#Metafictional ramblings

[ariapmdeol]

I just wanted to point out something relating to the three characters from the game on the genloss store

These are the quotes and colors of each character in the game (translated the binary)

Stranger (red): The Savior Friend (blue): The Taken Friend (green): The Villain

are these not just the roles that Sneeg and Charlie played in this episode?

Sneeg as the Blue friend, the "Taken" in which we first meet him after he's been kidnapped from elsewhere. He's LITERALLY taken prisoner, taken 'mentally' through the goop mind control

Charlie Slimecicle as the Green, the "Villain" of this episode along with its host. Defeated at the end.

The Stranger... Is the person on the Tapes, i assume? The "Savior" helping align things so that GL!Ranboo can break free from Showfall's (and our) control.

Also, this may not be relevant but... Am i supposed to recognize who plays the Tape person (Stranger)? Because I didn't, while I did recognize Sneeg and Charlie (Friends). This is more tangential evidence though, so we'll see if this thought bears merit.

[sskk-manifesto]

\\

[nomsfaultau]

Another mini-arc of Fault is being released. Fault is an SCP SBI AU that deals with themes of dealing with the trauma and guilt of surviving, The SCP Foundation’s system of oppression, and naturally found family. The first arc is Tommy and Tubbo-centric, focusing on the sacrifices needed to survive, and then broadens to fully introduce the rest of the Sleepy Bois, alternative morality systems, and new terrible mental health strategies. While the story does get dark, it makes the moments of love shine all the brighter. Even if humanity hates them, these monsters have each other’s backs.

Mind the tags, and enjoy.

[magistralucis]

Fucked up by how no life in The Twice-Dead King is insignificant. No one is only an obstacle, only useless, or evil for the pure sake of evil; it's a statistics gamble just to get the simplest soldier replaced, and defeating an antagonist doesn't necessarily improve the situation, since the void they leave continues to haunt the remainder of the text.

Neth isn't just broken and useless, Denet didn't forget the monoliths for nothing. Oltyx would never have returned to his authentic life without Hemiun, the duel with Duamehht was fated and deserved, in terms of Oltyx's pain as much as hers. Lysikor's probably the individual closest to a true villain, in that he's self-concerned, murderous, treacherous, and ultimately aims to harm Oltyx; yet it's all softened by the fact that he appears to have a metafictional awareness of his archetype, rendering his actions more of a stage role than an existential threat. The only true evil in TDK's narrative is ideology (fascism) - and the few times individuals break off from it to clash with the main characters, those encounters have serious consequences for Oltyx and his court. No life, acknowledged as a life, has no effect on the fabric of this duology.

And that's ironic as all hell, given that necrons willingly live in a Hobbesian nightmare of a world where life is nasty and brutish, if not particularly short. Even before biotransference, their militaristic ventures and a strict hierarchy ensured that lives were poor and expendable, and not much has changed on that front. Any level of compassion for a living being is unusual for a necron noble to have, let alone prove true - in fact, most of the tragedy in TDK occurs because the world around Oltyx did its best to beat his compassion out of him, when he was blessed enough to have it from the very beginning. Ever more the twist of the knife, then, that Oltyx and his court ultimately accept the celebration of life-as-they-are (the Flayers) and life-as-it-used-to-be (their lived experiences and desires as necrontyr) through partaking in the lives-that-they-took (flesh from various sources). It needs to be flesh, presumably, because flesh is material proof of something that was organic and living and deserving of that life. If they didn't care about the life part they would just be Destroyers. Sorry I'm just rambling now. This novel has taken over my brain

[aleph-trix]

Small Pataphysics ramble

In the second episode of Admonition, AKA SCP-6747, there is a section written by Placeholder under Addendum 6474/I that serves as a sort of introduction to Pataphysics and several of its key concepts. Particularly, this section is very interesting to me

At first, the very obvious statement one can glean is that our world (the world of the author-entities) described is in itself partly fictional and has a higher dimension above it. In rebuttal to that, a person more familiar with the SCP wiki might bring up the existence of SCP-5500. Certainly, while SCP-5500 is said to be occurring within the “real world”, nothing like it actually happened IRL so perhaps there are reality-spaces that exist in between our universe and the SCP multiverse.

However the more interesting implication in this section comes in the form of the “narrative dimensions” described. Three types of realities are described in terms of narrative dimensions here: a 1D world (with one fictional dimension), a 2D world (the SCP world) (with one fictional dimension and one real dimension) and a 3D world (with two real dimensions and one fictional dimension).

The implication here is obvious, and while it may just be my interpretation I find it to be more interesting then the alternative, and that is that every single reality-space has atleast one fictional dimension and thus partly fictional. That POTENTIALLY, there is an infinite string of realities stacked on top of each other all of them fictional in small ways. And that includes us, our reality.

This is perhaps one of the biggest reasons why I love Pataphysics in SCP works and why it manages to set itself apart from all other sort of metafictional works. There is of course the scientific way the information is processed and presented but the way authors manage to explore certain themes and theories and philosophy in such a beautifully clinical way.

One thing that a lot of metafiction or self-referential fiction tends to not dwell upon is, how do WE know we’re not fictional? Or atleast partly fictional? How do we know there isn’t some higher layer of gods influencing us simply using their imagination. This small section manages to ask that question but instead of it being a question or the questioner even being us: it’s a fictional personal in a layer below us telling us the answer. Yes, I am fictional but so are you.

