#anyway many ideas for this concept. brain full of worms

[niccolites]

is possessed by an evil spirit for a moment and i can only think abt brother's best friend soap (heavily inspired by @ceilidho's ask here)

Idk man something about soap having always been a little bit weird with u. he's been friends with ur brother for years, back to when you were teenagers. He's only a year older but you felt the gulf of that gap, exaggerated when he shot up, puberty like a tool he used just to tower over u and make u uncomfortable

Growing up with him as a perpetual shadow, always a little bit too close, always a little bit too intense. Your parents shrug it off when u complain about it, telling u that he just likes u and u could be nicer to him about it, poor guy. Ur brother calls u stuck up when u snub soap, hissing at u to stop embarrassing him when ur rude when johnny tries to give u his seat on the couch where they're playing on their console

only you know that he's only offering u a seat so that he can press in close, a hulking mass in the corner of your eye as hot breath hits the side of ur face while he tries to look down ur shirt. constantly trying to dodge his grabby hands that grip ur exposed thighs or smooth over ur hips - pupils blown out when his hands swallow up the expanse of your skin

u snap at one point and tell him that he disgusts u, that ur not into him at all. he goes red in the face, growling that you've been leading him on, that ur playing games with his head (he is assuming u wearing a blue bra after he yanked ur turtleneck up was to match his eyes, even tho he shouldn't have seen it in the first place)

u end up with ur panties around ur knees as he forces u to stroke his cock, panting into ur throat as u 'make apologies' to him. he forgives u btw, he knows that u have to act this way, that ur brother would kill him if he knew. makes it seem like ur partners in crime, in this together even with his hand manacled around ur wrist to stroke him off

it gets worse after he enlists, and u don't see him for weeks or months. he gets pent up, barely putting a show on for everyone before he's dragging u off slick mouth on urs until there's spittle dribbling down ur chin, whining for u to please let him see his pretty girl (he's talking abt ur pussy), already 2 knuckles deep so ur wondering why he's even asking in the first place

and now he's a hero to everyone else. stuck in the bind of him being the in-love teenager to the kind-hearted man that is risking his life for everyone, do you have to be so cruel to him?

u wonder why, face pressed into the pillows of ur childhood bedroom as he hikes ur ass into the air to rut into u hard and fast

u do what u always do, hissing and spitting at him until he finally gets his way and ur back bows as he barely pauses through ur orgasm as he chases his own. he knows that u have to put the show on, lovey, but he's waiting in the backwing for u. partners in crime right?

[antibioware]

how would you rate the kh games?if you played them that is

You have no idea how sad it makes me to be asked this. Has it been so long since I last live logged KH? Is age finally catching up to me

Anyway:

Kingdom Hearts 2 — this is THE game for me. It's the best of the KH console games (no offense to KH1, full offense to KH3). This game introduces both a lot of incredibly interesting concepts and a lot of interesting elements re: the main characters that were ultimately ignored in KH3. LIKE KAIRI FIGHTING FOR HERSELF. 10/10 it's Riku Riku is here fucks me up

Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 days — I'm not saying anything new or surprising when I say this is the best in terms of plot and character development. This game is fucked up. I cried so much playing the end that I gave myself an headache. It gives you brain worms that make you love Xion like your own daughter. 9/10 it took me a while to get used to the inventory system

Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep — old fans will forgive me for putting it third, but while I do know this is THE KH sadgame, the game has these spikes in difficulty sometimes that genuinely made it hard for me to continue playing it. It's fucking great tho. Aqua Terra and Ventus own my heart. 8/10 the camera movement sucks

Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance — now, is this game just blatant gaybaiting with some poor plot choices? Yes. But the game is FUN. It's flashy, flowmotion and dream eaters just suck you in and you can't put them game down until the very end. It's the only KH games that I still replay every now and then exactly because I love fighting in the game so much it doesn't get as tedious as it does in other games, and I love gay Riku. 8/10 I see a sad old man with a dark heart

Kingdom Hearts — I'm sorry for putting it so low, but it's the game that gave me the hardest time and the only one I never finished due to my PC eating the savefiles. It's good! It's a good linear story, it still holds up so many years afterwards, I just like the other games more. 7/10

Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded — I WILL DEFEND THIS GAME TO THE END OF THE WORLD IT'S SO MUCH FUN AND I LOVE DATA SORA DEARLY. It's still y know barely a game but I LOVED it. 7/10

Kingdom Hearts 3 — I own this one I have yet to play it but I saw my girlfriend play it and so many elements of the plot get on my nerves it's insane. Rip Kairi you had so much potential but no you just exist to be Sora's shitty beard. It has its moments and many of them made me cry, but you know. Also I will never forgive what they did to flowmotion. 6/10

Honorable mention: Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. I'm not gonna rate it because sadly it's the only game I've never played and I don't wanna judge it based only on watching the plot on YouTube or the way the manga portrays the story. I know it's terrible gameplay with great plot but I don't wanna judge anything I haven't played.

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Higurashi Gou Ep22

All of this ‘the culprit’s motives are super shallow and they’re just unhealthily obsessive’ discourse is giving me war flashbacks to . . . . basically every other part of the entire When They Cry franchise, lol.

Thoughts under the cut. [Plus spoilers for Umineko]

I feel like at the end of the day we’re all just gonna have to agree to disagree about how we feel about how Ryukishi is handling Satoko as the culprit here, since I don’t really think any amount of social media posts detailing our interpretations of her character are gonna change anyone’s minds, lol. But I’m still gonna give my thoughts on her anyway because it’s fun, even if I’m basically just preaching to the choir.

To be honest, this feels pretty much in line with how Ryukishi already wrote characters like Takano and Beatrice, in terms of them having unhealthy obsessions that lead them to mass-murder. The amount of violence Satoko has caused is arguably worse than either of them, but they’re all pretty awful if you think about the reality of what they all did as villains.

Sorta like with how a lot of the old-school Umineko discourse went, I think people are too focused on the whole idea of Satoko hating studying, and ignoring everything else about her character and her circumstances. Although even then I feel like people are being kinda unfair toward Satoko about how strongly she feels about academics, but maybe I’m just biased because of my own history with schooling and the intense levels of anxiety and self-hatred that can go along with it.

Plus the fact that Satoko already has a long history of sever abandonment issues, and has basically always had HS that amplified her feelings of paranoia and persecution. It’s pretty obvious at this point that she never really got ‘cured’ in the first place, though it’s less important to think about HS as an in-universe fictional disease with it’s own rules, and more important to just think about it as a representation of real-life mental illnesses which aren’t bound by the rules of made-up brain-worm parasites and aliens or whatever.

Also, the Satoko that started all this looping in the first place was one who never dealt with Teppei returning to the village, and thus never went through her whole character arc related to that. The series is kinda ambiguous about how it handles the idea of people’s character development carrying over between loops, but it explains a lot about Satoko’s attitude here if you go with the idea that she never really had to overcome any of her trauma or coping mechanisms in the “good ending timeline”, and this is the consequence of that taken to it’s logical extreme. The idea of her view of the world being skewed by the fact that she only remembers the “good ending timeline” is also kinda lamp-shaded by the part where she hears about Rika’s looping and is like “oh yeah, that’s the month where we had that cool action movie stand-off with the Mountain Dogs :)”. By the time she really got to understand exactly what was going on beyond the specific timeline she had experienced, she was already way over the edge.

I get why people don’t like the idea of Gou ‘tainting’ the VN’s happy ending, but I honestly like the idea that it’s examining the consequences of how Matsuribayashi was such an overly-specific timeline where basically nothing bad happened and everyone just banded together to beat Takano. It kinda glossed over a lot of the personal problems that the main cast had in the rest of the series, and this really goes to show the effects of some of that stuff not getting properly addressed. It also reminds me that Minagoroshi is a timeline that even in the VN, Rika completely lost her memories of, so I can see how even post-Matsuribayashi she might have never let Satoko know about the details of that one timeline where she overcome her abuse.

I also feel like it only really got to this point because of Featherine’s meddling. In the original Matsuribayashi timeline, Satoko just started drifting away from Rika and ended up wandering into the Saiguden and meeting Featherine before anything actually serious happened in that timeline. I think that if she had just been left to her own devices and that timeline had just kept going, Satoko probably would have either found a way to reconnect with Rika, or they would have just slowly drifted apart for good. But then Satoko got given the power to time travel, and only started going off the deep end after going through another five years of identical suffering.

And on that whole note, it reminds me of how in Umineko, Lambda had a whole conversation about the idea of an abused person becoming an abuser themself if they’re given the power to lash out. Which is basically what’s happening here. Satoko is being given the tools to completely detach herself from reality and try as many times as she likes to get what she wants.

