid #lmk analysis #more like lmk ramble #lol #this month has been so-so tbh #feeling very tired rn #gonna rearrange my queue for a bit so that this doesn’t get drowned by it #I really hope there’s no typos on here #Posting it with no proofreading #lmk sun wukong #lmk mk #sunburst duo

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rielzero · 3 months

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Dissociative Amnesia and what it does (Yes this post is also about Astarion)

TRIGGER WARNING: I discuss how Trauma affects your memory and my experience with it.

This post is specifically about amnesia surrounding the self, there is a variant to this type of amnesia that erases the access to a bad memory or collection of memories itself. A quick google search will tell you;

Dissociative amnesia involves not being able to recall information about oneself (not normal forgetting). This amnesia is usually related to a traumatic or stressful event and may be: localized – unable to remember an event or period of time (most common type)

Hi! I have CPTSD, and as a result of a lot of life events I experienced, I have dissociative amnesia. I wrote in detail about my experience with bad memory in a much older post: This one here. I recommend you read it as I'll skip over some things explained in more detail there.

In DND lore, Elves use meditation to recall memories of oneself, they do not require sleep and have different physiology when it comes to rest. Spiritual physiology counts here too, since Elves reincarnate. This lore is explained better on the forgotten realms wiki.

I've seen a lot of posts going over Astarion's line when you ask him about himself after the vampire reveal.. Instead of the magistrate thing he will mention that 200 years of torture leave little to remember.

Now, this- as someone who has cptsd is a thing I recognize very well. If you take in consideration that elves at a certain point meditate memories of their years and eventually past lives- when next you are being tortured and disconnected from your past lives by becoming undead, your most recent memories will be those decades and decades just torture. When you are in a place of misery- you will lose connection to good memories, or distant memories. The worse something is, the more precedent that memory becomes- It's a survival thing. ''This is the bad thing, we must avoid'' and you might relive it at random, without knowing why exactly. Astarion says so himself. What's 39 elf years vs 200 years of being undead and put through pure hell? (Still unclear on what Astarion's actual age is, but I'm not going into that, I had another post for this.)

Please know: This does not mean you have permanent memory loss- you lose attachment and association to good memories. One day can be a nightmare, but something good could also have happened that same week. When you're traumatized by repeated events unfortunately the repetitive ''bad thing'' will be prioritized by your survival instinct and shock you more if you are continuously exposed to it in a dangerous environment. The longer you are in an unsafe environment, the more your association to good things becomes detached. You develop coping mechanisms and behaviors, avoidance, bias. We see this in Astarion and how he treats the player when they meet. He's in a situation he feels incredibly unfamiliar with- so he falls back on daggers and threats. Manipulative charm comes afterwards. His coping mechanisms of course, have been discussed in more detail by others on this platform. Now to the memory thing; from my own experience with randomly remembering stuff once I got out of the ''unsafe'' environment for a long time, once your body feels settled or secure.. Things just come back. Either its a nightmare flashback that you need to process slowly, because you haven't had time for it while you felt unsafe, or it can be the ''good'' or the ''normal'' memories too.

I personally headcanon and believe- that 200 years alone of torture don't necessarily erase ''39'' years of something else. I have been in ''unsafe'' environment for most of my life, since I was a kid. Once I hit 21, when I finally felt safe things just started popping up in my head. Both bad and good. I might not be an immortal long living creature, but I am still having random memories flood back these days.

It's very alienating at times to see your old self through that lens that you often don't recognize that person as someone that was you. Simply because you've outgrown it or you've matured. Your brain has distanced you from it because there was no space to even think of it.

I still experience horrible short term memory and frequent recollective ability malfunction. (Basically I struggle with routines or storing information I have not been able to process thoroughly.) Memory loss happens to me all the time and it is more inconvenient to me than it is to anyone who's annoyed by it..

Now imagine either ending route of Astarion, (Wether spawn or ascended) finally settling down in a place of peace, and he goes and meditates. Sometimes he dreams of torture again, and eventually after a while.. He remembers his parents, he remembers an old friend.. He remembers being bullied at school, he remembers a lover he cheated on.. He just starts remembering his life before the torture. Just bit by bit- very small things. And it's like.. It feels like A completely different person to him.

That's what it was like for me. Sometimes out of nowhere, I will recall something I said, or did in my youth. Something outside of the shitty things I went through. And sometimes I'll remember things that were done to me and realize.. That was wrong, and someone should've said something about it. Sometimes I'll remember something incredibly cringe I did as a kid and just cringe about it again. Eugh. I don't always remember the trauma and only the trauma. I'd remember things outside of it too, just not as frequent.

CPTSD doesn't always ''trigger'' your brain might not associate the memories with anything. They just pop up casually like ''hi! I exist! U feel safe?? WELL NOW-'' It's annoying and distressing sometimes.

Even the color or shape of something might just quietly nudge your mind.. ''Oh hey here's this image'' there's not always telling were it comes from. It might just happen, because.

And it takes time to heal too, remembering is a part of healing. Remembering your past both good and bad. Some people don't heal from it though, and instead dive deeper and deeper into the misery. They feel more unsafe than they did before.

#bg3 astarion #astarion #ascended astarion #dissociative amnesia #dissociative amnesia does not mean you have DID #folks with DID usually have it though #amnesia and bad memory is a result of CPTSD amongst other things #brain not braining it happens #queue #queued post

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magpie-trinkets · 3 months

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We don't know wether Pokémon Legends Z-A will be set in the ancient past or recent past, but regardless, I would like some more context for these things specifically (I am a sucker for lore):

These are specific details I remember from when I played X, so it's an assortment of notes I remember/checked in with Wikidex and Bulbapedia.

From here on I will theorize a whole bunch and expand on these topics so, um. History and imaginings ahead. All the information is from Wikipedia.

Firstly, we can safely assume that Lumiose City (the city that is the focus of the trailer) is heavily inspired by Paris, France. The city of Paris is really fucking old: according to Wikipedia, the Parisii (a Gallic tribe) settled around the river Seine between 250 and 225 BC, and the Romans colonized them in 52 BC. All of this to say it's OLD. But I doubt Pokémon Legends Z-A will thrust us into old Roman times, for one specific reason: the Eiffel Tower, or its Pokémon equivalent, Prism Tower.

The Eiffel Tower was built for the 1889 World's Fair, so it's fairly modern. If we were to take into account this, we can deduce the setting for Pokémon Legends Z-A could be set around late 19th century France. This is NOT "3,000 years old war AZ and Floette stuff."