This section is not the focus of the article at all, simply being an explanation of how Pataphysics work to supplement the actual focus of the article (which you should go read for yourself by the way it’s really good.) but it is still really chilling. These thoughts are probably not original and have probably been talked about before but I just wanted to ramble a bit and neither Twitter or Discord has the proper word count so. :p

[indigosfindings]

i was gonna send a fire emoji but then i realized the thing i was going to ask was way too specific and i might as well just frame it as a question:

do you think there's space in modern horror for metatextuality that doesn't either come off as house of leaves "the metatextuality is so much bigger that it overshadows the horror" or come off as modern scream's "the metatextuality is an overdone chore at this point and we're saying the same things we've been saying about the horror movie medium since the 90's?

i love your work!

ok at long last here is my response (sorry for incoming rambling):

i have to voice two thoughts first to undergird my answer: first, i think if metatextuality isnt inevitable, it approaches inevitability--it's one of many ways that art reacts to its context: eg, a new "horror movie" or a "mystery story" etc can only be created in a world in which "the horror movie" and "the mystery story" and so on already exist in spades--the work has a relationship to existing conventions whether the artist wants to actively do it or not. either you overtly allude to & situate yourself relative to those conventions, or you don't (and end up situated relative to those conventions regardless!) ("how do you make a slasher movie for a world that knows exactly what to expect from slasher movies?" "by making one that knows that you know that!")

and second: metatext/metafiction can manifest sooo many different ways. metafiction as defence against sincerity, metafiction as idle subversion, metafiction as critique, metafiction as artistic device.

to actually address the question: i think that space must exist! a lot of metatextual horror that exists (especially recently) is wrongheaded, insincere, and/or self-aggrandizing, and i think THAT's the problem, not the metatextuality itself. (there's probably also something to be said for metatext being attractive to the artists & contexts who are likely to produce wrongheaded/insincere/self-aggrandizing art lol)

tldr: self-reference is a viable & versatile tool, the problem is when something is SO reflexive that it has no point of reference outside itself.

in terms of scariness, i don't think metatext is any more or less likely to detract from horror than any other ambition (comedy, commentary, mystery, drama, metaphor, etc). it's true that the cabin in the woods isnt scary, scream 5 isnt scary, etc, but plenty of horror works that are not meta at all arent scary either

it certainly doesnt help that a lot of metatextual art goes about it in the stupidest way possible. like, you doom yourself as soon as you try to squeeze horror out of saying the characters in the story are REAL!!!!!! because like...... no theyre not lol. (flashing back to the last horror movie, which quite literally ends with the killer looking into the camera and saying "im going to kill YOU irl!!!!!!!" like,,, suspension of disbelief can only carry you so far lmao)

my opinion is 100% tinted by the fact that i have a total soft spot for any art that toys with genre, form, and/or medium, but i don't even need to speak in the abstract: the wolf house, inland empire, and we're all going to the world's fair are all 21st century meta-horror movies that i love (and that are genuinely scary)!

(also the entire found footage genre is arguably metatextual, with all the attention that's drawn to the tools of film production. the best found footage films also question what's being omitted, what's happening when the camera is off)

[far-too-many-posts-for-my-taste]

Anybody Home? (review)

General content warning: this is a review of a horror novel designed to be pretty disturbing. I'm not going into intense specifics but if you're sensitive to that type of thing, please scroll on by!

I picked up Anybody Home? by Michael Seidlinger on a bit of a whim after seeing a few book review influencers on YouTube recommend it and noticing the cover looked pretty scary, and well, that's a dicey method for finding new reads at the best of times.

The book's conceit is that a veteran home invader and torture-murderer is coaching a first-time killer through a job. A chilling enough premise, and one I thought might lend itself to some good creeping dread, or at least have an interesting villain protagonist. The narration is mostly in second person, and the 'you' is rather poorly defined (actually, everyone in this book is poorly defined).

I think that premise could have become a really effective horror novel, but the book is less interested in providing scares than providing commentary--there's a whole framework where the home invaders are not only planning these crimes, but also filming them and rendering them unto "the cults" for possible cinematic adaptation. It gets very metafictional very fast, and reads less like a veteran killer giving advice to a mentee than it does like an extended ramble on how to make a horror movie, and all the characters' pre-planning of the horrible job seems more like advice on how to forestall audience criticism.

All that might have worked if the book had a bit more to say, really, but it repeats itself so much and conveys so little. I was thoroughly unsurprised to see in the 'about the author' that Seidlinger wrote a whole book on House of Leaves, since Anybody Home? is clearly taking inspiration from that book and its metafictional complexity, but this work has none of the specificity that makes House of Leaves seem like an actual artifact, and none of its thematic depth.

The victims in the story are never named, and are clearly meant to be archetypal, but they come across as such bland suburban-malaise stereotypes that it's difficult to shake the feeling the narrative is just moving stand-in numbers around, to be filled in with actual characters later. This is almost certainly the point, given that what we're reading is essentially a storyboard for a horror movie, but it makes for a really dull reading experience.

A few sections have a bit more interest--the description of the future invaders casing the home really does inspire a fair amount of dread, and the narrative finally delves into specificity when discussing the layout of the house and the sabotages planned. There's also glimpses of a more interesting story when some of the invaders turn against one another, but nothing really comes of that.

