#so many. thoughts.

[himehikoshrine]

The Central Nation of Kielce - a History

[I/D : Screenshot for Sissia of the Central Nation showing Levi, Adra, and Crowley on the wall. Crowley is saying "Hahaha! How have you been, little wall?! It’s like you’re a part of our origins!"]

Having now read through every route's game script of the Central Nation of Sissia, I figured I'd tried to put together all the Kielce lore across the different routes into one. If you want to read them yourself, you can do so either on the game menu if you've finished the game, or [here]. This will contain details unique to most of the routes, so technically, there are spoilers, but they are discussed entirely within the world of the play. I will edit in a few minor clarifying details with no route plot information from routes as I find them now that I'm going through things with a finer tooth comb. It will spoil some things that are in the stage script only epilogues too, so please read at least one of them before reading this, or you'll be really confused. Two, ideally, especially if the first one you picked was Crowley's.

Don't ask me why a rather big piece of character information, that is kind of a twist, is hidden within epilogues only on the stage script in the menu. We're nearly the full year into Havenna Lore drops, apparently this is just how Neji writes. (And given all the lore hidden in weird bonus material, also how Ishida and Towada write.)

The Nation of Arbine and the Republic of Quatra, which is to its east, were at war for 77 years. Many lives were lost on both sides, and there were plenty of children made orphans in the process. We know little about Quatra before the end of the war, but Levi describes it as having "warmth" and Crowley says it had a very strong culture in the arts, including song and dance. After Arbine wins the war, 20 years before Sissia joins the troupe, Arbine begins calling the 77-year-war the 'War of Joy.'

They force the people of Quatra into servitude, build a wall around the country, and mark them with a tattoo of a horse on their shin. The hostility gets so bad in the upper military ranks of Arbine, that they begin calling Quatra "the nameless country" or "the nameless servant country." The culture of Quatra is stamped out within the nation, possibly beyond simply forcing everyone into labor for the sake of Arbine, and anyone in Arbine who even discusses it with anything but scorn is suspected of treason.

Arbine is ruled by its "commander and king" (always said together like that) who has the surname "Arbine" like the nation he rules. His top advisor, confidant and strategist is Major Azur Hybird. The military elite make up the aristocracy of Arbine, and their positions are expected to be passed down.

Arbine is a strict military state, with border patrols and street patrols in addition to a standing military that citizens are quite acquainted with. They are able to freely interrogate and detain anyone, but murder seems to be considered a crime in Arbine, regardless of the nationality of the person killed, even, seemingly, for low ranking patrol officers. (We only have Crowley's potentially joking word here, though). The high ranks can order and carry out death sentences sans trial of any kind, of course.

The military aristocracy is also the high society of Arbine, and they attend parties and engage with what they consider 'high culture' including national dances - Arbine does have a national dance troupe.

Arbine's language is called "Arbine". It appears to be different than the language of Quatra or at least a different dialect, though one suspects they have some degree of mutual intelligibility. Carlo says the further east one goes in Arbine, the simpler the pronunciation of its language gets. Accents are shared to some extent in the border region, as well as words. Carlo says Arbine has 'a certain roundness' and that the first letter of Carlo is pronounced 'more elegantly' than Sissia's accent usually does.

Carlo illustrates the linguistic drift with the word Kielce - which is the Arbine term for Circus, a word used in Quatra. Carlo says no one but a historian or a suspected traitor would know that word these days, so maybe once it was also used in Arbine, or maybe a historian would merely be more familiar with the arts from Quatra.

So, 20 years ago, the war ends. As for the future members of Kielce at this time, Chance, at least, wasn't born yet.

Levi Caineman, who was born to Arbine parents, was orphaned by the war and was taken in across the then-wall-less border when he traveled there in search of food. Once the war ended, he was taken into an orphanage on the Arbine side of the wall, while his foster mother, a Quatra, was left behind it.

