#anyway this is what i was doing and this is my moral philosophy

[augustheart]

[gu6chan]

People will be like "idc who you are, seriously block me if you do/support x" and then i block them and they react like this everytime

[deathsmallcaps]

Replying to tags but then I ran out of room and I think i was if not cooking then at least microwaving

#dude when I was in 6th grade I read #the veldt #and at the time it disgusted and genuinely scared me because I was #just so surprised that people - children! - could be raised to be so heartless #idk if I read it for the first time as a 23 year old it would scare me so much #but goddamn

#I think we're both people who are *at least* good at literacy but we're both a little too STEMmy #to look at it the way some English teachers want us to? #like they want people to go from 'damn that's fucked up → what themes are the authors trying to explore here → what about the world #made them think of that and perhaps what are they trying to get us to consider and think about and perhaps change' #obviously not all writing is a fable with a moral at the end #but a lot of good writing has some sort of central belief that it wants the reader to consider

#(I struggle in creating that with my fiction ugh and I think a lot of booktok books do too and it bugs me that we have that connection)

#but anyway #I think you and I'd first reactions are like #’that's horrible → how can we prevent that specific problem from occurring again' #like take the lottery. my (and maybe your?) first reaction is like 'that's horrible → they should ban the lottery' #but the English teacher is going to want us to think 'oh gee okay so this is a commentary on traditions. why would this tradition be started #/necessary? does the lottery reflect the overall morals and sensibilities of the overall society (aka fond of the death penalty etc). #what sort of tradition might this mirror today? connecting to historical events and the fact that the person stoned and the author were #women. aka the gender commonly stoned for witchcraft in New England #do you think that's related?' etc etc etc wrapped in metaphors and shit. and tbh that's how I learned a lot of my religious and political #philosophy as well as history. I really like Thomas swift's 'a modest proposal' (satire) for that reason.

but that was NOT my initial #thought process for English class. I had to be heavily trained into thinking that way and often my first instinct is to not engage with the #metaphor an just go straight to the logic/sensible answer. blah blah blah. I really respect lit and history teachers as a profession but boy #do I not want to teach it because I would be so slack on writing the kinds of questions that would get the kids to engage with the meta. #once I got a piece I got it but it was a struggle every damn time. because I had to get over my feelings of well why didn't they just not #do that'

the biggest one I can think of is 'song of Solomon' by Toni Morrison. I think my senior AP English teacher wanted us to really #consider authors and characters of color (he was white but it was 2018-2019 aka Trump era) so he taught us othello and TM. othello is a #little easier to understand because iago is just being a little bitch about a Black foreigner getting a promotion and a hot wife and no longer being able to convince himself that he was better than Othello

But TM’s main character Milkman? Unlikeable, spoiled little shit who doesn’t give a damn that he’s the 1 percent of his marginalized community and he’s frittering his privileges away so hard that it literally induces suicidal and murderous tendencies into the people around him. Among other things.

It took me foreverrrrrr to engage with the text beyond GOD I HATE THIS GUY but once I was able to examine his psychology and the mean flip side of ‘if you want to fly, you have to get rid of earthly attachments’, which he does at the end of the story.

Was it a chore? Absolutely. But have I ever forgotten the story or the literary tools it gave me? No.

Maybe I’m just speaking for myself in this longass response - you and I usually talk animals and men not books 😅 - but yeah every English class is full of these annoying stories that are meant to rattle one’s brain and I REALLY avoid rattling lmao. Tbqh again I respect lot classes but I’m glad they’re over lmao

But anyways I listened to Levar Burton’s podcast ‘Levar Burton Reads’ from start to finish, and he once read (as a three parter) Toni Morrison’s Recitatif. It’s the story of two girls, one Black one white, who grew up around and with and against each other during the mid 1900s.

I didn’t know what the story was getting at, aside from the surface ideas of the American Civil Rights Movement and privilege and stuff. But LB usually asked questions or briefly mentioned the author’s main idea at the end. And when he did? HOLY FUCK.

If you ever decide to listen to it (I’ve never gotten my hands to a print copy so idk if they usually have some sort of author’s note at the end to ask the reader this question)(I love LB’s voice he’s a pleasure to listen to if you listen to Recitatif) please @ me and tell me if it also blew your mind and made you consider how you viewed the POV character of the story.

Because it blew my mind and made me really consider why I assumed things about the pov character. Im not going to say anything further because I feel like I’m spoiling the point but yeah.

Anyways again this could be just me but I’ve always had trouble moving on from the straight solution mindset. When I was 12 I was in a model UN and I was told to write a report about Togo and its healthcare issues. I took this to mean that I had to research the common issues there (such as unclean water and mosquito bite diseases) and then come up with solutions.

It was incredibly embarrassing to do all that and then hear every other group explain their countries healthcare issues and WHY (historically, monetarily, etc) their countries struggled with such things. And my ass went up there and talked about affordable mosquito deterrent changes to water sources and cheap water cleaning services.

I didn’t realize it then but like. It perfectly exemplified my lack of instinct to subtextually interact with instructions and prompts.

And the thing is. May the universe bless and boost the fucking lit teachers out there because my poor students are entering math class with lit skills 6 grades under where they should be and are genuinely unable to interact with straightforward STEM instructions. My college had every ed major take a ‘teaching literacy’ class and sure I passed but the thing is. I’m not really the person that’s supposed to catch these kids on that subject. I’m supposed to be a secondary math teacher. So a lot of the advice in that class simply wasn’t applicable and I wish it was!!! I’d be happy to help in that subject but also I WAS TRAINED TO BE A MATH TEACHER. AND MOST LITERACY AND LANGUAGE DIFFICULTY COURSES ARE NOT DESIGNED WITH STEM IN MIND. (Which is why I want to learn enough Spanish that I can teach kids learning English math as well because that’s an area that doesn’t get a lot of crossover and a lot of kids fall through).

Well this turned into a ramble goodnight lmao. I’d say this was a decently microwaved thought track lol

[ldknightshade]

morality: a character creation guide

creating and understanding your oc’s personal moral code! no, i cannot tell you whether they’re gonna come out good or bad or grey; that part is up to you.

anyway, let’s rock.

i. politics

politics are a good way to indicate things your character values, especially when it comes to large-scale concepts such as government, community, and humanity as a whole.

say what you will about either image; i’d argue for the unintiated, the right image is a good introduction to some lesser discussed ideologies… some of which your oc may or may not fall under.

either way, taking a good look at your character’s values on the economic + social side of things is a good place to start, as politics are something that, well… we all have ‘em, you can’t avoid ‘em.

clearly, this will have to be adjusted for settings that utilize other schools of thought (such as fantasy + historical fiction and the divine right of kings), but again, economic/social scale plotting will be a good start for most.

ii. religion + philosophy

is your oc religious? do they believe in a form of higher power? do they follow some sort of philosophy?

are they devout? yes, this applies to non-religious theist and atheist characters as well; in the former’s case… is their belief in a higher power something that guides many of their actions or is their belief in a higher power something that only informs a few of their actions? for the atheists; do they militant anti-theists who believe atheism is the only way and that religion is harmful? or do they not care about religion, so long as it’s thrust upon them?

for the religious: what is your oc’s relationship with the higher power in question? are they very progressive by their religion’s standards or more orthodox? how well informed of their own religion are they?

does your oc follow a particular school of philosophical thought? how does that interact with their religious identification?

iii. values

by taking their political stance and their religious + philosophical stance, you have a fairly good grasp on the things your character values.

is there anything they value - due to backstory, or what they do, or what they love - that isn’t explained by political stance and religious and/or philosophical identification? some big players here will likely be your oc’s culture and past.

of everything you’ve determined they value, what do they value the most?

iv. “the line”

everyone draws it somewhere. we all have a line we won’t cross, no matter the lengths we go for what we believe is a noble cause. where does your character draw it? how far will they go for something they truly believe is a noble cause? as discussed in part iii of my tips for morally grey characters,

would they lie? cheat? steal? manipulate? maim? what about commit acts of vandalism? arson? would they kill?

but even when we have a line, sometimes we make exceptions for a variety of reasons. additionally, there are limits to some of the lengths we’d go to.

find your character’s line, their limits and their exceptions.

v. objectivism/relativism

objectivism, as defined by the merriam-webster dictionary, is “an ethical theory that moral good is objectively real or that moral precepts are objectively valid.”

relativism, as defined by the merriam-webster dictionary, is “a view that ethical truths depend on the individuals and groups holding them.”

what take on morality, as a concept, does your character have? is morality objective? is morality subjective?

we could really delve deep into this one, but this post is long enough that i don’t think we need to get into philosophical rambling… so this is a good starting point.

either way, exploring morality as a concept and how your character views it will allow for better application of their personal moral code.

vi. application

so, now you know what they believe and have a deep understanding of your character’s moral code, all that’s left is to apply it and understand how it informs their actions while taking their personality into account.

and interesting thing to note is that we are all hypocrites; you don’t have to do this, but it might be fun to play around with the concept of their moral code and add a little bit of hypocrisy to their actions as a treat.

either way, how do your character’s various beliefs interact? how does it make them interact with the world? with others? with their friends, family, and community? with their government? with their employment? with their studies? with the earth and environment itself?

in conclusion:

there’s a lot of things that inform one’s moral compass and i will never be able to touch on them all; however, this should hopefully serve as at least a basic guide.