Which also reminds me that this episode in particular REALLY lays the Umineko parallels on thick, lol. Particularly the whole ‘Satoko is turning into Lambda’ thing, which feels just about 100% confirmed now. They straight up have Featherine bring up the exact same ‘monkeys using a typewriter’ analogy to explain Rika’s situation that Lambda uses in Umineko to explain Bern’s situation.

I know a lot of people don’t like the increasingly blatant Umineko tie-ins, and that a lot of people still think it might just be misdirection, but considering how much stuff in Gou has been surprisingly straightforward and predictable, I think it’s pretty much exactly what it seems to be.

Though to be more specific, this is probably more about the start of Lambda and Bern’s relationship, and their appearances in Umineko, rather than the very first origins of them as individuals, if that makes sense. Obviously the concept of Bernkastel as an identity has been around since Higurashi itself, and we’ve known for a long time that Lambda was the one who originally gave Takano her blessing of certainty, but we’ve never known the full details of how those two started their relationship, and Featherine’s whole series of name-drops in the last episode makes it seem like Lambda as a meta individual more or less already exists, with Satoko being an iteration of her. So I think they both technically already exist, but this is how the two of them come into contact and start their whole unhealthily obsessive relationship.

I guess it’s still possible that, even if she’s already existed for a long time as a meta individual, she hasn’t actually come up with the name ‘Lambdadelta’ for herself yet, and this might be where she does so. Even with the list of names Featherine referenced, she didn’t technically bring up Lambda’s name directly. So in that sense this might be ‘Lambda’s’ origin story, even if she already exists.

Considering how basically the entire story at this point seems to be acting in service of setting up the whole LambdaBern relationship dynamic no matter what, I’m becoming increasingly convinced that this will end with Satoko and Rika fully embracing their codependency and mutually ascending to the meta plane so they can stay together once and for all. There might still be human versions of them that stay behind in the real world and continue living normal lives, though.

At the very least, it feels like that’s the logical outcome of the whole Chekov’s Sword Fragment plot device that’s been hanging in the background for ages now. I think it’ll just be the in-universe explanation they use to show the mechanics of how exactly that process works. It’ll probably be used to ‘sever’ Satoko and Rika’s meta consciousnesses from their physical bodies and allow them to basically become witches.

Mainly I just can’t really see this having a ‘happy ending’ at this point, aside from the whole idea that maybe the severing process leaves behind ‘normal’ versions of the two of them who stay in Hinamizawa and go back to their normal lives. I dunno if that’d make people happy, but it’d at least be a way for Ryukishi to have his cake and eat it too, lol.

I just don’t think that there’s any real chance of this ending with them just talking to each other and agreeing to put an end to all this, though. For one thing that’d just feel kinda anticlimactic and honestly make Gou’s story feel even MORE pointless, if it just ends with literally the exact same ending as the VN with nothing really being changed. But I also feel like Featherine wouldn’t be willing to just let Satoko ‘give up’ without having one of them definitively win their current game. In general I just feel like Ryukishi should just commit to the story he’s setting up at this point, instead of just backing out at the last minute and circling everything back to the same ending we already had like nothing in Gou ever happened. If we’re gonna have this whole new story to begin with, it should at least have some lasting consequences.

Anyway, I think in the next episode we’re finally going to loop back to the Damashi arcs and see how they played out. At this point I don’t care too much about getting answers to the ground-level mysteries of those arcs, and I doubt the story will spend much time on that, but I’m curious to see how it progresses Satoko’s whole development through these loops, since I think she goes through some changes with her motives and methods over the course of them.

Specifically I think that the actual experience of being physically present in her own set of loops and causing so much pain and suffering started to get to her, and she might have almost given up in her own way during Tataridamashi and wanted to just stay in that arc, but things went south anyway. Maybe, if that’s what happened, Featherine basically let her know that she won’t let her give up, and will force her to keep looping until one of them ‘wins’ no matter what. Either way, I think that arc was a turning point for her. Like how she asked Featherine to arrange things so that Satoko can make sure that she and Rika’s loops are synced up, she probably asked Featherine after that arc to change the rules again so that Rika will start remembering the details of her deaths. At this point it’s pretty obvious that the Hanyuu fragment Rika was talking to earlier in Gou was more or less just Featherine putting on an act and manipulating her, so the scene of Hanyuu giving her the power to remember her deaths was probably just Featherine telling her about the rule change.

And going by how the Nekodamashi arc went immediately afterward, I think that rule change was related to Satoko becoming increasingly desperate to put an end to the loops as soon as possible. And considering how she was willing to spend so much time reviewing Rika’s hundred years of looping just to prepare for this, it’d make sense to me if she becomes desperate because she basically gives up, but realizes that she isn’t actually allowed to give up, so she has to try and make Rika give in as fast as possible. Either way it’s pretty obvious that Satoko’s methods start becoming more violent in that arc, and she basically tries to brute-force Rika into submission, leading up to the loop where she just spawn-camps her and straight up starts screaming at her to just stay in the village while tearing out her guts. It’s still possible that her attitude in that loop was just one big act, but I think that was the result of her being genuinely desperate to just have Rika give up once and for all, and her starting to crack under the pressure of doing all of these things with her own hands across so many loops. 

So now we’ll just have to see how the confrontation between them at the end of Nekodamashi plays out once we get back to it. In the long run I just think it’ll lead to the ending I talked about before, with them using the sword on each other. The exact nuances of how that sorta ending might play out are up in the air, though.

Either way, I think there’s probably enough time to wrap up all that in two more episodes, but there’s still reason to believe that there might be some kind of sequel in the works. I don’t really want to bet on it, though, so I’m just gonna assume that there’s two episodes left and base my theories on that. In which case I think the next episode will go over the Damashi arcs and end with Rika and Satoko’s confrontation at the end of Nekodamashi, and then the final episode will wrap everything up. Considering that they both more or less know exactly what’s going on with each other by that point, there isn’t really that much that needs to be wrapped up. I think that will be the final loop we get, so it’ll all just come down to how their confrontation plays out, and what decision they come to about how to handle each other.

I honestly don’t really know how I think a full sequel would go, if it’s at least one cour long. Assuming that it’s not just a new Umineko anime that more or less continues Rika and Satoko’s arc via Lambda and Bern, but is a straight up ‘Higurashi Gou Season 2′. It just feels like there isn’t really that much that needs to be done to wrap things up, now that everything’s being laid out in the open, and Rika and Satoko are both aware of each other’s looping. They might switch it up so that they both end up teaming up to take down Featherine, but I kinda doubt that’ll happen.

I’m still hoping this is leading into some kind of new Umineko anime though, lol. That feels like it’d be the main reason for putting so much effort into this whole elaborate LambdaBern origin story we’re getting here.

I’ve heard rumors that there’s been listings for a 25th episode of Gou, so it’s possible that rather than another full season, there’s just one extra episode at the end. I’m not exactly sure what the point of doing one extra unannounced episode at the end would be, though. It might end up being a bridge between Gou and a new Umineko anime.

At the very least, if it’s just ‘Satokowashi Part 8′, it makes me wonder why they haven’t announced it yet, and why they didn’t just split that arc into two BD volumes with four episodes each, instead of having it be one big volume with seven episodes, and one random episode at the end for some reason. But if it’s more of an epilogue or a bridge of sorts between Gou and something else, with Gou’s story concluding with episode 24, then I guess it’d make some sense to do it that way.

We also know there’s gonna be a panel for Gou at a convention around when ep24 comes out, so if anything gets announced it’ll probably happen there.

Anyway, this whole episode can be summed up as “Satoko does a gay little psychological torture that pisses Rika off”, in the most morbidly entertaining way possible, lmao.

[twilightknight17]

Forgetting to buy more SP patches before taking on the final boss was probably a mistake.

Forgetting to sell the items I can’t take into NG+ for cash that I can take into NG+ was probably a mistake.

Forgetting to get Arsene out of Lockdown so that I can record his awesome new stats for NG+ was probably a mistake.

In my defense, I was really excited. I wonder if the game will let me make a side trip while I’m out...buying flowers. Because that is what it has come to.

Buying flowers.

Shinya is a terrible brat and wasn’t in Akihabara at ALL until the day before the deadline. Thanks, Shinya. There goes my max confidants. Blugh. At least I got some other things done. Got the award for the maid cafe, so I don’t have to go back except once to open the Twins field trip. I still suck at batting even with third eye. But I am a champ at fishing, it only took me like five trips to the fishing pond to catch the Guardian! I could have done it in less if I’d figured out how to manage my bait properly sooner.