At some point, Levi will meet Crowley. Crowley is, though it's unclear who knows this but him, an illegitimate son of the 'commander and king' of Arbine, so his full name is, in fact, Crowley Arbine. It's never explicitly stated in the play if Crowley creates Kielce as a troupe or not, or the origin of its name "The Central Nation of--" but in the practice dialogue it is confirmed that Crowley and Levi are the founding members of the troupe.

As for when it was founded, Crowley considers the first Border Performance, which takes place ten years before the present of the play, and thus ten years after the end of the war "part of our origins." It is likely the name, too, partially a form of protest. Given the troupe's founders - an openly avowed revolutionary with a personal connection to the throne, and a fascination with Quatran arts, and an Arbine boy raised for a time by a Quatran foster mother, I'm sure this was very much part of their motivations.

Crowley is, after all, enthusiastically a traitor. (He maintains everyone in Kielce knows this, and no ones statements fully discredit that assertion in other routes. No one ever quite says the first performance WASN'T an act of rebellion or treason.)

Crowley says he's the one who brought Levi in and raised him up to be ringleader. At some point, Kielce, including Crowley and Levi, ends up performing at a party for military aristocrats. How this happened or how it went down, we don't know, other than apparently everyone was thoroughly amused. At this point, they aren't suspected of anything treasonous, but are considered 'low' entertainment.

In attendance is Major Azur Hybird's son, Adra Hybird. At this point, Adra has already been dancing for most of his life. It is unclear how old he is. But he decides that this is the kind of dancing he wants to do. He leaves the life of a Military Aristocrats son behind and runs away to join the circus -- Kielce.

(It is not implied Adra is younger than the other two - on Levi's route, Adra remarks that Levi has grown into quite the man, which, if anything, implies Adra may be a bit older than Levi.)

By the time of the first Border Performance, which is ten years before the present, Adra is a well established member of the troupe, enough that he is involved with choosing to do it. He seems to be one of the senior members in the troupe.

Fan Carlo Albus, on the other hand, is a newcomer to the troupe ten years ago. It seems she joined enough after Adra that she's talked about as another sort of 'generation' - when talking about Kielce's style being a talent showcase, Crowley says its more pronounced now that Carlo and Chance have joined.

Carlo watches the border performance from the side, not on the wall. Also watching that day is Isaac Bazmaz, an Arbine child from the border region who lives near the wall. He is watching with a friend of his. On Isaac's route this friend is explicitly Sissia, a girl from Quatra who he met through a crack in the wall. Isaac talks about the wall as having always been near his house, suggesting that he is under 20 years old, or at least, not much older. Chance Orlando, as stated, is under 20. He doesn't watch the border performance, but hears rumors about it as a kid in Arbine that later inspire him to join.

Crowley is one of the leads in the performance, which he also wrote. This is, to him, intentionally an act of rebellion and revolution. The fact that it doesn't overthrow the nation makes it kind of a failure in his book. Adra says his motivation is sort of to stick it to the military aristocracy and their backwards ideas, both about Quatra and discrimination and their authority and control in general. Adra is also quite annoyed at their elitism. Levi doesn't give an explicit reason for it the first time, but when asking to do it again, he mentions love of theater and love of freedom as absolute principles he leads Kielce by. One imagines his foster mother on the other side is a motivation, as well.

The performance is seen as treasonous and puts the entire troupe on a watch list. According to Major Azur, the 'commander and king' of Arbine has pushed to imprison everyone in the troupe since that day. (It is completely unclear if either the Major or even the 'commander and king' himself have any idea who Crowley is.) Every member who was around at the time tells Sissia that it was quite the controversy and ordeal, and caused a lot of trouble.

Isaac makes a promise to his friend to one day stand on the wall with Kielce together. Sissia, watching from the Quatra side, is already being forced into labor, despite seemingly being a child. Sissia dreams of one day standing on that stage, too. Both Isaac and Sissia will eventually follow that dream to Kielce.

It seems that despite the displeasure of the ruling elite, Kielce continues to operate and have many fans. Their popularity is seen both as a threat, and, one assumes, a bit protective, as it's quite clear that Arbine is aware of the precarity of it's absolute control.

Adra notes that even members of the military attend the shows. Not all the fans share their ideals, of course, and will report things to the authorities.

