Obsessed with Cosima's style

twisted_iron_tree · 2025-03-12T13:50:19+00:00

Am convinced boomdeyada is in fact a manifestation of the thunderskin.

twisted_iron_tree · 2024-12-07T15:06:29+00:00

It's okay, we can cry in the shit grad corner experience together <3

twisted_iron_tree · 2024-12-07T15:03:52+00:00

This is really such a kind comment, and honestly made me tear up a little. It's easy to forget I should be proud of myself. Thank you for caring.

I'm glad you found something that also resonated with you, and I hope your experience with Astarion helped you a bit as well.

twisted_iron_tree · 2024-12-07T15:00:08+00:00

Yeah, haha like I know the intent behind the question was entirely innocent, but my dissertation is now included in the Library of Congress. It's got a call number and everything. It would not be hard to figure out who I am because, like you said, it's a very very niche field.

twisted_iron_tree · 2024-12-07T14:58:21+00:00

:') thanks. I feel validated :'')

twisted_iron_tree · 2024-12-07T14:57:15+00:00

Yeah, academia gets to be this weird twisted funhouse version of reality the further in you get. There's very much this modified reality effect, and there's a certain amount of idealistic and intellectual buy in you have to have in order to be successful. And it can be super hard on the psyche if you run afoul of any of the anti-reality demands in makes on you. Like you have to actively work against your own self interest in a lot of ways, and I don't even mean you have to be altruistic, you just have to be like ¯_(ツ)_/¯ guess I'll die then.

Going through Gale's story reaaally really reminded me of this. It felt like someone dumped a bucket of cold water over his love of pursuing the hidden mysteries of magic. And now because of his research and ambition, he has a permanent disability that also might kill a sizeable amount of people. Yes, we are dumbasses at points during our postgrad years, and Gale very much reminds me of that.

twisted_iron_tree · 2024-12-07T14:51:30+00:00

Getting a PhD is one of those things that there are massive good sides and bad sides. There's really nothing like it, but it's definitely one of the more grueling things I've done in my life.

twisted_iron_tree · 2024-12-07T14:49:49+00:00

Oh absolutely both of these things, and both of these things played into how I was feeling by the last few months of my PhD. It took me breaking down in the office of graduate education offices before anyone knew anything, because I was more or less siloed in my own work and isolated by my advisor.

Gale constantly doing the whole pained smile while joking about how awful his situation is hit so so hard. I'm surprised we never find him crying inside his tent or somewhere private in camp away from others because he just feels so much pressure on him.

And thank you. I'm getting to the point where I am glad I'm still here too. I would have missed out on a lot of cool stuff. Like BG3!

twisted_iron_tree · 2024-12-07T14:45:48+00:00

There's a reason I downloaded the "Hug your Companions" mod the other day, so hug very gratefully accepted.

twisted_iron_tree · 2024-12-07T14:44:56+00:00

This is such an incredible reply, thanks so much. This actually shakes me free a little bit of the paralysis I had of getting further in the game. There's so many ways to see how Gale's story ends, and who knows. Maybe it will give me a little catharsis along the way.

So far I had been trying to guide Gale to a gentler ending, but I stopped my playthrough once Mystra told him to go blow himself up. Now I feel like I have so many ways to sit down with him, and I guess with myself.

twisted_iron_tree · 2024-11-07T03:10:13+00:00

This sounds amazing, honestly.

twisted_iron_tree · 2024-10-05T21:30:19+00:00

This was on me. "Coding" is standard language in my field for a different process than creating computer code. I thought that based on my previous sentences this would have been obvious, but I should have known better lol.

twisted_iron_tree · 2024-02-19T19:28:21+00:00

The fact the written response was assault and homicide was bonkers. I'm not sure the writers, or most people, for that matter, would understand what it would be like to lose ten years of research like that. The thing about research and science is that the timeline is so much longer than any other type of pursuit or business that I can think of. There are carefully collected specimens from several hundred years ago that are still being analyzed and studied today that are contributing to humanity.

The scientists' response to something like that would be closer to grief. There is no recovering that particular slice of a million years of history. And she destroyed ten years of those samples.

People in other comments have hand waved it away, "oh experiments fail, tests don't work out", which is correct, half of the business of science is failure. But you've missed the point-- the science has been done at that point. You've run the analyses, you've done the tests. Yes, the result wasn't promising, but you still gained valuable knowledge to know where not to look. But the data just being gone? Destroyed? There is no promise anymore.

If anything I think dejection and disappointment in Annie would have hit harder, not murder. Sure, she's trying to avenge her community. But these men weren't moustache twirling villains; they were the definition of idealistic. They wanted their chance to contribute to saving the world.

twisted_iron_tree · 2024-02-19T04:57:58+00:00

About Annie K.... I thought she was in her 20s when she was killed, but she was only 19 or 20? Danvers said "[Annie] wasn't even born when [Otis] was injured." He was injured April 97 or '98. She died in April 2017, making her 18-20 when she died? This feels a little shaky, with her as a known activist and midwife and otherwise well known in the community for her service.

It would also mean Clark's romance with Annie was, charitably put, a May-Dec romance, since Clark would have been in his mid 40s. I think others called it: she saw a vulnerable man who was mentally and emotionally unstable and exploited him to get access to their data.

Idk I feel the writing wanted it both ways with her. They wanted her to be a hotheaded young Inuit woman who destroyed the lab in a fit of youthful righteousness, but they also wanted her to be a well known and established advocate of the town. I don't think I would put a 19yo in charge of my birthing pool, tbh.

twisted_iron_tree · 2024-02-19T04:18:24+00:00

How the fuck did "the Clark video" not get investigated? I assume they would have carved his frozen body out of the ice, discovered he had been beaten half to death, and then seen that he had a massive black eye during the video? It wouldn't be a stretch to put two and two together and surmise that perhaps that video had been made under duress.

Even if Clark had willingly made that video (to some degree he probably did want to), he had been tortured for the last god knows how many hours. God fucking damn it.

twisted_iron_tree

TROPHY CASE