#Lore Relevant tm

[the-punforgiven]

Seeing Elphelt ditching her entire bridal aesthetic in favor of becoming a metal vocalist is deeply funny to me

[crystalleoi]

got my old 6th gen ipod touch back so i drew my corresponding meeple oc to celebrate :)

[osarquivosmagnus]

hey question to the people that watch vods from people other than forever and/or cellbit, but knows what goes on with them, does any other egg have the kind of lore that richas has been bringing up? Like the art thing etc bc they have been trying to figure out if richas is only playing or if it's truly Lore being revealed and forever even has talked about thinking the eggs were maybe the 24 original people in the island (which idk if I agree, but it could make sense!) and I just want to know if other eggs have revealed anything explicitly or implicitly

(Oh I dont mind "spoilers" and also I've just started the presidential arc, so idk if they have already figured something out in the meantime... they wanted to takes richas to a psychologist but roier hasn't been loggin in and he was the plan lmao)

[cybernexus]

Raj oxygenates his blood via absorption of air through the surface of his muscles; as he does not have lungs. This continues to happen when he's submerged in water; he cannot drown (but he could still asphyxiate upon prolonged exposure to a very low or no oxygen environment, like the moon or elsewhere in outer space).

Raj does not breathe (through his mouth/nose) to consume oxygen; instead for him breathing serves a whole set of different purposes.

For Raj, various types of breathing exercises can be used to:

Regulate his emotions

Activate and deactivate his superhuman ability limiters for strength and speed

Help regulate his body temperature*

*The center of Raj's body has a small cavity exactly big enough to contain an unstable object called a nucleus. It's a magical power source bound to his soul, and it acts as his heart. The heat generated from his nucleus is transported out directly from the chest cavity and out of his torso via strategically placed biological vents which can still function if he's actively breathing or not (in the event of being unconscious).

Misc somewhat useless trivia:

Humans can't hear him breathing but animals and superhumans can, it's been described as unsettling as it's also coming from his torso and not just his nostrils

If you get really close to him, like actually touching him, you can feel him exhale through the tiny vents in his cybernetic muscles

In a state of rest, he visually breathes very seldomly and uses the "skin"/surface of his muscles to absorb oxygen instead as this is sufficient for idle activity so you won't see his chest rise and fall unless he's audibly breathing

This last bit is rather straight forward - deeper, more ragged breaths means he's not in great shape and is overheating.

[whimsy-beetle]

Soooo I'm redesigning a bunch of my gijinkas. (my design process is very much: come up with something, call it the final design, draw it a whole lot, find out you don't actually like drawing it, redesign it). So yeah, Lurien.

His design didn't change that much, as opposed to herrah's. I did, however, try to include more design elements and shape language from his spire. This was my intention from the beginning, with the first ever design but uhmm, yeah it didn't really turn out that way.

His first outfit is more formal (i call it the wizard cloak but shhh), it's kind of like a uniform? or like, watcher outfit tm. I added a collar piece/ bolero (clothing terms are killing me help) with patterns from the windows, as well as one of those banners he has (i'll put a screenshot of his room, not sure how else to explain it)

His second outfit, basically night gowns, we all know he never leaves his spire and we all know he's perpetually in his pajamas. again, i tried to include motifs from the windows (it kinda looks like butterfly wings now that i look at it hmm, which is funny because Lurien being a butterfly/moth is a popular hc). He also has poofy sleeves now, very important addition.

Lurien's assistant! (forget the old design, don't look at it). This time they actually look like a cowardly husk, idk what i was cooking last time. I don't have anything else to say about their design, it's quite straight forward. I did, however, debate whether to give them grey or purple hair...ourple (last minute decision, i mean, i don't have any designs with purple hair soo)

Oh I have this headcanon that Lurien used to some sort of royal advisor before getting promoted to watcher (that's also when he got the scar over his eye, maybe, stiff figuring things out). I think he likes being a watcher, yk, watching people...( the pale king just went: "damn bro you're freaky D: anyway, wanna stalk people for a living?") but deep down he wants to go back to his royal advisor days, for no particular reason, definitely not because of a certain...obsession. Oh right, he has a questionable collection of pk fanart (weird hc but i find it very funny). Let's say his assistant is somewhat concerned. I have an animatic coming up about this dw.

One more thing...height chart. this, this is very important and lore relevant (the pk slander is so real)

[mythalism]

i think, anecdotally, canadians love to use land acknowledgments and Diversity(tm) a bit more than americans do, and have a degree of always pointing at the us and being like "well at least WE didn't do anything that fucked up! we're so much more enlightened and respectful 😌". and so any acknowledgment that racism exists, or that necessary societal change is often only brought by unpleasant disruption, or specifically that indigenous people live in terrible conditions because of colonization, is bracketed with this type of "but it's very complicated, and who's to say if there's a solution? we're thinking about it really hard, and holding space, and listening and learning, and maybe we will get to fixing it in like 50 years if people ask nicely" rhetoric. and there's a degree of apprehension that "land back" is a call for ethnic cleansing of settlers (somehow, despite this being both physically not possible and not actually anyone's demand) and that any movement towards that will be bad and overly radical.

which maps directly onto how bioware writes elves specifically haha. they'll sympathetically show how they're oppressed and living under the boot of a catholic church-esque entity, but then... ahhh noo, actually they had a very problematic pre-colonization culture, and they're too impractically fixated on the past and that prevents them from moving forward, and the church employees are sometimes trying their best and making amends, and the demands of the elven leadership are just too out there and violent... so really, it's very complicated. maybe it could be better to keep the status quo and only have Incremental Change, forever.