If you wanted to have a game centered around that event, you would have to set the game's history period even before the Parisii. It could be that Lumiose City was built after the 3,000 years old war, and they're electing to stretch the time periods and architecture to fit it, but I sincerely doubt it. Prism Tower looks too futuristic for that.

My bet, then, is in late 19th century. The World's Fair concept could work here, and instead of building the one tower they could build the entire city.

Enough Paris talk, let's move to Versailles, or its Pokémon equivalent, the Parfum Palace.

The Palace of Versailles was turned into the official seat of the monarchy in 1682. This would mean that, if we were to follow my theory, Parfum Palace could be older than Lumiose City. There's also a mention of a war "300" years ago. This could be a reference to the French Revolution of 1789-1799. Was there a similar war in Kalos? Was AZ, who is said to resemble a king's portrait in the Palace, have been involved? It could also explain why Parfum Palace is a museum in present-day Kalos, after the monarchs were driven out. This could mean that Pokémon Legends Z-A could be set a century after the Kalos Revolution.

Now, onto pure speculation: I would set Victory Road and the Pokémon League to have been built during the Medieval Ages. The simple architectural style of the ruins reminds me of very simple fortresses and castles, and the Romanesque architectural style (10th-13th century European style) or maybe older than that, pre-romanesque? The Franks and Carolingian architecture? As for the Pokémon League architecure, I would situate it as a Gothic Cathedral. The Gothic style of architecture evolved from the Romanesque (which means late 12th-16th century), and they're known for their high towers, intricate detail, and big-ass coloured glass windows. Also, the armed woman statues inside the League could be a reference to Joan of Arc, who lived in the 15th century. Was the Pokémon League constructed to honour a similar historical figure, a heroine from the Pokémon wars?

And as for Shabboneau Castle and the sun clock from Anistar City, for the former it's just a countryside castle/manor (I wouldn't say it's 100% medieval, but that's just me), of which there are a lot in Europe, and for the latter I have no fucking idea. What the fuck is that.

#pokémon #pokemon #pokemon legends za #theory #pokemon theory #long post #magpie talks #i love overthinking stuff #and art

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incorrectjane-andthedragon · 2 months

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More context/explanations for the AU I made with @thelightfantastik that I mentioned in a previous incorrect quote. There's no real name for this AU (yet?) so I'm just going to call it the Curse and Ghost AU.

So basically:

-I always JATD as being a world with "soft" magic-Dragons and that being pretty much it-if that makes any sense, but in this AU, full blown "hard" magic exists, like magic curses and ghosts.

-John D'ark, Sir Theodore, and the unnamed woman in Sir Theodore's mysterious portrait all knew each other and eventually got caught in an extremely tangled and painful love triangle.

-Then an invading army is about to take Kippernia.

-John D'ark uses powerful and dangerous magic to destroy them all, but in order to do so, he turns himself into stone, and turns Portrait Woman into stone too, either because a.He's madly in love with Theo and has a "if I can't have you then no one else can either" mentality, or vice versa, with Portrait Woman instead. Or b. something Happened and he was agonizingly furious with them both and wanted to hurt both of them at the same time and take down the invading army in one fell swoop.

-Army is defeated, but D'ark and Portrait Woman are still stone, and Theo is left behind to pick up the pieces.

Here's where things get a little bit tricky.

-In one version of the AU, everyone knows what happened and just decide to not talk about it because, hello? World shatteringly traumatic wartime event involving magic most people don't understand? Best to just let some sleeping dogs lie and silent statues stare. Because the statue is of magical origin, it can't be moved or destroyed. It remains, a constant reminder.

-In another version of the AU, the Castle Wizard uses a spell of his own to wipe everyone's memories of what happened. He possibly even wipes some of Theodore's memories, as per his request, so he's not left shouldering the burden of everything that happened, or the memories of what the man he loved became.

-Then, somehow, D'ark and Portrait Woman get free. My personal interpretation is that a specific frequency on the dragon sword either reverses the spell or breaks the stone. D'ark is back, but far from better than ever. In fact, he's worse than ever, having spent decades frozen in a moment of blinding heartache, obsession and agony and now freshly dropped into a kingdom that has changed immensely. It's time for everyone to reckon with what they thought they could sweep under the rug. (note: in the amnesia version of events, everyone who remembered what happened would also get their memories back when he returned.)

Miscellaneous(?) stuff:

-In a version of events where Jester also dies, then that opens up a whole new can of worms, like Corrupted!D'ark and Ghost!Jester bonding and Ghost!Jester being led down a darker path.

-Also, Theodore sees parallels between D'ark and Jane, and that scares him. Maybe he can remember the exact details of what he's so afraid of, maybe he can't. Regardless, seeing Jane act a little too much like D'ark makes his stomach sink.

-Also I basically just thought of this right now- What if the secret to everything: D'ark, the curse, how to break the spell, was hidden by the Wizard in the one place no one would even know to look: The Book of Dragons created by King Bartok, hidden away? If Jane and Dragon find that book, they find out everything else too. But of course, Theodore-whether he understands why or not-knows that it is imperative that Jane and Dragon do not find that book, so he starts hindering their efforts to learn more dragon lore. This drives a wedge between Jane and her mentor, making her side more with Dragon (an allusion to the whole conflict of Jane needing to choose between the castle and Dragon in Dragonblade.)

#okay that's all for now bye #jane and the dragon au #jatd au #long post #dragonblade

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cerulianvermillion · 1 year

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AU Where Zhongli and Dan Heng are brothers

This is just a very messy brainstorm session. Also some star rail and genshin spoilers. there might be leaks? I dont really know but just in case, be warned.

Anyway

It has to be an AU, since these two already have super complicated lore on their own lmao. Anyway the gist is that a long time ago these two are like super powerful immortals, but then they are separated because of *mysterious reasons*. Now, they can sense each other being alive, but like that's it. They don't know how the other is doing, or the state of one another. They're much older than they seem. There's also a backstory I'm building for their pre-canon brotherhood story and lore but that's a whole other can of worms. For another post, maybe.

Regardless. That is obviously not how the story should end. So, they'll have to meet. Some technicalities: It's hard to compare honkai and genshin power levels, because they're essentially different kinds of games. Fischl and Keqing got major power boosts in honkai in that one crossover event a while ago.

BUT. Meeting is possible. Thank you, Welt. Thank you, Sumeru lore drop about descenders. Lumine and Aether are Travelers, come on, it should be possible.