A few other nitpicks that annoyed me--the not-quite right explanation of what creepypasta is, the reference to the teenage son reading porn magazines (in 2023? please, the kid has a phone and a laptop), the assurance that teenagers have been desensitized by video games.

Not recommended, unless I guess you really really loved the movie Cabin in the Woods and you think a second-person version of a story with extremely similar themes sounds too intriguing to pass up.

[dragimal]

Fave Long Fics

good ol' @arahir is asking for everyone's fave long fics, so here are mine!

sorry if the rambling is a bit long, I just want to express my love <3

🌟: denotes a fic that belongs in the literary equivalent of the Louvre-- a stunning piece of writing even outside of its contribution to the fandom

JJBA

🌟 scheherazade -- shylittleghost; Josuke/Okuyasu-centric, but multiple POVs; canon-compliant prequel/sequel to part 4, necessary to read/watch part 4 to understand

this is one of those fics that not only elevates the original work in several ways, but it's a stunning piece of writing as a whole. the flow and tone of the piece is so unique and difficult to describe, with a fitting balance between mystery/horror and deadpan humor, and uses the narrating voice to play with the 4th wall in a really fun and satisfying way. oh, and one of the last chapters is a little RPG game, adding a bit little multimedia twist <3

BEASTARS

🌟 Mongrels and Strays series (mainly Mongrels and Lockjaw)-- HassouToby; technically Mongrels' primary ships are Legosi/Haru and Louis/Juno, but it's more genfic with multiple POVs. Lockjaw is Pina/Riz-centric; canon divergence from ch 156 of the manga, so it's necessary to read at least that far to understand

I have a complicated love/hate relationship with Beastars, but this fic honestly retroactively makes Beastars a better experience, imo. it not only enhances the source material, but engages and challenges its implications in ways that I frankly think Beastars itself failed to, introducing a new final antagonist, new thematic tension, and new challenges for the main characters to face. more than anything though, Mongrels feels like what the end of Beastars should have been. this fic isn’t afraid to up the stakes and have actual consequences, making the central conflict feel like a real threat to both individual characters and society as a whole. this fic is intense and brutal, and it’s not afraid to make the characters you love hurt

Homestuck

🌟 Detective Pony -- sonnetstuck; Dirk-centric(??); it's an extension of a one-off joke in the comic, but it's not necessary to know HS to read it (but it's def more satisfying if you're at least familiar with the Alpha kids)

does this fic even need to be stated, for any HS fan? this is a classic of classics, the best rec any HS fan could give. a fic that starts off with a goofy joke from the original comic (a Pony Pals kid's book that Dirk has edited with silly commentary), which gradually snowballs into a much deeper story. a stunning piece of writing, I rank it among the best works of metafiction literature of all time. this fic does an incredible job of imitating Hussie's writing style (specifically Dirk's voice) and the multi-media presentation of HS, it almost feels like it popped straight out of the comic

Endangered -- Mortior; Dirk/Hal, Dirk-centric; robot-apocalypse AU, not necessary to know anything about HS

rly fun au, and one of my fave whump fics, for any whump fans out there. it's also one of my favorite depictions of an AI personality, like the approach to relationships and perceptions feels believable

The Magnus Archives

🌟 Two Ships Passing -- pyrites; Gerry Keay/Jon Sims-centric; a canon-divergent au starting before canon which slightly shifts the flow of the original story, so it's not strictly necessary to be familiar with TMA, but it helps

I must admit I never got around to finishing this one after it finished updating (😭), but trust me when I say this fic is stunning. some scenes still grip me 'round the throat to this day even just thinking about them. and the additional lore/background-building for certain characters is so so fitting and satisfying, it adds so much depth

To The Moon and Back series (main fic is Banned Book Week) -- verboseDescription; several different POVs, though BBB is Gerry/Tim-centric; the main fic diverges from canon after season 3, so I suppose knowledge up to that point is fine

another one I need to get around to finishing someday (idk why I dropped off a bunch of TMA fics specifically...), but this one introduces some interesting new character dynamics, and additional lore-building for many of the characters that adds fun new depth. also a few OCs whom I simply adore <3

What Belongs to the Sea -- TwoDrunkenCelestials, WhyNotFly; starts Elias/Jon, with Jon/Martin endgame, Jon-centric; "Jon is a selkie" au, and the fic implies/explains the rest of canon well enough to read without being familiar with TMA imo

this fic approaches canon worldbuilding from the direction of a different species, giving a unique new perspective on established truths of the setting. I also love the way Jon's character is so different, but still fundamentally the same kinda guy-- "fuck around and find out"-ass man lmao. not to mention Elias' fucked-up dynamic with Jon is ramped up here in a really delicious way, it rly puts their canon dynamic into perspective

Danny Phantom

🌟 Phantom of Truth / Shadow of a Doubt -- HaiJu; Danny Fenton & Maddie Fenton-centric; "what if" scenario divergence from an unspecific point in canon, would prolly be best to be familiar with the show but u can prolly get away with some wiki skimming

this one's a classic, and one of the big contributors to the "dissection/vivisection" genre of whump in the DP fandom, haha. it's such an intimate analysis of Danny's relationship with his mom, and it refuses to pull punches on Danny's situation and resulting trauma. I think it also does an excellent job challenging Maddie's perception/ethics in genuine and fundamental ways

