#These are the sort of things we figure out later

[magnus-marmot]

Luke's band names

A friend asked me if I've looked at Luke's band names through an alchemy lens, so I gave it a thought and figured I'd share my two pennies on it here as well.

Luke's current bands are called Dredgerman and Penny for the Well. A dredgerman is someone who hauls up soil and sediment from the bottom of a body of water. So there's an immediate connection to deep water and uncovering something hidden. Wells carry similar connotations, as the bottom of the well is a common metaphor for dark, secret things that will never see the light of day. This is evoking some lunar symbolism, since we're dealing with darkness, water and secrets. Additionally, pennies were originally made from silver (=Luna).

If we expand the discussion to my other theories, I consider Luna to be the force that reflects your dark, inner needs (your unconscious shadow) and manifests it into reality. Which just sort of happens to align perfectly with the idea of a (distorted) wishing well. I also think Luna is measured by the H value in DPHW, some cases that rank pretty high on that are the Archivist ones (6, 6 and 7). Makes sense, as the Archivist is literally just a mirror to its victim's trauma. But it just so happens that we met the first Archivist victim right after Luke's concert. I don't necessarily think they are literally connected, but I do think they are thematically or narratively connected.

This is less relevant to me, but they later started to make pennies out of copper, which in alchemy relates to Venus or water. And both of the band names deal in water themes. But water by itself has an endless number of meanings, and I'd be here all night if I got into those. In TMAGP it seems to mostly signify dissolution, and it's got consistent ties to the psychological unconscious. The most appropriate metaphor seems to be the "mercurial water/sea", which I've talked about in other posts.

Anyway, I don't know what this means for the plot. Luke is probably under some lunar influences, which probably won't end well for him. But when does it ever? Oh, and I looked into Bullets for Saint Sebastian as well, but couldn't find any alchemy-adjacent symbolism. Though I did discover that Saint Sebastian became a gay icon so that's good.

[calware]

Transmasc aranea is so interesting to me…do elaborate on your thoughts 👀

frankly i'm not really committed to this reading, it's just floating around in my head lol. not a "this should happen" idea but a "this would be kind of interesting" idea

the thing i AM pretty committed to is that she's TME, which is informed by comparing her to vriska; essentially, aranea gets to avoid a lot of the bad-faith perceptions vriska gets tacked on to her. vriska is a dangerous weapon that can't be trusted, aranea is just some annoying know-it-all who can't shut up. granted, both are bad labels to have, and both characters are targets of misogyny, but for a good amount of time there aranea gets away with a lot more than vriska does (for example, aranea idolizes her pre-scratch self and nobody bats an eye, but karkat goes running to john to tell him vriska is dangerous at the first sign that they might be into each other). so when you look at vriska through a TMA lens, aranea reads as TME by comparison

there are a lot of directions you can take this ofc, the "main" one being that she's a cis woman. that said, i think it's interesting that hussie posits characters who take on an "authorial role" as thematic representations of toxic masculinity, which was the seed in my mind that led to me considering aranea as transmasc in the first place:

"Much later in Act 6, we see Lil Cal is a juju vessel containing the splintered souls of various controversial characters in the story: Caliborn, Equius, Dirk, and yes...even Gamzee, which means he's actually here watching this ball drop in TWO forms. But all these figures are, in some manner, highly exaggerated negative manifestations of author avatars, who have amalgamated themselves within the body of English to wreak havoc on the story/reader. This is the galaxy-brained interpretation of the line. The most important character in the story is me, or more specifically, the most villainous, destructive splinter-composite of the author's presence in the story."

"Dirk and Equius similarly aren't even that unflattering as avatars either. You could do worse. And we do do worse. As far as demonic author-tiers go, English is the true monster. His dominating personality splinters are much worse too. Caliborn and Gamzee are complete hell-people compared to Dirk and Equius. They are also sort of author avatars in certain ways, but with a degree of cartoonishly evil exaggeration. They absolutely comprise the "authorial wrath" portion of the total Doc/English personality quagmire."