So. How should they meet? Should it be in Zhongli's Universe? Dan Heng's universe? Or a third part Universe? Well. One Interesting thing I have noticed, is their relationship with "Memory". Zhongli has really good, near-perfect memory. Dan Heng is running away from his past- he is implied to not remember most of his past memories.

So I established this: At the present moment, Zhongli remembers almost everything. Dan Heng does not. With this we can conclude that for the story to move, Zhongli must be the first to take action, despite the fact that Dan Heng is currently in a magic space train. So, most likely it will be in the world of Star Rail. New question: How does Zhongli arrive?

We're getting into speculative fanfic lore here. I'm better with Genshin Lore than I am with Honkai Lore, so don't hesitate to correct me if I make mistakes. I'll italicize it.

Zhongli is a deity. He is still divinity and a gnosis does not affect that, unlike how a herrscher no longer is a herrscher when the don't have the core. So if Welt can, theoretically Zhongli can too. We can interpret the gnosis as his last remaining tie to Teyvat- without it, now he can multiverse hop easier.

Side Note: At this point we don't know anything abt Zhongli's actual origins or what he's capable of.

So maybe he can open a vortex portal thing. Zhongli is really good with space magic- and him rescuing xiao also proves that he can do that for someone else. Venti can make vortexes and stuff. So maybe he enlists Venti's help. Venti is equally sus, so its only fair he gets a part lmao. So they do a lot of research- and when he's ready, he can finally jump.

Again, this is still tentative, but i do want to explore some possibilities.

Oh- but. There has to be a sort of event catalyst, right? Why? Why is this story unfolding this way? Why is it that one remembers and the other forgets?

The intention had always been for Zhongli to remember and for Dan Heng to forget but...there needs to be a midpoint. one can't do all the heavy lifting, it won't be a fun story if that's the case. So. Dan Heng's arc centers around him trying to remember- because he realizes these dreams that he has recently that are actually his memories are very different than the regular ones about Jing Yuan and Blade and the Luofu. Zhongli's arc centers around him trying to get to Dan Heng.

So. What is the goal of this story? What does it want to achieve?

Reuniting, that's the main main goal. This is the consistent point in the story- the plot is currently still tentatively being brainstormed, but changes aside-

They Have To Meet. These two must meet. preferably in an emotional way.

A bit of fanfic made-up lore details that I may want to include (as of now):

The world of Teyvat is an outlier universe. It is strange, it stands out, it remains in it's own little corner. Basically, Teyvat is just Really Really Weird. Partly inspired but how Genshin impact is kind of an outlier amongst the current Hoyoverse games. Like even Tears of Themis is set on earth.

The separation can be said to be because of Zhongli. Of course, the true events is far more complex, and me personally, I don't think it really is his fault- but Zhongli is the catalyst for this to happen. His brother doesn't blame him, and again, real events far more complex- but he blames himself, kind of. He does not regret it, but it also provides motivation for his character- and of course, the lore goes deep. Zhongli is objectively my favourite genshin character- and I have theorized many things about him.

The story is partly kind of loosely inspired by chinese drama love between fairy and devil. There is no intended romance to be included in the story, but certain themes I intend to include.

Honkai Star Rail spoilers/leaks(?) idk if this is actually a leak but Dan Heng has gone through several incarnations since the separation. Zhongli is Zhongli. Dan Heng and Zhongli are at their core magical and powerful, although at present, both are weaker than how they had been. However, maybe they can still access some of what they used to be able to do? idk

They're close brothers and they're wholesome and I love them (Not Tentative/Definitely Confirmed)

But yeah tldr so much of this brainstorm is still tentative and might be changed accordingly to what works best, but I did enjoy exploring several possibilities in the plot.

#原神 #genshin impact #zhongli #honkai star rail #honkai: star rail #dan heng #fanfic #lore #theory #hsr #hsr leaks #spoilers #thoughts #this is a Mess #morax #Archivist Bros AU

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identitheoret · 1 year

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My Thoughts on the Story/Lore of “Ashes of Memory: Part 1”

(I might make this into a video if I have time btw)

Hey guys, IdentiTheoret here! :)

I’m not really sure what else I need to say here before I just jump right into my thoughts on Ashes of Memory. I think this Tumblr thing will actually work super well with what I’m aiming for here, but I’m still kinda new to it, so if you guys have any tips for me there I’d love to hear them. And my DM’s are also completely open, so you guys can ask me directly about literally anything you like or need help figuring out, lore related or whatever else you wanna talk about or say to me.

Anyways I guess I’ll just get right on into my thoughts now.

First of all, I had like no idea they were going this hog wild with changing up everything in terms of how the system works. I wasn’t keeping up a whole lot with the update prior outside of the one major teaser, so when I hopped on after maintenance and saw everything they changed I was kinda stunned.

I won’t be going with any particular order of events, rather I’ll try to go through each particular topic with all the details in mind from the beginning to end of Chapter 1.

Alice DeRoss (Reporter)

When I first saw her in the teaser I was like “Eh, not sure how to feel about her, it’s a little jarring seeing her like this.” And I didn’t even look back over it again to analyze because of the stuff I mentioned in my update video that was draining my energy. Although even then, I thought the idea of following adult Alice was absolutely dope.

But then I played the new story and got an actual good look and feel for this version of Alice and—OH MY GOD SHE IS SO FREAKING PRETTY LIKE AAAAAAH I CAN’T 😳🫠

Seriously they did such a good job with these new designs. And they kinda had to because they were gonna have far more normal designs outside of just Orpheus. I’m not going to go into any detail about my opinions there though, I’ll save that for a separate post soon after this one. I’m just looking at the story and lore right now.

So when it comes to everything leading up to her visiting the manor, they don’t really show off anything too odd. After her separation from Orpheus when they were kids, Alice suffered great social trauma/isolation, which we knew a bit about already with certain letters. But what we didn’t get to see was what happened after she left the orphanage. I was assuming maybe her trauma was going to mess her up in the long term, and if it didn’t I assumed she was going to lose her memories entirely or something because it seemed like things were just that intense during her time in the orphanage. But no, she has a fairly decent memory of her past by the looks of it. However, just like Orpheus in Time of Reunion, we are told she has little memory of the actual events of the manor tragedy, and in general some of her memories are a bit hazy. Not to mention the fact that she doesn’t find anything to be odd about Orpheus when she meets him in the manor.