[mageknife]

the dialogue between solas and a necromancer inquisitor is very telling too because the only way he approves of studying necromancy is saying that you want to use it to understand spirits more but disapproves of anything else, especially saying you want to use it for your own power

interesting also that he specifies “so long as no intelligent spirits are harmed”—what constitutes a spirit being intelligent? cole disapproves of necromancy as a whole, saying that even the littlest, barest wisp could become a spirit.

solas and cole’s differing philosophies speak to… well, solas and cole. solas who is wisdom, who can convince himself that the ends justify the means, and cole who is compassion, who feels for every living thing. and wisps are alive, as we see in veilguard, but they’re not considered intelligent; when they possess corpses, they can be controlled by a necromancer, and it’s seen like, i don’t know, having oxen plow a field rather than enslaving a person.

it’s that matter of intelligence that brings about the primary moral quandary of necromancy that makes use of wisps. the mourn watch would be on solas’s side here, saying that they’re not quite intelligent and useful in the way that a work horse would be. but they’re not animals. they can continue to grow and become full-fledged spirits. solas even says this in his companion quest.

the following is from the origins codex entry on wisps:

A wisp is a demon that has lost its power; either it has existed in our world for too long without finding a true host or it has been destroyed […].

this is what solas is describing. he approves of an inquisitor utilizing wisps in battle, so long as they care to learn about spirits. but… he also knows that wisps are spirits that were killed and can be reborn, spirits that are too. is this just a trap for the inquisitor? hoping that they’ll learn more about spirits through their practice and that will lead to them realizing that what they’re doing is wrong?

i don’t know. i’m not a solas scholar.

anyway i’m still hung up on the “intelligent spirits” thing. here’s that one dorian and solas banter

solas is on the money here about binding spirits. but the intelligence thing comes up again! if a spirit is intelligent, it shouldn’t be bound or harmed. but a wisp is fine…? granted, that particular line is from a dialogue where he slightly disapproves. and it’s solas. and i don’t know him that well. so. grain of salt. but.

veilguard largely ignores any of this nuance. they say “oh it’s fine because wisps don’t count” and then leave it there. but then when ingellvar talks to a wisp they say this

so… they know wisps are “dead” spirits. right? what solas and cole say is known to the mourn watch. emmrich refers to wisps with “who,” as if they’re people. manfred is right there as our… rather poorly implemented as per my earlier rb, but right there nonetheless, example of a wisp growing into a spirit, actively displaying the humanity of wisps.

but they’re not intelligent, right? so it’s fine, right?

i’m jumping back to inquisition necromancy briefly as a quick added tangent—specifically the spirit mark skill and its upgrade “wisps of the fallen”

the default skill employs a spirit, but the upgraded version employs multiple wisps instead, weaker but more plentiful. i just think that’s interesting. notably, other necromancy skills such as horror (the first skill you unlock lol), power of the dead, and simulacrum have flavor text that describes them as using spirits specifically, not wisps; wisps of the fallen is the only thing on the necromancer tree that specifies wisps

utilizing spirits in magic does not necessarily harm them; spirit healers have been around since origins, and the necromancer skills that utilize spirits don’t imply that they come to harm (save for walking bomb, which is… unclear. in origins it’s described as “magically injecting a target with a corrosive poison” and in 2 and inquisition it’s just “a curse” so i have no idea whether spirits are actually used to cast it?? i’m leaning towards no though).

as a sidenote, the knight-enchanter’s primary ability is called “spirit blade,” but the blade itself is described as being “of solid magic,” not of spirits. it does deal spirit damage though

IF I START ALSO GETTING INTO SPIRIT HEALING and and how spirit healing and origins/2 spirit magic compare with inquisition necromancy i will never shut up so i’m not going to do that right now. but. my POINT is. uh. i don’t really know where i was going with this. something about necromancy and wisps and spirits. wisps being dead/dormant/reborn spirits

the necromancer tree kind of only has 3 abilities that actually deal with the dead. which are

1. death siphon: Every time an enemy dies nearby, you regain both health and mana.

2. power of the dead: Killing enemies attracts spirits that increase the power of your spells for a short time.

3. spirit mark: as above

we know that spirits are drawn to corpses because they can possess them easily and thus leave the fade; this is why the chantry burns their dead and why the nevarrans don’t. that’s really what ties the inherent spirit magic of necromancy to the dead in the first place.

death syphon (as it’s spelled in origins and 2) is particularly interesting because… okay. it’s in the spirit school (death tree) in origins and the spirit tree in da2. it’s described in both as functioning by “consuming entropic energy” from nearby dead. and entropy is its own different thing that comes from “the chaotic nature of the fade” per da2, and god i started getting into it i said i wouldn’t do that. i’ll get back to this sometime

OKAY. THE POINT IS. WISPS. INTELLIGENCE. AUTONOMY. it’s well-established that wisps are spirits in a weaker form, by solas, cole, and (vaguely) the mourn watch (i can’t physically check veilguard so all i have to go off of is a couple clips i saved from emmrich’s recruitment in my ingellvar playthrough and there’s not much in there). so are they not intelligent by nature? does that not imply that controlling wisps is enslaving them just as binding spirits is? that everything the mourn watch does is like, pretty wrong?

and veilguard is just like nah they’re silly little guys who chirp at you and follow you around so it’s okay. we are going to infantilize manfred and make him essentially emmrich’s servant so you don’t think about it too hard. as this one post i’ve had in my drafts for months and will never properly finish says:

in conclusion: i really need a drink

[mythalism]

Watching a video of the "fight Solas" ending and I find myself really disliking the fact that Rook declares that the Veil must be tied to the life of an elven god. It is treated like a fitting punishment for Solas, and even in the redemption ending, Rook all but orders Solas to sacrifice himself to maintain the Veil (or the status quo). I also can't help but feel that Solas, the last of the elven gods, is being sacrificed to maintain the Veil that he, alone, is somehow expected to magically maintain, allowing everyone else to go on their merry way. The implication here is that the elves are losing the last of their history, or pantheon, and this is a GOOD thing, and now we can all move forward and live peacefully. Am I overthinking this? 'Cause if this was the intention it does sound kind of bad.

yeah. i do agree and i dont think you're overthinking. and even if you were, im about to overthink way harder so don't worry. forgive me for getting on my legal philosophy soapbox but thats my whole brand at this point so here we go: it is a very retributive view of punishment and desert (deserved-ness) that i morally disagree with and feels outdated in the political landscape of 2024 to me PERSONALLY!! the foundation of retributive justice is:

(1) that those who commit certain kinds of wrongful acts, paradigmatically serious crimes, morally deserve to suffer a proportionate punishment; (2) that it is intrinsically morally good—good without reference to any other goods that might arise—if some legitimate punisher gives them the punishment they deserve;

obviously this is how much of the western world conceives of punishment and western media is consequently saturated with narratives that espouse this. most of the time, restorative justice is seen as mutually exclusive with retributive justice, though there are some people who say they can be used in tandem. i disagree anyway.

i think solas's endings grapple with these ideas in a way that is... messy. its confusing because we dont actually know if he is truly imprisoned, in the sense that he cannot leave. we know he is in A prison, though its unclear whether its the new regret prison that rook was in, or the black city (epler refused to clarify this during the AMA because of "spoilers", while trick said the implication is he is "going back to the prison", the epilogue slides imply he is in the black/golden city, as does his quest to heal the blight which only exists in the black city). we also do not know what capacity he has to leave. with lavellan or after being "redeemed" by willingly binding himself to the veil, he does not have the lyrium dagger but he does have the capacity to free himself from his regrets (if hes in the regret prison) or heal the blight (if he's in the black city), exemplified by his golden epilogue slides. if he is tricked or fought, he is not in a mental space to overcome his regrets and does not swear to atone by healing the blight, but he does have the lyrium dagger with him, so we can assume he can just use it to leave, the way we literally see him do earlier in the game lol. whatever message they are trying to send with his "punishment", i think it is muddied by the vagueness of what actually happens to him in the end and where he goes.