"I think when the time comes to show the douchebag cocktail stuck inside Cal, there's a brief temptation to regard it as an odd, semi-random melange of characters. But there are several layers of logic to the guys who all combine to form his personality. Much of the logic orbits around these negative traits associated with men, or more specifically, the "toxically masculine" aspects often linked to certain male personalities. Dirk has a lot of these traits, which are central to Dave's feelings of tension and abuse concerning his bro. The intellectual aggression, the power of assertion, the knowitall-ism, the mansplaining.

also, this line in particular makes me think of aranea:

As an alt-author figure, [Doc Scratch's] omniscience makes sense, since the author has sweeping knowledge of story details as well. Because I "know everything," he "knows everything" too. Of course, as I write the story, there are plenty of things I don't know yet, and the "not knowing" is always an important part of the process in this largely improvisational medium.

aranea starts out almost as a historian wanting to infodump pass down oral history of previous events; eventually, however, she becomes fed up with the story and decides to seize control of it herself, placing herself in an authorial position (or alt-author) so that she can steer the ship to the direction she that believes is best for everyone. ultimately, however, she fails, and gets herself re-killed by the condesce, a puppet of the real authorial avatar (english). the gendered interpretation of this is that a woman, she can girlboss (translation: be a woman in a man's position) as hard as she wants, but can never achieve true power under the patriarchy. she can play author all she wants (and hurt people along the way) but will never be allowed into the Boys Club

now, this doesn't mean that trying to be in a masculine position means a character is masculine (or even truly wants to be). but it's clear that she wants to be an author, she wants to know everything, she wants to wield the sword, all symbols of oppressive masculinity. and ONE(!!!!!) OF the ways to subvert/break that expectation is to figure out how to be true to yourself by reclaiming and embodying masculinity without succumbing the perpetuation of the patriarchy (which, coincidentally (or perhaps, not coincidentally?) is part of the basis for my transmasc reading of dirk, something i think he's forced to grapple with as well)

again, not my true + perfect vision that i'll die for or anything. just an interesting thought to speculate on

[foxykate42]

So, I started writing this thing. Because I've always had this question of if I wanted to be a robot girl, or if I just want to be the mechanic who fixes robot girls. And....I thought I figured it out. That I'd just be a robot girl who fixes other robot girls.

-

Imagine, being able to have my hand separate into different tools, quickly popping open the access panel on your back so I can slip my interface cable in and connect directly. Quickly jumping through your BiOS to discover which manufacturer I need to hack into, in order to download the schematics. Codes and Errors flash in my eyes as I quickly sift through them, you've been identified as a rogue unit. It's only a matter of time before they do something extreme. I run every subroutine, diagnostic, and flood every cache to try and slow down any signals that might trigger it, your kill switch. My tools quickly disassemble what parts I need to move in order to get deeper, I can fix those later, but not if your neural net is.... There, I found the chip. The micro torch sparks inside you, I know it might hurt, but what damage I do is nothing compared to the corpos frying your brain in a nanosecond. I calmly but urgently cut the chip off of your circuitry, a nimble claw snatches it and I toss it on the floor.

I let out a sigh of relief, leaning back on my stool. I hadn't realized my own heat sinks popped open and vented from the stress.

-

But after writing this I couldn't help but think about the eroticism of working on things and sweating over them, skin covered in grease. How when you're that deep in a machine, you're really more dangerous to it than it is to you. I mean obviously if you're working with a lot of power it could shock and kill you if you're not careful. But If you sweat on a circuit board it's likely to short, ultimately it's a much more vulnerable position for the machine. However if I was also a robot girl, It would be dangerous for myself as well. if I'm connected to you when they try and throw the kill switch, what's to say they can't knock me out with you. Two birds one stone and such. But NOW I'm thinking about how many times I've cut myself on a PC case, Imagining that... - I'm fixing your leg, it got torn to shreds when we had a close call with a garbage processor. I've sorted through my spares and found one that's a close enough match. I wrap my hands around your thigh and twist hard, finger pressing in to the release latch hidden underneath a layer of synth-skin. The connector clicks and then shifts suddenly. My hand slips and I slice myself on the damaged component. I hiss through my teeth as blood drips on the floor. I toss the damaged piece aside and grab a clean-ish towel that was hanging from my tool cart, some tape, and wrap it quickly before returning to my work. - SEE, HOW CAN I CHOSE. Turns out I'm no closer to figuring it out.