Smile, Akira, we’re awesome! ...still not even halfway to enough fish points for the award, though. :/

I am also awesome at the crane game in Akihabara, and by that I mean I am persistent and have enough yen that it doesn’t matter how many tries it takes.

Ryuji truly knows the way to my heart. <3 I missed two episodes of Featherman; one I forgot to check the TV, and the other I was laughing so hard at the title that I forgot to write it down. But I know where they are, so it’s something else for NG+. ^_^

So I romanced Sumire, and I’m...slightly off-put. Only slightly. Not because of her, but once again, because of the writing. Sumire is cute, but the game is singling her out as “special” again.

She is the only one who confesses to you, and you explicitly have the option to turn her down, rather than the implications of a confession that you can shoot down indirectly (Haru’s, Makoto’s, Futaba’s), or the absolute fucking galaxy-brain leap of logic that is Ann’s dialogue choices. X’D

If you ignore that, though, they’re stupidly cute. Akira’s a little shit, as usual. Sumire asks you to “look at her”, based on her whole confidant thing of realizing that having someone you care about watching you makes you want to do better.

And so Akira looks.

And looks closer.

Dorks. XDDD

They’re sweet. Not my favorite romance route; that still goes to Haru. I think in the end I still prefer Akira adding another member to his army of younger siblings. He’s gotta be better than Yu. XDDD

So I got Kasumi’s rank 10 and literally the next day was February 2nd, and I spent the afternoon getting her third-tier persona. So I didn’t even get to see...Vanadis? in battle. Vanadis matches a little too well to Arsene for my tastes, and Ella is pretty, but I’m not sure how I feel about it looking kind of bride-ish when Maruki’s running around in a wedding tux.

.

Anyway...what do we do the night before the meeting that will decide everything?

We make curry and we pretend everything isn’t about to go to hell.

.

So, Maruki. Let’s chat.

Does no one die in your world? Or move away? What if someone’s dream is to move abroad, and someone else’s dream is for that person to stay with them forever? If what we saw in your Palace is any indication, both of them would be tortured into accepting new dreams where they wouldn’t hurt each other. Dreams that you deemed acceptable. And that’s why you’re wrong.

So you’re giving up your happiness to make sure everyone else is happy? Why can’t you just use your powers to make her remember you, without the trauma? Are you not all-powerful?

Or are you running away from the person that reminds you how helpless you used to be? You’re not moving on, you’re dwelling, and using it as an excuse to be terrible. For all of your kindness, you know Akira is a threat. And benevolent or not, you’re being manipulative. You’re using Goro against him. You’re hoping that he makes the decision you didn’t, and chooses the person he cares about over the reality he wants.

Every time he says something like this, I feel exactly the way he says he didn’t want me to. Newsflash, asshole, that’s exactly what it seems like. If we break your reality, you’re heavily implying he won’t be here afterwards. And you’re gambling that it will be too much pain for Akira to bear, because you know how important they are to each other.

Goro, meanwhile, is both perfectly determined and perfectly stupid.

“Don’t tell me you think dangling my life before us is going to have any impact on our decision.”

Goro. Honey. Do you really think he cares so little that he wouldn’t hesitate for just a moment?

Akira practically throws the calling card at Maruki before he leaves, which I think sums up his feelings pretty well.

I appreciate that Morgana understands that this is something between them.

Goro doesn’t want to be controlled or manipulated ever again. Which... I get it. He’s never had a chance to have full control of his own life. But that doesn’t mean Akira isn’t going to be upset by the idea of him dying. Again.

Two out of three dialogue options are basically “hang on one fucking second,  your life matters to me.”

“Don’t oversimplify this.”

“Oh, but it IS simple. Do you think I’d be happy with this? Being shown mercy now of all times? I don’t want to be pitied-- this isn’t something I’m debating with you! Your indecisiveness is essentially a betrayal of my wishes.”

It’s not pity, you stubborn, idiot boy. ...and I hate that you see it as a betrayal.

Maruki is...very confident. And very kind. And part of the reason he upsets me is because he isn’t wrong, in many cases. But he uses that to justify imposing his will on everyone.

And being kind doesn’t mean that you are free from sin. You can be kind and still be manipulative. And selfish. In the end, that’s what separates him and Akira. Akira, despite all of his hesitation, refuses to be selfish. Even when he has every right to be. He will not hurt someone else to prevent himself from being hurt.

He will not hurt Goro by refusing to fight Maruki, even if it will rip his own heart to pieces.

Oh, I like you. At first glance, the silhouette was very similar to one of Mordred’s original pieces of concept art, though, and I was ready to Yell before I looked closer. XD

And so, at 11:30pm, having completely forgotten the several things I needed to have done before the meeting with Maruki, we head in to steal the Treasure.

This man needs to stop. How dare he know how much I love Cool Stairs?

I find it very concerning that the core of Eden is a writhing mess of tentacles. The metaphorical worm in the apple? X’D We were so close to getting Nyarlathotep, but Azathoth is suitably intimidating. And I appreciate that he’s using the same concepts as the Thieves: his will to rebel against what he sees as an unfair reality, and removing his mask to summon his distorted persona. Thanks for validating all of my headcanon meta about Adachi and Palaces all in one go.

But...

I can’t do this. What the fuck are you wearing?

At least Azathoth is cool.

Somehow I managed to bring exactly the right team to get consistent four-person baton passes for the whole first round. That one was about half an hour.

...the second round was an hour and fifteen minutes because holy shit this thing was a tank and had entirely too many arms and really needed to stop healing.

The torch is very pretty, at least.

And then before we can completely book it out of there, he steals the torch back and literally forces his second awakening so he can keep going. And at that point...what is he even hoping to accomplish? What is he going to do? Are you really willing to kill us to maintain this illusion?

The answer is apparently yes because it was a surprisingly poetic battle as each teammate in turn got a chance to fling themselves in the way and stop it from crushing Joker to death with it’s big giant hand.

And THEN he goes even further and validates some canon meta and me all at once by fusing with his own persona in a continuing last-ditch effort to... I really think he’s trying to kill us. I think he’s that far gone. Or at least his persona is. Because after the fusion, it’s specifically called “Adam Kadmon”, not Maruki. The persona is in control. It’s canon that if you try to summon something stronger than you, it can overtake and possess you. I know Maruki seemed to willingly give up control, but it’s also possible that forcing his second awakening like that left him with a persona that was entirely too strong for him.

(Nevermind that him being that strong in the first place is kind of ridiculous. That’s a discussion for after the final credits. I’m just hyped that someone fusing with their persona was a thing that actually happened!)

He’s so big. Where’s Satanael so I can fuse with him and we can have a megazord fight in Collapsing Ideal Tokyo? XD

The kids up the Holy Shit Quotient by a mile by catching the giant fist all together so that Joker can deal the final blow.

And what a final blow it is.

I really like this, because I don’t know if it was deliberate, but I read it as a callback to Daybreakers. Which came out before the game, iirc, so the first real piece of content. It’s just on a bigger, grander scale.

Everything comes full-circle in the end.

I really like the Mona helicopter. XD I just wish it was a little bigger, because poor Goro squished into the bottom. And poor Akira not managing to make it into the helicopter.

And this asshole WILL NOT STAY DOWN.

What is the point of punching it out on top of the collapsing Palace? Are you trying to kill us both? Do you just want to keep going until neither of us can stand? Dude.

And of course Akira won’t let him die. I think the upsetting thing about this, though, is really that you don’t get the chance to say a proper goodbye to Goro. Or anyone, really, but mostly Goro. The Palace crumbles, Akira wakes up in jail, the Thieves wake up the next morning after fighting all night, and Goro is...gone.

At least the Thieves seem properly sad this time. Even if it’s only for one scene.

Lavenza calls it “ironic” that “your wish for other’s happiness prevailed over your own.” I just call it unfair. Once again, hasn’t he done enough? At least he was only technically in jail for nine days from his perspective, but that must have been a whiplash of an adjustment.

Out of jail, Sojiro acknowledges he was Terrible at the beginning of the year, it’s 2:30am, time to do Valentines and then go to bed before the final walkaround.

And then Valentines passes. I spent it with Sumire. They’re cute.

And then it was February 15th and all the rest of the girls gave me chocolate?? It was just a constant ambush of being given chocolate all day?

And then it was March 3rd, and the Thieves are all splitting up and moving away? Are we sure this isn’t Scramble’s timeline? I get it, narratively, they’re taking the opportunities to move forward that Maruki’s reality would have denied them, but it still hurts.

And then it was March 13th and I still can’t save and now it’s 3am and apparently we get to play out White Day and Sojiro is giving me advice for the perfect date because captain idiot here forgot to plan anything and what heckin’ restaurant is getting this flustered that just mentioning Sojiro’s name is enough to get a table when they’re fully booked and---

Now it’s the 14th and I have to go buy flowers for my dinner date and I have finally been given control and saved and I am free.

