#expedition logs

[tabletofruination]

Expedition Log: Day One at Casseroya Lake

((small ooc note: i unfortunately only have violet for the moment because i am poor and also just have no way of getting scarlet for funsies. so please ignore any inconsistencies in appearance, i tried to make her look canon as possible with what i had <3 thanks in advance!!))

[pt. 1 (you are here), pt. 2]

[initial recording time: 2:59pm]

"Ugh, should I really be recording in this rain? Green's taking a brief nap, yeah, but ugh. If I don't do it now, I'm totally gonna forget..."

Despite the concern on her face, though, she seems more than apt to get her pep up and repositions the camera and makes a cheerful little gesture.

"...Screw it, we'll do it live! Hi everyone, it's Juli!"

Juliana talks easily, despite what seems to be a small rasp in her throat--one could likely excuse it at maybe a bit of sickness taking her, but still being able to speak on despite it. It at least shows the girl is determined, if little else, as she gestures with her hand out to the area.

"Green's taking a little nap while I go exploring outside a bit! Never really been fond of the rain, that one. But I'm over by the watchtower of Casseroya Lake, and the view is just plain stunning! Here, get a good look!"

Juliana seems to reposition the camera, the view going outward as one can hear the girl's energetic steps as she focuses on a few different views from the lake.

"Ehe! The sky's so clear, but it's still raining Fidough and Glameow--but look at that pretty sunlight! Isn't it just gorgeous?"

Juliana's laughter, her vibrance and enthusiasm, it's all very clear in how she animatedly talks about her surroundings--about some of the Pokemon she's seen so far, about how Darling has been able to go for a nice swim and enjoy herself while Guidance keeps a watch--it's a tangent that gets Juliana to laugh a bit, before she seemingly stops herself short.

"--But right, right! This is, uh, supposed to be about my notes for the expedition, right? Right. I'll see if I can edit this out once I do my presentation, but...I don't know, it always makes me super happy to be able to talk about my Pokemon, you know?"

One can hear shuffling as the camera view shifts down a little bit, as if Juliana is taking a seat upon the rainsoaked ground a bit.

"But let's get started with our observations! And, oh, a little bit of history about this place. That's important too, right?"

"So! This place is Casseroya Lake, basically a beautiful haven for water Pokemon to thrive, and home to at least a few of Paldea's great wonders! On one side, you've got the Colonnade Hollow--a place where Dragon and Fighting types tend to come and raise their young before moving to other places, and a pretty common place to find Noibat, if you're looking for them! The dark cave kinda tends to evoke their old home in...Kalos, right? I think that's where they're from originally, at least."

"Then you've got the Gracia Stones, which are probably some of the nicest rock formations you'll find off of the coast of Paldea! I admit, their history isn't something I've learned about yet, but if I had to make a guess...it must've been the den of a great Water type Pokemon, waaay long ago!"

"And then there's Casseroya Falls! It's the connecting point between Glaseado Mountain--" Juliana turns her camera back towards the lake, angling it so a faint view of the mountain can be seen. "--And the lake itself! Water melting down from the mountain comes and graces the lake, welling in it, and connecting all life within it...heehee! Isn't that super cool? It just means that each and every one of us, we're all connected in some way or another--from the water that comes down the mountain, from the lake, and into the faucets of our homes, we are connected in all things. Or...something like that!"

Juliana seems to giggle a bit, brightly as she focuses the shot on the lake again and seems to sigh as the rain continues. If she minds, it doesn't seem obvious in her (admittedly still a little raspy) voice.

"If you can believe it, there used to be a giant, Titanic Pokemon that roamed these parts. The Elusive, False Dragon Titan...which in truth, was actually two Pokemon working in tandem with one another!"

"You see, about a year and a half ago, I was helping a friend of mine with his own research, see--his name's Arven, he makes the best food you could ever ask for! No joke, I'm pretty sure this guy could put any and all of Paldea's sandwich shops out of business if he opened one up. But I shouldn't get carried away! But we wound up finding and fighting this Titan, see? And at first, it was this big, huge Dondozo that had seemed to eat a Tatsugiri! And like, what on earth, right?! Poor little guy was just living his life."

"But you see--the Tatsugiri, it was actually like, waaay smarter than it looked. It was actually controlling the Dondozo from inside of it's mouth, and it wound up fighting us too after we managed to defeat it's big shield! It was the weirdest thing ever! But we managed to find this really special herb in a cave, and--"

"Juliana. Are you going to sit here and talk all day?"

"--Eep!"