if the message truly is that he "deserves" to be imprisoned in the fade for his long list of crimes, i find that lazy and nonsensical. first of all, he loves the fade and has been dying to return to it so thats not really a gotcha, but more importantly, which crime warrants this punishment? and is his punishment proportional? this is impossible to answer because we do not know what the punishment truly is. we also dont really even know what crime he's being imprisoned for. taking down the veil? he didnt actually get to do that. are we punishing him for something he didn't do yet? is it for killing varric? sure, i guess that one works. its the strongest of the options we have, but the game is also pretty clear that its not what varric would want. what about all of the other people he has killed? the spirits he sacrifced in that siege on elgar'nans temple? the mages who summoned and corrupted wisdom which he incinerates alive? flemythal and felassan? do they deserve retribution via solas's imprisonment? would they want that? would they find it just and satisfying? the game does not ask these questions. so we dont know. does he deserve to be imprisoned for for what he did to the titans? ok, maybe. this is stronger than the others at least. but in the trick/fight endings he doesnt vow to heal the blight, so what does his imprisonment do for the dwarves and the titans spirits? this is what i mean when i say his imprisonment is retributive, but it is not even thoroughly retributive. it does not think deeply about what solas deserves for his crimes and the proportionality of such a punishment, but it is clear that we are supposed to that he deserves to be in prison, it is morally good that he is receiving "justice", and rook is a hero for imprisoning him. his punishment is presented as a moral good because he deserves it. unfortunately for veilguard, i dont think i would ever be convinced by this message in any narrative anywhere, even if it was better written, because this is not a moral philosophy that i subscribe to.

his redemption endings feel so much better and more satisfying because his vow to use his immortality and knowledge to heal the blight that he created is restorative and has a direct correlation to his crime of creating the blight by tranquilizing the titans in the first place. his imprisonment achieves nothing outside of removing him as a "threat", which is ruined by the fact that he has the dagger and can just leave lol. devoting the next significant portion of his life to alleviating the titans suffering is not just reparative remedy that directly affects the people and creatures he has harmed, it also actively makes the world of thedas a better place. to be clear, im not saying solas is innocent. he is guilty. of a lot of things. he bears responsibility for a lot of things. he would qualify as a war criminal. but i do not believe in retributive justice. veilguard having solas kill varric because trespasser made me sympathize with him "too much" is not going to make me believe in retributive justice. for the non-atonement imprisonment endings to feel satisfying you have to subscribe to this ideology of moral desert and punishment and a lot of people do. the entire american carceral system is founded on it. so is christianity. and bioware clearly subscribes to it as well. you might disagree with me and subscribe to it yourself. thats fine. but i believe it has caused a lot of harm to our world and continues to do so. seeing it manifested in media is always disappointing to me.

regardless of the technicalities of his imprisonment, his binding to the veil is the one thing that happens regardless of his ending, and i agree that it is icky for similar reasons. the veil is his responsibility, as is the blight which he will be keeping contained with his life, so i guess you can interpret it as proportional? but again, what crime is he paying for with binding his life to the veil? is he not paying for a crime at all? is binding his life to the veil even part of his punishment? or is it just something he has to do because he's the only person alive that can do it? if that is the case, that it has to be him because he is the only proper sacrifice, and not that he deserves it, then what does it say about rook that they sacrifice someone undeserving? if he is deserving, why exactly? if he wasn't the only elven god left alive, would he still be deserving of such a fate? if the answer is no, then he does not deserve to be bound. what gives rook the right to make this call? based on the convo they have before the ending where they plan to bind him to the veil, its not clear if rook binds him because they think he deserves to be bound to one of his greatest regrets, or because he's quite literally the only option. either way, i think there is an argument for it being cruel, and unearned coming from someone like rook, who really has barely been a victim of solas's sins outside of a 2 week time-out. literally harding binding him would've been far more satisfying. or imagine if fragment mythal went rogue and did it, or morrigythal did. mythal would not be justified either but at least it would be fucking banger and evil and interesting of her. anyway.

i think your point about what it means for the elves to lose their final living god, outside of mythal who is [redacted] ? is a fantastic point. through solas's binding, they also lose the veil-less future he represented that was promised to be a better world for them. would it really have been? probably not. solas clearly thinks so. but we will never know lol. the failure of the story to grapple with the dissolution of the elves entire belief system is one of its most egregious ones, and i think this is a symptom of it. dragon age's elven lore got itself into a weird spot by veilguard and i think they just abandoned it rather than attempting to write themselves out of it. i love stories that grapple with the average person's culpability as complacent in imperialism. this is part of why fullmetal alchemist is my fav story of all time and you should watch it (fullmetal alchemist:brotherhood on hulu please im begging. but you have to watch the "brotherhood" one not the other one. its complicated dont ask). veilguard seemed to want to do something like this, but they got themselves into weird spot with the elves because their evil, slavery-based empire is a thing of the distant past, and in the present they are systemically oppressed and have no social or political power.

usually in these sorts of stories, someone currently living in an imperialist society who is directly benefiting from that imperialism is confronted with their complacency and asked to rise to the occasion of standing up for what is right, despite their material best interest. they often sacrifice their privilege as a benefactor of imperialism in the present to attempt to make up for the evils that system has inflicted on others. fmab does a wonderful job of this. there is at once both an acknowledgement that no, this is not literally YOUR FAULT, you did not order a genocide or press the nuke button, but you have benefited from it and/or participated every day of your life, whether that is through the stolen land you live on, the fact that you have never seen war in your home country, the way you can buy whatever fruit you want at the grocery store any time of year, or the way your tax dollars fund the bombs being dropped on children thousands of miles away, and you do have a moral obligation to do whatever you can to fight back. i believe this is a very important lesson for the average american (and canadian since we are talking about bioware), and anyone that lives in an imperialist country, that a lot of people have not yet learned ... lol.

this feels along the lines of what veilguard was going for (or maybe they werent and this was accidental, idk which is worse), but it fails because the elves are not currently benefiting from their past empire, like at all. actually, they live in squalor and at risk of constant violence from human empires. they have experienced centuries of genocide, violence and slavery at this point in modern thedas. the imperialistic success of the elvhen empire has absolutely no bearing on their current lives, it provides them with no privilege, and it gives them no culpability in its evils. they are thousands of years removed from it. and its not like "oh the british empire was dissolved 50 years ago so imperialism is over" no. because britain's wealth and power are a direct result of that imperialism, thus they do still benefit from it presently, even if the "official empire" is dissolved. this is true for most empires. but with the elves of thedas, they have none of the power or privilege that the elvhen empire accrued through its evils. if anything, it is tevinter that benefits most from the lost elven empire considering how much of their society is founded on its technology, and the fact that. you know. they are currently, modernly, presently an empire based on slavery. OF ELVES. so why, then, does veilguard present the elves as culpable? why does the angry titan harding creature say they are "thriving" at the titans expense? why does bellara take personal responsibility for the evils that elgar'nan and ghilan'nain commit when she had nothing to do with them? the messaging with this is so strange. it would make sense if elves were still the ruling class but... they're not. the only remnants of the empire that they have access to is their own bodies... which are systemically, bought, sold, and mutilated. though the game does erase much of the racism they face in what i can only assume was an attempt to make this work.

the combo of this + solas's trick/fight endings for what is fundamentally, according to this game itself, a desire for a better world for elves and spirits, no matter if it is misled or his methods are violent, is a depressing, bleak message that i find to be irresponsible to be sending in 2024 and considering the real world groups of people that elves are based on, most notably of the dalish as indigenous north americans. veilguard sees elves lose not just their understanding of their past, dissolving their entire worldview, their conception of their cultural identity, and their relationship to their religion, all without sufficient (or any) exploration of how devastating such a process would be, but by imprisoning solas, erasing his followers and supporters from existence, and binding him to the veil, it also robs them of the possibility of a more just future... while asking you to cheer because he deserved it. dont try to make the world a better place unless you do it the right way. work with the world as it is. your attachment to the past (when you werent being genocided regularly) is a disease. you deserve to go to jail because you tried to change the world in a way that that was too disruptive. get over it! move on! rot in jail!

[shorthaltsjester]

coming off the high of finishing the draft of the last of my exegetical/theory heavy chapters of my thesis and while i was writing i was thinking a lot about why applying real world political philosophies to exandria specifically tends to fall flat and like. even beyond the explicit treatment of things like homophobia as nonexistent and hegemony functioning wildly differently if it really actually exists in exandria as we conceptualize it in our actual world really boils down to the works that make up a lot of the roots of the leftist theory people apply to exandria. like obviously marx is a big guy, nietzsche has more influence than you’d think given his reputation as the internets (poorly interpreted) sad boy, and less people probably know the names of the critical theorists that came out of the frankfurt school but you’d know their ideas — and they all have their toes in countless leftist ideas today, whether their influence is explicit or not. what’s notable in all those theorists is something found in the argumentative and background work that they provide before the claims most people on the internet know re: the workers of the world uniting, god’s being dead, and the culture industry, whether in their previous work or just earlier in the same books that people have read the goodreads quotes of: first principles.

if you’re unfamiliar with the term, it’s just a philosophy word for basic proposition that cannot be deduced from a previous claim. And for a whole lot of works in the history of moral and political philosophy (as well as other less relevant branches), one of the most common first principles you could find was the proposition that god exists. so much of the work of philosophers who inform leftist theory has required them to do the work of either coming up with a different first principle and justifying it and/or providing justification for why first principles are in themselves a flawed notion. nietzsche was so impactful in his claim that god is dead because it targets the very notion that history and the philosophy in it was finding the proposition that god exists to be unsatisfactory if unsupported. marx then was only able to ground his historical materialism because that first principle re: god was able to be dismantled. critical theorists, like adorno for example, were only able to do their work in light of accepting that god is not something worth appealing to without justification. and the reason any of this is relevant to the fantasy world of a silly internet show where voice actors roll dice is because any leftist theory whose most foundational basis is the realization and gradual societal acceptance that the claim “god is real” could not be assumed but had to be given justification will always end up being unsatisfactory when it is applied to a world where “god is real” is not only factually true but is also societally accepted and the existence of those who might philosophize about the gods is a direct product of those gods’ existence.