Kielce has a standing theater within Arbine, but their base seems to keep a very 'traveling circus' aesthetic. It is possible they are both a traveling company and one with a home base. It's unclear when this was built.

Chance and Isaac are recruited the same day by Crowley. Isaac says that if it weren't for Kielce, he'd 'still be working at a factory'. They are still considered relative newbies by Carlo by the time Sissia is recruited, but they seem to have been around long enough to be pretty established as staples of the troupe.

#sissia of the central nation #jack jeanne #jack jeanne meta #lore hunting #kielce #i told you i have kielce brain rot #yeah the characters are based on quartz and its a love letter to quartz but its not slacking on the worldbuilding or messaging #like the characters may feel less inspired since they're taken from their actors but damn if this play doesn't have a MESSAGE and LORE #if we get an isaac character poem for sou's next birthday i will be digging a grave #i have so many more thoughts to share but lets get the history down first #so many. thoughts.

[spyglassrealms]

had a fucking hilarious dream that tumblr replaced the "block" function with the far funnier "glock" function, which did the exact same thing except whenever anyone blocked you a random bullet hole, like a png of a bullet hole, would appear on your blog. discourse blogs were unreadable bc you'd go to the page and the sheer amount of bullet hole pngs stacked over the blogs obscured everything. I woke myself up laughing

#normally I don't chronicle my dreams here but fucking hell that one was funny #I think this would genuinely make tumblr better tbh #@ staff do this cowards #spy has thoughts #my life is a sitcom and i am my own laugh track #functional website #spy's smash hits #Glock function #edit for everyone in the notes saying 'everyone clapped' #I know I can't prove to you that it happened for real you're just gonna have to trust me on this #but I swear on my goddamn life I'm not making this up #I make so many conscious puns that sometimes my subconscious cooks up a real good one

[supposedlyahuman]

tw: Examples of reblog bait/people trying to guilt others into reblogging stuff. I am not actually saying the things below, they're just examples that I have seen.

I fucking hate when people say stuff like this. Especially when it's on a generally good post with valuable information. On the one hand I want to share that information because it could genuinely help someone; on the other, I don't want to spread this type of guilt-tripping and shaming and potentially trigger someone else like me. It's a lose-lose situation. No matter what I do, I am going to feel guilty. No matter what I do, I will feel like a terrible person. It sucks and I just wish people would stop doing this. I know it's shocking, but it is actually possible to make an important and useful post without guilting everyone that sees it into sharing.

#in general i just don't reblog anything that tries to guilt me into reblogging it #there have been so many times where i consider reblogging something and then see people saying the stuff above #and i automatically move along because i can't handle interacting with that sort of thing #moral ocd #serious #my thoughts

[bakshiis]

guys remind me later i have a headcanon about why Brad got into finance and it does involve scrooge mcduck

#chuck posting. #so many. thoughts.

[chryseis]

FYI every purchase of any of The Adventure Zone music on Griffin McElroy's Bandcamp will be entirely donated to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund for the rest of 2023. His music is set at 'name your price', and the McElroys are also going to match the donations.

If you've listened to even a bit of any TAZ campaign, you surely know what a fantastic musician Griffin is, and there is no better time to purchase his music than now.

#idk how many of my mutuals/followers are into taz/mbmbam these days #but i know that at one time a lot of people were so i thought i'd share in case some people hadn’t heard #the adventure zone #mbmbam #griffin mcelroy #i just finished this week's episode and so i thought i'd share this

[ylceon]

someone's knocking at the door but i dare not answer

#hsr #hsr misha #honkai star rail #my art #MY SON MY SON #having so many thoughts

[voltaical-art]

HE WAS SEVENTEEN. AGHHH ULDER WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON YOU

#bg3 #wyll ravengard #baldur's gate 3 #ulder ravengard #i am having so many Thoughts and Feelings about wyll and his fucking father #his dialogue abt him is so heartbreaking 'Did he ever miss me?' RAGHHH #man the game this would be if they actually explored this with wyll>>>> #whatever ill just do it myself