Rise of the Guardians (movie)

🌟 Shadows and Light series -- not_poignant; Jack Frost/Pitch Black, Jack-centric; canon-compliant sequel to the movie (can't speak for book canon), u can prolly get away with reading a wiki summary if u don't wanna watch the movie

one of my fave fics for a decade now, I absolutely LOVE what this fic does for ROTG worldbuilding. so much thought is put into the politics of the fae community, and how magic functions both practically and thematically. and it introduces a ton of cool fae ocs, many of which now have their own stories, as the author has used their fae world here in other original stories as well (would also recommend!!). and the relationship between Pitch/Jack is excellent of course, with a lot of interesting BDSM elements to their dynamic (a common trend in this author's other writing as well)

Mob Psycho 100

🌟 A Breach of Trust -- Phantomrose96; Ritsu, Mob, & Reigen-centric, but multiple other POVs as well; diverges from canon before the start of the canon story, so knowing MP100 isn't necessary

this is a really fun "what if Reigen and Mob didn't meet when they were supposed to?" canon-divergent au. it pushes basically every character to their worst, most self-destructive ends, and it makes me want to throttle some of them (affectionate <3). the fic isn't done yet (as of posting this), but it promises to end satisfyingly-- it just has to put everyone through the wringer first lmao

Welcome to Night Vale

🌟 run, run, fast as you-- -- (orphaned); Cecil/Carlos, Carlos-centric; compliant with early NV lore, mostly diverges in some of Carlos' background and motivations moving to Night Vale. familiarity with s1 would be useful, but not strictly necessary

really really stunning fic, I love the additional lore-building for Carlos and Cecil here, so much is added to their characters. since this is such an old fic, some of the lore here ends up being retroactively false, as the podcast introduced different lore later on. but I almost wish some of the lore here was canon b/c it's just that good (like Cecil's whole thing with the orphanage, and how the orphanage even functions OUGH!)

The Devil Went Down To Georgia (you heard that right, the country song)

🌟 The Devil Went Down to Georgia (And Then Went Down on Johnny) series -- notbecauseofvictories; Johnny/The Devil, Johnny-centric; I guess a modern take on canon, kinda treated like an original story tbh, but like. you can also just listen to the song beforehand

the author clearly has a deep knowledge and passion for music-- especially country music-- and it rly shines through in this fic. the celebration of music and community and country culture here is just. idk, it's like being invited to the table, somehow, I love it. this whole fic is poetry and it makes me ache

Portal

Blue Sky -- wafflestories; Wheatley/Chell-centric; canon-compliant sequel to the second game, necessary to know the games to understand

I must admit it's been several years since I've read this one, so my memory of it isn't quite as strong. but I remember it being a very loving rehabilitation of Wheatley and Chell's relationship, and I believe it's considered a classic by the ship's fans.

How To Train Your Dragon (movie)

I Hear Him Scream -- Rift-Raft; Toothless & Hiccup-centric; diverges from canon at the point when Hiccup downs Toothless with the net at the beginning of the movie, so watching the movie isn't super necessary, tho I imagine most of us have seen it (as we should!!)

I don't know that I would call this one particularly well-written-- it can get kinda awkward and jarring at points, and the end of the story kinda goes off the rails for me. but the premise and worldbuilding make up for it, imo. but I admit I love xenofiction, so I love seeing the deep lore about dragon culture/society this fic presents

Kekkai Sensen

Fleißiger Junge -- TheLennyBunny; Klaus/Leo, Leo-centric; demon/angel au, not necessary to know KKSS

I really love the demon/angel worldbuilding in this one, with a delicious twist of horror that's so fitting to canon /chef's kiss/. and the way Leo's family is characterized (with several OC characters) is so so fun and charming. good eating for the starving Klaus/Leo fans out there 😭

RWBY

🌟 Teaching Qrow -- ByronNightshade; Qrow-centric; a canon-compliant prequel to the canon story, a bit of knowledge about the setting and Qrow's backstory are kinda necessary

I fucking love what this fic does for Qrow's character, it treats him with way more nuance and understanding than canon ever has (tho tbf, most Qrow fans do, lol). and all the additional OCs and building on the subtle implications of RWBY lore... AUGH it's good

My Hero Academia

Hero Class Civil Warfare -- RogueDruid; genfic with multiple POVs; "what if" scenario divergence from an unspecific point in canon, prolly necessary to at least be familiar with the world/characters to a point

really fun "what if this class exercise got got a bit too intense, haha~" au. it introduces a ton of fun new dynamics between the characters, and lets Izuku shine as a badass, chessmaster "villain"

Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint

Imaginary Truths -- Mythril; Kim Dokja/Yoo Joonghyuk-centric; actor au, not necessary to know ORV

this fic does an excellent job translating the canon relationships/dynamics to this setting, and keeps the core of the story/themes intact in rly interesting ways.

new game (+) -- illusionedwhite; Kim Dokja/Yoo Joonghyuk, Yoo Joonghyuk-centric; role-reversal au, and since it starts from the beginning where where canon would have started, I guess it's not technically necessary to read ORV first? but ORV provides more context

this fic is rly careful about the particular way Kim Dokja and Yoo Joonghyuk switch roles-- it's very much about their story roles. their core characters/themes remain intact, they're just interpreted through a new lens here. this is for the fans that read ORV and thought, "what if I want to read ORV again, but slightly to the left?"