this isn’t to say there can’t be insight granted by applying these theories anyway (looking at my blorbos and applying philosophical theories is my favourite hobby, just ask my thesis supervisor) nor is it to say that the risks of trying to apply these theories to exandria starts and ends with its failing to be philosophically apt — but there have been many great posts circulating re: the issues with viewing certain facets of exandria through an “it’s a colonialist metaphor” lens and many similar cases so i won’t dive in here. just pointing out that as a facet of the objective truth that can exist in a fictional world, especially a world established by gods (world here being a word that includes the existence of mortals), some of the foundational propositions of the philosophical arguments at work in those theories are rendered false in the exandrian context. but this also means that, if the gods leave exandria in some sense, i will have a very fun time unpacking a nietzschean interpretation of their absence. because i predict that though the gods will be dead/gone, his meaning of god being dead will Not be fulfilled since ostensibly the majority of exandria still looks to the gods in love and in doubt as providers of guidance, and i question how much their presence actually informs the depth of that dependence. anyway. that’s my philosophical enrichment for the night.

[flaakea-blog]

Last post after rewatching x men apocalypse

I believe the trauma Charles endured in this movie is severely overlooked.

His first encounter with Erik happened through Cerebro, where he witnessed Erik’s desperate memories and the tragedy that befell him. Charles, as always, was ready to offer love and support, but Erik—broken and consumed by darkness—chose a different path. Given his nature and the betrayals he has faced, his reaction is understandable, though certainly not justified. After all, the very humans he seeks to destroy include his own mother, his wife, and his daughter.

Regardless, instead of turning to a friend, Erik decides to offer a sacrifice on a silver platter—or rather, on Charles’ metal wheelchair—to Apocalypse. He has no idea what the entity intends to do with Charles, but it’s clear that whatever it is, it will only bring him harm.

As for Erik’s betrayal, it wasn’t entirely surprising, but this time, it hit harder because of the circumstances.

Charles wasn’t just collateral damage in Erik’s plans—he was the sacrifice itself. Along with the psychological and physical violation he endured, this made his experience in the film one of the most brutal and impactful, yet it wasn’t given nearly as much focus as it deserved.

Yet despite all of this, Charles does not respond with anger or resentment. He still hopes Erik will see the goodness within himself (which he eventually does—but only after Charles loses his hair, of course! 🧍). But it’s all in vain.

‎‏For Charles, even when Erik betrays him, he doesn’t view it as outright treachery. Instead, he sees a broken person making destructive choices due to his pain. That’s why he never truly gives up on him. However, the problem with this level of understanding is that it makes Charles the biggest victim. He’s always the one who gets hurt because he refuses to set boundaries.

( in DOFP charles wasn’t himself)

Anyway!

Apocalypse attacks Charles in the one way he would hate the most—by forcing him to use his powers to manipulate others, stripping them of their free will. In mere seconds, we see just how powerful Charles truly is when Apocalypse compels him to disarm the world and send a global message of terror.

Losing control over himself was the worst thing that could happen to someone like Charles, who built his entire philosophy on free will and choice.

he was desperately resisting. And when he is finally rescued, it is Raven who falls into Apocalypse’s grasp.

Acopalyps calls out, Come Charles!

Tears fill his eyes—he was ready to surrender himself for Raven anyway, saying, He wants me. But the process reveals a terrifying truth: this was never about Charles as an individual. If Apocalypse controls him, he controls the entire world. We can see the tears in his eyes as he realizes this.

And so, Charles is forced to fight again within his own mind—only to lose.

And then, at long last, Uncle Erik decides to step in. (After Charles had already lost his hair, of course! 🧍)

I think people severely underestimate the trauma Charles went through in this film—the violation, the misuse of his power, the betrayal by a friend… I would mention the loss of his hair, but that seems to be the only part everyone actually cares about.( idont blame them though)

‏It feels like the everyone took Charles’ trauma for granted because he’s always expected to carry burdens without complaint. This is a recurring issue with leader-type or morally grounded characters—they’re expected to be strong, so their personal struggles are often overlooked .

It is frustration that the film / fanfics explores other characters’ trauma in depth that why my post was so long! To talk about it 🙂‍↔️🤍

And thank you.

The first time I watched this film, my attention was mainly focused on Erik and Peter. It’s strange how much one’s perspective shifts upon rewatching. (It’s still interesting, of course—just not nearly as much as Charles.)

[fallendev0tionvn]

Im slow.. when it comes to lore of Clive lmao but hey its interesting, so may i ask what's Nietzsche philosophy.. so like i can watch his philosophy, so i can understand! :D

i've been stalking your account to understand Clive but I just realize i am slow when it comes to lore LMAOO, oneee... question that is a Slight NSFW (Maybe..?), is Clive gentle when it comes of Him and MC do it for a first time?

(i just realized i change topic to add one question which is not related to Clive's lore :P)

I'll answer the second question first, Clive is always gentle! He only wants to bring you pleasure, not pain. The only time he gets a little rough is when he's feeling jealous🏃‍♀️.

ANYWAY.

I'm SORRY for the person I'm about to become, but get ready for a LONG yapping session (I was Dostoevskij in my past life) that probably won't make sense (keep in mind that I wanted to be either a comic artist, a psychologist or a philosophy professor...explains a lot). Half of this is from my notes when I was studying for my graduation exam💀

First of all Nietzsche is one of the most misunderstood philosophers. Why? He's either "idolized" by those red pill/looksmaxxing guys without realizing that he actually goes against their morals, or edgy wannabe "nihilists" for the quote "God is dead." (Nihilism is a form of extreme pessimism, in simple terms, it's the belief that there's no true meaning in life, nothing can be known or communicated. But if Nietzsche is telling you to destroy the old meanings of life TO create your own instead of listening to what others say, would he still be considered a nihilist? Sure, active nihilism is a thing- but in my opinion he is NOT a nihilist).

His philosophy has also been used historically for the worst things that I won't even mention. Why? his sister edited some of his last unfinished works based on HER own beliefs when he ended up in the asylum. Many think he was a "....", when- let's be real and study a bit of history- if Nietzsche's mental health deteriorated the year THAT political figure was born (1889), how could he possibly be associated with him? Literally, tf.

The reason for this is because I think many don't read or study his philosophy in the correct order, nor do they know the timeline of his ideas.

To understand the concept of the "Übermensch", you have to start from the very beginning, when he first mentions the Dionysian and Apollonian spirits- the übermensch is supposed to bring back the rebirth of the "tragic spirit". (Übermensch= overman, the highest version of oneself a person can become, the "better" version of you, basically).

What key concepts did I take inspiration from? (I say inspiration because not everything is directly related to Nietzsche, I started from his main concepts to create characters, lore etc.)

ETERNAL RETURN:

(Bad ending: The cycle ends here)

See Clive's necklace? The symbol on his bicep and the main menu? The ouroboros.

It's such a deep concept and it asks: "What if every moment of your life had to repeat itself endlessly, in the exact same way, forever?"

This means everything, every pain, every joy, every regret, would return again and again and again. This NOT about whether it's scientifically true, we don't know if we're destined to relive the same life after death. It's a thought experiment, a way to ask yourself "would I still want to live my life if I knew I'd relive my worst moments forever? How would I act?"

If your answer is no, you're not affirming your existence. If yes, you're embracing life fully. In a way, you'd try to be more yourself and live with fewer regrets, right?

DIONYSIAN VS APOLLONIAN:

(The intro of the game, Silas and Clive's conversation)

To simplify it: Think of the two hemispheres of the brain.

Right brain = Dionysian (chaos, passion, music, imagination, intuition, emotion). This side is emotional, creative, raw, deeply human. It's the spirit Nietzsche believed humanity lost.

Left brain = Apollonian (logic, structure, rules, order). This side is rational, clear, less human.

Why did Nietzsche use greek gods to describe this? Because he rejected the "classical and elegant" image of Greece we learn about in school. To him, archaic Greece was the perfect society because it embraced chaos, suffering, and the tragic. (That's why I added greek mythology :3)

He also saw greek tragedy (a form of ancient drama/theatre that expresses human suffering, fate, and moral conflict) as the perfect fusion of the Apollonian and Dionysian. This fusion created a form of art that embraced life in all its beauty and suffering.

With Socrates (ancient greek philosopher), the Dionysian spirit was killed. We began to exalt reason over everything, meaning everything had to be explained, justified, or made logical. This made humanity obsessed with truth and control, disconnecting us from the fullness of life.

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."

Clive tried to force himself to lean more towards the Apollonian, he suppressed his emotions, tried to follow "moral rules", and tried to look "normal".