[briar-the-booknerd2011]

Hunger Games covers?

Hey! I was reading Sunrise on the Reaping and I was thinking about the covers and then I looked for my copies of the other books because I noticed something about the covers. I'm sorry if some things arent correct since I have not finished Sunrise on the Reaping.

*SPOILERS FOR MOST OF THE SERIES AHEAD*

In The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, both Lucy Gray, and President Snow/Coriolanus are alive. This could represent Lucy Gray as a Songbird and President Snow/Coriolanus as a snake (Why he is the snake I can't figure out). This ties into the cover on which the Songbird and the Snake are both on a twig that creates a circle however the Songbird is larger and overshadowing the Snake. This might represent the interconnectedness of Snow and Lucy Gray. 

In Sunrise on the Reaping, two important pieces of jewelry are mentioned, the Flint Striker that Lenore Dove gives to Haymitch for his birthday which is shown on the cover of the book and the Mockingjay pin that Maysilee Donner owns, made by Tam Amber and that that pin used to have a matching pin with a Hummingbird that Merrilee Donner owned but lost. The Flint Striker, also crafted by Tam Amber, features a Mockingjay and a Snake, that appear angry at each other. This could indicate President Snow/Coriolanus' resentment towards District 12 especially the Covey. Here they are also directly connected but there are a series of spikes in the connection. This could mean that the relationship is not a healthy one which it obviously is not. Another thing that struck me as odd, was that as soon as President Snow/Coriolanus saw Haymitch applauding the Capitol for them causing his friend, Louella McCoy's death, he was more stunned by the Flint Striker and immediately noticed it was made by one of the Covey.

The next chronological cover, The Hunger Games features Maysilee Donner's Mockingjay pin. We later learn that Katniss's Mother, Asterid (née March) Everdeen, was in some way give the pin that her friend Maysilee Donner used to own. This cover features the pin, enclosed by a circle. This cover shows that instead of the Capitol being a Snake, it is now enclosing the Mockingjay and sort of controlling it. EDIT: @gayrefrain let me know that Madge Undersee gives Katniss the pin which makes sense since Merilee (Maysilee's twin) married the mayor and mosty likely passed the pin down to Madge.

On the cover's of the next two books, we see that the circle around the Bird is slowly shattering and on the final cover, the Bird is finally free again, this could possibly mean that the Covey regained their freedom through the last Songbird, Katniss.

If you made it all the way down here, thank you for reading and I hope that you found my theory interesting! This took me like a whole day to write because I had to do a bit of research... Sorry for any spelling or grammar errors. Please consider dropping a like or follow me to never miss out on more book related content.

[pineapplesoda]

let’s examine aiden’s half a bit.

aiden has always had his autonomy taken from him. by the justice system, by society, by his peers- i imagine/my theory is when his wife died he fell into a deep nasty depression and someone related to ava had taken her illegally into custody for her own safety- obviously without his knowledge. then he’s arrested, (which, i also believe aiden has some diagnosed Scary Disorder, personal hc is bpd but aspd is also up there) (and probably was cited as a clause for him being unstable and killing ava) (but no diagnosis on his adhd an angel lost its wings he so has adhd) (and ALSO if he’s trans. You already know the nasty shit they’re saying abt him) and nobody will believe him. NOBODY believes him and he’s forced on medication, kept alone in a cell, has his body and mind tampered with. then the combine come along

they offer him freedom, tell him that his mental issues don’t effect his morality, he’s a good person despite what he’s done. as long as he’s an obedient good soldier.

we know what happens from there. he realizes they’re using him and when he attempts to do something about it he has his mind and body and overall autonomy violated again by people he sincerely thought he could trust

he helped wilson gain a sense of autonomy. wilson is quite literally an incomprehensible being now- as you said, a hyperobject. he helps aiden slowly claw back his own freedom. they save eachother. could almost say complete eachother. aiden is a man with machine parts stuffed inside him and tech constantly monitoring him and wilson is a man trapped in the code of whatever technology he’s haunting occupying. they make eachother more human. I could have a whole other rant abt possible post canon dynamics and slowly trying to act like people again but let’s save that for later maybe. if u ask ill happily tell some of my ideas though ;] wilson mark III hev gijinka..