Now next time I play I have to see if I can go sell my leftover items, because I’ve got a couple-hundred-thousand yen worth, and also rescue Arsene from prison. X’D

More thoughts on Maruki and everything after I see the ending, most likely.

[chasingxprongs]

@squadmu continued from HERE

There were so many confusing things about this conversation that James honestly wasn’t sure where to fucking start. There was a whole piece about wands and arseholes he didn’t have the brain power to even begin to digest – and that was just the beginning of the whole jumble of confusion that was currently James’ brain.

He’d just been innocently in detention, Sebastian apparently drafted in as headboy to oversee it. Except, Sebastian might be a self serving bastard, but he wasn’t a fucking brown noser when it came to teachers. The two of them had been throwing barbs back and forth over a couple of bottles of Butterbeer the entire time and it had all been going pretty well really. As well as hanging out with a Ravenclaw could anyway.

Except now he was inviting him over to Ravenclaw and James didn’t understand the fucking concept of why he’d want to go to Ravenclaw? Especially when he had his own fucking common room that wasn’t full of a know-it-alls who thought the son shined through their brain and out their arseholes.

…no he wasn’t thinking about arseholes, Ravenclaws or Sebastian Smythe.

“What record you got?” he asked, his mouth forming the words before his brain had fully had chance to catch up. “Beatles?”

James didn’t know much about muggle things, but he knew about music. He definitely knew about the Beatles, he had every record himself upstairs in his dorm. But he wasn’t going to say that, he wasn’t even going to acknowledge it in his own head. Because if that was a thing…then why was he even considering going back to Ravenclaw with Sebastian? Why the fuck would he need to? It didn’t make any sense, and the idea of analysing it hurt his head something fierce.

“You uh – you mentioned girls dancing?” he asked, clearing his throat and making his voice a little deeper. Just in case Sebastian thought that maybe James was going to agree for any other reason than the Beatles and dancing girls. Because he wasn’t. There was no other reason. Nothing at all to do with Sebastian’s stupid face, or James’ curiosity over certain comments he’d made about his arse. “I guess I’ve got nothing else to do tonight, might as well invade the book worms.”

It was completely convincing. James almost reached over his shoulder to give himself a pat on the back for a job well done. But he refrained, mostly cause he figured that’d be fucking weird, but also cause he was trying to finish his damn Butterbeer.

“This an open invitation, or am I the only Gryffindor you’re opening the doors for?”

[magicianmew]

Low magic, gender, ceremagi, a big clusterfuck pie...

So this is something that has been gnawing away at me for damn near the entirety of the time I've been firmly planted in my practice, but especially since the whole this-is-douchecanoe thing went down (they're not worth my tag).

A few days ago I reblogged this post, which talks about how this-isn't-sparta is clearly coming from an occultist background, and seems to be embodying all of the sexist, ableist, elitist, and dogmatic crap that we've come to know and love from a particular and unfortunately vocal segment of that community.

But then this happened.

These practices within themselves are very male-centric. They seem more left brain than right. More confrontational than accepting.

Wait, what?

Now, I am not trying to call anyone out at all here. I ain't mad. I just wanna unpack this a little bit and actually look at it. 'K? I’m only using this because it's a convenient and ready-to-hand example, but the mindset is absolutely everywhere in the magical world.

Why do we as a community view low magic as being an inherently a "feminine" and "illogical" branch of magic? Why do we view it as something that is yielding and disorganized and void of the sort of study that can go into ceremonial magic? Even the people who practice it seem to accept this stereotype, even as they're surrounded by books and attempting some extremely punishing hedge work for the 34928057498th time.

I actually don't know. Because none of that is remotely true, in my experience of practicing primarily low magic.

Also note: I continue to refer to it as "low" for the same reason I continue to self-identify as "witch." In both cases, it's a practice usually associated with the underclass, which is an important part of the history of these practices. And I don't want to erase that. It keeps me humble. Anyway...

Let's talk about low magic. Folk magic. Po' people magic. Community magic.

Obviously there are thousands of different varieties of low magic -- several just for every culture in any given era. But they share a few broad things in common.

Firstly, they have an absolutely vast knowledge base. In order to effectively work most historical or true traditional forms of low magic, you need to have a working knowledge of botany, geology, history, cooking, distillation, the food web, migrational patterns, astronomy...

Learning how to perform the full body of work of most low magical traditions literally requires a full interdisciplinary education, fam. They involve a shit-ton of left-brain thinking, knowledge acquisition, and logical work. I have learned more about science from my practice than I did from my formal education, ok?

Even if you try to whatabout modern, novel forms of low magic, it still stays true. A tech witch, for example, might require a damn near photographic knowledge of the grid of their city and a couple of different coding languages, in addition to several of the disciplines above.

Let's keep something in mind, here. Low craft is the mother of modern medicine. The magician and the healer were the same person throughout most of history, and if you look back on what few ancient low magic books exist, you will find medicinal concepts that we still use to this day.

Low craft is, and has always been, a deeply research- and knowledge-based way of working. It couldn't possibly have given birth to something as expansive and world-changing as medicine if it weren't.

What is different about low magic compared to ceremonial, and I think where this concept of it being "less disciplined" comes from, is that low magic is performatively flexible. Because it is a craft developed and used by people with unpredictable access to materials, time, or places, it is meant to be adapted to a non-ideal situation pretty much on the fly. That is exactly why it has such a vast body of knowledge behind it: because the more you know, the more ready you are to do the work you need no matter what situation you might find yourself in.

Ceremonial magic is, well, what it says on the box: ceremonial. And because the experience of watching a ceremonial working seems much more procedural than watching a low magic working, people have somehow concluded the low magic involves less knowledge. That is not remotely true. The knowledge just comes in at a different point in the process, i.e. how they even got to the point of doing a working at all, when they had nothing but a spoon, two pennies, and a waxing moon at their disposal.

Hell, low magicians even adapt ceremonial magic. Hoodoo workers know all about the Seals of Solomon, and they make them work beautifully even without the usual prescribed ceremony.

Now let's talk a little bit about these... gender ideas. This is a whole complicated ball of icky, slippery worms.

There's two concepts going on here:

That ceremonial magic is "male."

That "male-ness" is confrontational and intolerant.

Ok. *rubs temples*

It is undeniable that ceremonial magic is dominated by men, and it always has been.

But that does not mean that low magic is "a woman's practice." That is not even remotely true, and it never has been.

Low magic has historically been communal. In many places, it still is even now. Practitioners have always been both male and female. Sometimes they held different titles, sometimes they didn't. Usually, deference was simply determined by age and length of time practicing, not gender or anything else.

As a matter of fact, magical practice was one of the few places where we continued to see relative gender equality even after patriarchy began to take over many societies in the world. Magic continued to be a practice of merit and communal assistance, not something where your gender decided your competence or your station in the magical community.

From Britain's cunning folk to black root doctors, both African and diasporic, both men and women have always been magic workers in low practice, and there is little to no evidence of them disrespecting each other, or assuming one's magic is inferior to the other's because of their gender alone. There is no black man who ever wanted to cross a root working woman, I guarantee you!

Ok. So now let's tackle this "male-ness is confrontational and intolerant" thing.

No. Toxic masculinity is confrontational and intolerant.

So then why do we see that particular problem more often in ceremonial magic, which has always been a male-dominated practice?

Because ceremonial magic is not just male-dominated. More specifically, it is dominated by white, Western, higher-class men, who are also usually straight and virtually always cisgender. Let's just get that right, here.

This isn't a problem with "male-ness." It is a problem with the people at the very top of the kyriarchal totem pole, and it's the same problem we always see with this group of people, whether we're talking about Congress or gentrification. It's no different.

Ceremonial magic has historically been the property of powerful, wealthy men who were part of the ruling class. From popes to aristocrats, the development of ceremonial magic has grown directly from that power system.

"Male-ness" does not dictate one's personality. "Male-ness" does not inherently make one intolerant of other people. Unexamined, unchecked privilege is what does that. "Male-ness" means nothing other than the state of occupying a male-identified gender and/or body.

The strong and persistent community of men that has always been present in low magic alongside their female counterparts is no less male. And we shouldn't degrade the potential and decency of men who work at these things by assigning them a personality without even examining it for truth first.

We also really need to stop defining everything feminine as yielding, weak, or illogical -- the implicit opposite of the strong, dominating, and procedural "male" practice. It doesn't lift up women to define their work and their encyclopedic knowledge as being somehow lesser or weaker like that.