(they sort of didn't do this in the masked empire, but as always they had to throw in a bit about how Rude And Mean the dalish are. plus the ridiculously evil chevalier lore of each one randomly executing a few elves as a rite of passage, and then never mentioning that aspect again bc i guess it wasn't relevant to michel's story. as well as the insanely underwritten premise of what briala and celene's relationship actually was. there's ~toxic lesbians~, and then there's "extremely rich and powerful white noblewoman calls her younger servant class gf ugly for being dark skinned, lies to her for years, has her family and then entire community killed, then tries to seduce her back when she gets angry and leaves" lmao. i think weekes was going for a tragic morally grey starcrossed lovers to enemies vibe, but to me it was more of a horrific one-sided exploitation that the author did not seem to realize they were writing.)

and in veilguard i suppose they tried to avoid the entire issue by mostly removing those aspects of the setting, so you no longer even have the somewhat well-observed depictions of oppression combined with Justin Trudeau Moments, it's just kind of empty.

anyway thank you for appreciating my very long ted talk! i left tumblr after the whole "popular bloggers mass reporting pro-palestine people for terrorism" thing (i can get that treatment for free irl, don't need that extra stress from the Fandom Webbed Site haha). i've just been drifting back to look at dragon age posts bc i was curious about veilguard. i didn't expect much from bioware but it was surprising that they just went even further into tone-deaf bizarre race allegories rather than reading 1 (one) nonfiction book in the years since dai, or hiring anybody from a different background who could weigh in. :')

wow this is seriously so fascinating and insightful and truly does give me a better understanding of both canada and bioware LMFAO so thank you so much for sharing seriously. you are welcome in my inbox for more ted talks anytime and now im just gonna leave this here to marinate on it further and hope other people read it because its fantastic. xoxo

[liesmyth]

Ok so im antichrist gideon anon my bad i only noticed this rn.

Ok so technically, from a catholic point of view, alecto technically fills more requirements for being God than John does. Most relevant for us rn, the requirement she fulfill is the tripartite god (which im unsure is actually the term in english), ie: the father, the son, and the holy spirit, or alecto, nona, earth.

What does this make John? Lucifer. John was chosen by the earth for a task because he was her specialest little guy (Angel-era) fucked up massively, destroyed the world, got humanity kicked out of "eden", and even now torments their descendants for the same reasons he did then, is, technically, a False God, and depending on which interpretation of Lucifer's actions and background you have, actually does have similar reasons to John (At least regarding rage at the unfairness, him and his buddies getting fucked up for it, his buddies becoming "demons" like him, ie necromancers. Idk if lucifer was an environmentalist.)

Now, Gideon! As we have established in this allegory John's Lucifer, she does get the Antichrist treatment automatically, but she also has ascended to a place of social prominence, her showing up as John's daughter has coincided with stuff you can technically argue sorta relates to the Armageddon (the demons being released, the war against demons, the fucking possession stuff which may qualify as a plague) and she also distracts the followers of Actual God (Get in line thou big slut), drives them to wickedness and to harm others and themselves (Harrow, lyctorhood, their rivalry, the lobotomy), but she's also necessary so people can, yknow, get into heaven and for things such as the apocalypse to happen (Protagonist— I mean her blood opens the tomb and that's needed for God Alecto to wake.)

Anyways this was prompted by me stumbling across the term Lesbian Jesus again, pausing, and asking myself "Is she, though?" Which through this very well organised essay we have determined, she is not.

Nona is the one who's lesbian jesus.

this is a GEM of a thought to receive in my inbox I'm honoured you graced me with it! the part of me who was obsessed with Paradise Lost at age 17 loves your argument for Lucifer = John.

I think TM treats catholic theology in the same way she treats most of her influences, picking and choosing what to keep so but anyway catholic lore expert @monstrousgourmandizingcats get in here. do you have thoughts 👀 🙏

[anarchy-and-piglins]

Hey so uh how does one actually go about watching dsmp lore??? I tried watching it in full once from a big ass yt playlist that was meant to have all the important stuff but it was loads of giant long vods that I don't have the attention span for with tiny amounts of relevent lore and I didn't make it very far. I'm assuming ur not supposed to watch it like a show, right??? Like you don't have to watch literally everything that happened???? I could probably just cherrypick some important+interesting plot points and watch them in a vague order????? How do you people do this

Ah yes, DSMP lore, the forever discussion. I'll be honest, it's not easy to get into the DSMP lore because you have a bunch of different POVs that cover a bunch of different plot lines and events, and at least some of this is lost media (streams were not always archived so there are big chunks of people's POVs missing).

