#i doubt i'd ever post it

[erikatsu]

me having to restart cutscenes for elysian chapters because my focus had been on this particular shot of a previous cutscene

[liesmyth]

Is it better if John erased their memories, or if they came back that way and he just decided not to fix them?

It's immensely better if he intentionally mindwiped them. TO ME.

I'm a John fan. I think he's a tremendous tragic antagonist, and that everything he does in the HtN backstory is relatable if not painful familiar. He was under immense pressure, trying to mitigate the literal end of the world, having his mind and his whole self changed in ways he had no frame of reference to understand. He went from being desperate and trying to do his best to being carried away by circumstances to going absolutely fucking insane. There are many ways to rationalise John's actions all the way to the end, which is what makes it such an effective corruption arc. If you want to engage in some blorbo apologism, there are plenty of excuses to be found.

There's absolutely no fucking way to excuse mind-wiping his friends. THAT is why it's so important to me that he did it deliberately, in cold blood, justifying it to himself as a way to take their burdens upon himself so they wouldn't have to feel guilty. He removed their agency. He didn't want any peers in the world he'd created. He could have acknowledged what had happened, for better or worse, and tried to make amends - but instead, he chose to remove their knowledge that something had even happened in the first place. It's the turning point! I need him to go into that with his eyes fully open. He's doing it on purpose! He weighed the pros and cons and prioritised his comfort over his friends' identities.

EYE believe that his story arc is infinitely more powerful if there's a point we can look at and say "here is when John's story went from things happening TO HIM to John doing terrible things". Especially in a backstory that's ultimately about divine corruption and losing touch with your humanity, I think that turning point needs to be something that has a personal value to him, something that can't be chalked up to "he was high on death" or "humanity was doomed" or even "he touched the soul of the earth and went insane."

I think it's important, thematically, that one of his first actions after acquiring godlike powers was to make sure that no one would be able to remember his human self and challenge him on equal footing, even if he's still internally lamenting his own loneliness and wishing things were different.

Obviously, this is all coming from a known John Girlie™ and Eldritch Alecto Enjoyer — I interpret John's ascension to quasi-divinity as something that was mostly imposed ON him and he couldn't control, which is why I need him to cross the moral event horizon outright with the mind violation of his inner circle. Someone who views John as more directly culpable in the end of the earth might feel less strongly about the importance of the mindwipe in his story arc than I do, but TO ME it's the culmination of the tragedy. You've become the inhuman horror, baby.

/post that inspired the question

[thefirstknife]

Let's chat

So, the Winnower. Right?

Today, they finally released the lore on one of the ships that you got if you purchased (pre-ordered?) the annual pass. The ship is called Nacre. As usual with names of things in Destiny, this means something, though I'm currently unsure about the significance of this name in relation to the text of the lore tab.

But the text of this lore tab will cause a billion discussions and people will fervently believe in one side or the other. You'll understand why the moment you start reading the lore tab (I'll go through it a bit later in the text) if you remember the style of Unveiling. It's written in the same style with many references to Unveiling and the author speaks to us post-Witness' defeat (most likely).

I think it's intended to make us discuss and argue, given the inherent unreliability and religiosity of the subject.

But let's go back a little bit. Why the Winnower? Well, the word "Winnower" was finally mentioned in-game by the Witness. When you finish the second encounter in the Salvation's Edge raid, you proceed towards the third, and at one point the Witness will speak (it speaks a lot during the raid):

The rest of the post below:

Many people, upon hearing this, have jumped to the conclusion that the "Winnower" is now confirmed as a real thing; including Byf who made a video about it and now everyone and their grandma believes this fully and is already constructing fanfics about the next big bad.

And it could be true! But to claim that this line specifically confirms the Winnower makes me question people's media literacy. This line is spoken by the Witness. The Witness has both the reason to lie to us, but also the reason to believe in the Winnower. This is unreliable narration 101: the Witness could believe that it serves something else, that the reason it destroyed its own and many other civilisations is because it is following something greater. Obviously the Witness would believe that it's "the first knife" of some godly entity. It's religion. The word of a religious person who believes in a deity is not the proof that the deity exists.

This does not mean that the Winnower is NOT real. We don't know if it is. This only means that we can't use this specific source as proof.

But this line is very interesting to me because of how it's phrased. Initially, I believed that the Witness spoke to us, the Guardians, because that's what it does throughout the raid. But after a few reads, this feels like it's at least partially aimed at the Traveler as well. The third line in particular is interesting: "Each child we save from the game, you again force to play." This feels like it's talking about the Traveler's growing/resurrecting powers, especially about how it resurrected Guardians. We were dead, but then we were forced to play again. It's also speaking about it like the "game" which can be a sort of 4th wall-breaking, but also it could clearly be referring to Unveiling which also calls it playing a game.