Yeah, she hadn’t seen him since they were super young, but as we’ve seen before, the nickname of “Orpheus,” was a major detail of the two’s past friendship, because it represented their bonding experiences of making up stories and playing characters. The Orpheus nickname catching on and eventually being the name young Alice used for him exclusively was meant to show how close they were. But by the looks of it, she doesn’t remember the nickname at all.

And sure, it doesn’t mean she should immediately be like “ 😱 Oh mah gah that’s the same name it must be him ☝️🤓 .” However, this detail doesn’t even strike her as odd in any way. This could just be nothing, and she just decided to pay no mind to it, but when it comes to Identity V writing, these things are usually pointed out afterwards at the very least with a little “Huh, [Insert Minor Detail] is pretty odd” sorta thing. It happens a lot.

Outside of that, there’s not a whole lot she’s gotten involved in yet. I mean, it is only Chapter 1, so it makes sense. BUT, I do still have one thing to mention about her.

After you complete Chapter 1, you’re given the S-Tier Costume “Moment of Leisure.” And well, I mean, just look at it.

(Yes I am aware of the fact that one is a dress and the other is sleepwear but like, c’mon)

It’s possible that both the adult and child characters we always see together are probably BOTH meant to be Alice. There was really no reason for them to include this costume otherwise. Although, we do see in both the cinematics and in summaries by Orpheus that the older woman was a mother to the girl, and that she died a “horrific death.” Of course, the mother thing would make sense to conclude from Orpheus’s perspective so we can pretty much ignore that, but what about the death and it’s importance to the “Little Girl” after that? How would that fit into any of this?

Well, I have somewhat of an idea to propose for that, and for quick context I need to bring up two simple details: First, the character lineup was likely intentionally different from what we were expecting with Melly/Norton to draw attention to how the timeline’s gonna work out, since we know the Melly/Norton/Orpheus game was the last one Orpheus participated in before the amnesia and all that. And second, most of Alice’s personality and character in general is centered around her persistence and vigilance, literally stating word by word that in the face of her past traumas and mysteries, she needed to “Face it, and it’ll all be over.” This wording about it being “over” also specifically draws attention to the idea of moving on after facing the issue instead of just facing it persistently and learning to live with it or something like that.

So, with that all in mind, this is my early theory for how I think this is all gonna go. Either:

Alice will find the answers she needs to understand the missing bits of her past so she can come to terms with it, and she moves on while Orpheus stays in his ways. And maybe after Alice finds out who Orpheus really is, and she realizes he is actively choosing not to face his own traumas and is beyond persuasion, she escapes the manor and leaves him behind because she simply has to move on. The depictions, both written and seen, of her “horrible death” would be based in Orpheus’s (subjective, rather than objective) view of her facing her issues head on and suffering through the worst of it before she finally is able to overcome her sorrow. To her, she would be getting through the worst of it to finally rid herself of the prolonged pain she’s felt for so long. But to Orpheus, that short phase of pain needed to overcome his trauma seemed far too horrible of a thing to be worth suffering through. Thematically speaking, this would definitely make sense (and because the depictions of the “mother” and girl are clearly not literal or direct about their meaning at face value). All the depictions of young Alice trying to guide Orpheus are things he put into his own head from a deep regret for not listening to her and a desire to have her take the lead for him once more because he doesn’t feel like he can rely on himself to change. But these feelings are still hidden under his repetitive denial, and that’s why it’s something he doesn’t know he’s aware of yet.

Alice dies during the game, either because she wants to try and save Orpheus from himself and fails, and/or because Orpheus starts to believe he can do it but hesitates and gets her killed in the process. This would make sense because most of the themes in Orpheus’s story center around his inability to stay firm in what he needs to do with his trauma, and to not look back with doubt based on what he’s done before. And this would also tie perfectly to the Orpheus myth of him turning to Eurydice with doubt and dooming her to the Underworld, leading him to a life of sorrow and regret in the land of the living. Since this is, well, Identity V, I am pretty certain that this aspect of the myth is intentionally tied into Orpheus’s theme of traumatic repetition and him constantly choosing not to look forwards. This persists in most of the elements of his story, especially with the major details such as the “Don’t Look Back” line that comes up a whole lot when you think about it. So assuming that to be the case, and also assuming that Alice dies, we can conclude that she becomes a spirit in the form of her past younger self as she embodies that wholly innocent part of her life, and maybe just to make herself easier to recognize to Orpheus I guess…? The reason why she’d stay in the form of a child is harder to explain here than it is in the other point. It’d make sense why the child version would be there when accompanied by the older version because it was so long after Orpheus saw Alice that he separates his view of her into his memories of what he thought she was like and what she is now in front of him. That also explains why he tries to see her in the exact same dress as the younger version of her, because at the core the two versions are still the same person.

Those are just my initial thoughts at the moment. I may build onto these conclusions more later on after giving it more thought or when we see more of the next chapter. I guess I’ll leave my thoughts there for now though and move on.

“Orpheus” DeRoss (Novelist)

Well, there’s not much to say for him really. Same’s gonna go for the other two as well for the most part because of how early we are into this, but I do want to point out the way he interacts with everyone. It sometimes may give off a vibe like he knows way more than he lets on, but I don’t think that’s the case. I think the depiction here is still accurate/still will be accurate going forward with the explanation given in Time of Reunion about him having his memory wiped over and over. I don’t think he is actually aware of anything behind the manor in this state. The way he pushes certain details and questions towards others, like the point about betrayal directed at Melly about her insects, and the other point about Mary’s French heritage with Fredrick, seem to just be derived from his intrigue for drama stemming from his interest in writing. He likes a good mystery and finding little things out. We even see him do this with Alice herself in the cutscene after Chapter 1, where he asks her to play the piano for him in exchange for some information on his new book. Besides that, not much needs to be said here.

Fredrick Kreiburg (Composer)

Okay, imma just be real here, I am COMPLETELY lost when it comes to this guy. I was really confused when it was revealed that he was going to be one of the four main characters of this thing, because the guys literally just came out not that long before and we didn’t even get like any buildup for him in the lore before his release. And when it comes to his connections to the racecourse with Mary, like yeah I’m completely clueless. But that actually has nothing to do with the Mary thing though, because I was well aware from the start that there was the theory that Mary wasn’t the actual Mary Antoinette but rather a noblewoman of some sort (based on bday letters if you’re confused). And I knew it was probably true, and was most likely gonna be important later on, but I still was just like “Nah I don’t care right now I’ll just wait on that one.” And now it’s already introduced but I’m still confused about like, why?