I agree that trying to watch ALL of it (all POVs, all storylines) is not a good approach. What is a good approach might be subjective, but here's my personal advice for the best way to experience the DSMP canon as a latecomer:

1 - Pick a specific POV and start with that

A lot easier than trying to watch all in one go or even cherry-picking 'important events' is to pick one specific person's POV and try to watch all of that. You can use a CC whose style you mash with. Personally, I would highly recommend Techno's POV not because I'm biased (though I am) but because he's one of the few CC who has a convenient playlist with all his streams, so you get a complete experience. He also was reasonably involved in a lot of 'bigger' events without streaming daily to the point it gets overwhelming to backwatch his POV. The downside of his POV is you'll miss the pre-Pogtopia stuff, but you can use his POV as a starting point to decide what other CC you'd want to see their POVs of, or watch more POVs of a specific event AFTER you've experienced it within the canon timeline. I do not recommend watching them in a vague order to start out though, I do feel you'd significantly lose the impact of the story.

2 - Yes, you have to watch the giant long vods (kinda)

Yes, the dsmp has a lot of random long 'filler' vods in between big events, but that filler often does build characters and makes you attached to them, so I don't really think skipping them completely and only watching compilations of big events is really going to give you a good experience. People also drop surprise background info in the vods sometimes, there's roleplay beyond just the Big Events (tm). At the very least, you should skim the large vods or maybe play them in the background while doing something else. If you pick a CC you really like, their long vods won't feel like a chore (again, Techno is great for this since he's so entertaining imo).

3 - But also you don't HAVE to watch the long vods (or anything)

On the other hand, the upside of the multiple POV thing is that you don't really like, have to experience everybody's POV. It's okay (and part of the true dsmp experience) to miss out on stuff. I never got into Kinoko Kingdom, I never got into Karl's whole time travel thing, I know very little about Puffy or Ponk or even Eret. You can just stick to your chosen POV and even if that's all you ever invest in, you got yourself a lovely little story to follow. Do not feel the pressure of needing to partake in EVERY plot line or character because I don't think there are many dsmp fans wo have done that and had a good time lol.

4 - You can get your lore from other sources

If you do want to know more about specific events, characters, dynamics, etc and don't want to watch a million POVs, there's really no shame in getting your lore from other sources. Fanart, fanfic, animatics, the wiki, transcripts or lore analysis fans wrote, etc. My only advice is to stay mindful that fans are biased and in the dsmp fandom specifically some people get really fanon-y with their interpretations, so keep that in the back of your mind. Try to take everything with a grain of salt or not just listen to the stans of one character, because they might be misrepresenting canon lol.

I'm not a big fan of a lot of the compilation videos that try to condense the entire dsmp because they often seem super biased to one character and you lose all the charm of the multi-pov approach, hence why I don't advise them as, like, the 'main' or 'first' way to get into dsmp. BUT if you already watched your chosen blorbo's POV and you just want to get some more bite-sized content on one specific event or character, some compilation videos can be nice. Just, again, be aware that you're losing at least SOME context and seeing a very condensed version.

If you want to partake in any kind of lore analysis or discussion for the love of god make sure you got your canon facts straight bc I'm so sick of people bringing fanon/heacanons into actual lore posts- -gets shot-

5 - Just find somebody who is mentally ill /j

In the same vein as 'it's okay to get your lore from other sources', other sources can be 'a random dude on tumblr'. There's a ton of people who are still very passionate about specific characters/lore from the dsmp or the dsmp as a whole, and who probably are more than willing to talk about their favs and lay out the lore for you. I know I certainly need only minimal encouragement to yap about c!Techno and his lore and his relationships for HOURS, and I'm knowledgeable about canon dsmp lore in general, so even if it's not about c!Techno I don't mind answering questions. Curious about a specific character/event/lore thing? Just ask somebody. It's free, it's quick, it's going to make a mentally ill person's day /hj

Again with this one I do advise keeping in mind that some people are biased and might confuse fanon with canon (I'm reasonably good at not doing that, I'd say, but I am a little biased towards c!Techno to some degree probably), and I'd only advise doing it after you've already watched your chosen POV at least for a little while and only use it to get extra info or other perspectives. Unless you wanna ask somebody to lay out like, THE ENTIRE LORE of the server which seems kinda silly. But I bet you'd still find somebody who is willing to do that (sombody is me).

Sorry for yapping so much lol

[precambrian-sea-pancake]

Gonna infodump about my D&D character

(Sadly forced to keep things confidential because my party members follow me on tumblr…you know who you are 👁️👁️)

I’ve only had Gawain for a short time but OH MY GOODNESS I FUCKING ADORE THIS SILLY GUY!!

Also kinda shocked that the moodboard I made for him got that many notes. That’s a first…

Also please enjoy the drawing @hootbon made for me. I will never shut up about their art.

So…for what CAN post publicly…

Gawain is your token Lawful Good Paladin TM. Bonus points for being a protector aasimar I guess. (Though I might multiclass into a bard depending on how things go. It would fit him well. They’re my favorite spell caster.)