[clarisse-doodles]

inspired by this post, in which Damian does not know what Vine is

#sorry this was funnier in my head #but after i read that post I COULD NOT STOP THINKING ABOUT IT #gen z batkids is the most Cursed thing i've read today and i love it #at first i had so many Thoughts about how my brain CANNOT reconcile tim as anything but a 90s kid but then i read that line about damian and #i feel like they'd mess with him sometimes by randomly quoting memes in unison #almost started to overthink how in This Particular Timeline jason might have missed out on this meme because he was Not Alive #but for the purposes of this silly joke i choose to believe dates are irrelevant #that is all thank you #clarisse doodles #batfam #damian wayne #dick grayson #jason todd

[dykealloy]

what do you mean jennifer saunder's shrek 2 cover of Holding Out for a Hero didn't play over the entirety of dressrosa arc

#happy new year. it's been about a decade since dressrosa arc first aired #i thought i was well and truly done with that last edit but this struck me like a bolt of lightning #one last go at it to wrap up the year #also. to be fair to doflamingo: how the fuck do you predict or prepare for this shit #(small aside: dressrosa arc is so badly paced you would not believe how many eps i had to download to pull four minutes together) #one piece #op #CJ's op watch-through #CJ's edits #dressrosa #trafalgar law #donquixote doflamingo #amv #monkey d. luffy #monkey d luffy #lawlu #roronoa zoro #zoro #donquixote rosinante #lulaw

[menlove]

the problem w modern sci fi is there's no camp. would you ever see a man dressed like this in 2024 star trek? no

a woman dressed like this?

what about these guys?

what about this crime?

meanwhile modern trek just looks like this

WHERE is the cunt! the camp! the garish colors!

#I have so many thoughts abt this and not just w costuming like #modern shows take themselves sooooo seriously and don't let themselves have enough fun #which is very sad

[jeanivere]

arthur morgan tiddies and tummy thats all im gonna say

#my art #arthur morgan #rdr2 arthur #arthur morgan rdr2 #rdr2 #red dead redemption 2 #man i have so many feelings about him #thinking a lot of thoughts #like that happy trail im currently staring at #no im not i gotta go guys bye

[glitchedcosmos]

Yeah he’s fine.

#this was so funny in my head #i giggled drawing this fr #he lost his emotional support boyfriend in one episode fr #guys I don’t think sonic is fine #lmao #sonic prime season 3 #sonic prime #sonic prime art #sonic the hedgehog #shadow the hedgehog #my art shit #sonadow prime #sonic prime spoilers #sonic #sonadow #sth #i thought sk many things after ep 1 was realeased and this was one of them #this is so funny to me I swear lol

[ssalballoon]

Mystra showed him the secrets beneath the veils. The gossamer veils first, draped across the Weave. The delicate veils next, draped across her body. 'Chosen One' she whispered, as she slipped them off completely.

poor gale :'(

- the dialogue is from ea gale's explanation about his folly

- i kinda like that she ended up looking like a mother-of-pearl inlay lacquerware!

- oh this was a subconscious choice, but Gale is sitting in seiza which is a posture for showing respect especially to elders. it's also known to be a painful position to sit in for extended periods of time, which is why it was sometimes used as a method of (morally dubious) punishment. however, experienced people can maintain this posture for much longer. food for thought :-)

- (edit: deleted this point bcs it didn't really make sense + detracted from the art a little;;)

#also had other companion drawings w gale and mystra planned for this but none of them are complete... perhaps another day #mystra #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #bg3 fanart #gale of waterdeep #gale dekarios #my art #hm i dont have many opportunities to share my mystra thoughts so! #mystra is incredibly difficult to redesign and draw! I want to give her a fantastical element to her while retaining her austere aloofness #(her unassuming design is actually surprisingly effective in making her seem so effortlessly powerful) #I love spiderweb imagery and braids(weave) for her but braids make her seem so... kind? very soft? i'll try again another day... #is this seriously my last post of 2023. goddamn

[blueboyluca]