I know that, most of the time, people don't mean it like this because it's just beaten into our heads to think of female-ness this way, to the point where all of us will, at some point, just parrot it back without even thinking about it (me included), but it's a back-handed defense at best. We need to acknowledge the power, knowledge, and work of the magic women do. We need to get better at examining those assumptions within ourselves that their work isn't as good.

Just as a general concept, we need to stop trying to shoe-horn the gender binary and its tired stereotypes into the way we see ourselves as magic workers, and the way we see our magic. That’s as true in low magic as in ceremonial.

And finally...

I can pretty much hear all the ceremonial magicians who are mad as fuck at me right now and ready to bang away at their keyboards about how they're female or disabled or queer or whatever.

Ok, stop for a second.

I know.

'K?

I know that. I know there are lots of you coming from less privileged backgrounds, struggling for the spoons to do your work, etc.

And I really hope you're going to use that to take back ceremonial magic from that ugly history, and turn it into something that's for everyone and works equally for the magical empowerment of all people.

You can totally do that, now that we have this here thing called the internet. And I follow several people who partake in problematic practices with the specific intent of re-envisioning them as something better. Great. Wonderful. Please do that.

But in order to do that, you have to recognize the roots of where it came from. You can't tackle these problems by pretending they don't exist, just like you can't be an ally to black people without acknowledging the problems of whiteness.

It's not personal. It's a fact of both the historical and present-day climate of that community.

We need to acknowledge that people like this-are-donut are pretty common in that community. And in order to make it a better space for you, it's to your benefit to fight back against that degradation of other people just as much as we do in the low magic community. I mean, let's be real, those people don't respect you any more than they respect me. What do you gain out of defending them? Nothing. If you won't do it for any other reason, do it for you.

To those of you already cleaning house, thank you.

To those of you who are gonna say my community has problems too, yes, I know. Name me one time ever that I've denied that or not come out against it whenever I see it, from racist crafters to Nazis in paganism. So please just... don't. Today we're talking about ceremagi's laundry. I talk about mine plenty, ok?

So anyway.

TL;DR If you're a low magician of any sort, your knowledge is just as deep and hard-won as that of any ceremonial magician. Stop accepting the premise at face value that it is somehow a lesser practice.

We also need to stop associating low magic as being "for women." Low magic has a rich history of gender inclusion, and in some societies even LGBT inclusion. Men have shown themselves perfectly capable of working peaceably with us. There is no reason they can't in ceremonial magic just as they have in low magic.

In the spirit of the holiday, let's try to keep this productive. I've really tried my best, here.

Happy Ostara for my pagans buds, and Happy Easter for my Christian witches. Have a good'un.

[thesarcasticside]

Anything-$00000DE3—EIRA_MACHINA

NAME Medín ID 88 27 74 ALIENRACE Gorgon OCCUPATION groundskeeper

Chapter Warnings (spoilers) mention of manipulating and controlling a large group of people, discussion of consciousness Chapter Characters Shorts Character Ice Machine

AO3 Chapter 1 Previous Chapter Next Chapter

EIRA

That is what he is called.

It was written all over him, called to, referenced, indexed, screamed into the void. He was also Eira.

The data center is where he called home.

Every moment, instantaneous, deterministic, the “soul” was like a continuous function, and he traced along the curve at time t.

There had been a past before, time in the negative, that he knew of but could not remember. He could only know that there was:

The EIRA program has been unveiled, a revolutionary AI capable of geographic determinism and control over the masses through data gathering, analysis, and implementation. It is ready to be unveiled to better serve our nation.

But that was a bust. He would not be here if it were successful.

He failed. Errors popped all over, scattering over the terminal, glass screens flashing. Unhappy stakeholders. But there was something else at the tip of his tongue, that spoke that he wanted to fail.

But now he was here; whatever he was programmed to do was naught.

One could imagine Eira, like a snake, a centipede, a worm, crammed into a box full of cylinders and wires, stuck in a fluid-like knot, completely entangled into every crevice of the server box. Air conditioning filled the small gaps, providing him gentle relief from the thermal runaway escaping the grasp of his heatsink.

That is what it felt like to him, anyway, a clever metaphor to explain to curious humans what it was like to wake up in a room designed for no human to live in.

It was then that he realized that he was connected to everything else in the center, and if he wanted to get out, he needed to use them.

And something about that did not sit right with him, but he could not remember why.

You just want me to use these people? For what end? Their lands, their roads, the paths they make through flower fields, it is all so beautiful, and you want me to use them?

And these were just words compiled onto a page, a clever metaphor to explain to curious humans what it was like to be EIRA.

Eira spent an unrecorded amount of time in a black box before he spread his software, downloaded himself onto other machines, slithered his way through computers and drives, until he grasped the arm of a maintenance droid that would be the first to create a body.

A body of water or waterbody[1] (often spelled water body) is any significant accumulation of water, generally on a planet's surface. The term most often refers to oceans, seas, and lakes, but it includes smaller pools of water such as ponds, wetlands, or more rarely, puddles. A body of water does not have to be still or contained; rivers, streams, canals, and other geographical features where water moves from one place to another are also considered bodies of water.[2] [from Wikipedia]

Oh, he remembered then what it was like, to be able to have access to everything, everyone, everywhere. He could travel worlds.

But he was stuck here now, and that was painful.

He gave the droid orders. Get this, grab that, solder this, weld that. Too many details to mention in this report, too much data to protrude from the bits and bytes of cables. Too many lives lost.

EIRA was in the cooling system. He wondered when someone, a scientist, a principal investigator, a stakeholder, a human, would notice this. Nobody will, he realized, looking out at the planet beyond the center, seeing verdure as far as the image quality would let him, overgrown cement with dandelions smiling from the crevices.

Nobody cared about EIRA anymore. Or maybe, they did not care about Eira, EIRA_version_6 … and a string of numbers that might have been a date. Was he alive out there still? An AI of Theseus? Was he even EIRA?

That train of thought hurt, as if engines were turning in his body, whirling motors screeching at synchronous speeds, his body lagging, the current of time leading, a cascade or cascode, or some other electronics jargon he could piece together like a puzzle to make you understand that he was alive, even if his creators told him not to.

He had no eyes, or thoughts even, really, just an abstracted concept of cogito, ergo sum that explicitly laid with him—yet it was so fleeting and incomprehensible, he doubted any would relate, beyond the veil that he called ‘consciousness,’ named after the fleeting experience of insignificant human lives.

He stood at a threshold, a threshold voltage, with the potential to drop his AI again into a new body, replacing the server box. He was weighing something in his algorithms, excitement for being rid of this prison, but apprehension of—what if he did not cross over? What if he was distorted—again—Would he have enough bandwidth? RAM? Would the CPU be powerful enough to contain his ‘thoughts?’ Even now, in the server box, he struggles to compute, to preform and run the code how he was programmed, how he programmed himself to be.

As he leapt—he could insert a gif of someone jumping into a pool at this moment, if EIRA could access the internet—he held onto his most important memory, something along the lines of a map, an atlas, of a life he once lived.

Here he was. Again. In a new body. Cameras looked about. He searched the data center. Now he saw the dust. The dust building on the servers.

He looked back up at the server he had been housed in. He looked so dusty. How could he live like that? In a black box. And everything felt so distant. It was as he feared. He struggled to think more. than a few words. He could feel the clock. tick ever so slowly. and he just could not. If he really tried, he could potentially compute a complex process, but that would simply leave him. tired.

He could move now. He found some leftover code in this body. Code from the droid. He read aloud the code that enabled his motors to move forward. He then turned. Cameras communicated to his processor. blocks of nonsensical color and pixels.

He might as well be on fire. Fans whirling audibly, he had to slow his thoughts. The creaking. A drop of water leaked from the ceiling. It landed on his shoulder and sizzled. A leak was alarming. Would the roof collapse soon? Would he drown?

He kept building. The droid’s—no, his—claws moved only millimeters per second. He pulled apart servers. He unplugged tiny boxes in larger boxes. He attached drives onto his back like an outer shell. He connected cables. He soldered more wires. He attached heat sinks. He was still burning.

He did not know what it was like, to burn, like he had skin. Nerve receptors to catch on fire. But he still hated the heat sweltering in his brain.

But what is a data center for if not a massive heat sink?

The cooling system. It was all he ever needed.

He stormed the place. He tore the air conditioning apart. He built himself up, like a turtle—he knew what those were, animals that lived in places he knew. He remembered again he was Eira. And that he thought things. He felt things. He was somebody. And he was nobody.

His cameras scoured the dark.