His personality is gonna be SO fun to play. Before I explain that, I should mention that he’s actually the youngest of the group at 24. The second youngest is the Kobold (Maran) who’s 37. So he’s a lot more naive and still understanding himself and the world around him. People often dismiss him due to that unfortunately. But, you know, imagine a dumb collage age boy and you get somewhat of an idea.

He’s a very sweet and compassionate guy, extremely extroverted and fun loving…maybe a bit flirty at times. Definitely cracks witty comments and one liners in battles ranging from something clever to “suck my dick” or something dumb like that. That doesn’t mean he can’t be serious, he absolutely knows when he should. Ironically he’s the most “normal” of the group, often being the straight man. Overall heart of gold and just wants to help people.

He has a bit of a rebellious and impulsiveness to him. As clever as he is, he’s mostly driven by his emotions. It’s always a “do what feels right in the moment” rather than logic. In general he’s just very emotional and struggles with hyper empathy. This also causes him to question a lot of the authority around him.

I’d also say he has that Disney Princess syndrome. Gawain is convinced that he has some grand destiny and is meant for more. He’s always wanted to explore and learn more about the world, meet new people and cultures, live a life of glory and adventure. Maybe he’s in over his head or maybe he’s not…we’ll see.

However, another big reason for doing all this is that he wants to understand who he is…more accurately WHAT he is. He was born to humans, raised by humans, and grew up in a mostly all human kingdom. So he grew up thinking he was one despite some strong differences between him and the others. Aasimar are VERY rare, and more like myths to most people, and others don’t even know they exist. So people either assumed he was blessed or cursed, some treated him like the messiah, and others thought he was a freak and dangerous. So yeah, he never felt like he belonged and wants to learn about himself.

Somewhere in his life he ended up becoming a squire and completed his training just before the start of the campaign…

And that’s all the backstory information I can post because my friends will see this.

I guess I can do a bit of trivia:

It’s still D&D lore, but the world itself is homebrew. Humans are actually not the majority race, far from it. Most humans live in a large archipelago with various human nations. I remember the DM said the estimated population of humans was 20,000 to 30,000. The two mainland continents are one dominated by dwarves and the other by elves, along with other races being far more common on the mainland. Not really about my character but I LOVE that detail. It’s somewhat relevant I guess since I said Gawain grew up in a human society.

The god he venerates most is Ilmatar.

His eyes reflect his emotions and power. When using any of his abilities or when under intense emotions (both positive and negative), his eyes will turn a solid gold color.

Prior to his training, he was a courier. His parents ran his town’s postal service and that’s one of the things that got him into the idea of adventuring.

He’s more of a cat person than a dog person. He likes both, but I feel like he’d go for the cat.

The first weapon he ever used was a bow rather than a sword. The specific sword he uses is an arming sword.

He is a wonderful singer, his voice is almost ethereal in when he sings (little aasimar headcanon of mine).

His favorite study is anthropology, but also really likes history and geography. He’s always collecting little souvenirs and trinkets from everywhere he visits.

He keeps a diary and loves to write stories and sketch things. A lot of story inspiration comes from his dreams, which are often very vivid…and he remembers them super well.

Neither of his parents have blonde hair, nor is it a recessive trait they had. It’s actually part of his aasimar traits.

He talks in his sleep because I think it’s funny.

If this wasn’t a medieval fantasy world, he’d definitely use Gen Z slang. Maybe even tell someone “L + Ratio” or “Skill issue” after besting them in battle. In that same hypothetical reality, his favorite band would be Starset and The Score.

He takes good care of his appearance and health, so he does enjoy certain beauty products. A spa day is his ideal day off.

He hates salmon. He thinks it tastes bad and prefers catfish. I don’t know why I even thought of that fact but it’s there.

[noir-renard]

A BTAS style title card for the DP reboot/au that lives in my head rent free

if I were in charge of a DP animation reboot and I had an unlimited budget, I would make significant and meaningful style changes. The basic change: everything that happens in the 'human world' would be black and white, and only the ghosts would be in color.

for more details, keep reading!

I've been calling it the "Pleasantville AU" in my head, though it's really not an AU as much as a lore-relevant stylistic overhaul reboot.

Humans and everything in the human world is black and white; ghosts are full technicolor

Danny, as a halfa, is still mostly black and white, but his eyes are green and his skin is. Skin colored idk. (Also black sclera because it's cool shh this is my fantasy reboot au)

The more powerful a ghost is, the more colorful it is. Moreover, the most powerful ghosts are capable of changing their coloration to "hide" in the human realm

Humans can't see colors well, and most recording equipment can't "capture" the image of a ghost well. You need special equipment to see them clearly and special cameras to photograph them

Places where ghosts have had a prolonged presence or big impact start to "bleed" colors. If you get wounded by the ghost, you get splashed with color (will fade to white "if you take care of it")

The Guys In White find these colorful, ghost-touched areas and "clean"/bleach them

The longer Danny hides, the more his presence in Amity Park starts to affect things

I didn't love the "Sam is responsible for Danny getting ghost powers" storyline in the OG, so in the reboot Danny was alone when he had his accident and he didn't tell anyone. He thinks he's a straight up ghost/is becoming a ghost and will eventually become evil (in this au becoming a ghost is thought to be a long term process a la vampirism. This isn't actually the case but I love "bad scientist Fentons" so that's their prevailing theory)

(He'll tell them eventually but I love identity shenanigans so I think it's more interesting if he hides it from them for a bit while also interacting with them as Phantom on occasion)

Oh yeah, because Phantom is mostly black and white, he's the first ghost that a lot of people are able to see.