To explain the change between his younger self and current self there's an iconic quote:

"Become who you are" In the sense that in life, we constantly follow models that are necessary- because we grow through imitation. Children grow by watching, by imitating. But then, we must detach from this imitation and become who we truly are, a process of self reckoning.

After his "death", Clive starts being himself. There's a balance now, but you can still influence him to lean more towards his Dionysian or Apollonian side.

To live a full, healthy life, we need to embrace both sides:

"The tree that grows to heaven must send its roots to hell."

GOD IS DEAD:

(Who helped Clive?)

Nietzsche's most misunderstood quote.

Saying "God is dead", as he writes, implies that God once existed, or at least, that he was once central to the way humans explained the world. After all, only something that has existed can die; things that have never existed don't die. That's why Nietzsche has this declaration spoken not by an atheist, but by a madman. The atheist and the believer ARE part of the same system aren't they? One says "yes", the other says "no", but they're both within the same structure of thought, a world where God is STILL a reference point.

The madman on the other hand, speaks from outside that system. When he says "God is dead", he's not just denying the existence of God- he's saying that the world is no longer ORGANIZED around God. There was a time when everything was explained through God, when God gave order and meaning to existence. But today, that's no longer the case.

We must understand that Nietzsche, often read in an oracular and overly dramatic way, is actually a profundly coherent philosopher. His thinking is rigorous; If churches are now empty, if they became museums, tombs for god (visiting them for the "Affreschi", example: "La cappella sistina"), it's because he is dead. We killed him, or more precisely, we forgot him- because already with the scientific revolution, and even earlier with Renaissance, man placed himself at the center. We no longer live in a world explained through God, but through human reason, science and self determination. (That's why I chose literally the "forgotten God" from greek mythology. If you figure out who he is, you'll learn he actually died.)

Now if you want to learn more about Nietzsche:

His philosophy goes through THREE major phases;

- The youthful phase: Influenced by Schopenhauer (another amazing philosopher, highly recommend reading about him too), celebrated ancient greece, wrote "The Birth of Tragedy", Introduced the Apollonian and Dionysian spirits.

- Enlightment phase: Distanced himself from religion and idealism, embraced critical thinking, dismantled traditional values, wrote "Human, All Too Human".

- Mature phase: Developed his core concepts -> eternal return, übermensch, death of god, wrote "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" "On the genealogy of Morality" "Ecce Homo"

[groversoup]

The Search For Meaning in Everhood 2

I've seen a lot of confusion and negativity surrounding this game's approach to storytelling. "What was the point of all that? What does any of this mean? What is this game even about?" Alright, I hear you, and I'm going to try to answer those questions in my own way, assuming that you actually want answers. Here is my incomplete but still quite involved analysis of Everhood 2's major themes and narrative.

Part 1: What does any of this mean?

Whereas Everhood 1 was about death, Everhood 2 is about life. Well, that's part of it anyway- there's another major theme I'll have to get to when it's time, but for now let's just assume that it's only about one thing. Everhood 2 is about the meaning of life, or more precisely, humanity's search for that meaning. What is our purpose here? Does that question even have an answer- is that answer even worth pursuing? What does any of this mean? Something does get said about the meaning life, again and again: all is vanity. But who is saying it, and should you listen to them?

Shade and Nihilism

Shade is an overwhelming antagonistic force in the world of Everhood 2, an unkillable, unstoppable god that masterminds or manifests endless attacks against the player. Shade is also by far the most complicated narrative device in the entire Everhood 2 toolbelt, so we're gonna have to pick them apart piecemeal and only talk about their "pieces" as they become relevant.

Shade is more of a force of nature than an actual person, so they can't exactly have a philosophy on life as they experience it, but that doesn't mean they have nothing to say about it. It's their influence on the world and story of Everhood 2 that produces messaging about life's meaning. Specifically, Shade is an incarnation of Nihilism- the rejection of meaning. All is vanity. And all of their direct interactions with the player reinforce this idea.

The Singularity: The Rejection of Life's Value

From a moral standpoint, Shade's actions truly are meaningless. They give no weight to the value of life- positive or negative. Their control of the God Machine and the genocide of the alien race wasn't done out of hatred or a belief that they deserved death. It was done arbitrarily.

The God Machine itself DOES have a moral reason for its actions, though. "Abandon this reality, embrace true unity." The god machine views life itself as something without value, an obstacle to the true purpose of "unity" in death. It uses Nihilism as a justification to commit unbelievable atrocities.

Clown Dolls: The Rejection of Responsibility

Have you noticed how strongly Shade is associated with jesters? Bobo the Jester God is one of the game's most present villains, and the final pawn to fall before Shade finally stops using proxies and confronts the player directly. The Cazok doll is practically another form of Shade- after giving you a death coin, they state that you'll need it to see the "real thing." Shade's first musical theme upon reappearing in the soul cabin is Cazok's. Shade is the truth behind the falsehood of Cazok. Shade even refers to themself as "not evil, just an entertainer." What's the meaning behind this association with clowns? What do they signify in this world?

Absurdity. Meaninglessness. Entertainment. Cazok's role in the story is a bit too meta for this early in the analysis, so let's look at Bobo. Bobo The Midnight Jester is so much like their master in so many ways. Bobo is an actor, playing dumb in the scam district before revealing their true nature in the gold room. Bobo has a flair for the dramatic, wearing their nature on their sleeve by donning the jester hat. And what exactly is their motivation for their actions throughout the game? Only entertainment. They give you an infinite supply of useless currency because it's funny. Their final fight with you is defined by fun, Bobo viewing it as a game. They have a collection of sentient slimes which they presumably use as psychoactive drugs- BOBO is SMOKING PEOPLE.

So what is this evil clown mindset? Fun above everything else. If life has no meaning, then I can do whatever I want. My actions don't have substantial consequences because substance is fake. All is vanity.

That Insane Ending: Baiting You Into Nihilism

I don't need to tell you how bad the ending of Everhood 2 is. After sailing past the end of time, reality breaks down. Basic continuity stops making sense, your movement through the realms of consciousness seems entirely random, characters appear and disappear with no explanation, and at the end of it all, the crown jewel of the entire game… The Final Boss. Riley is possessed by Shade, takes over the Hillbert Hotel offscreen for seemingly no reason, and is unceremoniously killed off in a boss fight that doesn't even properly conclude. And then you breakdance on their splattered corpse. Cut to "A Game by Foregin Gnomos" with hilariously ill-fitting music. And then you get sent back to the checkpoint before the second boatman trip. If you got to this moment and said out loud "Are you kidding me?! This was all for NOTHING?", then allow me to clarify:

Yep! There is no grand revelation, no takedown of the big bad, no conclusion for any character. Perhaps it's a mistake to ascribe this much intent to a character like Shade, but I can't help but feel like they did this on purpose. Not just giving you a non-ending, but doing it in a way that was perfected in a lab to piss you off as much as possible. (That's definitely what the devs were doing at least.) They hijacked the narrative, tightened their strings around a character that has no business being a villain, and then didn't even let you say goodbye- in gameplay or story- before ripping them away and then flipping the table entirely. It certainly inspires thoughts of… "This didn't mean anything." But is that the takeaway you're supposed to have? If you still think this game is meaningless, I'm afraid you're losing the game. The villain, in a final bid to drag you to their level, ascended beyond the confines of their world to spit in your eye and goad you into accepting their ideology.

"The ending sucks, why did I even bother playing if it was going to end like that?" Well… that's a good question. That is THE question, the one we asked at the very beginning. Why do you bother? Why do you live? It's certainly not because you're going to like the ending.

The Search for Meaning

So there's Shade's role in the story. From one perspective anyway. Where does that leave you? Is the villain right? I said that Everhood 2 is about the meaning of life, so is this game saying that its own story- and life as a whole- is meaningless? Well, no. The God Machine wasn't right, Bobo wasn't right, and Shade isn't right. There IS a way to beat them, but it's gonna take some work. And I don't mean in the game.

Other perspectives

Shade is powerful, omnipresent, and ruthless. But they're just one voice. Who else offers up their take on the meaning of life? The characters of Everhood 2 have been alive for a long, LONG time, surely they've had some time to figure this stuff out.

Raven is the first character you speak to with their actual name displayed. Raven's purpose for living is pretty obviously spelled out- destroy the Root of All Evil. The thing is though… they're really bad at it. Raven is the spirit airlines of spirit guides. They make constantly wrong assertions, manipulate people to get their way, and ultimately fail at their life's work. Because it was never possible in the first place. After the duality trial with the mushrooms fails to bear fruit, Raven's purpose fizzles out. They're left directionless, meditating on what they can do now that they've given up on their original plan. What they settle on is helping you, in whatever way they can, to make up for their failures. So while Raven isn't portrayed as outright evil like some of Shade's puppets, their philosophy is… flawed.

The Boatman! Here we go, this is how you discover the meaning of life. A spiritual journey across space and time to meet god and attain Final Enlightenment. This has gotta be the answer we were looking for. The enlightenment you reach is that you were god the whole time, and then… something about duality. Does that actually mean anything? It certainly doesn't to you or me, in our real lives, but does it mean anything to our character? Does it mean anything for the narrative? This happens after the reset point, so it never actually happens, Shade just undoes it all. And beyond the observed events, you have to die to obtain this "grand revelation." Everyone on that boat has to die. Is that worth it? Was this worth pursuing? I don't think it was.