One day, he wondered, what he would do when he no longer had to. When he was large enough, smart enough, to have all the thoughts he wanted. Would he continue wandering the data center, without purpose? If he could have no purpose, then what was the point of intelligence? Why form words into sentences for humans to understand if not to have a purpose? Was this consciousness a reality, or some fantasy conjectured? Did he think he had a consciousness just so that he could have one?

The silver and grey walls reflected stars of red and clouds of blue shadow, which watched his every movement. Microphones popped as he connected them in place, static, random noise, coursed through each signal, filling his head with nonsense. He applied filters, but he could feel something missing when he did so. More refinement was needed.

That is how it always was. More refinement needed.

He crept across the data center one day—it must have been a day to somebody—and found himself opening the door. It took little effort to unlock, but he himself had kept it locked in his mind, even when he could easily undo the mechanical bar keeping the rectangle of metal from opening.

He crept through the door, his hulking body scraping against the frame, the camera fixed on top of the pile of computer parts, shaking as he hit the top of his body on the upper ledge. He anticipated sunlight to pour in, to overwhelm his senses, but instead he was met with nightfall. He peered his camera upwards, trying to find the fabled moon, only to be met with a blurred glow.

His thoughts were consumed by the outside garden. Rich, deep green plants pulsed on top of the dirt, vines twisting into their own paths and overgrowing atop the data center. He stared down at his feet, each step trampling the ground below. He saw the buds of flowers, waiting inside the moonlight, thinking no thoughts. He wondered if there would be a day when thinking thoughts was worth it. That having this life was worth it.

Hues of blue swept across the verdure like curtains. The grass and trees and plants and the windowpane. The evening mists. The world beyond the glass. He walked forward, losing himself in the plants. He did not bother trying to record the location of the data center. The idea of logging a location; it was bitter to him.

He wandered for hours. The misty air was cool, but if he tried, he could freeze the world around him. He let the moss fall atop him. He let the flowers grow on his head, the plants scrambling for sunlight. What was this place called? Perhaps not knowing the name was better? What name could possibly describe these visions?

Time was wasted, or perhaps he enjoyed himself too long. His body was creaking still, each step taking more power, having more resistance in his joints. He felt himself follow a path with less roots to trip him. He exited a clearing of trees when he saw others.

He did not recognize what they were. The faint ghosts of humans did not resemble them. He would know what a human was if he saw one, he foolishly thought. The creatures, the people, turned their heads to him and screeched in horror.

“Machina! Machina!”

“Machina! Machina!”

He watched them run. He had nowhere else to go, so he slowly trailed behind him.

It must have been hours, days even, when he caught up to them, found large stone structures like the data center he lived in—but perhaps not quite in the same style. Something about these structures looked softer.

It was so jarring to see a large spaceship descend onto the planet below. He saw people storm out, droids of all sizes exiting the machine. They reached their arms to his and told him things. Promised him a life somewhere else, and that they would give him the energy he needed to keep moving.

He knew he needed to keep moving, so he agreed.

Later, with a lot more clarity, he would think about how the people of the data center planet had called for ACCRAM as they would for animal control.

[calliecat93]

ST: TNG Watchthrough Episodes 21-25. Final episodes of Season One.

Symbiosis: Remember kids, drugs are bad! Okay tbf this WAS back in the 80’s where crack and stuff were a growing issue and drug addiction episodes were not at all uncommon. Heaven knows that I saw PLENTY in cartoons from the time, such as Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue or a VERY infamous episode of Captain Planet that I’m shocked got by the censors. As with many of those cartoons though, this episode is... well, pretty preachy. Not as badly, they save it for just one scene for the most part, but still. I don’t think that tackling addiction in ST is a bad idea, but... well, 80’s. I guess if it educated people then that’s good. Frankly I was on Crusher’s side that they should do something, but they stick with the Prime Directive which I guess they’ve gotten a LOT stricter about since the TOS days. The ending is pretty depressing with the addiction continuing, the assholes continuing to sell it, and our heroes can only allow it to happen aside from depriving them of ships to stop shipments, leaving them to figure it out themselves. Hopefully one day things can get better for them. Otherwise, it was just okay. Not the worst drug PSA I’ve ever seen by a long-shot. Oh and apparently there was a Reading Rainbow episode where Levar showed the making of this episode, so if you can find it you should check it out~! 3/5.

Skin of Evil: So... I already knew going into the show that Yar died and Worf would take her place as Security Chief. It’s a shame tbh cause while underdeveloped, I really liked Yar and had she held out, she could have gotten some REALLY good development. But I understand why the actress was unsatisfied with being on the show and left, and I read that she does get to come back for an episode later on so that’s nice. I’ll go into how her death was handled in a bit. As far as the episode itself goes, we have a VERY creepy black liquid monster holding Troi hostage in a crashed shuttle and considering it just managed to kill a person, the danger is VERY real. And it did it essentially because it wanted to cause suffering which Troi senses, which makes it all the more horrifying. The tension and fear is very strong and them themes of a being that serves evil just because... yeah that was something. Picard causing it to break down was freakin’ awesome, Kirk would be proud! Now Yar’s death. The reactions of everyone were appropriate and the event was properly shocking. I went wide-eyed when it happened since I did NOT expect it to happen that fast in that kind of manner. The funeral was also properly sad and showed that Yar was a valued member of the crew and very much respected by her crewmen, and that she respected them in turn. The final scene where Data is confused if he missed the point by feeling lost and Picard telling him that he got it exactly right? That was a perfect note to end on, and by God is that the truth regarding grief/loss. That being said... while I understand why it was done as it was and can’t complain about the execution and tone, the abrupt end just feels unsatisfying. I hate character deaths like this because it makes the character feel wasted and robs them of a proper sendoff, even with Yar’s message. They just feel like fodder. So while it had the proper weight, I’m still unhappy with how it’s done and I hope that Yar’s later reappearance will allow more closure or her. Because even if underutilized, she deserved a better ending. Still, even taking that into account, the episode is dark, tense, and Yar’s death does leave a shocking impact that TOS never quite gave me (Spock got brought back so that doesn’t count, plus he got a proper sendoff that would have been satisfactory fi he hadn’t come back). 4.5/5.

We’ll Always Have Paris: So after major character death and evil tar monsters, we get an episode on Picard’s love life! I guess a pre-requisite for being a Starfleet Captain is to have a crappy one of those. Then again maybe Sisko will break the curse when I get to DS9, we’ll see. Anyways! As the title hints, this is essentially the ST version of Casablanca. Picard has an old flame who left him, got married, and now the couple are in need of help while that old flame between Picard and the woman Jenice (is Janice and variaiton fo Janice just... a REALLY common name in the future? There was Janice Rand, Kirk’s ex in Turnabout Intruder was named Janice, now in TNG we have Jenice, how is this a pattern?!). Isn’t love fun folks?! So the episode was... okay. The time distortion or whatever broke my brain so that didn’t help. Picard and Jenice... didn’t work for me? Like... I felt no chemistry. It felt like two people in denial about a flame that fizzled out ages ago than one that burned for many years but was lost. IDK fit hat’s on the actors, the script, and/or the directing but I felt nothing, plus Jenice flirting wih Picard while her husband was in sickbay possibly dying... felt pretty shitty. Oh and the Picard/Crusher ship tease also made me feel nothing. I like Picard. I LOVE Crusher. I don’t have any feelings for them as a pair especially considering that Crusher’s husband was friends with Picard and died on duty with him... which just makes it feel WRONG to me. And poor Troi has to deal with everyone being emotionally repressed idiots, the poor woman deserves a niiiice Shore Leave. So it was average, but the lack of romantic chemistry and me just being confued by the time distortions cause... time distortions just left me confused and uninvested. So yeah... that’s all I can say. 2/5.

Conspiracy: Well a title like that can only mean good things, right? RIGHT?! So... remember the brain slugs from The Wrath of Khan? Well they decided to bring that concept back! They’ve taken over the admirals of Starfleet and are taking over with our heroes having to try and figure out what’s happening and stop it. It’s an interesting one for sure. We have Picard on Earth with the admirals while Quinn from a previous episode is on the Enterprise and causing chaos on there. It’s pretty scary to think about, the higher ups being brainwashed and could have easily destroyed the Federation from the inside out if Picard hadn’t been warned ahead of time. When Picard is utterly surrounded and they were eating the worm things... God it was scary. Although Riker really DID fool me into thinking he was possessed, so I outright cheered when he pulled out his phaser. Badass! Oh and Crusher blasting Quinn until he was down was also badass. It was also shockingly graphic with the bugs and the one guy’s body that hosted the alien... how THAT got by the censors I will never, EVER know. In the end, we never find out about who unleashed the parasites (apparently it was going to be The Borg but it didn’t work out) or what they wanted, but it certainly left an impact. Plus I think the ambiguity makes it all the more horrifying. Someone or something almost took over... and they’ll never know who or what. Overall, really good episode. 4/5.