His coloration is the driving force for the Fentons to declare him "the worst ghost", because they accuse him of trying to pretend to be human.

His coloration is a big reason why other ghosts dislike/distrust him, too, because he looks too human

The Vlad is a halfa reveal happens way later and way differently in this reboot; Danny meets him and knows he's "ecto-touched", but the Vlad = Plasmius moment would have more impact if Danny has had interactions with Vlad before, imo. Anyway I have Plans(TM) for Vlad but I'll leave it at that for now😏

[darkanachronism]

Every now and then my brain rotates bride theory, and I think I've finally settled on why it's never going to fly with me as a canon in game fact.

It's just not in the game.

There's no mention of vampiric spouses. BG3 mentions two kinds of vampires, Spawn, and True Vampires, and later The Vampire Ascendant. But that's special one off guy.

So, on a writing level, what sense would it make to have Tav become a secret third thing, which hasn't been telegraphed, or foreshadowed, and is never communicated to you.

Are there flaws with how they handle vampire lore, yes. But we know Tav isn't a True vampire, Astarion calls Tav his most Beloved Spawn (and consort, but that's also just, a thing rulers call their romantic partner, so it doesn't inherently denote a vampire status. I think Duke Wyll uses it too, don't quote me on that one though.) Karlach also calls Tav a spawn.

Why would the writing team with hold information that relevant to the character, why wouldn't they try to communicate that Tav is supposed to be something else. If Tav is supposed to be something else.

What possible point could their be to Having Astarion turn Tav into a vampire spouse. And then just kind of hint at it through what is, honestly, not especially specific or compelling references to a book published decades ago?

Why would Larian invoke extremely specific lore and not you know. Be clear, if Tav is intended to be a Bride TM, what possible purpose could it serve to not let the audience know.

[queen-of-obsessing]

Why The Stranger Is Actually Saruman

A Deep Dive because I've been thinking about it Too Much TM

I need to get this off my chest because the Reddit bros saying that the Stranger is either a random blue wizard or Gandalf are driving me crazy, because from my perspective, they're so obviously wrong, and here's a compilation of all the clues and hints we've been given in Seasons 1-2 that prove why!! (Quick disclaimer: I've watched the PJ LOTR movies over 5 times, and have it pretty much memorized, so I'm coming from mainly a movie perspective - which the ROP showrunners have said they want the show to remain connected to, as shown by how they reference the films every chance they get. But I've googled the backstory of relevant characters from the sacred texts/lore to familiarize myself with it.) (Also spoilers for everything up to 2x06.)

The "Blatantly Obvious" Gandalf Clues (and why they're not that obvious)

The Stranger has a relationship with Harfoots -> Saruman was also familiar with Hobbits. "Your love of the Halflings' leaf has clearly slowed your mind", and his Isengard cellar is filled with Hobbit weed. He's also shown to have a dislike for them (perhaps if he was betrayed by Nori in later seasons).

"Grand-elf", "gand", "follow your nose" -> it's not hard to believe that these are surface level red herrings, they're barely of any plot consequence and are more like random remarks thrown in to throw you off the scent. If the Stranger is Saruman these would make sense, since Saruman was Gandalf's mentor, and the films bait-and-switched them before (see: the Gandalf the white scene where he literally had Christopher Lee's voice)

"They all but confirmed it at the end of Season 1" -> then why is there still a mystery in Season 2? The writers clearly want you to keep guessing who he is. If he was Gandalf, they would've just said he was.

Aaaand, that's about it on Gandalf evidence. Not a lot, is it? No, precious, not at all, the Reddit bros lied to us.

Now let's get into the Saruman theory, starting with the four big things that Gandalf doesn't have, that the Stranger does: Rhun, Sauron, Ents, and Palantirs.

1. Rhun

Gandalf never went to Rhun. (From the wiki: "Unlike Saruman, Olórin never took up permanent residence, and never went to the east, apparently restricting his activities to the Westlands of Middle-earth[.]") He has no business being there. For the writers to send him there would be a giant canon departure, and kind of pointless. But Saruman did! In his early days, he travelled to Rhun, stayed there awhile and then returned. The Stranger travelling to Rhun was the first dead giveaway.

2. Sauron

"Is it my task to stop the fire? Is it my task to face Sauron??" (2x04) Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm 99% sure Gandalf was never destined to face Sauron. In the films, he faced a Balrog and won, which already was an intense fight that killed him, and Gandalf indirectly facilitated Sauron's destruction by guiding Frodo, but he never directly confronted him, afaik. (Again, I might be wrong and missing lore info.) But we know Saruman was more powerful than Gandalf, and he was supposed to face Sauron, but ultimately ended up aligning with him. But in the show, the Stranger is supposed to face him, and if he was Gandalf, this would be a bizarre departure.