now onto the trans aiden thing.

aiden’s intro monologue is also very reflective of many queer and neurodivergent experiences- his exact words;

They used to tell me, it wasn’t normal to be like me. They locked me up, medicated me, outcasted me. Because of the way i am, my family, my morality. People. Took. Everything.

now the average person could write that off as him ranting abt being treated weird for being crazy- which, yeah, by the time ez2 rolls around the combine has conditioned him so much and also let’s be real put him on so many drugs for performance he’s a big of a violent maniac. AS HE SHOULD BE. HONESTLY FOR WHAT HES BEEN THOUGH HE IS INCREDIBLY NORMAL. but what strikes me is the “my family” line. the people he mentions as most important to him are his grandma, his wife, and also bec (2810 idk if you know about entropy uprising BUT! bec isn’t actually from ez2 he’s from a whole other fan mod of ez1 and he’s really interesting u should look into uprising i could talk even longer abt bec and victor sixty) but we can ignore him for now

was he raised by his grandma? he doesn’t feel the need to mention his parents- estranged from them? maybe they don’t support him? maybe his wife was also trans and/or they were in an unconventional relationship? his family- hell, maybe ava is adopted or even if he did have her himself, people would consider that gross and unnatural and “harmful to a developing child” to be around odd dynamics. if you just probe a little bit he is REALLY representative of a lot of queer experiences and also disabled experiences. he’s so fascinating

anyways in short aiden and wilson are sort of fucked up soulmates and they’ll figure out a way to kiss abt it

yknow i think we need to talk more about Wilson in the true ending

how he starts out as this small and helpless thing trapped inside a defective non-mobile body despite being fully sentient, only to then become part of (and consequently become) something unfathomably large and powerful, something more than just a building, or just a compound, or just a control system. i could (and just might) argue that uploaded Wilson (and with him the Arbeit and Combine systems) approaches the definition of a hyperobject, or perhaps fits it to a t. but my point here is: all of that was possible because, back when he was small and powerless to enact any sort of agency over even his own existence, someone helped him. yes, meeting 36 was basically a coincidence, and yes, originally he took Wilson with him because he had no other choice, but what matters is that when he was given a choice to leave him (which would make his traversal infinitely easier), 36 took him along. and it matters so much that even when he had every reason to believe Wilson was gone, he still fulfilled the wish timidly shared with him hours prior. underneath the snappy remarks and the "shut up"s and the emotional constipation, 36 cared, and in the end, that was enough to save Wilson. so of course, when the roles are suddenly reversed, and now it's 36 who is powerless to escape the torture inflicted on him, Wilson comes to help with no hesitation. of course he does.

[monipue]

[variousqueerthings]

ahhh gotcha gotcha, also interesting because ive sorta deliberately avoided defining fraser's relationships with either ray (and, to an extent, meg) under romantic/sexual terms, because of that vagueness

a sort of "yeah, sure one can hc that, but i like to not be too prescriptive in any of the dynamics and more look at what's actually happening in them" (which, i guess, is the aspec read of things)

(EDIT: IM NOT SURE ON THE BELOW IM QUITE TIRED AND IT MAY BE SOMEWHAT RAMBLY/UNFORMED BUT WE POST!)

i guess, with ray vecchio specifically (as that's who we're talking about and im still unpicking fraser's relationship with ray kowalski, as it's a bit different and they don't initially have that Flash Instant Draw to one another/they're forced to be partners under less than ideal circumstances and their individual baggage colours their interactions a lot) i might actually steer you to this great little f/v fanfiction written by @gjdraws which is technically about fraser having an oral fixation and ray going "huh, is this thing he wants to do kinda weird? maybe, but who cares, i also like it and it's him expressing his wants!" and is also then going into the ways in which that sort of a relationship might be navigated by the two of them (a mix of the ways in which fraser is trying to be open with ray, and ray holding space for the ways in which fraser comes at things like sex from a different angle than one might imagine)