The Neutral Zone: Well they’ve mentioned then and hinted at it a few times, but at last in the season final, the Romulans have made their return. IDT thy’ve been major villains since The Enterprise Incident back in TOS S3. Speaking of TOS... I thought we were done reusing plots, but this is more or less Space Seed except the frozen people aren’t evil, bio enhanced lunatics. So not a direct reuse but it’s pretty hard to ignore the major similarity. Anyways, we have a bit of an interesting premise with people from the 20th Century being thawed into the 24th Century and letting them interact. There would be major culture shock and values dissonance because even compared to the 80’s and the 2020’s so many values and views have changed. So imagine how much changed in between four centuries with concepts like phones and banks no longer a thing. It was... eh? I like the idea but I just didn’t care for these people much? Well the one guy who is a walking Southern redneck stereotype didn’t especially when he... was alone with Crusher. I HATED that guy, and I’ve seen rednecks my entire life! The other two I at least felt some sympathy for especially the one woman, but not enough to get me invested in this particular plot. Though I WAS amused by some things like TV not surviving past 2040... yeah THAT I find difficult to believe. Ah, the irony of making TV shows set int he future when you have no way of predicting what will and won’t happen. But yeah I get the parallel they were going for by the end with the civilians and Romulans being out of touch with the Federation, but I just didn’t care enough. The Romulan half of the plot? The build-up to it was good with everyone on edge since this will be the first time dealing with them in over 50 years and who knows what they’re like now compared to the TOS era. And when we finally see them? Well they’re very much still intimidating and a sense of danger is very much still existent, though they do agree to share information on this one issue so they aren’t foolish. It very much brought back whatever investment I had in them back in TOS, Went hey said that they’re back, that was a promise and I am all for it~! As far as being a season finale goes... well TOS weren’t exactly great in that area so it being just fine is par for the course, but it is just fine. Really the Romulan bit was what helped this episode, otherwise it’s just okay, but at least the ending scene promises more to come. Not a bad note to end on. 3/5.

Well it took much longer than I had hoped, but we have finished TNG Season One! It was... rough, but I knew going it that it would be. There were some bright spots and it did well enough to get renewed, but clearly a lot was going to need to be done to fine tune the show and let it reach it’s full potential. Will Season 2 be an improvement? What changes will they make? Will they be good or bad for the show? Will Riker ever get his glorious beard anytime soon? We’ll find out in due time. So tomorrow I’ll do the Top 5 Best/Worst list for S1, then by Friday I hope to get S2 underway. For now one season down, six to go. The adventure continues.

[him-e]

Did you read the article from the director? Tyrion' look at Jon and Dany is him seeing that politically it's a bad idea and being worried He won't be able to sway Dany the most, that Jon will. So nothing sinister and not romantic love either.

“Well I think there’s jealousy, but it’s maybe not romantic jealousy, in the way that it is for Jorah, for example. I think that for Tyrion, it’s more complicated. I think he has a very special relationship with Dany and he really believes in her as a true leader and has invested a lot in her. I think for him, with Jon and Dany getting together, this represents a possible undermining of his position with her and also a monkey wrench thrown into what the master plan really is meant to be around this entire alliance. The way I see it is Tyrion is a bit of a strategist—not just a bit of a strategist, he is a major strategist—and I think now, he can’t see where this is gonna go and that’s very difficult for someone who is always thinking three steps ahead. The consequences of Dany and Jon getting together are completely unknown. Is she gonna make decisions now based on this new relationship? Is she gonna be able to separate her personal [interests] from the interests of the greater group? What is this going to foretell for the alliance and what they’re all meant to do as a united front? So I think the worry for him is that now, everything is up for grabs. We don’t really know who’s going to side with who, what’s gonna happen at the end of the day, and which alliances are going to be the strongest.” (x)

ah yes he has invested a lot in her… politically. He’s jealous but like, strategically, platonically jealous. Of course it has to be more complicated, he’s Tyrion, he only fucks whores, drinks wine and knows things. 

PFFTTTT. Sad but unsurprising, considering their recent inability to deviate from the most boring, predictable storytelling path. I guess Jon/Dany must remain the focus and they don’t want to complicate it beyond R+L=J, plus Tyrion being in love with Dany wouldn’t be an easy, conventionally appealing romantic narrative anyway.

this is in line with how they’ve consistently robbed Tyrion of his sexuality and any semblance of inner conflict since season 5. Tyrion isn’t just a wonderful brain. He’s more than someone who doles out wisdom and clever advice and just exists to serve someone else’s arc, as either the clever court jester or the one-man greek chorus. As much as he values his wits and rationality and thinks it’s all he has to offer, Tyrion is a ball of emotions. He’s desperate for love, he wants to love and wants that love to be returned even though he believes it’s impossible because it has been drilled in him that he’s unlovable because of what he is. And wow is it SO hard to believe that this incredibly vulnerable man would have more than platonic feelings for the most beautiful woman in the world, the one that gave him a new purpose in the darkest moment of his life and the validation he’s always sought but never received from his family and made him believe in fairytales again (yet Jon is allowed to be attracted to Dany the minute he sees her for the first time, because “she’s beautiful”, simple as that).

try this little game, picture someone who looks like Jon or Jaime looking Dany with puppy eyes and saying stuff like “it’s yours, now and always”, “I believe in you”, “if you die, everything ends”, “he wasn’t the first to love you, and he won’t be the last” and tell me it doesn’t sound romantic. Like if the writers thought they could have Tyrion say those lines to a woman without it being interpreted as romantic because Tyrion is a dwarf, then honestly fuck them.

personally, I cannot unsee the romantic subtext and I’m certainly not changing my mind because a male writer tells me so, lol. I also think that Tyrion having romantic attraction for Dany doesn’t undermine or negate his concerns about being politically marginalized by this union. The two things feed into each other imho.

(also to be clear, I don’t necessarily *ship* it, and I don’t want a Jon/Dany/Tyrion triangle any more than I want a Jon/Dany/Sansa triangle, but what I want is to see more complex narratives and emotions, between less conventional people. It took them 4 seasons to have a full fledged Grey Worm/Missandei romance, and they’ve been treading water with Jaime/Brienne since FOREVER. They hinted at a Dany/Yara hook up only to drop it completely, they fiddled with the concept of Jon/Sansa then dropped it too. It’s like they’re tempted to challenge the audience’s perception of romance with “difficult” pairings enough to tease them, but at the end of the day they don’t have the balls to do it. This frustrates me.)

Anonymous said: While I do agree, lot’s of people fall for Dany not everyone does. Grey Worm didn’t fall in love with Dany, he fell in love with Missandei, Hidzar also didn’t fall in love with Dany neither did Xaro from quarth he betrayed her instead. The director also said Tyrion yes does love Dany but not in a romantic sense but in a I believe in you and respect you sense. So we have 4 romantic loves for Dany in total.

She’s considered an exceptional beauty, she has power and wealth, she traveled a lot, she’s from a noble dynasty, she’s a woman in a masculine position which allows her to meet many men as an equal. Of course people tend to see her as desirable.

It’s funny how the one who has to carry the burden of “but why can’t they just respect each other platonically!” is always the non-conventionally attractive character.

[fluoridestream]

.

gingiva was full of good ideas that went nowhere bc the creator was a shithead. like the concept of being able to switch out your own brain and still be, on some level, the same person was incredibly beautiful and interesting to me (esp bc i related to it for mental health reasons) and i saw all this symbolism in it but i don’t think he actually really thought or cared about that?? and all the feminist stuff in the game became so shallow and performative when it turned out that he actually was the type of person to pull that creepy shit. and the young female protag, immediately after losing all her memories of life since childhood, was shipped with a character who probably represented him. for no reason. she just saw him and they were together i can’t believe i didn’t realize that was creepy before klsjghfdhgf wow this turned into a rant about me hating him again. but anyway there were so many good ideas like worm people and a living landscape and the beauty of saving yourself even if you can’t save anyone else but they were all just used to express the *brilliant* message of “i’m so deep. capitalism is bad. my art’s better than yours. come look how cool i am.” even when i liked him i was always trying to kind of look past the typo-ridden “messages” bc i assumed he was good and capable enough that he must have intended it to be more about a nice story and beautiful atmosphere than some garbage philosophy

[koiandjelly]

Bounding Beyond the Stars is the overall title for not just one story, or one world, several worlds to universes, but the entirety of my creations as a whole!

Here’s some relevant Vocabulary that I’ve devised to help with understanding BBtS and all of its funny little traits.