“When I first heard it, from a dog trainer who knew her behavioral science, it was a stunning moment. I remember where I was standing, what block of Brooklyn’s streets. It was like holding a piece of polished obsidian in the hand, feeling its weight and irreducibility. And its fathomless blackness. Punishment is reinforcing to the punisher. Of course. It fit the science, and it also fit the hidden memories stored in a deeply buried, rusty lockbox inside me. The people who walked down the street arbitrarily compressing their dogs’ tracheas, to which the poor beasts could only submit in uncomprehending misery; the parents who slapped their crying toddlers for the crime of being tired or hungry: These were not aberrantly malevolent villains. They were not doing what they did because they thought it was right, or even because it worked very well. They were simply caught in the same feedback loop in which all behavior is made. Their spasms of delivering small torments relieved their frustration and gave the impression of momentum toward a solution. Most potently, it immediately stopped the behavior. No matter that the effect probably won’t last: the reinforcer—the silence or the cessation of the annoyance—was exquisitely timed. Now. Boy does that feel good.”

— Melissa Holbrook Pierson, The Secret History of Kindness (2015)

#dog books #this chapter was very sad reading #when you become aware of punishment #and its use and its prevalence #it's hard not to despair #again this is why positive reinforcement feels like absolution #maybe now my eyes are open I can make up for what I did #what I did because it's what everyone does #because it's more acceptable to punish than to do anything else #I've been having so many thoughts about punishment and society and justice #this book was very validating #another great validating moment in my jumbled thoughts #was listening to the You're Wrong About episode on justice #with Amanda Knox #it helped to ease the despair a little

[cherryysocks]

can't stop thinking about this movie tbh..

#i saw the tv glow #digital art #fanart #isttvg #so many thoughts!! #also the soundtrack has been on loop all week for me lmao #hrt could've saved her .... #tv static #justice smith #brigette lundy paine #the pink opaque #click for quality!

[tawaifeddiediaz]

you know what boils my blood.

over the last 2 weeks, i've seen countless patients walk into my urgent care center, symptomatic for so many things, refusing to get tested for covid and flu, citing that they don't want to knowingly bring it to their holiday tables. i had a patient tell me, verbatim, "i don't want to test for covid, because i don't want to be the asshole who brings it on a plane."

i understand that - i understand that holidays are times where people look forward to meeting loved ones that they might only see once a year, or where they get a break from the hectic back and forth of their lives.

but here's the thing - whether they get tested or not, they will bring whatever they have to their holiday tables. it's pure recklessness to know that you're sick, and walk into someone else's house spreading the disease.

today, january 2, i saw 91 patients, many of them who have tested positive for covid and flu. many of these patients are the same ones who didn't want testing 3 days ago, until their events were over, and now, they will have to reach out to everyone they know to let them know that they were positive because they were showing symptoms well before their event.

the next week or two? we're going to see many, many more, all people with symptoms that started around christmas. these are the only two viruses we test for rapidly in our office, but they are potent and can be fatal in many people.

so here's why i wrote this post, and maybe it's a little late, but - if you care about your loved ones, please get tested if you know you're sick. it doesn't have to be at a clinic if you don't want it to, because the over-the-counter tests work just fine too (if you test within 5-7 days of symptom onset). just...please don't try to run from the knowledge that you might have covid, because immunocompromised people, elderly people, people with co-morbidities like asthma, pregnancy, diabetes, etc...many of them may not recover. and they may not be sitting at your holiday table in the future because of it.

#zee rambles #this isn't to guilt trip anyone #but im so so tired of people coming in and just refusing testing because they want to see grandma or whatever #and on top of that people are avoiding vaccinations and all that too?? #we all lived through the pandemic - everyone saw how many people unfortunately passed away from it #now because of vaccinations and some amount of herd immunity we're finding milder cases in healthy people #but that doesn't mean its gone #that doesn't mean it doesn't have long-term repercussions even in healthy people and that doesn't mean people aren't still dying from it #honestly i just needed a lil rant #and if this helps at least one person??? im all for it #also i can't sleep so here we are spilling thoughts into the voidddd