(me and gj have a lot of conversations about fraser that are very interesting in terms of all of this, because ive slapped that aspec label onto a lot of things that may not seem to be such if one doesn't identify as such, but in terms of the logistics we agree on pretty much everything... so. interestiiing)

point being, generally, whether or not romantic or sexual (and whether it may be read as such from a certain perspective and not from another, for example i find fraser's relationship with kink and sensory stimulation to be very interesting and that can obviously absolutely enter into a sexual sphere as it does in above fic), ray vecchio occupies a space for fraser where he's able to set more boundaries and be more assertive and also more doubtful (in himself/need reassurance) than he is around other people

ray's whole "act more human pls" thing, which is less about thinking there's something Wrong with fraser (he's often very into his quirks) and much more about aforementioned boundaries/letting himself be open and hurt, is something fraser mostly allows himself only with him

and i do think the dance shows some of that dynamic in microcosm. ms fraser gets hit on and isn't super comfortable, ray comes in and helps her out, there's the whole "it would appear i am still dancing with a man" line, but the whole thing is that in this case ms fraser is happy to do so because it's ray, and at the end of the episode there's a jokey quippy back-and-forth in which ray basically says that fraser would be his type if he were actually a woman, followed by him asking fraser out for dinner

all of this is familiar, relaxed, easy for fraser. when they fight in that later episode, it's an argument that they're having together, trying to figure out what the problem is (but also with some hurtful turns of phrases, it's still an argument even though they're both trying to find out how to end it). fraser, in my opinion, never has that openness with anyone else on the show

arguably he learned ray's "please be more assertive about yourself" and then only properly applied it to him (which, great for their relationship, not exactly what ray meant!!!)

"are his relationships with the rays a counterweight to his relationships to the various women".... yes. i'd argue. not meg outside of a few instances, who is often her own thing-going-on, but the main three single episode characters (i include victoria in this).

victoria-and-ray-vecchio are obvious foils, they're literally framed as rivals for fraser's time/affection/future, and again, ray threatens to kill her, and she responds by trying to frame him for mass-theft to get him in jail and out of the picture -- she does this despite promising fraser she wouldn't if he did what she was blackmailing him to do/made himself a criminal and ran away with her

janet-and-ray-kowalski ye-es-ish. i'm currently rewatching so can get more into that when i return to the episode, but i think mainly at the end of the episode when fraser professes his loneliness, ray kowalski shows up in the picture and they go out for dinner. it's sort of bittersweet though still/he and ray are still more cautious friends at this point. ray kowalski isn't (from memory) contrasted with janet throughout the episode

ladyshoes-and-ray-kowalski i definitely need to rewatch because there's a fair bit of worry about fraser being used by her, which is interesting for various reasons. i don't remember if kowalski is the person who professes a sadness at fraser's "lost innocence" as it were in that episode, or if it's maybe fraser himself? like i said, need to rewatch to see how that all comes together, it's a good one!

if the women on the show who are presented as sexual possibilities for fraser are ones who either ignore his lack of consent or who have the ability to override it, ray's repeated insistences that fraser needs to develop the ability to say no or set boundaries occupies a similar space. pushing someone to say no more frequently is as much about being able to trust them when they say yes

there is a fic about this somewhere, but i believe it's the opposite direction. telling fraser to ask for things with the promise of only saying no so that fraser will stop worrying about the idea of "no" and dare to ask for anything at all

also yeah the "have the ability to override it" is interesting, because that runs through the whole meg/fraser dynamic and i read as playing into her decision not to pursue it (im not sure that was intended so much as a generic-ish will-they-won't-they, but listen, the show has brought these themes up, i will take them at face value because they're good themes and tbh a lot of the time it really is that deliberate, because people write things on purpose or so ive heard)

i confess, i do think a lot of these ideas were not dropped with ray kowalski, but very different, because ray kowalski is presented as quite a lost man, identity-wise, and leans on close relationships to give him that identity (first his wife before she left him, later fraser when he starts to trust him, but throughout the show is very keen to get into a romantic relationship with someone and that someone sorta-kinda ends up being fraser's long-lost sister, but then he goes off on an adventure to the northwest passage with fraser so they can both find themselves, in the final scene... lots to unpack there) so i think fraser does a lot of bending for him that's never totally explored, because nobody ever really (from memory, first watch, etcetc) tells fraser to assert his boundaries again after ray vecchio, and he's not very good at doing so either