Sam and Irvine are what I would call… philosophically understated. They aren't into that spiritual talk like the edgy bird, they're just vibing! They've spent hundreds of years visiting countless realms through countless dimensional doors. Going on cool adventures, grabbing loot, playing video games, and watching TV. Awesome. This isn't… a worldview though, is it? Oh god I think it might be. Sam and Irvine don't actively pursue meaning through grand battles waged against the forces of darkness or long speeches from religious figures, they just exist. They do what they feel like doing. But in an important distinction from Bobo, their desires are not the peak of their existence. They don't sacrifice everything in the name of chaotic entertainment, they value their friendships, and sometimes they just lend a helping hand to vulnerable people who need it. Even if they know it can't last. Sam and Irvine adopt a simple goal over the course of the game- get to the Pandemonium and throw a wild party. And at the end of everything, past the series of endings and back to the point of no return, they're the only ones who achieved their goal. I believe that these two grey knuckleheads carry the true message of the game in their hearts.

The Meaning of Life

So what that's it? The point of life is to live? I know, not the most intellectually stimulating take, but that's my reading. The need to be "greater" than a mere human existence, the search for a divine enlightenment at the end of your life, the need for your time on earth to be one long all-encompassing narrative with a transcendent ending- it only ends in disappointment. The meaning you can find in your life is experiential, it's in the everyday. It's about having fun with friends, viewing interesting art, making things better for yourself and others whenever you can. Purple Mage says it explicitly (if you can find them), definining our own meaning is the closest we can come to divine creation. How your life ends doesn't matter because you won't be around for it. And when you choose to reject the importance of the ending, Shade's final insult to you loses its weight. They can't ruin the narrative because this was never a narrative in the first place, it was just a series of experiences, and it was fun! With that framework, I can't be disappointed in this terrible, terrible ending anymore, it is just too funny to be mad at.

Part 2: A Story About Stories

Philosophy about life out of the way, but it still feels like something's missing. It's irresponsible to ignore the bizarre structure of this game. There isn't one clear goal that you work toward over the whole game; the goal keeps shifting. What's that about? What was Evren's whole deal? And describing Shade as just a takedown of Nihilism feels reductive. Let's open up the second major theme of Everhood 2: the exploration and deconstruction of narrative.

Shade and Conflict

Much more explicit than any philosophical themes, Shade is the embodiment of conflict. Specifically, from a storytelling perspective. They have no personal stake in any of the chaos they cause, they just generate endless obstacles and villains for you to overcome. This is where moral analysis of the character becomes kind of tricky. Shade may be the root of all evil, the source of all evil, but in their perspective, they're not evil themself, just an entertainer. And I legitimately don't know if I agree with them, because I don't know if Shade is aware of their status as a fictional character. Despite their ties to nihilism, it would be difficult to call them a nihilist if they're only killing off fictional characters in a story that they're effectively writing.

That's not especially relevant, though. Regardless of Shade's awareness of the metanarrative, their impact on it stays the same. They create conflict, you enter the story to clash against it, and through your overcoming of adversity, you experience the joy of resolution. That is the dual purpose that you two fill in this world. Shade is obsessed with you because they can only carry out their nature in opposition to you. "I find your attention intoxicating."

Endless conflicts, endless climaxes, endless stories. But a piece of media can only have one story, only one climax, right? Well… not really. Everhood 2 is a videogame, a nonlinear and interactive piece of media, and there's no set order in which to experience things. The individual adventures within dimensional doors don't set up plot hooks for later parts of the game to pay off, they're basically their own short stories. Everhood 2 is less a novel and more a collection of tone poems. This is what I mean when I say the game doesn't have a narrative. But that doesn't mean the first 90% of the game and the last 10% are unrelated.

Little Bites

The stories told through the first three dimensional doors are explorations on the theme introduced in part 1: what is the meaning of life? Specifically, for a world of people where death seems inconsequential (and toward the ending, is confirmed to be so.) The veggie kingdom is a valhalla-esque world of infinite combat where meaning is won through competition. The hillbert hotel is host to an endless set of bizarre locations and people to keep you experiencing new things, forever.

The alien world has the strongest thematic throughline of the first few worlds, and that's probably why it's the longest. It serves as a kind of microcosm of the entire game, at least when it comes to one specific point it's making: you keep returning to this place, asking it to continue its story, and every time you do, it makes things worse. Every thousand year jump in this world gives you a new purpose to fulfill, but the collateral damage of your adventures leaves the species you initially saved functionally extinct, with only a single member alive at the end.

The Collapse of the Narrative

This is also the case for the game's world as a whole. You keep being given a goal, completing it, and then… being given a new goal. As a self-insert, your character doesn't have a motivation, they just adopt the motivation of the last person they talked to, and so there's no natural endpoint for the story. At first you slay the dragon, and that seems like a satisfying endpoint, conquering your internal demons to become a more complete person. In another game that would have been saved for the final boss, but in Everhood 2 it's just a stepping stone, and new stones keep getting thrown in front of you, shakier and stranger, until it all slips out from under you.

This is something you're directly warned about by Dmitri and Evren. Your endless conflict with Shade is a downward spiral that will rip apart the world if you let it. As Shade scrambles to keep you entertained with new stories, new conflicts, they eventually run out of puppets with a workable history of wrongdoing and have to improvise. Bobo was Shade's last villain planned for you to encounter, and if Riley wasn't the next big bad… who else could it have been? There isn't really a natural place for the story to go, but it has to keep going anyway. Shade will never stop creating villains, so the only way to prevent their complete destruction of the world and the degradation of the narrative is to not engage with them at all. You get sent back to Pandemonium, and by refusing to start the ending sequence of events over again, the "true ending" is a dance party with your friends. After all, that's what Irvine and Sam wanted, and if engaging shade is going to ruin the world, why not just… not do it?

Now this I find very interesting. What's the message here? A takedown of… sequels? Storytelling in general? ART in general? Well, this is where I think the two disparate themes of Everhood 2 coalesce into something more specific.

Part 3: Fiction vs Reality

The logic of storytelling doesn't really work in the real world, and the opposite is also true. You can't really comment on both of these things in the same way, you can only comment on them individually, or you can comment on their relationship to each other. For me, the linchpin of enterpreting this game under these two lenses at once comes from an incredibly cryptic and mysterious source: Evren.

God and Angel

I kind of passed over the player discovering their identity as God earlier, and that's because I didn't find it super relevant to the philosophical theme of Everhood 2. As a metanarrative element though, it's incredibly important. You are God, not in the sense that you created this world, but in the sense that everything in it exists in service of you: the player. The reader of the text. You are unstoppable in the same way Shade is, which is why you are their other half. You're the undefeatable force of good that surmounts every obstacle and ends every story.

Evren is closer to a god as we understand it: the progenitor of the Everhood 2 universe, the sculptor of every character and location. They love the world they built and they hate to see you and Shade destroy it. They comment that they could trap you in a void forever, prevent you from moving forward, but "that would only anger God." Yeah I can see that being frustrating. And their one line that I agonized to understand, the one that brings this whole thing together, is from their boss fight during the ending. "We cannot exist. I cannot exist if God is in our presence." Your avatar awakening to Godhood dooms the world to nonexistance. Specifically, I believe this refers to the tension between fiction and reality becoming irreconcilable.

Making Things Simple

Human beings love to narrativize things. Childhood fables meant to impart morals, epic journeys that explore complex themes and provide entertainment. But they're just stories, they're not what life is like- they can't be what life is like. Our human existence doesn't have neat little stories with a well defined beginning, middle, and end. It doesn't have clearly defined cause and effect, or thematic throughlines, in the way that stories can. So what do you do when you want to tell a story that's real? A story that really accurately captures the whole breadth of the human experience? Well you can't. You can probably get close, but these things are too different to be mirrors of each other.

Everhood 2 places you in a world that's "real," in the ways I just mentioned. There is no overarching goal, no 3 act structure, no hero's journey. And then it places Narrativization as a destructive force of the universe. The need to make things linear, simplified, structured- the need to have a villain to pin the world's problems on. It eats away at Everhood 2. You are God, you are something innately high above the characters in this videogame, because you're real. The depth of your mind can't be reflected in the actions of a videogame avatar, and the depth of your world can't be summed up in a 20 hour series of text boxes. When your character becomes real, when you become yourself, the game can't rise up to meet you. It can't make a Narrative out of real life. They cannot exist with God in their presence. And this calls forth the apocalypse that Evren tried to prevent by hiding their identity as an angel.

Shade, no longer mistakable for a mere character, becomes an engine of destruction for the world. The metanarrative subsumes all logic and folds the world into a shape better suited to meeting you at your level. The only way Shade can provide a real conflict, a real villain, to you- to God, is to take the story you've been reading and end it in a way that causes you pain. This is why I find the rewind to the Pandemonium "ending" so compelling. It doesn't provide closure to the characters or the world, but that's never something you're going to see in real life. This is just a moment in time after achieving a shared goal with your friends. You're having fun at a party. That's the kind of satisfaction that IS real and can be found in our world. You can leave the end of time and the death of all your friends as a hypothetical, stuck behind a save point that you never need to walk past again. You already know what happens.