The last line is also interesting in this context: "Gods forged us both." Who is "us"? Obviously the Witness considers itself here, but which "gods" forged what else? Does the Witness consider the Traveler to be a god, forging the Guardians? The next line is also weird in this context, telling us that despite gods forging us, "they cannot tell the knife what shape to carve." Either the Witness still doesn't understand the Traveler or the Traveler is not considered as the god because that's the Traveler's whole philosophy: it creates things, but it doesn't tell those things what to do. It would never tell us what shape to carve. So if this is not referring to the Traveler forging Guardians, it might be referring to something else forging the Traveler. Possibly! I am very intrigued by these lines and the line of thinking the Witness uses here.

But let's go back to the Winnower. As I already said, this doesn't prove anything, it only proves that the Witness believes in it. We also know that the Witness believes in this because in the final mission it also told us that it is "the first knife, the edge that carved purpose into being." Later, after its defeat, Mara and Ikora discussed this phrase, which I covered in this post. This discussion also entertained the possibility that there's something else beyond the Witness, something that wielded it as a "knife." Mara and Ikora don't make any conclusions; they discuss the possibility, but they end it with "we don't know."

They discuss it in the context of Unveiling; this lore book is canonically available to read to characters in the game, which is neat! It's been discussed several times now in the lore, and it's discussed here as well. Mara and Ikora have read Unveiling, it's where they've read about "the first knife" concept and are wondering what it all means and if there's a way to figure out the truth in the allegories. Again, they don't know the answer. And neither do we!

However, we as players have more information than the characters. I'm pretty sure the delay on the lore for Nacre was on purpose, because it would've been confusing to read that before defeating the Witness. The lore tab itself has no clear author; the only way to tell is to speculate based on the style and phrases used. The style will immediately be reminiscent of Unveiling (and the one page in Books of Sorrow when something speaks to Oryx). It's casual and friendly, but persuasive.

Let's read it piece by piece:

Let's chat, shall we? One more nice sit-down for the books. Did you think you wouldn't hear from me again, after all this? You'd have missed me, I hope—and I would certainly have missed you. Have no fear. I'm not so easy to be rid of. Now, let me show you: my beloved. Oh, no, not my sedimentary necrolite, fossilized in time. You've seen that. I speak of that dear and distant expanse of the universe, miraculous in its fullness and its emptiness all at once. Are you surprised to hear of it? Yes, I never much cared for the change of rules, but here we are, and there's no use in crying over spilled radiolaria. Besides, at the heart of it all, there was a gift. To me. That gift is the chance to speak with you. You, and a billion like you.

A few points right away. It's telling us that we should chat and that it hopes we didn't think we'd never hear from it again. If this is truthful and can be trusted, then it would be alluding to it speaking to us before, in Unveiling. But we've gone over the debate about Unveiling and who wrote it; most recent information was that it has to have been the Witness and the characters in-game believe so as well. So what's the truth now? I don't know! That's a full sentence. We simply don't know. There are far too many variables, allegories, metaphors and unreliable (and completely unknown) narrators.

Both options could also be true at the same time; if the Witness somehow managed to get a glimpse of the Winnower (in whatever form this entity exists), perhaps the Witness was given a speech of this nature which it could've adopted on purpose to further spread propaganda to others and to convince itself (and others) that it is a part of something greater. Again, we simply don't know.

The author continues telling us that it wants to show us its "beloved." It then goes into a bizarre description of something as "sedimentary necrolite, fossilised in time." I am not sure what this refers to, but it could be referring to the Witness? Because we've "seen that." A "necrolite" is an old term for a type of stinky minerals that form rocks which might be referring to the Witness' obsession to calcify and preserve things as they are; therefore, "fossilised in time." It could also mean something else. Really strange!

Either way, the author does not refer to that, whatever it is, it refers to the universe as a whole. The universe is its beloved. Then it continues and draws back from Unveiling directly. It tells us that it "never much cared for the change of the rules," the rules being the rules of the flower game and the change being the one the Gardener put in the game. It even jokes with "no use in crying over spilled radiolaria," a reference to the fact that previously, the winners of the game were always the Vex.

The interesting bit here is that, if the author was indeed talking about its disregard for the Witness, then the Witness claiming to be "the first knife" the Winnower wielded is not true. If this author is the Winnower, it does not really care about the Witness or its view of the final shape. Hell, the line about Winnower discovering the first knife in Unveiling would then not refer to the Witness at all, but despite that, the Witness believed itself to be that knife. This is why we can't use the Witness' words as any sort of proof, but also we can't use this narrator's words either.