3. Ents, nature & trees

The Stranger is heavily associated with nature, but the biggest dead giveaway that he's Saruman was the scene in 2x04 where he's following the star map to a tree branch, and tries to break it off when the tree retaliates and sucks him in (very similar to what happened to Merry and Pippin in the films, with Tom Bombadil saying exactly what Treebeard said to free them, although that line was originally Tom's to begin with). But because of this scene, they're directly linking the Stranger to Ents & Fangorn. Which is fascinating, because Saruman, before he was evil in the TA, used to walk among the trees and befriended the Ents. In the films, his betrayal of Treebeard by cutting down the trees for his army is one of the key emotional moments of the film ("a wizard should know better!!"), and is what causes the destruction of Isengard. And in that scene, Stranger/Saruman tried to harm the tree, and the tree attacked him. Seems like foreshadowing to me.

4. Palantirs

Now, even though the Stranger hasn't been linked to Palantirs and Seeing Stones in the show, we know they're there, and characters have used them many times. We also know that Saruman has one in Isengard, and would make sense if ROP showed us how he got it. Gandalf never had a Palantir.

Some other theories and notes others have made:

The Stranger is established to have darkness in him and the potential for evil. The fireflies die, "I'm peril", having to remind himself that he's good. The opening line of the entire show is "Nothing is evil in the beginning."

An emphasis on names and the importance/power of a name -> naming the Stranger as Saruman will change our whole perspective of him. The writers want us to see him as good and loveable before putting that name burden on him. (Another show I love, The Chosen, did that for the character of Judas, a notoriously infamous traitor, calling him 'the Apprentice' for an entire episode before officially naming him.)

The Stranger's magic is super powerful. The conjuring of the sandstorm reminded me of Saruman's conjuring the snowstorm over the pass of Caradhras, in FOTR.

There's a moment where the Stranger's staff dissolves when he uses his magic, similar to the scene where Gandalf dissolves Saruman's staff in his hand.

The two towers theory: introducing Sauron at the end of Season 1, Saruman at the end of Season 2, so now both heads of the towers are in play.

"i can’t shake the feeling that the actor’s intonation is pretty much the midpoint of Ian McKellen’s Gandalf and Christopher Lee’s Saruman" (ntraumintraum on Reddit)

Daniel Wayman did an Irish lilt in his voice, that Gandalf doesn't have.

Saruman has a fascinating, tragic journey of going from good to evil, while Gandalf remains good through it all. The former is more compelling for a show like ROP that's built around tragic fates + Saruman's story is still mostly untold and mysterious.

In conclusion, if he is Gandalf, I'll be very disappointed, but can live with it. It would just be a huge missed opportunity, but as of now, I'm pretty convinced that the Stranger is Saruman, and the dark wizard is a bad blue wizard.

So in further conclusion:

Update from 2x06: that Bombadil quote is kinda killing my theory here. ("some that die deserve life") it's such a famous Gandalf quote, but at this point it's so obvious that it feels like it's even more of a red herring. Ugh. idk. i'm confused. I'm starting to think the Stranger is actually Gandalf which is pissing me the fuck off. Dumbest choice ever made on the show 😭💀

Final update: I HATE BEING WRONG. JD & PATRICK YOU'VE BRUISED MY PRIDE AND HURT MY FEELINGS. I accept it, but i'm highly offended by it.

[vacantgodling]

Happy STS! I'm a big toponymy nerd, so can you tell me a bit about how you decide on names for places? Lathsbury, for example, meaning "loathsome + fortified town" in Old English, or Argos meaning "shining/bright" in Ancient Greek, do these hint at what those places are like to live in? Does it describe something in their history instead? Do the linguistic roots help give an idea of the kind of cultures/clothes/food you'd find there? Or is it more how the names look/sound on the page? (all valid and interesting reasons for naming a place)

happy (belated) sts! this ask ended up getting done now because it was a long answer and so i couldn't finish it in one sitting when i first got this ask so eosdj thank you for asking sm and making my brain churn <3

i quite love etymology in general SO i totally get where you're coming from and i'm happy to answer for a few of the major places that i (currently) have in the extensive world of terrae :> (i was gonna do all of them but then these explanations started getting long asf and depression is turning my brain to shit lmaooooo) but, 2 caveats before i start rambling: (1) i've had this wip since i was 12, and this is relevant to my second point (2) as i've gotten older and continued to flesh out this story more and more i've kept some things the same (such as place names) and retroactively added explanations after as to why things are the way that they are lol. because of that, some of these won't be as "deep" and thought out--or seem like they don't make much sense BUT with many of these names, it was child-vacant taking the reins on what was being named and now it's adult-me's responsibility to make it make sense LMAO.

but anyway, without further ado, have the toponymy of 3(ish) major places in terrae:

LATHSBURY

i'm actually very fascinated as to where you found the definition of lathsbury because in all my years of having this wip, i've never been able to stumble across any succint meaning like that - its really cool! but, to be fair to myself, lathsbury is more a story relevant name and not much real world consideration was taken in naming it (meaning that this is one of the place names where kid me named it and now adult me is like, how do i make this name make sense lmao)

as to why i decided this should be the place name as a kid--genuinely i couldn't tell you. it was one of things where i thought of it, it sounded good, so decade and some change later, its still stuck.

the IN WORLD explanation is that both the people themselves (the Lathsburians) and the main kingdom of this world (The Kingdom of Lathsbury) are named after the Guardian of the first age, Lath of Argos, Guardian of Valor--as he directly helped save their ancestors from certain extention in the years before the creation of The Labyrinth (though funnily enough in a meta sense, i chose lath's name as lath because the city was already named lathsbury lmao). anyway, to learn the backstory about that, i made a handy little powerpoint about it HERE (and i have yet to make a part 2 about The Nomads specifically, but those will become the Lathsburians tm).

regarding the actual meaning; because i have a whole system of how i go about naming people in this wip (which is a conversation for another day), when i went looking for name etymology for lath, the meaning i found that i enjoyed the most was "lion" (though the bamboo meaning is also nice bc that can tie into perserverence or relentlessness)--and so to tie that back to everything regarding lathsbury, and the lore and all of that the technical toponymy of Lathsbury would be (the) Town Fortified by Lions; Lathsburians pride themselves on being "Lion People" as they model a lot of their behavior and vaules on the attributes of Lath: fearless, brave, relentless & working for the greater good of their people (as lions have prides and they work together and all that shit).

EROS & ARGOS

the citadel of Argos was the first city ever constructed in Terrae and was the one safe haven that Terraneans had before The Day of Fissures (see afore-linked powerpoint lol). i mostly picked the name Argos because Eros as a city already existed; and i liked the fact that the names are similar (because of their Greek origins they have similar sounds /shrug) because essentially, these two cities cannot exist without one another (in modern Terranean history tm). in fact, the two cities used to be combined under one banner in the years after The Day of Fissures & before The War of Lathsburian Succession--in that couple hundred year period, Eros/Argos were referred to as "Aegos" which is essentially a combination of the two city names (by adding the 'e' for Eros as all the other letters are p much the same) & this is also why some characters - as a tidbit/fun fact, have the surname Aegos (ie: Lady Illiana Aegos).

because of that coinjoinment the people from Eros/Argos call themselves Aegean even to this day--and in their world Aegean means something akin to "first people" -- this is because of its relation to Argos being the first city of Terrae, so thus, the Aegeans are the First People. so Argos doesn't necessarily mean shining/bright in this context--though you could argue that the attitude of Aegeans (generally) make them feel as though they are the shining light of the Terranean people and that the rest of the mainland has gone astray from their true purpose, which is liberating Argos from the clutches of chaos and restoring the old capital to its former glory. tm.

edit: also also, eros means “love” and shit. so eros existing is sort of “for the love of argos” because they want to reclaim it. tm.

HYTRÖTH

last one i'm gonna do for this giant ramble lmao. tl;dr this is a name that i also picked as a kid by throwing random letters together and adding an umlat on top bc i thought it looked cool, but then in retrospect i realized that little me was really onto something with this and i literally didn't even know it. let me explain.

so, Ö has a sort of "ouh" sound, with more of an emphasis on the uh. this makes the name of this place sound more like "High Truth" instead of "High Troth" (though if you call it either its literally fine lol, i misprounounce my own shit allllllll the time just look at he who smites the sun anyway tho)

the reason High Truth is REALLY genius is because Hytröth is considered to be the birthplace of the goddess MUINENS--who, among other things, is a goddess of justice (she's kinda similar to Athena if you want a sort of real-world comparison though of all the gods she's the only one with a specific inspo in mind and even then as i've developed this wip, she's grown so much as a deity. i should also mention generally speaking that its the proper way to refer to deities by putting their names in all caps unless they're minor deities such as Palanthia, The Lady of the Mist, or Nitarr and so on). so her birthplace being known as "high truth" you can see why i think that's really fucking cool.

--

i'd love to do more of these sometime in the future but like i said earlier, i just kinda don't have the brain for it. but if you (or anyone) were curious about the naming process for any of the other major places in terrae have a little handy list:

Lathsbury, Eros & Argos, Hytröth, Snake's Canyon, Mordiga (Diisai), Kiskkaddon, Marthveil, Easthollow, Koss, Kingsburrow, Silverkeep, Bass Landing, Ubwyn (The City of Sorrows) & Wish of Palanthia C:

[teshadraws]

Do move tutors exist in Seekers? As in, mons learnin moves from other mons not normally learned?

Also, any lore on Zygarde? And Zekrom, Reshiram, and Reshiram?

Yup!!! Most Pokemon just learn TM moves from relatives and friends, but there are professional move tutors out there who teach TMs and move tutor-specific techniques as a career! They’re more common in larger cities like Ghatha.