I will say one thing though, all the details surrounding that weird Mary subplot, such as the “was it a suicide or a murder?” mystery that’s almost treated like a legend, and the way the death is presented generally, and how the backlash against the racecourse afterwards is completely directed towards one man in particular, and how everyone just kinda goes like “🤷‍♀️🤷‍♂️ Uh idek why she did that 🤷🤷‍♂️,” it all gives off MAJOR Atropos Ropes vibes and it’s definitely intentional. Not sure how to feel about that just yet, but that’s mostly because of my big lack of understanding about anything Mary/Kreiburg related.

Not only that, but look at the way they describe the legend of the past owners of the manor and the mysterious death of the male owner’s female lover before the closure of the course and selling of their manor before some seemingly random dude who is clearly a descendant (Fredrick) suddenly shows up upon invitation from the new owners, and he is is heavily associated with a certain art expression and deals with social pressures.

Like, dude. That’s literally the plot of Lone Moon from T&I. The husband is the Knight, Mary is the princess, and Fredrick is Narcissus.

(+ We have already gotten thematic connections between Lone Moon and Atropos Ropes in terms of the themes of repetition and supposed fate, but we also have literal connections through the Amethyst Duchess, linking Narcissus to Bella (aka, you know, Mary)).

And also, I think the way they use the racecourse specifically of all things leads me to believe that there must be a connection to COA 4. And no, it has nothing to do with the horse imagery in that story, because that was directly linked to Cavalier and his Don Quixote inspirations (but if you wanna get refreshed on that go watch my COA Lore vid). The reason why they did horses here and not cars is simply because, well, rich people shit.

The thing that really makes me certain about this, outside of the obvious specificity, is once again that reoccurring theme of repetition and mistakes from those who came before. It’s present in Atropos Ropes, it’s present in Lone Moon, and it’s definitely present in COA 4, because that story is entirely based around that concept. And all of these have strong connections to either the manor’s history or the DeRoss family, which I highly doubt is a coincidence based on the theories about the DeRosses I’ve been making for the past while.

Melly Plinius (Entomologist)

Not much to say about her either. She’s got that same weird personality that we’d expect from her, and talks about the betrayal thing in a very weird way with connecting it to bugs. But the most important thing I can really point out so far about her is how she has little to no importance of any kind to the events going on regarding the manor and the Kreiburg racetrack. I think this has something to do with what the devs want us to notice about how this timeline works, since Norton hasn’t appeared yet. So I’m guessing Fredrick either dies or just leaves and is replaced by Norton sometime in the story. Knowing how weird some of the other diary stories were written, I’m sure Fredrick just gets like a little bit deep into how he may be involved with the racetrack and the Baron as a result of that, gets uncomfortable and goes like “Nah no thanks” and just kinda bails. I’m not even kidding, I could see that happening tbh.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well, anyways, that’s all I have to say for now. Like I said before, I’m already planning another post sometime soon, and I’m also thinking about making this post into an actual video as well, but I’m not sure which will come first. Thanks for reading, I’ll see you guys again soon💖💖💖

#identity v #idv #idv lore #identityv #ashes of memory #truth and inference #alice deross

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becauseplot · 1 day

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I just finished Episode 0 of Ordem Paranormal: Calamidade! I've decided I'm going to do post-episode "journal entry" posts as I watch this season just like i did when I watched OSNF because it's fun and it's a nice record of my thoughts as I work my way through this series. Helps me process stuff too because the lore in this series can get fucking DENSE. I'm sad I didn't do this for OPD (partially because I was instead liveblogging to a discord, which I didn't do for OSNF), so we're changing that this time around.

Gonna preface the first of these journal entries with the fact that I speak little to no Portuguese. Thus, I have to rely on YouTube auto-translated subs (which suffered a lot in this episode, audio was lower quality) and a combo of some Portuguese I've picked up with a tangential understanding of Portuguese via my mediocre grasp on Spanish. This combined with the fact that I am very slow with the mystery and not a puzzle-doer by any means means I might get things horribly wrong or miss details entirely. Shoutout to the discord people for answering my fifty fuckmillion questions about the lore. Anyway journal entry time yippee!

IN-PERSON ORDEM SESSION LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOO

First of all, the fact that Cellbit opened this season saying that even he doesn't know how this season of Ordem is going to end is. Very concerning. But so interesting! Nothing is set in stone, which raises the stakes for this series---the fate of this story is truly in the hands of the players, as there's no longer the GM's guard rails. Or, as strong of guard rails. You get what I mean.

I'll go over story stuff first. My main goal is to at minimum follow the story. Again, I'm really not a mystery head, I'm not too good at theorizing, and the connections between the lore points and plot points tends to become a bowl of spaghetti in this series. If I can at least follow what's going on, I'll be happy.

So it's been a bit under a year since the events of OPD. Things are...strangely quiet. As Agatha points out, for all of Kian's promises for the bloody murder of thousands of innocents, there's been a distinct lack of blood, and murder, and dead innocents. All the better for the Order, which has steadily been growing its own forces in preparation for the oncoming war.

War. We're at war-levels of conflict now. Such an escalation from the days of AOP. It's interesting to see exactly how much more formidable both the Order and the paranormal threats have become. I remember the days of AOP where for a majority of the story, there was a singular gun with a singular magazine (we didn't even have bullet-counting mechanics yet!) and a blood zombie was still a genuine cause for alarm! Now we have Arthur with his giant sniper rifle that he carries around on his back in a guitar case, Dante with his Echo Dolor ritual that lets him bend time and "repeat" previous characters' attacks, and Carina's sick-ass nun chucks and throwing knives against whatever THIS thing is:

And yeah there was a blood zombie too, I guess. But the blood zombies are now just tutorial creatures, used to get players used to the fighting mechanics. (I mean.... I suppose AOP technically had a Degolified in its first session, but there was no way they were gonna kill it, you know? They barely even escaped it.)

The point is that we have come a long way from the days of AOP, and the scale of this world and its conflicts has been steadily ramping up and expanding since that fateful day in January, 2020. The "arms race" between the Order members and the paranormal continues to escalate, and escalate, and escalate.

I mean just look at their health!! Look at it!!! And Jesus Christ that blood zombie they fought at the beginning could've breathed on OSNF!Arthur and he would've died!!

ANYWAY. From what I understand: Veríssimo has found that Arnaldo Fritz's grimoire on the Relics is less promising that he initially thought it would be, and he's concluded that all of the relevant information has been lost. It's up to Arthur and Dante---with some new and returning recruits---to find as much lost information as possible. The video of the "devil" posted online seems to echo a case from over 20 years ago that Arnaldo was on, so it's as close to a lead as they're gonna get.