To go back to the change in the rules, another intriguing thing is, in Unveiling, the Winnower appeared to be angry about the change. It's what made it "discover the first knife" and begin the fight with the Gardener. But here, it claims it didn't care about it after all.

I believe this is important to understand that what we're dealing here is not a clear cut truthful chat with a friend. The author of this text, and the author of Unveiling, does not have to tell us the truth and we simply have no clue which one of these statements is truth, if any. Or, it simply changed its mind; perhaps it was angry back then, but now it no longer is, because it realised that the change in rules gave it the ability to speak to us, something it appears to value greatly. And "us" does not just refer to us as Guardians or even humanity, it appears to be referring to all living creatures in the universe. It continues:

I am making this offer over and over again, in every tiniest cell and the vastest of civilizations. Let me in. Take what you need. Be at ease. You have no say in the degradation of your telomeres, but in all the interim, the whole world is your sweet silicate shellfish. You exist because you have been more suited to it than all the others. Steal what you require from another rather than spend the hours to build it yourself. Break foolish rules—why would you love regulation? It serves you to cross lines, and if others needed rules to protect them, then they were not after all worthy of that existence.

This also seems to be a continuation of its philosophy in Unveiling. About taking and breaking and destroying and whether or not someone is worthy of existence.

Caricatures of villainy are out of style, I hear. Yes. I am no cackling mastermind: I am serious when I say this. It was not the trick of standing upright that lifted you from the dust: it was the mastery of fire, the cooking of cold corpse-meat. That is not any unique faction's province, neither good nor evil. It is simply truth.

And this as well, continues with its claims that it is, essentially, neutral. It is not a villain, it's merely stating the truth that sometimes destructive forces can be good. This can also have a second meaning, telling us that it will not be our villain in the game. As in, we will not be fighting against this entity because it's not something that can be fought in the first place, nor does it care to fight. The final paragraph adds:

This great, beloved cosmos. Always decaying, always finding that same old lovely pattern, despite every candle-flame burning amid the flowers. A billion electrons taking the path of least resistance. In Darkness or in Light, someone is always making my choice. Be seeing you.

Some more references to Unveiling with "same old lovely pattern" and stuff about flowers. And then it ends with telling us that Darkness and Light don't really matter because either way "someone is always making my choice." We can assume this means the choice to violence. And that's true; Darkness and Light, as we've learned, are not moral forces. Many atrocities were committed by Lightbearers, and Darkness users have, throughout the universe, been benevolent.

The author concludes telling us that it will be seeing us.

What does it all mean? We don't know!

I think a lot of people will take this literally; this is the proof of the Winnower, this is the proof that it is preparing to be the next big bad, that we will see it eventually, etc.

I'm personally not sure if the literal reading makes sense, primarily because we have no way to verify anything it said or who sent it and how. But also, if we accept that it is written in the style of Unveiling (which seems fairly obvious), then we also have to accept that it's not entirely reliable or fully truthful. As in, there's a lot of metaphors and philosophy here, rather than facts. Some of it could be facts, but we can't tell which those are.

I also think a lot of people will immediately conclude that this proves the Winnower as a real entity that exists somewhere that will be relevant going forward. Personally, I don't know. I'm not inclined to believe either option just yet. If we knew more about the source of this (and I'm not taking into account the Witness' beliefs), then it would be easier to discuss it, but for me this is just something that remains a mystery for now, in the same way a religion would be. This is what makes it interesting to me.

A reading I'm partial to is that this is a really neat conclusion on that chapter of the story without telling us too many details and facts about a text that, genuinely, reads better if it remains unexplained. There's... something... out there. We can call it the Winnower for simplicity. But this entity is not some sort of big bad physical being that's scheming behind the scenes and directing its pieces around; it does not care. It did not care about the Witness and its final shape, despite the Witness believing, potentialy, that it is enacting exactly what the Winnower wanted, calling itself its "first knife."

This entity is not the way the Witness imagined it or believed in it. This entity does not need to involve itself or even be physical; its adherents are everywhere in the universe, all the time, because "someone is always making my choice." No matter where we go in the universe and how much we explore it, we will eventually find those that choose this. It cannot be removed or defeated. We defeated the Witness, yes, but someone else can always rise up to do something similar. The fight is never done and it's not tied to simply Light and Dark. Our choice is not over because we won here; we could always choose differently in the future.

It honestly feels like a setup for us going forward, but not for us meeting the Winnower or fighting it; instead, to tell us that if we plan on exploring more of the "beloved" universe, we will always find those we disagree with, those to fight, those who made the other choice. And if we're not careful, we may end up making that choice too. Whatever that entity is, the universe is making its argument for it and it will never truly be defeated. It can't be!