Genshin Impact

🌟 Begin Anew, O Lost Child -- DarthPeezy; Childe/Zhongli/Guizhong, Childe-centric; a time-travel au that diverges from canon at the battle with Osial in the Liyue chapter, so familiarity up to that point is necessary

there's something about circularity and connection, here. about reaching across expanses of time to connect with those you love, and those you lost. about the horror of fate, and the hope for a future in spite of it. idk, this fic did something to me

we were lovers -- ThirteenSocks; Kazuha/his unnamed friend, Kazuha-centric; "Kazuha loses his vision" au, with a few twists. this fic doesn't really touch canon involving the traveler, but familiarity with Inazuma is necessary, so at least up through that chapter in-game.

what else can I say except this fic is beautiful-- it has the same melodic quality that I associate with Kazuha himself, so it feels perfectly appropriate.

To Be or Not To Be (Human With You) -- lilbittofmatcha; Aether/Scaramouche, Aether-centric; diverges after the end of the whole Sumeru chapter, familiarity up to that point is necessary

I really really love Traveler fics that acknowledge that the Traveler is essentially an otherworldy alien being, and was perhaps even godlike(??) before landing in Teyvat. I especially love Aether's characterization here, and the obvious comparisons to be made with Scara's situation

Sinking Ships in Liyue Harbor -- whereherbonesareburied; Diluc/Kaeya, Diluc-centric; a "what if Kaeya left" divergence from canon sometime after the events of the Mondstadt chapter. it's necessary to be familiar with Kaeya and Diluc's relationship, so reading up on their lore is best, though familiarity up through the Liyue chapter will help with this one

something about the pacing and framing of this fic really charms me. like, Diluc's journey to find Kaeya is kinda framed as a series meetings with several new people, like snapshots from a photo album? it's fun to see so many different, brief impressions of characters through his eyes

Osomatsu-san

Dissociation Disease -- PyrrhicFiend; Karamatsu-centric; technically features multiple AUs, but the core story is show canon. not strictly necessary to be familiar with the show

a fic I never ended up finishing (someday..), but I remember it being incredibly trippy and bizarre in the best of ways. though it may not be the best fic to read dealing with dissociation themself, because it grapples a lot with warped perception and hallucinations

🌟 Frater, Ave Atque Vale -- (orphaned); Karamatsu/Osomatsu, Osomatsu-centric; fantasy AU, not necessary to know the show

this one's perhaps on the razor's edge of not being long enough for this list, but I'm counting it anyways. there's something about 'brief' writing styles that often captures me, like parsing a scene down to its bare essentials makes the tone/emotion land more powerfully. this fic is probably my favorite example of this style

Voltron: VLD

The Rites of Courtship -- calibratingentropy; Keith/Thace, Keith-centric; canon-divergence from the end of s1 ep12, and it's kinda necessary to be familiar at least to that point, though u might be able to skim the wiki

a rarepair I never woulda considered if a friend hadn't recced this fic to me way back, haha. this fic features some of my favorite alien worldbuilding, with a lot of thought and care put into Galran culture and biology, I think about it a lot as a specevo creator myself

The Favored Champion -- sugarapplesweet; Sendak/Shiro, Shiro-centric; canon-divergence before canon, while Shiro is still a coliseum fighter

real fucked-up Stockholm Syndrome abusive relationship, Shiro goes thru the wringer </3. I love the way the relationship with the Lions is depicted here too, the chapter where Shiro basically screams at the Black Lion grips me by the throat. another great example of cool Galra worldbuilding too, not as heavy on the bio side as the last one but fun to see either way!

Tokyo Mew Mew

The Deal -- RizuOnceAgain; Ichigo/Quiche, Ichigo-centric; canon-divergent from an unspecified(?) point in canon, and I um. I've never watched TMM and know very little beyond TMM's basic premise and main characters? so take that as you will

I don't often read fics from things I'm not familiar with, but I trust my friend's recs with my life, and this one did not disappoint. I can't speak on how faithful it is to the original, but Ichigo/Quiche's dynamic here makes me go crazy nutso bonkers!! it has me banging on the walls and chewing furniture, oh my god!! it almost makes me wanna watch the show even tho I know I won't like it nearly as much as this fic 😭.

[metanarrates]

everyone follow me for she/her boyfriend and lesbianposting and possibly also my deltarune sideblogs nd stay for the 2 hr insane rambles about revolutionary girl utena and metafiction

[robtopus]

[Inscryption spoilers] these are some liveblogging-style rambles about hit (?) video game Inscryption.

YAY YOU BEAT THE GAME HERE'S SOME AMATEUR VIDEO PRESENTED AS IF YOU'RE WATCHING THE MEMORY CARD OF A CAMERA ALSO THE HERO IS A YOUTUBER for some reason

Are you. Are you kidding me right now.

Okay so now we're doing the discount version of the old Pokémon TCG for Gameboy. At least gameplay is still fun even if you added more ways to get cards on the board that I don't bother with and WHY WAS ANY OF THIS NECESAR- oh look more amateur hour videos. It's going for found footage horror but there is nothing there. Can we just go back to Leshy's cabin please?