So they go and investigate! A woman named Elsa was harassed by a voice of a child ("mommy?"), sculpted a bunch of things to try to appease it, and died in the house. She turned into a blood zombie and her organs were gone, likely a result of the organ-sucking that the child-monster does. The gang has a peak around and find out there was some cursed shit with a devil child happening 20 something years ago which was likely terrorizing the more recent woman. Arnaldo had handled whatever came of it and locked it in the basement, and poor Eusábio was never the same, listening to static on TVs and radios believing they spoke "the truth," whatever that means. Could be an Energy thing? Not sure.

In any case, they head back to the house, basement has more blood and weird shit in it surrounding this "devil" and this mother and her child, things happen, and BAM big ol' monster in the house. And it's also the same child that Dante killed in that gone-wrong ritual where he unintentionally aided Kian (among other things)! And it has a weird dice effect to those who are "responsible for a pregnancy"! That one felt awfully targeted, by far the wildest fucked up thing to come out of pregnant Dante lore sorry dude.

Anyway onto the thing I really wanna ramble about CHARACTERS!! THE CHARACTERS!!! The energy in this session was off the charts, the group was so animated and into it and it was so much fun holy shit.

This is definitely in part thanks to Balu, who is the number one defender of the Sillies and Cellbit's number one enemy in regards to the atmosphere of his horrormurderdeath TTRPG. The captions especially hate it whenever people are being giggly so I don't think I caught more than 10% of Balu's shenanigans but the sheer energy of it crosses language barriers, man. This is such a 180 from reserved and socially-anxious Cesar/Kaiser, who was still silly and goofy, yes, but was much less loud about it. Also interesting to have him be a member returning upon Veríssimo's request! I wonder why he retired.....

Next, Rubens! Back from Episode 7 of OPD, letsgo!! (Head in hands. Where is Johnny. Please tell me he's okay.) Jumpy guy! I love how Felps clarifies at every opportunity that Rubens is doing what he's doing, scared. His under-socialized ass is walking around with nothing but a flashlight, a gun, a resting heartrate of 110BPM. And he might be scared literally every second he's alive, but he's not a coward. You never see him run from fights, he always runs into them, just like his friends. And he's not pathetic or blubbery either! He's extremely capable despite the fact that he looks like he's one loud sneeze away from fainting on the spot! When he uses his ghosting ritual to run away from the creature, it's specifically to drag Balu out of the way of a hit that likely could have killed him. Do it scared, or so they say, and by god, is my mans doing it scared!

Carina! Similar to Balu, not too many deep character thoughts about her yet, which sucks :( But her taking out the nun chucks in the middle of the fight had me oh so pleasantly surprised! (Look at her she's kicking ass.) One thing that sticks out to me is the scene where the group is handling Eusábio. That scene was such an incredible display of teamwork, everyone working together to assist each other in the infiltration: Balu and eventually Arthur serving as distraction as Rubens helps Dante slip into the bedroom. Meanwhile, Carina was smart enough to not make her presence known at all so she could freely explore the garage without arousing suspicion! So even if the guys' cover was blown in the house, she could've kept snooping around in the garage. She comes from a famous family of paranormal investigators and is highly praised by her father, the leader of this family business, so I'm very excited to see more of her shine. Also Gabi is just incredible at puzzles. Liz's lore notebook from OSNF beloved <3

Okay, onto the remaining OPD boys. Starting with Dante---what the FUCK is up with his vision. Sometimes mans can see the paranormal, and sometimes mans can straight up SEE things. He "opened his eyes" to read a document and to see the creature, which uh, rip dude bad timing to decide to have vision lol. Have a confronting-the-horrors Rakin/Dante moodboard:

Dante is his same non-plussed self. Still very mellow, not very silly-goofy like a lot of the others here, but not exactly opposed to the silly-goofy. Arthur definitely joke-flirts with him on at least one occasion. Very endeared to the fact that he just recognizes Arthur by his footsteps alone. I always imagine that whenever Cellbit is giving a new-location base description of the party's surroundings, Arthur is quietly relaying all of this information to Dante.

Another fun detail happens when Felipe gets downed by the creature. Dante practically throws himself at Felipe, doing everything he can to save him. And yeah, that's definitely a swirling combo of Felipe being an ally and Dante himself being fueled by guilt over this creature, but... Thiago and Gonzales, right? Rakin (and the other players) remembering Gonzales and letting that bleed into Dante's actions as he desperately tries to save him only furhter reinforces the fact that the Marcados are connected to their "other lives" via the players who played said characters. Love love love toying with the idea that OUR reality is the Other Side to Ordem's reality, like with the special 50% NEX transcending question Cellbit poses to the players. That deserves its own post, I think.

And finally, Arthur. Oh, Arthur, my boy. You've grown so much in the past, what, year and a half since your world got flipped upside down, turned inside out? There's just. A lot going on here. The first impression we get from Arthur is that he's a lot more...serious? He seems older (the white streaks definitely help in that regard), and more mature. He still has his charm and his goofiness, yes, his personality is still there, it's just... All of the people, family, he's lost compounding with his new duty to lead means that his personality has been damped a bit. The constant loss is taking a toll on him, and he's definitely feeling the pressure placed on him, considering he's basically Veríssimo's right hand and has now been explicitly appointed leader of a team.

And circling back to what I was talking about with the "war" theme going on here---Ordem teams have never had an explicit leader. The "leader" role, however, has slowly started to emerge. I think it's because OSNF had such a strong team-as-family dynamic going for it, and AOP was just a gaggle of fresh-faced, severely underqualified and inexperience individuals who were forced to either get your collective shit together or die and bonded into team-as-(dysfunctional)-family as a result. OPD was when the first murmurings of a "leader" came up: Dante encouraged Joui to take a stronger leadership role in order to hold the team together. This mantle was passed onto Kaiser, which was then passed onto Arthur, the last remaining Vulture, the last remaining member of Equipe E, and Veríssimo's right hand. And now Veríssimo has explicitly stated him leader of the team when before, that wasn't seen as necessary. The emergence of the leadership role within the teams no doubt coincides with the fact that they have been approaching and are now involved in a "war;" the situation is grave and the pressure is on, and we need to make sure that there is someone on the team holding everyone together and making sure they stay focused on the mission.