Juliana's phone seems to immediately drop into the wet grass as she startles, but it's...strange, almost. The voice in question that speaks up--it's decidedly older in nature, though it's gender isn't exactly easy to determine. But more odd is the seeming...closeness of the voice. And it's qualities, too--it doesn't exactly feel like a voice that has suddenly come up beside someone, startling them while they're talking.

It seems to almost...reverb, in a way that one can't quite place their finger on. It feels there, yet not. Human, but with just enough weirdness to make one question it. It's strange, but the camera's gone dark as Juliana dropped it, and she seems to chuckle no worse for wear.

"Green, come on! You can't go scaring a girl like that when she's in the middle of a story!"

"I am well aware. I simply think there are better uses of your time than simply nattering into a camera about ancient history; writing is a far better medium for such things, no?"

"I mean, I guess..." Juliana seems slightly dejected, though she seems to laugh afterward. "But you lose all of the enthusiasm with writing, you know?"

"Mmm. I do suppose that is a fair point; I acquiesce." Green seems to chuckle, the sound very light and with a quality that seems mature in nature. Like a good hearted, gentle chuckle. "But we should begin our journey to the other side of the lake, if we wish to make it by nightfall."

"Yeah?" Juliana can be heard shifting a bit in the wet grass, seeming to ponder that. "Did you or Guidance find something?"

"I can sense something in the distance. I am not...entirely certain of what the energy is, but it feels real. I believe we may be onto something, if my hunch is correct."

"Wait, for real?! Why didn't you say so sooner?!" Juliana seems to jump up, her voice becoming more distant as she gets off the ground. "Come on, lets get going! If we have Buddy ferry us across, we should be able to get there before night time, right?"

...Oddly enough, Green's voice seems a touch more distant too. Odd, given that there seem to have been no other steps heard...? "That is exactly what I was thinking. We should make haste, then. I imagine the rain will let up in due time as well, and as long as Buddy stays on task, we should be able to make it swiftly."

"Let's get going, then! Oh, I just can't wait...!"

"Ah, Miss Juliana--do not forget your phone! You will need that, won't you?"

"Oh, shoot, right! Hang on a second--"

Juliana seems to pick up the Rotomphone again, the camera a touch blurry from the rainsoaked grass it laid in, but no worse for wear otherwise. There's a brief bit of darkness as she seems to wipe down the camera, starting to walk back while cheerfully signing off.

"Alright, that's going to end the first part of this! But I'll keep all of you posted on what we're able to find next! Bye-bye~!"

The camera ends on an odd shot of the ground--one which had been seen earlier, if only from a distance. Very little seems to be different about it from a glance, but...

...

Odd. Were there always those little buds growing on the ground? If you blink you'll miss them, but hm. How strange.

Either way, the video ends off here.

[handfuloftime]

Log of HMS Terror, Saturday, 25th September 1841:

Punished Thomas Jopson, Captain's Stew[ar]d with 36 lashes, for Drunkenness when on duty.

[wantsusdead]

Reading Icebound in the Arctic by Michael Smith (highly recommend) and it becomes even more apparent why Crozier is so infuriated by Fitzjames in this scene in episode one:

"Sir John, myself, Mr. Blanky and Mr. Reid. Only four of us at this table are Arctic veterans." (gifset here)

As second-in-command it was Crozier's duty to hire the entire crew and prepare everything for the voyage BUT for some unknown reason Fitzjames was given this task instead (a man with NO polar experience). He therefore didn't have the level of knowledge Crozier had and hired officers who also had limited experience on the ice.

So it makes sense why Crozier is so aggravated (apart from the fact no-one is listened to his warning) because if HE had been the one choosing the crew he would have had men who would probably be backing him up because they would have had more experience and not been solely relying on whatever Franklin etc. says.

[ltwilliammowett]

A few pages of the illustrated logbook of the whaler Terror - 1846-1847

This illustrated log of the barque Terror was completed by Henry William Downes during a whaling voyage from Sydney into the Pacific Ocean between 17 September 1846 to 17 July 1847.

The Terror was one of the many whaling ships owned by the colourful entrepreneur Benjamin Boyd, a Scottish adventurer who was one of the most significant figures in the history of whaling in early colonial Australia,

[treasuredplanet]

If you hate watching me climb so much, why don't you just look away?

They must've been in the lagoon that day, because Jal still remembered the tch-tch of the mosseaters' beaks when Saint'd said, Because, goddamn it, if I'm not looking, I can't catch you.

- Cascade Failure, L. M. Sagas

[mostly0]

Do y'all also keyword search the Franklin expedition every day or are you normal?

[magpie-to-the-morning]

Need to get upppppp.