Seriously. This isn't using games as a narrative medium, this is barely even metafiction, this is a jumbled mess of ideas bolted onto a pretty solid deckbuilding roguelike, which means neither of them get room to breathe.

[daytura]

OP nails the analysis. I skim-binged Homestuck in 2016, just around the time it ended, and even with all the fanfiction I've read there's still little I remember about it. But I constantly come back to alt!Calliope's quotes and dialogues. The Calliopes to me embody the balance between idealism and utility, the subjective and the ideal, and the way fiction and reality switch places and flow into each other.

See also: Hyperstition, joking about outcomes you want, meme magic, and multiversal views on language models

What's interesting to me structurally is that Calliope is fandom self-insert and represents tendencies, traits, and patterns we find in transformative fandom. John may be the audience, but Calliope are the fans. Calliope theorizes, stays on the outside, conducts hyperstition, waiting for someone to bootstrap her into reality. She is the one in the ivory tower, the one with Pinterest boards. She is the outsider. We've all been Calliope three times over.

Hussie created a character [...] for who inaction is the ultimate action. /r/Homestuck

CALLIOPE: how can i go in search of myself if i am blown to smithereens the moment i set foot oUtside? / pg. 6672

The second interesting thing to me is that alternate versions of characters, like Davesprite and the Aradiabots, operate as derivations of an ideal. Canonically, yes, Davesprite and the Aradiabots "occur first" in the sense that these events must happen in order to reflexively correct the main course of events. But functionally, as structural elements, they're derivations. alt!Calliope derives from Calliope; the archetype of alt!Calliope, then, is someone who has transcended fandom, filed off the serial numbers, and "won". alt!Calliope is life after fandom, or life without fandom outright. A writer publishing without ever reading fanfiction. They don't transform and derive, they invent. They are the outsider with utility.

Tangent — utility seems to be a theme running across the space players. Kanaya and the matriorb, Jade and the Yellow Yard.

JADESPRITE: but i dont know whats right JADE: yes you do! JADE: even though you dont want to be, youre here now, and there are still people who need you JADE: there is still something worth fighting for! / pg. 3244

Grandma English and the Condesce.

The blackness warped like it was laughing or shaking its head. "I can't do that, Jade. Please stop crying, it's just awful and awkward for both of us. Ugh, please! If you keep going like this, I'm going to cry, too." "And why should I stop? Why couldn't you stop this?" Jade clutched Dave tighter. "What does any of it matter if they all die?" The blackness flared. "Shoosh!" it commanded, and she shushed, blinking tears. It continued to roil itself, collapsing like a dwarf about to go nova, like an atomic warhead before the blast. It took form before her, growing limbs, weaving starlight into its hair. Jade's thirteen-year-old self stared back at her over Dave's corpse, lip bitten defiantly, eyes sparking. She bared too many teeth. "There is still something worth fighting for!" / Hold the Line, dashery.

But utility is not enough. From the Homestuck Epilogues, Meat!Rose:

ROSE: I observed more power and emotion in the single ragged notebook [the one she wrote] than the full span of the bestselling series. [the one her post-scratch self wrote] ROSE: It’s more raw. It betrays considerably more sincerity than my young self was surely ever aware of stitching into the prose. ROSE: It meant something.

At the moment alt!Calliope de-masks Calliope's trollsona, all abstractions collapse, the character evaporates, and the real-life actor remains. The ultimate story has always been the one you live now.

I'd like to end this rambly reblog with David Foster Wallace's response to metafictional and ironic literary (and to an extent, personal) trends in "E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction":

The next real literary "rebels" in this country might well emerge as some weird bunch of anti-rebels, born oglers who dare somehow to back away from ironic watching, who have the childish gall actually to endorse and instantiate single-entendre principles. Who treat of plain old untrendy human troubles and emotions in U.S. life with reverence and conviction. Who eschew self-consciousness and hip fatigue. These anti-rebels would be outdated, of course, before they even started. Dead on the page. Too sincere. Clearly repressed. Backward, quaint, naive, anachronistic. Maybe that'll be the point. [...] The new rebels might be artists willing to risk the yawn, the rolled eyes, the cool smile, the nudged ribs, the parody of gifted ironists, the "Oh how banal". To risk accusations of sentimentality, melodrama. Of overcredulity. Of softness. Of willingness to be suckered by a world of lurkers and starers who fear gaze and ridicule above imprisonment without law. Who knows.

Perhaps the antidote to our counterfactual tragedies were already here.

ok but the conversation between calliope and alt!calliope is was and remains one of the most touching moments of the entire comic both in how it deals with themes of depression and survival. 

alt!calliope is technically more “successful” than calliope. she’s stronger, smarter, less vulnerable. she dominates caliborn and takes his blood color, instead of the other way around; she’s a fully realized god tier, and in the end, she’s in large part responsible for the success of the session. she creates the new world. she saves everybody. and yet she clearly isn’t happy. she is calliope without any of calliope’s self-consciousness issues, the calliope that calliope wishes she was, but that isn’t enough. it’s chilling: no matter how “useful” or technically capable calliope is, the feelings of emptiness and despair remain. maybe she’ll always feel that way. 

even more brutally, alt!calliope literally tells her that she doesn’t serve any purpose except to prompt others to be helpful. she says flat-out that calliope isn’t “relevant” anymore.