Though, thinking about it, I don't think team dynamics themselves will shift too much as a result. Just because Arthur is technically "leader" doesn't mean that he has to lord it over the group, and so far, he hasn't. He's barely even mentioned that Veríssimo has technically appointed him leader. It's brought up with the others like, maybe once? So far it hasn't played into the characters' dynamics at all, even if Arthur is clearly feeling the pressure. At the end of the day, I do believe in Ordem's strong power-of-friendship theme, and this session has given me hope that this team of characters will feel a little less disjointed than OPD's.

Running through a few extra details: Agatha is beloved and now has at least two (2) friends!! Ivete is still here and I love her, and Veríssimo needs at minimum a glass of water and to take a thirty minute nap in the infirmary. (The base is still sorely lacking in couches and beanbag chairs and overall crash-after-shitty-mission spots. Sad.) But man, the fact that Veríssimo is described as being "nervous" when Arthur n co. walk in for the meeting...

In any case, that's all I got for now. I'm very excited for what comes next :D

#curlyopc #dont mind me im just rambling #SUPER LONG POST LMAOOOO #i have thoughts sorry it will happen again :]#can you tell im still a little confused on the mystery they investigated in this session? because i am lmao.#had lots of fun tho!!#posting this with no proof-read fuck it

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stalwart-spirit · 30 days

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Mild rant below, just general ffxiv roleplay issues and agonies lmao

So, uh, you may have remembered my initial post about meeting another Dalmascan roleplayer and my excitement. Definitely changed to exasperation now.

Going from thinking, wow, someone shares the same amount of depth and love for lore as yourself, only for them to turn out to be one of those roleplayers that just... Pull from a real culture so much that it borders on fetishisation of ssid culture.

Also I get it, people wanna be whatever they wanna be and roleplay what they want but I'm really tired of the high-power level superhuman characters that really push the limits of the lore when I clearly state I want stuff more low-key and lore abiding. It's right there on my roleplay carrd for a reason!!

Not to mention that they end up having their lore and their character plot revolving around you and less having it be a collaborative process. I'm not here to be a mechanism for your plot, I'm not an NPC. And there's the case of them completely overlooking or not choosing to take in any info I've given them on my characters and they just glance over it, then when it comes up it's like "Oh I didn't know that!" despite it coming up both in and out of roleplay.

I've been roleplaying for many, many years now, and it's beyond exhausting coming across this same issue time after time. Honestly, it's why I pretty much quit roleplaying in FFXIV unless it's with my close friends or quick encounters with people at events.

I'm not even going to go into detail on the weird vibes I'm getting either-

MAAAAN, I'm just so disappointed.

S2g I ought to make some "roleplay etiquette" guidelines or something in terms of general roleplay stuff and how to develop and establish lore and plot with people.

#♡ personal

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growing-yet-into-magic · 1 month

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The United States of Cryptids by JW Ocker

Here are my horribly blurry photos. Behold.

Firstly: this book was written by the author who wrote the Salem book I read mid quarantine. I don't remember it being particularly exceptional. This book reads more as a reference book, which immediately makes it more tolerable than a rambling sort of narrative, and separates each region of the country to help further organize cryptid lore around the country.

However. LOOK at that block of text. It's formatted so tightly. It's not horrible to read, but in a tiny book...it's dense to look at. It's a lot. I wasn't pleased.

I forgot that people are more aware of the Jersey Devil now, so I was surprised to see the local mascot show up in the book. First off, when telling people how popular Jersey Devil iconography is, instead of naming a couple small sites and restaurants, you should probably point out that our hockey team is literally The Devils. I'm fairly sure that's our main export of Jersey Devil paraphernalia. It feels Relevant.

Secondly. There are two books on the Jersey Devil that I consider must reads. (The two books are The Secret History Of The Jersey Devil and here by The Jersey Devil by McCloy + Miller). Having read both of them, there are things the author missed that would have been GREAT to add. Without that context, the bulk of the books's description is a little...off.

My notes on the matter are:

The date is wrong. Or, more accurately, there IS no set date; Ocker gives us a definitive year for the Jersey Devil's birth, when the actual date for the events of the story depends on who's asking. There are only certain dates that are documented, and that includes a) The Magical Week, which is a week in which phenomena attributed to the Jersey Devil was published in newspapers for about seven days in NJ and PA, and b) That Time Napoleon's Brother Fucked Back Off To France (because he SWORE he saw the Jersey Devil). 1735 is a very specific date, and certainly not the only one attributed to the story. It feels disingenuous to add it very confidently to the story without further detail.

The book gets the Leeds family origins wrong— or, again, not quite correct. Ocker claims that the Leeds family was ostracized for being supporters of the British right to rule during the revolution, which ignores the way more relevant reason they were ostracized; the Leeds family owned a printing press and published almanacs that promoted astrology, which was considered evil occult knowledge at the time. There was a religious division in the community between the local Quaker population (against this) and the Leeds family (trying desperately to get on the ball of what the main man thought was a Hot New Science) after the book almanacs were published, which raised local tension pretty high. I could summarize this more but honestly just read The Secret History of the Jersey Devil book by Esposito and Regal; it's pretty thin anyway.

All the facts in the author's description are presented as if they're certain and true, BUT worded very vaguely as to obscure the actual situation: that there are many stories about the Jersey Devil instead of one carefully worded one. Instead of briefly mentioning different versions of different details that emerge overall, a pretty interesting story from an area famous for resisting colonial overtaking has been flattened down and ironed of all its cool details. Lame. He didn't even name the Magical Week, which has a name. Instead he just said "there was a week in 1909 in which a lot of stuff happened." It has a cool title!! Come on!! It was published in two different states!! Say its name!!

Also, respect the Pine Barrens more. They're an ecological wonderland. I'm also pretty sure they have the largest indigenous population in New Jersey. Add some respect when you say that name.

I can't do the same fact checking of every other cryptid in this book, obviously, as I lack similar expertise, but between this book and the author's Salem trip, I'm kind of over this author on the whole. I don't think I'll finish this book.

(I may skim it though.)

Best regards, readers;

#growing-yet #witchblr #witch books #books

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stitching-in-time · 1 month

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Voyager rewatch s1 ep1: Caretaker

I'm finally doing it- I'm re-watching all of Star Trek: Voyager from beginning to end, in order, for the first time since it originally aired!

I've watched re-runs many times in the intervening years, but never in a complete and methodical way (including episodes I hate and usually avoid- pray for me lol) and now I'll also be recording my observations on tumblr!