[cherubchoirs]

Whats ur headcannon for ULTRAKILL voices?

i think my ideas are fairly typical but!! since i love talking i’ll go on too long about it anyway :]

v1: being a war machine that wasn't really intended for heavy human interaction, it wasn't given a synthesizer and was never wired for speech. however, it was fascinated by the voices of other machines and it has since gotten itself a voice box for novelty purposes, although it's still not very good at speech - its voice is heavily robotic with significant glitching and pitch issues, and it's only used to convey direct points or to have fun. it highly favors nonverbal communication, including sign language, but it does like being able to produce weird little sounds for its own amusement lol

v2: v2 was given a voice box since it was going to work much closer with the public and while it still sounds distinctly computer-like, it has much better control of its cadence and can put some amount of emotion into its words. it speaks relatively fluidly as well and it enjoys talking A LOT, reproducing speech patterns that are much closer to human (it feels quite proud of this). it's become more accustomed to nonverbal communication as it doesn't want to waste energy speaking, but talking is its preferred method of interaction.

bonus definitely noncanonical round for gabriel: speaks only in the holy tongue, understands but doesn't use the infernal, and doesn't know any human language lmaoooo i like to think heaven and hell have their languages that souls automatically begin to speak upon entry, and gabriel was able to communicate with earthly humans through god's facilitation only. so what i'm saying is. v1 has no idea what he's shouting at it when they first meet. it does not have this language pack and it goes absolutely bananas hearing something it can’t understand bc that means it’s gonna be NEW. DIFFERENT. EXCITING. basically i like the idea that they both have to learn how to understand one another, gabriel reading its expressions and gestures, v1 learning his language :]

[devicecontact]

Was thinking about the implications of the P2 terminals and the recent ARG and how if we interpret it as hell itself influencing the terminals, than that would explain how some of the data logs are filled with stuff they should have no way of knowing. Like past events and stuff in hell. I know it’s literally just to give the player lore but it’s neat to think about

[stoportotouch]

why is tuunbaq here.

[landgraabbed]

back at it again with the game i've been hyperfixated on, and now the game i've been really into lately (especially now that my unxeplored save file is with the devs to hopefully fix what went wrong) is book of travels.

it is technically an mmorpg, though servers are set up in a way that you rarely encounter others (with whom you can only talk using emotes), for which the devs call the game a tmorpg. it plays close to a crpg, though, in the same vein that morrowind is an rpg. character creation takes you from creating a form (with associated proficiencies and different starting skills pools), selecting your starting skill, your given name, your background, your traits (the game forces you to select a negative trait, which i adore), and finally customizing your character. you are allowed to write a background for your character yourself. and with the right knot (i.e., skill) other players can read it, and so can you read theirs. then, you are dropped into the beautiful, painting like world of the braided shore.

the braided shore is beautiful with scenery going from lush wooded areas to rocky passes. here, the people communicate with knots and unbind them for magical effects. tea have mystical effects and there are sefra (which i think act like spirits?) can offer you boons. the game doesn't give you many specific goals, but there is plenty to explore, and plenty to learn from the many npcs. the devs have implemented an in-game journal where you can jot down your notes as of yesterday, but i've been enjoying using my own notebook. it's not a game for everyone, but if you like to immerse yourself in a different world without the expectation that you should do quests or dailies or what have you, it's great. there's still quests though.

it's currently in early access, though my limited time with it (steam says 16.3 hours) has shown me that in game content will change as time goes. currently, as the devs work on the capital of kasa, there is a plot about why the capital is closed. i imagine that when the city is accessible the world will change. so it feels like there is an added benefit to onboarding during early access.

[silverior968]

Yesterday as I was walking home from the gym I passed one of those minimalist-esque decor stores, and thought I saw a familiar photo in the window. Sure enough, they had framed the picture of the hot-air balloon known as The Eagle, which the Andrée expedition set off to the North Pole in back in 1897. The photo was the one taken by Nils Strindberg right after the balloon crashed. I wonder if whoever put it there had done so knowing what happened to the expedition, or if they just thought it was just a nice picture.

[goldlightsaber]

ive never in my life been too busy for tumblr for more than a few hours

[wantsusdead]

Lads, Francis's hometown is a 54min drive from my house. I may have to take a road trip in the near future. I see there is a memorial and the house he was born in is still there!

[pierswife]

Wakes up. Goes the fuck back to sleep. Does this at least 3 times before actually getting up for the day--

[treasuredplanet]

FOUR PERSON AMBIT'S RUN FANDOM. WHY DIDN'T YOU WARN ME.