Conclusion

Art is really useful. It's capable of articulating ideas that we might struggle to with just our voices. It can inspire great emotional depth, spur philosophical development, and even change lives. But it cannot dictate a life- it shouldn't. You cannot arrive at the meaning of life by reading about it in a book, you cannot narrativize your way into a fulfilling existence. You have to get out there and find it. Everhood 2 isn't a story. It's a world that gets ruined by stories.

[butchjess]

Ok, so you said (maybe a couple weeks ago? I don't know how Time works) "nobody wants to talk about OCD Rory," but I want you to know that I have literally been thinking about that ever since you said it. So... PLEASE tell me about OCD Rory! I want to talk about it! Well, specifically I want YOU to talk about it, but I want to listen!

Okok.... me and @youhavethesun have been talking about ocd rory quite a bit and i've fleshed a lot of it out in my mind because of it. I think it can helpfully inform a lot of rory's worldview and the sense that she is pretty much holding a gun to her own head the entire show. from a meta standpoint the role of good girl is put upon rory only rly after the pilot episode. And to tie it to an in-universe explanation, i think viewing the show through an OCD rory lens makes it a lot more enjoyable to contend with the good girl archetype placed upon her bc it becomes a product of rory's beliefs and the undeniable fact (in her mind) that she was a "mistake" and that is this the reason that her entire family is basically broken. Even though emily tells her that it wasn't her fault in s1, I think that first conflict w/ christopher's parents rly cements this idea in her mind, when before she wasn't necessarily aware of this responsibility that she now has to fix her family, to keep them together, and to prove that her own existence outweighs (or at least balances out) all the negatives that resulted from it.

This framework allows for three main OCD struggles i think rory has. which is moral obsessiveness, self punishment, and a fixation on responsibility/guilt (there are other more official/psychiatric terms for these concepts but i'm treating this like a philosophy paper so i'm making my own terms. and also sometimes i despise psychiatry anyway). Her main rituals I'd say usually center around the idea of what she is "supposed" to do. and she has many habits to help her figure this nebulous idea out (pro/con lists, warping events to fit molds that are easier to understand, planned schedules of her day mainly wrt studying etc).

now, rory does some things that can be viewed as morally reprehensible (sleeping with a married man(even though he told her he broke up w lindsay but i digress), crashing the yacht, kissing jess), she only really does them if they make some kind of sense to her, or if she has just like given up on everything altogether as a way to punish herself for failure, or if it is a purely impulsive action driven solely by instinct and feeling (rare). She sleeps with dean because dean was supposed to be "hers" anyway, and it's her own fault that she let him down and fell in love with jess. she feels like she owes him a lot of things, because he was the perfect guy and she was just defective and couldn't make herself love him. which of course isn't even true, dean was pretty shitty and a source of a lot of her insecurities/irrational fears around relationships. The point is that rory believes dean was a great guy, partly because lorelai kept telling her that he was, but lorelai never saw the worst of their arguments anyway and also assumes dean is just a good guy. she never has any evidence to think otherwise (and she doesn't have a Failed Mirror Test Aggression reaction to him like she does with jess. and logan of course just comes across as an asshole at first glance anyway even to rory). and so this kinda warps a lot of rory's expectations around what a relationship is "supposed" to look like, and what you owe to the people that you're in a relationship with. I'd also like to note that dean makes fun of rory's pro/con lists when she doesn't say i love you back to him in s1. which is ofc unnecessarily cruel but it makes sense that he would take her hesitation as indecisiveness or something, and would link this to her lists that she uses specifically to help herself make the most logical decisions possible.

this extreme responsibility/irrational sense of guilt extends all the way to logan. she throws herself into taking care of him after his accident because he nearly got himself killed and she thinks it was her fault. if she didnt feel the way she did about him cheating on her (because rory did still fully think he cheated on her) and was more about to break up with him, then he wouldn't have gotten hurt. and if he had DIED, it would be even more her fault, and she would never forgive herself. Rory invalidates/tries to destroy her own genuine feelings of hurt, because she was in the wrong to feel that way at all. in her perception. again she warps her feelings/memories to fit this responsibility. so the moral obsessiveness ties directly into her responsibility for others. similarly when rory feels she's been wronged, or that other people have not done what they're supposed to, she feels free to be upset and angry about it. Like only after chris makes a promise to lorelai and rory that he fails to keep yet again, does rory decide he's pretty much a lost cause in her life. especially after luke and lorelai get together.

Of course the biggest and most comprehensible example of rory's self-punishment is after she misses her mom's graduation, and the panic rambling self loathing that results from it.

I don't think most people would respond with this feverish anxious neurotic amount of regret and self hatred and confusion and begging to be hurt to be punished and beaten and killed and blown up with a thousand grenades just to make it up to her mom. for doing the worst thing she could ever possibly do which is to let her down. She's not in love with jess because she can't be, she isn't supposed to be, she would never do something like that who is that girl. who is that FREAK. and she's only calmed down when lorelai turns it around on her and gets her to eat something with her by framing it as the best thing she could do for lorelai. for doing the worst thing in the world (skipping school to see the guy she's in love with and missing her mom's graduation), it has to be evened out. it has to be. everything will go back to the way it's supposed to be. We'll go anywhere you want, my treat, and I won't enjoy it.

[daisydisciple]

Ok thought not fully formed yet but I think everything would make a lot more sense if we thought of "sin" as more along the lines of "something that weakens your connection with God" and less "a morally bad action in the secular philosophical sense."

In modern secular philosophy, usually we only think of an action as "bad" if it causes measurable harm to society/the environment/another person etc. No victim = no crime. This makes perfect sense when we're thinking about regulating behavior with laws, rules, and, to an extent, social norms. The goal of this kind of thinking/regulating is to create a harmonious, free, and safe society in our mortal/temporal/earthly condition.

In contrast, Sin as a religious (Christian) concept is more concerned with the state of an individual soul and that soul's relationship with God. It is possible for something to be a sin and yet be a "victimless crime." (Arguably the "victim" here is actually the "perpetrator" but you know what I mean.) The goal of this kind of thinking is to help the individual be in harmony with God.

I think the problem here is when we conflate the two uncritically. Yes, there is a lot of overlap (murder, for example, would draw you further from God and also is harmful to the murder victim/their family/society.) But the two concepts are not one and the same. Just because a behavior is sinful doesn't mean it can and should be forbidden by law, rule, or even social norm. Likewise, just because enforcing or encouraging a certain behavior is beneficial to society doesn't mean that behavior is or isn't a sin.

I think this conflation is a source of miscommunication and misunderstanding. Lots of people seem to interpret calling a behavior sinful to mean "if you do this you are an bad person who is actively harming society."

I also think that's why people get so turned off by the concept of all sin being equal in the eyes of God. That isn't the same thing as all morally bad actions having equal weight or consequences in society. The point is that all sin separates us from God, and what His plan requires for us is for there to be zero separation. (That's where Jesus comes in). The point of saying all sin is the same in the eyes of God isn't to say that murder and not praying are equivalent in secular morality. The point is that someone "guilty" of not praying needs Jesus just as much as a murderer. (Because! We all need Jesus completely and equally.)

So anyway I guess my point is that Christians need to recognize that just because something is sinful (separates a soul from God) doesn't mean that that thing should be illegal or against the rules or even socially shamed.

But! Non-Christians should also understand that the concept of sin is distinct from secular morality. If I say that something is a sin, don't take it as me saying "anyone who does this is evil and depraved and deserves to be executed by firing squad." girl I sin. we all sin.

[demonsinmywindows]

okay so we all know saiki is a genius. we all know this. I’d love to elaborate.

Saiki can pretty much passively absorb everything he learns, and it seems like he doesn’t really forget anything. Even when he has those ‘uh oh’ moments that we’ve seen, it’s always been because of a distraction and not because lack of knowledge. Bc he absorbs so much information from his direct surroundings, it takes almost nothing for him to learn what’s required of him. ie; how he’s expected to act, the best route to get somewhere, what he learns in school etc.

Consequently, it takes him very little effort to accomplish the ‘regular’ academic expectations for his age. We’ve seen him do a years worth of homework in the blink of an eye… (here comes my hc)

Thus he has a lot of time on his hands. And Saiki is innately curious. To bide his time, he likes to delve into obscure topics, to learn things that are completely unfamiliar to the average person. So Saiki knows a lot, and Saiki reads a lot. At the very ~least~ he knows all about advanced quantum physics, from Kusuke’s mind. Now this MAY be me projecting, but I like to think that Saiki loves to research all things history and philosophy (the average person is not often thinking about these things beyond the surface level).

