A Rose Appraiser's attempt at compiling DS/T's lore

[a bin of cake]

On 12/16/2021 at 12:49 PM, RoseAppraiser said:

1913: Exposition Universelle et Internationale is held

Ok, now, I've noticed there's really been no discussion of this on the forums (at least, as far as the search bar shows).

This was originally found on Winona's conspiracy board, yes?

Spoiler

Well, I've always been wondering what's important about the Exposition Universelle et internationale and why is it in the lore? Well, I looked up the actual nonfictional event from 1910, held in Brussels, Belgium. It was a World Fair, which seems normal and pretty cool, I guess.

Spoiler

Looks quite similar to the drawn poster above, no?

However, something I found is that a large fire broke out on August 14th, destroying many of the pavilions featured in the Solbosch region of the fair. The fair used this "terrible incident" to their advantage, as it provided a way to increase their publicity. I'm pretty sure one of the survivors had something to do with it (I mean, something had to happen for Winona to think it important enough to put on her conspiracy board, right?), however I don't know if any of the survivors have ever mentioned being in Belgium or in Europe (besides Maxwell, but he was already in the Constant at this point) in their quotes or something. It originated in "the post, telegraph, and telephone offices," so another possibility is that some shadow magic or something was at work again and caused one of the communication lines to set aflame somehow.

Maybe Wagstaff? I dunno.

~~

Oh, also, the diagram is in progress!

Spoiler

Here's what I have so far:

 

[cropo]

On 12/16/2021 at 1:08 PM, RoseAppraiser said:

Then it shall be assumed the trader king is a) too fat for the curse to properly manifest/when he sleeps the curse can't affect him and b) Wilba's father is suffering from off-screen/absent-father syndrome.

Please feel free to speculate.

 

 

On the Pig King we do know that he was forcibly expelled from the world of Hamlet, he is an outcast. I believe he is cursed, his greedy nature is always what leads someone to picking up cursed items or exploring too much where they shouldn't.

 

Wilba can stop her transformation by using a special necklace, it is possible the Pig King is stopping his transformation through other means as well.

 

I speculate that the were-curse that the pigs in the constant have is due to nightmare fuel, the same way it changes the monkeys and other indigenous life forms in the constant. Wormwood, Webber, and Wurts triumphant skins are unlike the non-native constant users in that they literally transform into a more aggressive and baser creature.

 

The Pig King is also trapped by 4 Obelisks, perhaps this does something to hold back the curse by diverting the shadows into it instead of the Pig King.

 

There are a lot of ways we can assume the Pig King is cursed but still doesn't transform, Wilba literally can prevent her transformation and can only be ''forced'' to transform by eating monster meat(presumably already infected with nightmare fuel on some level). She can completely circumvent the moon-based transformation and I believe the Pig King will refuse any monster dish.

Now that I think of it, Woodie was also changed so that Monster Meat transforms him.

[BreadScientist]

4 hours ago, cropo said:

 

 

-snip-

Ugh! Yes. This is up there with the most annoying lore questions in my opinion. Especially since it seems like Wilba's backstory was retconned, so it's unclear if it's even important. 
The Pig King DOES refuse monster meat, UNLESS IT'S BEEN JERKIED. I have no idea what that suggests. Other pigs eat monster meat just fine. He accepts raw regular meat. So him refusing raw and cooked monster meat feels significant, but he DOES take the jerky. So I have literally no idea.
Also, every RoG pig (and SW wildbores) have the curse, except for the king himself. I don't know what that means. He does ignore monster meat, except jerky. So.... maybe the obelisks? But why would he ignore the meat? Perhaps its just unpleasant, but he still eats raw meat just fine, and monster jerky still sucks.
I don't know.

I do know it bothers me.

[minespatch]

2 hours ago, BreadScientist said:

The Pig King DOES refuse monster meat, UNLESS IT'S BEEN JERKIED. I have no idea what that suggests. Other pigs eat monster meat just fine. He accepts raw regular meat. So him refusing raw and cooked monster meat feels significant, but he DOES take the jerky. So I have literally no idea.

So something like my future plot bridge concept for the gateway arc to explain that?

[RoseAppraiser]

7 hours ago, BreadScientist said:

Ugh! Yes. This is up there with the most annoying lore questions in my opinion. Especially since it seems like Wilba's backstory was retconned, so it's unclear if it's even important. 
The Pig King DOES refuse monster meat, UNLESS IT'S BEEN JERKIED. I have no idea what that suggests. Other pigs eat monster meat just fine. He accepts raw regular meat. So him refusing raw and cooked monster meat feels significant, but he DOES take the jerky. So I have literally no idea.
Also, every RoG pig (and SW wildbores) have the curse, except for the king himself. I don't know what that means. He does ignore monster meat, except jerky. So.... maybe the obelisks? But why would he ignore the meat? Perhaps its just unpleasant, but he still eats raw meat just fine, and monster jerky still sucks.
I don't know.

I do know it bothers me.

Perhaps monster meat jerky has less mutagen than the raw/cooked counterparts. Whatever mutagen is in the meat thrives in moist environments; the soft, goopy flesh of most monsters being the prime example. Cooking something doesn't drain it of moisture, but drying something will. Thus the Pig King will take monster meat jerky. Of course the mutagen could still be potent enough to mutate, just in smaller/negligible quantities for the Pig King.

The obelisks might be keeping the miniscule amounts of mutagen at bay or even sterilizing it.

Of course, this is all speculation. So please take this with a grain of salt.

[a bin of cake]

Alright, here's what I have for what happened on Earth. Lemme know if I missed anything important or gave any wrong info.

Btw, cyan is the character's names (when you first see them), green is the speculations or probable things that haven't been 100% confirmed yet, and the list of names on the bottom left were just me making sure I got everyone in here (hot pink means we haven't had a rework for that character yet)