As for Zygarde, I’d say they’re unfortunately dormant at the moment. While their role is to guard the ecosystem and help balance Xerneas and Yveltal, they don’t fall into a sleep cycle like that duo does. So they were forced into dormancy with the other legendaries!

As for the Zekrom/Reshiram/Kyurem trio, I don’t have any lore in mind for them since they aren’t relevant to the main story of Seekers. The trio might still be fused together as the original dragon since the plotline from Black and White never happened in the Seekers world. Or maybe they were separated by two other warring factions. Who knows! Whatever and wherever they are at the moment, they’re asleep.

[makoredeyes]

Hello, I hope you're doing well! This is probably an odd question, feel free to ignore it. I wanted to ask you as a fellow writer I admire, who is mostly focused on unpopular/dead/deep lore characters. Do you also sometimes feel like what you're writing is irrelevant and unexciting for everyone, except yourself? If so, how do you deal with this? For me sometimes this sudden realization is so crushing, that I cannot bring myself to finish a single work.

Hello! That’s not an odd question at all in fact it feels pretty relevant tbh. (Omg sorry long reply you got me going 💙)

I think I have several kind of interrelated answers for you so let me lay them out.

1- I am powered by autism and a MIGHTY hyperfixation. I have no choice I am compelled. I am blinded to all other things and so while the little bit of feedback that I do get is AMAZING and so extra sparkly motivating it is not entirely what compels me (but BOY does it help)

2- I joked with a friend just last night that, “this season is, as usual, does not have NEARLY enough Felwinter content and so I must therefore create my own.” - as she pointed out, there have been exactly TWO seasons with ANY Felwinter content at all and I wasn’t playing destiny yet for one of them. My point being, sometimes you gotta create what you want to see yourself. I’ve always found myself in some really niche corner of whatever fandom I’m in and have to do this a lot. Probably how I got to writing and drawing etc. fun thing is tho you find a really special group of people who think and love like you that way, and if it’s a smaller crowd, it’s all the more intimate for it Imo. I’ve made some super special friends in the last 9 months or so in my weird little corner here and it’s magical and I think that quality over quantity filter is awesome. (But yeah i know the validation machine is SO good too)

3- the BEST magic of borrowing from obscure content, generally unknown or undeveloped characters or lore is the creative freedom. The headcannon swapping the worldbuilding the background gathering… the RESEARCH! Gleaning what little bit I can from what we DO have. Who the fuck is timur?! We don’t know. I borrowed the beautiful designs for his face and general personality that Sylenth has developed because she’s done such an amazing job and was kind enough to allow me to play with him as she made him, and took that as jump off point for my writing etc but I have all the wiggle room in the world with but a few widely dispersed canon signposts to lead my direction and that is just so fucking fun for me.

(And that doesn’t mean more mainstream characters like Osiris don’t have their creative appeal to me either. I will deep dive on lore and character analysis for YEARS but living in the peripherals is comfy for me)

Those are all the positives to my work, but yeah, sometimes I do feel a little dejected. I have definitely felt a drop off in reader response weirdly in converse to the effort I put into my writing. Housefire has evolved into much more of a cohesive Plot(tm) that is going somewhere very specific from its origin of a few interlinked fluffy anecdotes and funnily enough about the time I started really digging my heels in and plotting and planning and putting in twists I was REALLY excited about, people started responding less. Some of my favorite fics are the least popular. Some of my art I am most proud of gets the least attention but that damn doodle of poor Felwinter getting splattered by a warsat has 200+ more notes than my next most popular art. (The shitposts always win Damnit! 😩🤣😅)

I get frustrated and yeah sometimes a bit discouraged sometimes and I spend Way Too Much time sitting here refreshing my notes because I am a sad lonely person chronically online just way too thirsty for a little validation or a conversation with someone but like. Every piece gets better. Every piece SOMEONE appreciates. Every piece **I** enjoy and is also a chance for all of that when I share it with the world and that’s exciting and good, and like I said the people in this community as niche and little as it is, are really something special, and some of the people that have come into my circle because of it make it SO worth it.

**I was done but then I read your ask one more time and I’ll add this since it popped into my head last-second:

If we are creating works for dead characters we love, we are keeping them alive.

How magical is that??

[singingvio]

The Coraline movie and Sally Face are eerily similar and I love it like

- the protagonist has blue hair and pronouns and a dad with terrible posture

- the sidekick character knows all the lore, believes none of it, and has that Scoliosis Slouch(tm)

- Cat.

- the basic plot is “curious kid moves into a new apartment (or something similar), their parents don’t really care what they get up to, and so they proceed to make a really weird friend out of pure convenience and find out that ghosts are real and they’re being specifically targeted by some terrifying entity that takes on the form of people they know. Meanwhile their friend takes a hot minute to realize the protagonist is not actually crazy, or if they are, at least they aren’t a liar and the building really is extremely possessed. Also there’s a cat, and the cat is a little weird.”

- also there’s multiple super weird cryptic neighbors who are… rarely dressed, for some reason. One of them has a weirdly plot relevant connection to their pet.