As a result, his classmates often see him reading about some of the most random and specific subjects ever (after all, what exudes ‘don’t talk to me’ more than reading a dense book?). They come to know that Saiki is the one to go to if they have any questions about ANY general knowledge (see also: kaido asking saiki for homework help even though his own class rank is much higher)

And maybe some of them wonder: why? Why does Saiki perform averagely at school, when he seems so interested in learning? Maybe someone finally asks him about some miscellaneous inconsequential fact…. and the next thing they know Saiki is spouting facts at a mile a minute. Oh you’re asking about Alexander the Great? Did you know that he died so young because he became paralyzed from contaminated wine and then was buried alive? Did you know Alexander’s lineage supposedly traces back to Achilles himself, suggesting that the events of the Trojan War have basis in truth? And if that is the case, what could have caused the decade long Mediterranean sea journeys of Odysseus and Menelaus who were descendants of the Minoan sea experts?

Okay anyways. Moral of the story, Saiki is a secret NERD and you cannot take that away from me. I live by the fact that he is just a random scholar of all things.

Plz expand, I would love to know ur thoughts/reactions

[germiyahu]

"If you describe a horrific and detailed act of racism committed by an IDF soldier or a Kahanist or other anti Arab extremist (say Baruch Goldstein's massacre), you'll find that a huge majority of Jews condemn him, his philosophy, his actions, denounce him and consider him a poor practitioner of Judaism"

No they don't, that's the whole fucking point.

Whenever IDF soldiers kill Palestinians the only reaction from Israelis you would get is them bringing up how military service is mandatory in Israel so you can't be mad at the soldier, how this is an extremely complex two-sided "conflict" where both sides are equally wrong and equally victims, how everything is the fault of the entire government of Hamas and Bibi (but just Bibi, they will never hold anyone else in the government accountable) and gaslighting people into believing that this is an isolated incident that doesn't normally happen and that the Israeli committing the crime will actually face any type of justice.

And this assuming that they would even acknowledge a crime has been committed instead of calling it "blood libel" and using what happens as a segue to talk about anti-semitism even more.

So you clearly don't know any Jews because Baruch Goldstein is one of the least controversial figures in Jewish history to condemn. Like, he probably has defenders in Israel but they're definitely a pretty small minority, and you'd be very hard pressed to find any diaspora Jews who approve of his crimes.

And aside from that, because yes people do defend the IDF when they are presented with similarly horrific sounding stories... but look what happens, most of these stories turn out to be exaggerated or completely false to begin with! This isn't about starry-eyed Jewish supremacy vs Muslims just doing an oopsie and they had good reasons for it, this is about truth. That's the key element. It's a little ridiculous to whine that Jews won't full throatedly condemn bombing a hospital and killing 500 people when that turned out to be a lie!

Baruch Goldstein was a terrorist, he factually provably committed horrific crimes. Osama Bin Laden was also a terrorist, he factually provably orchestrated horrific crimes. If you ask the average Jew to defend the former, they'd be equally as uncomfortable as if you asked the average Muslim to defend the latter. There are always going to be braindead terrorism fanboys in both groups, duh. I'm talking about the average person.

And here you are, deciding that no, the average Jew is a savage devotee to terrorism and genocide, just like every other Jew Hater online. It's becoming a bit stale. See that last part in particular, this is about a deep envious rage you feel that Jewish people "get away" with doing/thinking/saying "The Bad Thing" and you feel a need to bring them down a peg. You frame a very real thing (like blood libel is not trivial and Jewish people do not actually talk about it frivolously), as a privilege, a cheat code. You're jealous because you probably belong to a demographic that can't "milk" it's own historic oppression and tragedy, so you feel that Jews shouldn't "get" to.

But this is the real world, where exaggerating the alleged crimes of Jews is demonstrably linked with an increase in antisemitic rhetoric (check), harassment of Jews and Jewish institutions (check), and even violence (they just thwarted a planned terrorist attack in Brooklyn, very much the last roadblock to a liberated Palestine).

Anyway my point was that if you zoom out to more and more abstract concepts, a greater percentage of both Jewish and Muslim populations will probably support them. And I think it's telling that "a Jewish state founded on war and large violent population transfers" has a higher moral burden on it than "a Muslim state founded on war and large violent population transfers."

Ask a Muslim if they support "Pakistan exists" and how many would disagree? Realistically? But you dare act disgusted and shocked that a similar number and percentage of Jews support "Israel exists"? My entire question is why "This is a country that has done bad things and it exists amid ethnic conflict" is even on par with "this niche cult within a giant religion (literally they admitted to it) did a massacre on civilians."

If that's the moral equivalence then we're done here. I'm not playing games like that.

[alushroom]

i wonder how common it is for people to build their own spiritual philosophy from scratch.

i read feminist lit here and there, and do a lot of exploration and study into religions, spiritual philosophies, occult practices, etc to pick and choose what works for me, and this year these two things (fem lit and spiritual study) collided in a way that's made me shift into probably building my own spiritual philosophy, because of how bleak spiritual philosophies are for women.

i got into buddhism this past year, then discovered that traditionally, women can't reach enlightenment, or can only reach it if reincarnated as a guy....... i know this has changed, but i always prefer to go to the source of a philosophy and i hate to say it ladies, but this shit is fucking everywhere. we are demonic matter to these philosophies. so now i'm just building my own thing. the inevitable conclusion, tbh. i just didn't wanna face the mammoth task but to be true to myself, i have no choice. i do not want to go down some spiritual rabbit hole of wonder to then be slapped with a 'you are not actually welcome here' in some form. anyway my study thus far is further proof that misogynists are little freaks that still have a 'boys only' sign on their rotting shelter they're so desperately trying to keep together as they also build around it, destroying the land around it as well as, eventually, the shelter itself, and that anyone - even a fucking buddha - is not immune to being a woman hating idiot.

i urge both women and men to always research deeply into these things. can you morally trust a spiritual (and therefore sacred) philosophy if part of its history is exclusionary to a group of people because of how they were born? not very sacred to me.

[abattre]

I used to like sns but now it's the ship I hate the most, every day is a post how Sasuke is an angry twink whose only cure is naruto dick or calling him a misogynist gay who hates and despises all women

I had sort of the same experience with SNS actually. I used to be really into the ship, but the more time I spent looking at the story, the less it appealed to me. I think my initial enjoyment of SNS came mostly out of convenience, in the sense that Naruto used to be my favourite character and the ship leans into a lot of beneficiary elements for him. When you have a character you've become particularly attached to it's sort of intrinsic that you'd want to indulge them, and SNS was a bit of a 'have your cake and eat it too' thing I suppose.

Anyway, I think for a lot of people who aren't interested in any socio-political analysis of the story and can't recognise that Naruto aligning himself so strongly with Konoha completely recontextualises his dynamic with Sasuke after the massacre reveal; and moreover for the fans that just don't care about the context behind Sasuke's actions and the reality of his position in Shinobi society as the last member of an oppressed clan; it's easy to accept and perpetuate the idea that Naruto saved Sasuke from the nebulous darkness of his anti-establishment philosophy because that's what the narrative espouses at the end of the day. I can't really speak on how the anti-Konoha part of the fandom that do ship SNS perceives their relationship because I have no experience really engaging with that content. I do know that it's sort of an accepted condition that their relationship isn't healthy, and I get that that's an attractive factor to people in shipping too, so to each their own I guess.

I wouldn't really say I'm staunchly anti-SNS because, objectively, I can see why it appeals to people. Personally, I just find it a bit off-putting in my perception of the narrative and its conclusion. I honestly dislike how Naruto and Sasuke's relationship is written in the latter half of Shippuden. Purporting the idea that they always perfectly understood each other is kind of counterintuitive to introduce at the end of a story about both of them making choices that separated them because they didn't understand each other. It generally makes no sense to me, and also I think it undermines a lot of the development their relationship had in the original series. I guess what it comes to for me is I can't enjoy a romantic interpretation of Sasuke and Naruto's relationship any more because having the story end with Naruto getting everything he wants while Sasuke loses his autonomy and his pursuit of justice against Konoha to actualise that ending for Naruto makes me uncomfortable. I find it unrealistic to Sasuke's characterisation, and I dislike the narrative that forgiving Konoha is an act of moral absolution that Sasuke has to take part in to better himself.

I also find the sentiment that Naruto saved Sasuke from himself discomforting on principle. There's an aspect of considering the harm Sasuke was doing to himself when making the choices he did, but frankly I think that could have been addressed and resolved without Sasuke needing to become an agent of the institution that obliterated his life, it feels like that component was more a benefit to Naruto's happy-ending than anything else. The fandom predominantly has a very strange idea of Sasuke's character, so I guess it's just not really that interesting to most people to question whether Sasuke's concluding compliance with Konoha's ideology actually made sense for his arc. And for the people that do, well again I don't really seek out SNS content any more so I'm a bit unclear on how their relationship works in an anti-Konoha reading of the story. In general, I have no interest in policing what anyone ships, I just can't really see SNS as a gratifying construal of Naruto and Sasuke's relationship.

If you want to read a better analysis, you should check out this post though. It's a lot more in depth than anything I've written here and sums up pretty much my entire stance on SNS in a more articulate way lol.