#with her role and her desires and shit. esthers whole thing. and roderick! fucking roderick

[isaacathom]

ok so the IDEA is that, the raw magic scourge is ONLY affecting eastern Stolisia and south-eastern Divinice (black lake). outside of the region, its only really known about in the context of the potential research ramification of raw magic, and the human cost - the diseases, the pain, all that shiiit - aren’t really fully understood outside of these countries. even in Divinice, the cost isnt really addressed, since they basically quarantined the region and then fucked off.

so with pleas falling on deaf ears outside of the region, Stolisia is redoubling its efforts to connect with Divinice again. like, aggressively trying to open communications of any kind. its almost depressing how hard they’re trying, because they think that Divinice will understand! Divinice will help! But as they start doing small things inside the country, primarily through dual-citizens like Esther (who can enter the country on her Santonian passport, but not her Stolisian one), they realise.... fuck. they dont.

and so they switch tacts a little. try and find folk within the country who could start raising the issues with divinice. protests, work, etc, like, just work on it. because it benefits all of them, doesnt it? and in doing so, a lot of folk end of ‘shifting sides’, and come to Stolisia to help at ground zero. which is great.

and then they come across Seora. because someone asks her a question about black lake, and she answers, and all the stolisians watching divinitian news go ‘YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO’. absolutely lose it. like, holy shit, she’s one of he faces of divinice, and shes SUPPORTIVE.

and thats when they start sending her letters, to really rough it out. she in? yea? fuck yea. fucking superb.

then shit escalates. the issue is, they really want to be able to have an honest open discussion with seora, but its difficult when letters are.... slow. and the only way to communicate, because everything else she has is monitored. how can they do it??? they try to figure it out. theres no real options. and then one of her letters comes back to them saying that after she mentioned something about black lake or stolisia, shit was..... bad. that, or she gets asked a sort of similar-y question on tv or by news and then gets dragged awya before she can answer because the Princesses and such have caught the fuck on. they dont know shes communicating with Stolisians, but they know shes fucking up their shit! by contradicting them! nope!

and so the stolisians move in, hatch a plan to actually remove her from divinice and give her a platform. she’s got reach. divinitians will listen to her. so if they can get her across the line.... perfect!! and then, yknow, they DO that, and then basically the moment after the demon encounter, as theyre radioing into hq, everyone suddenly realises, oH SHIT, WE JUST /KIDNAPPED/ HER. not in a moral sense, because they all know that Seora wants to be there, and she insists so. but Divinice doesnt. and thats when the plan fumbles. a lot of shit has to happen. its wild.

im still not fully sure what she actually does while in Stolisia though? like, is she tourist-ing, talking to officials, whaat? working with the military makes sense because theyre the group in charge of handling raw magic (primarily, anyway), and also because they brought her in. but small excursions outside it, like maybe meeting Thalia Ealos or visiting Kaisamere are absolutely on the table. its just mostly working with the military. which means she ends up staying in like, guest houses NEAR-ISH the military bases (or within them, idk), and thats how stuff gets weird, yknow.

something LIKE that? i think? like if she’s working most of the time, then all the military shit is justifiable. HOWEVER, the first attack, where Seong-han comes to ‘rescue’ her, likely is not near the military base. rather, shes probably in Kaisamere and staying in a specific place. but esther is there, because esther has basically asked to become one of her personal guard for as long as she is in any danger, aka for the next 5 fucking years or so. which means gabriel... MIGHT not be there?? but i want him to be. i love my boy. maybe they’d been visiting Thalia and theyre all staying at the one place? when its broken into by Seong-han and co, and they knock out Esther and then knock out Seora, before Gabe appears like ‘you missed someone, boys’ and kicks all their asses. he’d watched the whole thing from his separate room and had called reinforcements. gj gabe.

yeaaaaa