there's, like i said, some insinuations around it (his ghost!father warning him from sleeping with janet and so he doesn't, using his own vulnerability to lure in ladyshoes despite hoping it's an act) but idk. idkkkk if fraser-and-consent-and-canonical-longterm-relationships (ray, ray, meg) is ever quite completed as a thread

idk if ive answered your questions. brain

also think it's interesting that in terms of sexual writing on the show, benton fraser has only had experiences ranging from harassment (being pursued/commented on without his consent) to lowkey sexual assault (being touched in a sexual way without his consent), and various iterations of similar, with the two most obvious being a situation in which he's emotionally blackmailed and manipulated in the lead up to having sex (victoria) and where it's canonically stated that he's being taken advantage of while in a vulnerable state and shouldn't have sex (janet) (EDIT: also ladyshoes, which is interesting in its own right, but i think needs a whole other post, because he's learned from being taken advantage of and plays her game and it kinda hurts to watch)

the only person where it's more complicated is meg, and the more i read into it, the more i think there's a lot to be said for her taking a big step back because she's his superior and has power over him (ofc, i also enjoy the read that she's aromantic, but that also carries a feeling to it that she has some complicated feelings for him that she doesn't necessarily want to ruin by entering into a sexual relationship with him, regardless of how attracted to him she is, and the fact that he would allow it... it probably would end up hurting him, if not gone about carefully)

point being, there's a whole depth of thought id like to explore on fraser and sex that relates to him not only not having language for what he maybe does want (whether or not that involves sex and/or kink) but he's also not been given the opportunity to learn/verbalise what he doesn't want

his whole relationship with sex and relationships, to me, is wrapped up in so many layers of messy experiences and lack of respect for his bodily autonomy that he'd have to unlearn all kinds of things before one could even know under what precepts he'd consent to something on, and potentially that might never even happen, because he doesn't exactly end the show having learned to enforce boundaries (or even, maybe, that he's allowed to have them)

[tj-crochets]

Good news: after a lot of weeks, my air conditioner is fixed!! Also good news: I caught an error in the software at work that was impacting both contractor pay and customer invoicing! Bad news: going through large amounts of data loosely falls under the purview of the department I am now sort of in charge of, which meant my department (which is me and two other people) had to individually open every single order from [specific subset of customers] since the beginning of the year to manually check if either error had occurred. Hundreds of orders, even with a few different criteria we could use to narrow it down. It's done though! I mean the error is not fixed but previous instances of it causing problems are caught and now that we know it exists we can catch future problems before they are invoiced/paid out I have done zero crafting today and I honestly doubt I will get any done lol

[starbuck]

[musical-chick-13]

Realizing that I would come back to performing full-time for one (1) reason and one (1) reason only: if someone could guarantee that I would get to do one of those interviews where you just play with a bunch of kittens while people attempt to ask you questions.

[mechanicalbowtye]

read the scratch upd8. little too close to home

[kakusu-shipping]

Speed Ran through Mario Galaxy 2 Yesterday while sick because I couldn't remember why I disliked it so much and wanted to see if that was just younger me being biased. It was not.

But I regained my love for Lubba and Dino Piranha, so that's something at least.

[dashiellqvverty]

i wanna be into comics so bad but at a certain point, after starting and stopping so many comics so many times, i may have to admit that i am just not a comics guy

[asexualjedi]

All I think about now by the pixies you are commander cody coded or I’ll make you 🔫

[ichorblossoms]

being consumed by the madness [has been figuring out plot shit for like three hours now]

[thedreadvampy]

btw if I'm ignoring anyone's messages about planning things it's only because I'm insane about work right now I woke up 20 times this morning plotting a spreadsheet in my brain and had to keep going SHUT UP BRAIN IT'S FUCKING SUNDAY I'M GOING BACK TO SLEEP

I'm so goddamn anxious about this shit right now. I've never done hiring before and somehow I've got backed into a corner where I have to do 4 parallel sets of recruitment decision making within 3 weeks. and I am kicking myself because I'm a manager now I should have had the courage to be a bit of a dick and say 'look I know it's not ideal but one of these will need to wait a few months' because when am I going to do ANYTHING ELSE????