#Theresa

[oltammefru]

WHAT THE FUCKKKKKKKKK

[nero-draco]

[kaltsit-enjoyer]

some old and recent kal'tsits and theresas

[mylulutolulu]

寝かしつけ😴

[skyregalias]

🥹

[zongzhii]

do you, recall?

[alkalische]

theresa if she were big boss in mgs

this is a metal gear solid reference

[zeravmeta]

haha. babel ending with theresa wiping away doctors memories to absolve them from the past and allow them to live for themselves and their dreams instead of carrying on the promise of a long dead civilization and chapter 14 ending with doctor defeating theresa to absolve her of the responsibility of the king of sarkaz and letting her and all the tragedies of the sarkaz she carried with her finally rest. hahaha. originum was a miracle and a dream that could have allowed them to live within a gilded cage forever and both doctor and theresa chose to fight for a hard earned reality because the goal of originum would only disrespect the tragedies that preceded it. hahaha. babels voyage had long ended and it was time to let it rest and on that endless field they held each other's hands one last time to say a long overdue goodbye because you cant go towards the future if you stay in the past but you also cant forfeit the past and the tragedies and fighting it took for that hard earned future. ha. until all of terra can fall into a peaceful slumber at night. hhha. haa. h

[hunterfromtheabyss]

babel hurt

[cerastes]

This is just too much. You can’t do this to me.

[tainbocuailnge]

I'm struggling to really sort out this thought but it's striking to me how for all we're told about theresa as the kindest woman ever, her most defining actions are really very cruel and selfish as well. taking doctor's memories is cruel not just for what that action would mean in a vacuum but because it's a display of unconditional trust right after that trust has already been irreparably broken... doctor made the hardest choice of their life and theresa didn't even have the decency to be upset, she wasn't even all that surprised, her last act was essentially saying "nah, you didn't actually choose that." she calls it a trick she's playing on them, she's well aware that she's making things incredibly more difficult, insisting they not just continue her path but that they go through the process of choosing that path again.

theresa had full confidence that without extenuating circumstances doctor would definitely choose her and terra, which is interesting to me, because priestess seems to hold that same confidence that doctor will ultimately choose her and originum. we know very little about priestess. despite everything, we also still don't know all that much about theresa, and likely never will. civilight eterna outright tells doctor in her files that they will never be able to understand what kind of person theresa was just from reading information about her.

in taking doctor's memory of her theresa also took doctor's ability to grieve her. this is a fine line everyone these past chapters has had to walk, to find where honoring the past ends and being dragged down by it begins. theresa ultimately chose to sever the past of the sarkaz, to sever the connection that allowed all of sarkaz suffering to be stored in originum in perpetuity, and instead allow their pain to fade into history rather than continue to drive them as it has done for millennia. before that she chose to sever doctor's connection to [the information of the past]... perhaps that is what gave her the idea to begin with. doctor has spent the entirety of the story of arknights in the shadow of what theresa must have meant to them, if she meant this much to everyone else. even with all their memories of her gone it's taken fourteen chapters for doctor to begin to move on from her death, because it's taken that long for them to realize and process that the hole that was left in them was theresa-shaped.

and yet after all that effort to sever the past she preserves her own memory in the form of civilight eterna... after all her closest loved ones finally had the chance to say their farewells and move on from her death she decides to actually have her memory quite literally continue to haunt them after all. and this construct feels compelled to remind others she is not theresa, she is merely theresa's wish to watch amiya grow up, yet seems to often forget this distinction herself in casual conversation. again theresa makes it impossible for people to actually grieve her and move on from her death. she must have known that leaving civilight eterna with amiya is cruel and selfish of her as much as it is kind. is she trying to have her cake and eat it too? even after being a forever distant ideal for all of the story she can't be content with disappearing into that distance and instead clings to her own past even as she leaves it behind.

[oltammefru]

So. BB-9. It definitely has what is my favorite bit of in-gameplay storytelling in Arknights.

The game makes you place a box top lane that redirects the assassins away from the blue box and into Theresa (and also Amiya by extension!). This is the only way to beat the stage. You can do otherwise. You can not place the box or retreat it, but then you lose the stage. You cannot proceed unless you place the box and leave it there killing Theresa.

The thematic resonance of JT8-1 is that it gives you no control. There is nothing you can do here but watch in horror as it unfolds. In contrast, BB-9 gives you the choice of doing one thing and you must do this one thing and enact this horror yourself. She cannot allowed to turn Terra into a beautiful but short-lived dream. Cut off any possibility of her survival and end her life, ensuring that the Originium will devour and eventually ensure the survival of all.

Remember, diegetically, gameplay stages are a representation of the view that the Doctor has through the EYEOFPRIESTESS, at their planning table, giving their orders that will ensure life and death. What you see here is what they see. So do it. Give the command.

[lauren-ce]

One of my favorite parts of Theresa and Kal'tsit's relationship (whether you read it as romantic or platonic) is the lengths they both go to tell the other that they're equals.

Theresa has this wonderful line where she basically takes Kal'tsit's stoicism and skewers it:

Then on Theresa's deathbed, Kal'tsit realizes that in 13,000 years of wandering, out of all the tens of thousands of people she's seen die, Theresa is the first person she sees as an equal

The following line is the last bit of closure we get before the actual epilogue. Theresa has a nice bit of double meaning here. She's saying the final line to Theresis in-story, but the formatting of the line is different and suggests it's the last line she's leaving to Kal'stit at the same time. The interface being different is a nod in this direction, making the words stand apart from the dialogue with Theresis that they're ostensibly part of. The line fits the dialogue she's having with her twin as well as her last words to Kal'tsit, and the words also very clearly reaffirm their mutual belief that they are equals.

(An important note to help prove my point: in-game, this last line doesn't have her name attached to it, which makes it ambiguous as to when exactly it's being spoken. Obviously she says it to Theresis, but this is also the last line she says to Kal'tsit, as the way this dialogue box is formatted fits with her monologue to Kal'tsit, and not her conversation with Theresis.)

And then there's this dialogue from the Civilight Eterna's third archive file:

Conclusion: I am unwell

[kaltsit-enjoyer]

kal'tsit...theresa...

[teasugarr]

I think I might be overthinking about Theresa, help me... (also my comms are open)

[nero-draco]

What could've been...