I have a love-hate relationship with Voyager, since I feel the writing was extremely uneven, but I'm definitely on the side of love for the show, overall. I'll critique it and be snarky about the bad stuff to high heavens, but it's still one of my formative childhood Trek shows, and I'll always be loyal to it.

First up: Caretaker (long post behind cut)

The two hour special pilot was an event back in the day, and you can tell they spent a ton of money on it, and it still looks good. (I had forgotten all about the little opening info text, lol, like it's Star Wars, and we're some general audience unaware of Star Trek lore. But they were still hoping to bring in a general audience beyond Trekkies back then- does anyone here remember how Voyager was the show that launched the UPN network? Or is that just obscure trivia to the baby Trekkies now??)

Voyager was the first Star Trek series I actually remember watching the premiere of, since I was too young to remember the premieres of Next Gen and DS9, though I was surely in the room while my mom watched them. But I was a proper Trekkie by the time Voyager came around, and as a little girl, having a woman captain on a Star Trek series for the first time was a big deal. And from the first moment Captain Janeway appeared on screen with her Katherine Hepburn voice and full-on Gibson Girl hairdo (in the 24 century no less, what an icon!), she commanded every scene, and I loved her instantly. I can never watch the first ep without remembering that first viewing. We were all crazy excited, and it lived up to the hype. It's a solid, exciting adventure story, and it sets up the characters and the series premise well. And it might not seem like it now, but I can't begin to describe how fresh and high tech and cool this show looked to us in 1995. The opening credits alone had us all oohing and ahhing like the Webb space telescope images do now. And tbh, it's still really pretty, almost 30 years later. It has more of a movie look to it than most 90s Trek eps, for one thing, the lighting looks different from most of the rest of the series, I should go back and see if it was different designer than they usually used. But the whole scale is just bigger. They were able to fit in lots more locations than a regular ep with the two hour timeslot, which gives it a grand adventure/quest sort of vibe. Wherever they filmed the Ocampa city scenes was huge and looked nicely futuristic, it really added to the big movie feel. (I'm suspecting part of it at least was a shopping mall, since there's a scene where Janeway and crew are literally riding on an actual escalator. Lolwut?) The matte paintings as well are just goregeous. I will forever and always stan old Trek's matte paintings of alien cites, they're so beautiful and atmospheric and so full of cool tiny details that usually get overlooked in CGI.

I'd forgotten how Tom Paris-centric that first ep was. Looking back, I can imagine the predominantly white male writer's room desperately clinging to their one white male character for dear life, since they were already stretching their little brains to figure out the whole 'woman captain' thing, and were probably having a hard time identifying with a woman lead character because patriarchy, so they had to fall back on Paris, who I think actually ended up being the character with the most POV scenes in the first ep. (Apparently Robbie McNeill was second on the call sheet for the pilot, according to Garrett Wang on their Delta Flyers podcast, so they apparently thought of Paris as the second lead going into the series.) I don't feel sorry for the writers at all though, and I don't forgive them for the weirdly racist lines they gave Paris in this one- I'm ignoring it and casting it out of canon in my mind the same way I do for the crazy sexist lines that get tossed out in the original series every other ep. Obviously they were trying to make Paris a bad boy in the beginning, but the stuff about 'can't Native Americans magically turn into animals if they want' (!!) was egregiously racist even in the 90s, and it's incredibly anachronistic for a story that's supposed to be set in a post-racism utopian future where no one would even think something like that, let alone say it, even as a joke.

Luckily Tom and Harry immediately adopting each other as new best buds is adorably sweet from the get go, and already undermining the Tom Paris bad boy narrative. Even in this first ep, half the time Tom is going out if his way to help people, even though at this point he barely knows them. What a rogue! So un-Starfleet! lol

I'd forgotten how creepy the alien abduction scenes were too. They were pretty brief, and that particular sub-plot wasn't well fleshed out, but they definitely ramped up the suspense for sure.

Also I'm now gonna always be a little bitter that the unamed chief medical officer who had one scene before getting killed off was played by Jeff McCarthy. As a huge musical theatre nerd, I've been a fan of his on several cast recordings, and would absolutely have loved to have him on a Star Trek show as a regular, if only! I'm not the hugest fan of the EMH, and Jeff McCarthy can sing too, and how! What we could have had!! (But then they'd have had a hard time selling whitebread little Tom Paris as a lothario next to Jeff and his devastatingly sexy baritone voice lol. Seriously, go listen to him on the Side Show album and swoon. And per Garrett Wang, Jeff was really nice in real life and gave him encouranging words on set during their scene, aww!)

All the main characters had really nice scenes that gave a nice essence of who they were. I think Harry and B'Elanna were good characters to throw together since they're such opposites, they played off each other really well, and I wish we'd have had more of them working together throughout the series. The only exception to the otherwise good charcter revealing scenes was Chakotay, who just had to make do with complaining about not liking Tom Paris. Unfortunately I think it foreshadowed a larger problem with the writers not really knowing who he is either, but that's a subject to be explored in subsequent episodes.

My biggest disappointment on re-watching is how they failed to make the reason for Voyager being stuck in the Delta quadrant actually make sense. I get that they tried to make it a moral dilemma, and show that Starfleet people are so noble that they'll chose harm to themselves before causing harm to others, but the particular setup here doesn't really work. There's no reason they couldn't have used the array to get home and like, left a bomb on a countdown to destroy the array right after they left, but they didn't even consider it, even though Starfleet officers totally would at least consider possible options. They didn't stay to protect the Ocampa anyway, and eventually when the Caretakers' gifts run out their society is probably going to collapse, so how much good did Voyager really do for them by destroying the array? It might have helped them temporarily, but eventually, and maybe not even that long after, the Ocampa were still gonna end up in a vulnerable position. It kind of makes the whole series seem a little frustrating, in that the main problem is something that didn't really even have to happen at all. (But on the other hand, no wonder Janeway spends the whole series wracked with guilt, yikes.) I truly wish they'd have come up with something that made destroying the array the only possible choice, with absolutely no loopholes, but sometimes in fiction we have to suspend our disbelief and go with it. This is one of those times, so I'll just savor Kate Mulgrew's impassioned closing speech, with her signature soap opera pathos (she's the only actor on the planet who can deliever a monologue and then look off into the distance with a pensive Soap Opera Stare, and I buy it completely. I love her and her face, ugh) and I'll try to ignore the parts of the story that don't work, and keep focused on the things that do. (Which is the mantra I use to get me through like half the episodes lol)

On to episode two!

#star trek: voyager #voyager rewatch #rewatching star trek #caretaker #star trek

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