that’s got to be incredibly hard for callie to hear, given how desperate she’s always been to help others. being trapped in a state of passivity for most of her life, not even always in control of her own body, calliope clings dearly to the hope of someday reclaiming agency, and helping others. that hope probably resonated with a lot of the audience, too. to hear a more confident, more successful, more competent version of herself tell her that she isn’t useful at all is a brutal move. for someone with depression, especially, that could be a devastating thing to hear.

except here’s where the conversation shifts. instead of using this to insult calliope, alt!calliope turns this into something else, something uplifting: she says that not only is calliope’s irrelevance not a mark of her character, but that it gives her a unique and incredible opportunity. 

alt!calliope’s speech rejects the idea of an existence defined by one’s utility to others, and says instead that regardless of how useful calliope is, regardless of whether she realizes her full potential, and regardless of how much she contributes to some epic scheme, her life still has worth. the very fact of her existence gives her infinite opportunities to take chances and do things that alt!calliope, for all her competence, never could. 

it speaks to a very deeply rooted fear in a lot of people, i think: that somewhere out there is an alternate version of yourself that’s done everything right, and done everything better than you, and anything you do is fruitless because it’ll never be as good as it could be. that sentiment generates a lot of despair and self-loathing, and can make it hard to get motivated to do things you love. alt!calliope is that person, for callie, but this conversation says that it doesn’t matter. this conversation says that the one crucial difference between you and that theoretical person is this: you exist. you have the chance and the choice to do whatever you want. even if it isn’t perfect, even if it isn’t grandiose, even if you never change the world. your life is enough. you are enough.

[ariapmdeol]

What kind of work Seodore and their group do in LDL? What does he mean by "Searching for God's Love"?

they investigate supernatural activity and write articles about them!

As for the second half, that's a bit more complicated, and i'll be getting into spoiler territory, so I'll hide it under a cut! DLC spoilers~ I'll be discussing both LDL as a whole and a little bit of Seodore specifically!

LDL wants to change fate. Seodore wants to rewrite things, and the chance to rewrite things and grant a wish is what he offers to Sanemitsu in 1999. If they find a way to reach God's Love, then they can change things.

Each character has something different that they want from working with LDL.

Sanemitsu wants to pick everything up that he's lost (an impossible dream-- if he succeeds in changing the past, he loses reiji)

Zweig wants to kill a certain man

Annie wants to find who almost killed her

Seo is... more complicated but I'll talk a little on him

my personal reading is a metafiction angle (ie when they describe rewriting God's Love, they talk about rewriting the code of the game itself). I'll finish the post on this point at some point i swear <3

I want to draw attention to this quote from record 8:

Seodore: I wanted to believe that people's potential was limitless. I still believe it should be so. But if "God's love" prevents it from above, there is no other way but to rewrite it from there.

He wants people to have the freedom to make their own decisions, away from what fate and the world has predetermined for them. Like he tells Hajime in record 5, they aren't playthings. In order to do that, he needs to go to a 'higher power' than he currently has access to: the code of the world itself.

In the last section of the DLC, Seodore also discusses how he's guided us towards the path where the world can continue to exist. Only in S+ does the world continue to exist beyond 2015. Seo wants this world to continue and progress.

lines referenced are from records 4, 5, 8, and the last scene of the DLC!

[tortademaracuya]

1, 5 y 8 :D

hello hello!

Last game you finished

i think it was..The Corridor? GREAT game, amazing. super recommended if you have some free time, its short, its a very fun experience

i can keep rambling about it but no i shant...but i do wanna mention that i think does a really good job when using steam and its own interface to push its metafiction narrative

5. Game(s) coming out that you’re looking forward to

im really looking forward YTTD next chapter if it counts! also Slay the Princess, and Melody of Moominvalley :3

8. A series you haven’t played but are interested in trying

a lot, actually! but the ones i can remember rn hmmm...Megami Tensei, Mass Effect, When They Cry, Fate, Fatal Frame, Yakuza

[aleph-trix]

Pataphysical Interpretation of the Noosphere - a small SCP Foundation ramble/thought exercise

If you’ve delved deep into the articles and pages of the SCP Wiki, you are most likely familiar with several concepts that have been created as the site progressed and are the basis of a more modern way interactions with the anomalous are presented in various stories and articles. Before, anomalies were presented from the viewpoint of the Foundation’s baseline science. Now, the Foundation has created new anomalous sciences and terminology to properly understand anomalies and their interactions. Akiva radiation, thaumaturgy, EVE etc.

One of these new terminology is the noosphere. Now the noosphere is not a strictly SCP-exclusive concept. It was created by a biogeochemist and a priest/philosopher to describe what they called “the planetary sphere of reason”. In the SCP Wiki, the concept was introduced through the Antimemetics Division set of series: being used in the way it is now first in SCP-2111 and becoming integral to later interpretations of SCP-3125. So what exactly is the Noosphere? There are a lot of answers but SCP-6659, has in my opinion, the most clear cut answer: the Noosphere is a plane of existence embodying abstract human thought. Most of the time it seems less to be psychological in nature and rather more metaphysical in nature relating to memetics and antimemetics. It is inhabited by various constructs and concepts, often memetic in nature with some being embodied and personified through deities, manifestations and totems.