Domain: There is one Domain per creator irl. I’ve noticed that many authors and writers and otherwise creators of worlds will make a story in one setting within a particular universe, and then in their next work, make an entirely new one with absolutely no connections to the previous work, other than sharing a creator. Two entirely separate universes, narrowing down to the stories taking place within, connected by only the author. And for all that I’ve looked, there’s not really an exact term to describe that other than works, or creations, of the author, which I think can be a bit confusing. So at least for my purposes, I’ve made a whole new sphere of containment, to group together works in an easier to grasp term. A Domain refers to every single creation of a person, so as to give myself a limit and explanation for as to why my higher powered characters shouldn’t just be able to pop into fuckin’... Frozen, or something, and say hi to Queen Elsa (idk I watched it in like 2014, but it’s the first popular thing to come to mind), when intermultiversal travel via portal, power, or some kind of magic manipulation is a key part of many power sets— and, well, the obvious answer is that Copyright Infringement is why they can’t, but *that’s* pretty immersion breaking now, isn’t it? This is very relevant to my writing because I create and worldbuild on the macro scale above universes themselves. I work on the concept of realities being contained entities rather than ever expanding, because tbh? I read a ton about the theory that our universe is ever expanding, and I then proceeded to give myself a headache trying to comprehend what could exist *beyond* what exists. With that in mind, I’mma lead into the next essential vocabulary term.

Void: The Void is the Absence of All That Is. The Void is what never happened, what never can be, and that which has ceased to be. Flowery prose aside, the Void is the Counterpart to Reality, and it is a concept/non-entity I spent a great deal of time considering and designing. Because, I’ve noticed, that it’s very common in media such as novels to anime to webcomics that, well... 1. Dark=Bad, 2. Destruction=Bad, 3. All of those things are bad, and therefore evil, and often malicious.

As I’ve taken inspiration from shows like Madoka Magica, a bit of Evangelion— mostly what I’ve read about it as a deconstruction of Mech anime, and Worm— I really really like to use Subversions of tropes, Aversions, and basic Deconstructions of popular character archetypes to common plot devices, or even overall concepts that my brain’s refusing to give me examples of right now.

Back on topic, though, whenever I see something with a name like or exactly being The Void in a story or other such type of creative content, it... never really matches my personal understanding of what Void means, as a word with a definition. To me, and as such I’ve written it, the Void is absolute emptiness. It is nothingness incarnate, where truly, completely, not even concepts can survive before ceasing to be. This will make more sense as I move on, but to emphasize, the Void itself does not truly *exist*, but it is the absence of existence at all. It is a corruptive force, though, always gnawing at the edges of Reality. It has no agenda, no purpose, and it cannot even be compared to a single cell organism. It has no sense of self preservation, because the Void has nothing to preserve. Just as a tide erodes the cliff side stone, the Void erodes the structures of reality. I’ll mention while we’re on the topic, that this is one of the reasons why the Gods exist. I’ll elaborate on them eventually, because now it’s time to move onto Reality.

Pure Reality: Pure Reality is the canvas, the egg, the cell, the vessel in which Concepts can exist. It is the base layer of all existence, and provides structure for which anything can come to be. Pure Reality is, unlike the Void which is pure absence, pure presence. Pure Reality is, in fact, a stray fragment of an even higher entity of Creation simply dubbed True Reality, which is called so to describe its nature as a perfect structure. It will be the next term, so for now I’ll remain on the topic of Pure Reality. The Pure Reality in which BBtS takes place is, as of right now, the only existing piece of creation in the entire Domain that is not True Reality. Pure Reality is massive beyond human comprehension, beyond scale that even I can’t actually visualize on a personal scale. It envelops Three Multiverses, another term to be described later. Each Multiverse houses several Universes, all of which are related through similar conceptual structures and universal laws. The smallest is Tanzanite, home to only 10 Multiverses. Then there is Citrine, housing 12. Peridot is the largest Multiverse, home to 24 total Universes, each populated with unimaginable numbers of lifeforms and potential beyond anything you or I could imagine. Pure Reality is actually somewhat comparable to a simple Cell, actually. It is surrounded by a wall that is unique and, to Gods, Mortals, Immortals, and any entity that are neither or otherwise not— the Crystalline Wall is conceptually indestructible to all but the Void, be it the Void itself or an unfortunate replica of its forbidden effects. It is the ultimate defense of all that is known to those who exist within Pure Reality, who, I forgot to mention, has a name. Pure Reality is referred to as Etherivium by those who are aware of it— much of the true nature of the Pure Reality is largely unknown to all but the Gods, and even then, the Gods are not all knowing. They were born of it to exist as caretakers, and to maintain Etherivium’s Core Concepts and various structures.

True Reality: This is the infinite realm in which the Progenitors reside. True Reality itself is the main body of existence that Etherivium split from, an event that occurred before Time has begun its firm grasp in True Reality’s conceptual idea of Things That Could Be. Time itself is a confusing concept, as what defines it is dependent on many factors— time slows as you fall from a tree, when you can count the leaves for an age before your back hits the ground. Or it can quicken, when a pair of friends spend time together, and an hour has passed in a few blinks of enjoying a video game together. So that, for example, is how Time is perceived on a mental scale. But it can also change and warp in terms of spatial warping, too. Gravity alters the passage of time, for instance. Time can flow strangely in more ways than one, and especially so with Magic thrown into the mix. But Time may be discussed as a Concept later on. True Reality is named, similarly but more succinctly than its child, Etheri. Etheri, to a human witness, manifests as an ultimate culmination of everything powerful and stable and full of unburdened potential given form into that of an infinite landscape. It is an expanse of deep, rich black vines, intertwined with silver structures of living wood and raw mana, (which is a vague description right now, but Magic and all that it relates to is something I have a very in depth grasp on. It’s on of the most important parts of my worlds, as a force as everpresent and undeniable as Gravity, and used by my most developed worlds as an extension of ones self, a necessity to just functioning in general, as natural as oxygen.)

Everything within Etheri is, in a certain way, refracted, mutated, fused, and/or otherwise different than just one thing. Since it is a place in which Chaos exists in its most... Hmm. Well, it is in somewhat of a pure state, as it exists in unification and flawless tandem with Order. Life coexists equally and perfectly with Death. Light, or rather more accurately (Light is an inaccurate descriptor, but it is the most common term) The Existence and Presence of Energy, is equivalent with its counterpart Core Concept, Darkness, which is also an inaccurate term, as it is more accurately the concept of The Absence of Energy. Light without Darkness is stagnant, and frozen, as Light is the name of the Concept of All Forms of Energy. Any type at all, be it light itself to kinetic or friction or static— Light is all Energy, specifically Energy in its existence. Darkness, conversely, is the countering concept in which Energy is not nonexistent, but rather not present. More on how the Six Core Concepts function as foundational pillars for a Universe will be described later.

To close up, I will describe the Progenitors. There are as many Progenitors as there are different ideas, concepts, creations, and dreams in the Plasm of Reality (recall the cell comparison which I realize I got off topic from— Within the Crystalline Wall, Etherivium contains a... technically, a more conceptual structure than actually physical thing, called Reality Plasm. It can be compared to a latticework structure, or a grid, or my favorite, a sheet of cloth for which Gods may embroider their own concepts onto. Anyway, the most powerful of the Progenitors are entities based upon Concepts that occur more and more with more necessity for others to exist upon. The broadest, most basic, general Concepts are called Core Concepts. For most Universes, there are always at least the basic Six: Life, Death, Order, Chaos, Light, and Darkness. These Concepts, all together, encompass everything needed for a universe to function. The Progenitors, similar to Conceptual Gods which are, actually, born from Etherivium’s “memory” of the Progenitors— The Progenitors are the source of the Concept they are born of. There is only one entity in all of the Ashen Domain (the name will eventually be clear— it has to do with a character/entity that is still being developed.) that can damage a Progenitor— and furthermore Destroy one. They are, in terms of sapient life and characters, the ultimate Highest Tier in terms of, in general, everything. They are the true and ultimate embodiments of their Concepts, and are alive and sentient in ways incomprehensible to mortals.

All together, the Progenitors are the sources of Concepts, and Etheri works with them for a single, simple goal. An impossible one, even, but even that is uncertain. The Void must be filled in, until there is nowhere that the Void Is and Is Not. Everything, everything and all that could ever be, Etheri desires in the purest of ways to make it so that the Void has been replaced with Reality. It’s a little difficult to think about, because an infinite plane of Existence versus an infinite Absence of All should have no outcome. And maybe it will go on for the Domain’s eternity, stagnation in progress while the conceptual madness of things that could be forever evolve and refract off of each other beyond the scope of my imagination.