#remaking pate but different and laudna being remade but different and laudna getting to look at pate and see that happen in front of her

[sparring-spirals]

Marisha explicitly said regression when asked what FCG see's at a surface glance of Laudna's thoughts. Do you think that regression played a part in her decision to cast find familiar on Pate? While she has all of these people now that care, he was the first "friend" she had to rely on to get her through. Aside from the hilarity of Matt having to play this inappropriate dead rat/bird combo, what kind of role do you think he'll have in Laudna's recovery this time?

Anon I'd like to apologize for the delay but also Big Brain Hours, because of my lateness Marisha talked a bit about Laudna's regression on 4SD and explicitly said she feels like it was a "reset"/revert so we get to factor that in yaaaayyyyyyyyyy.

First, to your initial question- I absolutely think it played a part, and IMO it's equal parts devastating and heartwarming. Laudna was launched back into a nightmarish replica of her worst experiences, moments that she had already overcome and battled her way out from and yet had been ensnared in again. Of course she would fall back on old haunts, and old comforts. Of course, with echoes of these lovely friends in her mind, she'd bring back Paté, but maybe a bit different, something extra sewn into him.

But still him, because when everything was awful and dark and lonely, he was a friend. And for a little bit, it was again, and- there he was again.

But alive. But different.

That in mind, alongside Marisha's comments about a "reset" and Laudna "reverting a bit", my guesses for the future are best summed up as: Familiar, but not identical. Because that feels like the prominent theme.

When plunged back into a recreation of awful depths, she made Paté again, and he's still crass and reliable and a friend, but he's also flying, he's talking on his own, he's got all of their magic as well as hers in him too. Laudna is fresh off of something terrible, and I'm sure in some ways it feels horrifically like being back at square one. Like history repeating.

But it's not. Not exactly the same as before. And that has to be both a comfort and a terror. The things that were awful are not guaranteed to repeat. Neither is the stability of your old habits. Some things will be the same. Some things won't.

I think there will be plenty of times where he is a familiarity, and a comfort. I think there'll be others where it is closer to upsetting, destabilizing, confusing, jarring in a way he wasn't before. I'm kind of hoping for it, because that'll be the point, yknow? I hope he's there for her to lean on as she recollects herself, and I hope he also surprises her sometimes.

His strings are cut, but hers are too. I hope she looks at a puppet, hers but rogue- and gets to grasp that fear and love and change with both hands, for herself, too.