Dialing back a bit here, pataphysics is another anomalous science-related term. It refers to an anomalous science that focuses primarily on the fictionality of the SCP universe from the perspective of its characters, often it focuses on stuff such as narrative layers as well as components of narratives and how they emerge in a scientific presentation from the perspective of those within the narrative. Usually, it is essentially metafiction.

What this ramble is about, and this is just my interpretation mind you (there is no correct interpretation or headcanon to the SCPverse), is a way in which these two concepts intercept.

Memes are often considered base units of culture or information, the same way genes are base units of biological information. But there exist other base units of information within other disciplines. Particularly, narremes which are the base unit of narratives.

If the noopshere is the realm of memetic constructs and concepts such as pain, chaos or life and it exists within a universe that is in fact a narrative then what if the noosphere is a reflection of that narrative’s conceptual abstract state?

To communicate this idea more clearly: narratives and stories often have themes which are usually related to concepts and ideas. These can be represented in the story through characters, themes, events, groups etc.

In Chaos Theory (SCP-6747), we learn about pataphysical particles and how they link and interact together to create narratives and as such. What if the noosphere is a medium for thematic narratives to emerge by taking abstract ideas and concepts and constructing narratives out of them, influencing the people and settings in them.

In this interpretation, the noosphere could be seen as an abstraction of the narrative. A conceptual, lesser form of it.

This entire ramble was just formed from my weird thoughts and I could’ve definitely misinterpreted a lot of things I’ve read from articles but hey you win some, you lose some. I mainly just wanted to make this so I could look at it later if I ever wanted inspiration for my own stories

[obstinaterixatrix]

the thing is I’ll check out any degree of threatening, hostile, and/or somewhat grotesque stories if I’m bored enough or if it’s interesting enough. it’s like if there’s something thematically or emotionally compelling that’s able to justify how off-putting a story is to me then I’ll keep engaging with it.

[solivar]

Thinking Thinky Thoughts: Talon Edition

So! Doomfist is here and in his bio we finally get the one thing that drove me fucking batty about Talon from the start! I admit that I did not expect this gift of intellectual stimulation on by birthday, but I thank Blizzard for this nonetheless.

Up until this point, the general meta-thinking on the topic of Talon is that they’re an explicitly anti-Omnic terrorist organization -- a not unreasonable supposition given that, the first time we see a character explicitly identified as a Talon operative, Widowmaker, she’s assassinating Mondatta, Omnic monk and global force for peace between humans and Omnics. Their other apparent actions gave no clues to their primary organizing principles, their animating ideology. And, as it turns out, this impression was wrong, though I’m pretty sure that Talon happily wears the skin of anti-Omnic extremism as a cover for their actual goals, which are far more nefarious.

The principle that individuals grow stronger through conflict is not an inherently destructive one -- Zenyatta, just to pick a random example, actually articulates in his voice lines the concept that pain is a teacher and confronting adversity is an opportunity for change and growth. The problem is, once you start applying individual principles of growth to whole societies, you slide inevitably into the sort of mindset that allows you to justify any number of atrocities in the name of “making humanity greater/stronger,” at scales both large and small. On the small scale, taking a woman who had the misfortune of being married to the man leading the taskforce responsible for hunting Talon down, violating her in mind and body, and unleashing her as a soulless killer whose first victim was her own husband. Such violation is easily justified on the grounds that Amelie LaCroix was too weak to effectively resist, and thus she had no reasonable expectation to not be used for the ends of those strong enough to break and remake her, and on the other side, her strength and worth are proved, and approved, by those who made her what she is now. On the large scale...

Talon’s ultimate goal is to orchestrate a conflict that will engulf the world, separate the weak from the strong, the wheat from the chaff, and propel humanity to a new stage of existence. One must ask how involved elements of what is now Talon were in the most recent previous conflict of this nature: the Omnic Crisis. After all, the Omnic Crisis impelled the creation of literally superhuman beings in the form of Gabriel Reyes and Jack Morrison -- who knows what a vaster, even more terrible conflict could drive humanity to produce in the name of survival? Talon in its current form may not have existed prior to the Omnic Crisis but who wants to bet that the organization’s “inner circle” contains someone who knows where the God Programs came from/how they accomplished what they did/why they went axe crazy and tried to start the robot apocalypse? I’m pretty sure that’s a sucker bet, given the references to conflicting agendas within the organization’s inner circle. On another thought: maybe Talon did exist, and part of their internal conflict revolves around the fact that they were fundamentally incapable of capitalizing on the gains of the Omnic Crisis because they couldn’t prevent Overwatch from either existing or successfully slamming the breaks on the global human evolution via mass murder train, or maintaining the process of rebuilding the world through predominantly peaceful means. Oh, how that must have rustled the jimmies of an organization that must, by definition, view peaceful coexistence and cooperation as the suboptimal form of human societal growth.

Moreover, Akande Ogundimu’s background strongly implies that he was the mastermind behind the destruction of Overwatch -- and that Talon was banking on that to speed the arrival of their world-engulfing conflict, if not act as the outright trigger for it. Fortunately for the world, that didn’t quite happen but matters have slid steadily in the direction of greater, larger-scale global conflicts in the years since Overwatch’s dissolution and Doomfist has decided that now is the ripest possible time to bail himself out and drop the accelerator on his long unfolding plan.

In short, shit is about to get real and Talon finally -- finally! -- looks like an actual scary threat.