The Witness wanted to end the game. This entity states that the game has to play itself out.

Or it could mean something completely different. I'm not going to claim anything one way or the other and I think it's genuinely really baffling that anyone would try to do so. We all have our preferences for the story, but I don't think any of them are sufficiently backed up and I'm not going to hype myself up for a scenario that will probably never happen. Or we'll be hearing about "bad writing" and "retcons" in a few years time when the Winnower never shows up (or if it does).

The point is that this is a very intriguing piece of lore that fits perfectly with the mystery and religiosity of Unveiling. It's not some huge epic reveal, though it could always be something more in the future. However, we would have to get a lot more information to be able to make that conclusion. Something spoke to us in this lore tab, but we have no way of knowing who or how or why exactly now. We have no way to verify it either; is the author legitimate or is this a scheme from someone else pretending to be it? And even if the author is legitimately some other entity, is it truthful? Can we trust it? Should we? Does it even matter? Is this information important for us to understand our enemies or is this just insight into the philosophy and metaphysics of the setting?

Is the Winnower real? We don't know.

Is Unveiling still an allegorical mystery with some truths that we can't really tell apart from the metaphors? Pretty much yeah.

Is there going to be a lot to discuss about this going forward? Absolutely. It's why I wanted to write about it immediately because it's fascinating and I can't wait to see all the ways people will interpret it. I highly recommend that everyone reads it themselves and compare to Unveiling (and the last two pages of Inspiral).

I just don't want people to subscribe too hard to a single narrative and then get incredibly disappointed if it doesn't happen. There is not a single narrative being promised by this lore tab and we have no confirmed facts. But I'm super excited to see where this goes in the following years. Even if it goes "nowhere" as in this does not end up being setup for some big antagonist 5 years from now, I find it incredible that this was part of the setting. Weird space religions and bizarre entities from beyond the universe are some of my favourite parts of scifi so this whole thing, no matter how it ends, is a 10/10 story for me.

[akuma-tenshi]

i'm going to have so many google docs open and none of them are going to have ANY sane thoughts

[smile-files]

for recording professional-ish music, do you recommend i record ukulele and vocals on the same track (as in, a recording of my singing as i play the ukulele part), or on different tracks (i record the ukulele part and then record myself singing over it)? the latter has the benefit of it being easier to retake parts if i mess up a lyric, but it's also more fiddly - what i'm really wondering though is what ends up sounding cleaner

[daz4i]

ooooooh nikolai clearly has trauma related to freedom. not just his whole Thing with it, but the fact his ability gives him a quick and easy escape and especially a way to go around rules - even the rules of physics! and going by the assumption that your ability manifests in relation to past trauma, i really wonder what made him this way.

my first thought would be imprisonment of some sort. being chained somewhere, unable to leave. perhaps in a cold place, thus his idea of escape is also tied to an overcoat? it seems a bit too on the nose doesn't it?? esp with the bird in a cage metaphor

@/creantzy's fyolai comic made me think of brainwashing of some sort. definitely works with how terrified he is by it

i think a spicy take would be. that he was just a normal guy. just kind of Off, brain wise. so the monotony of a normal life drove him insane. or maybe his parents(/some other guardian bc everyone in bsd is an orphan fr) had great expectations of him that he failed to meet, and he felt metaphorically chained by that. maybe they were very protective of him and didn't let him out or do things he wants, so he felt caged by that

actually the more i think about it the more i like this idea, of a very grounded, realistic, common trauma for this character that's anything but normal in a series where everyone has these tragic larger than life sob stories. it can be a very nice subversion of expectations and imo make him even more interesting - because a backstory like that is so common even for us real life people, if he became That, there must be something wrong with him. and i think that's really poggers

[norrlands-nonsense]

Durmstrang!Draco and Hermione dancing at the Yule Ball ❄️

[weepylucifer]

We only meet the students for such a brief time, just a blip in their lives. Like the other characters in DE, there’s no way of really telling what they’re like when we don’t see them and when they’re not interacting with a cop. With them, since they seem to mirror Harry and Kim to some degree, it’s especially fascinating to wonder what Harry-and-Kim-like traits they might have that we’re not shown. Like this,

*just gives depression to Steban* sorry my boy

[ereborne]

Song of the Day: December 14

"KMAG YOYO" by Hayes Carll

[dazzelmethat]

I ONLY NEED A FEW KIND THOUGHTS TO THRIVE. Anyway I need a place to log this idea in case I forget.

IDEA 1 : It's either an rpgmaker concept or a table top game concept. Yume nikki themed surreal game where 4 characters go through dreamy trials to fight for personhood. The four characters would have a species/object known to the dm and their trials would let them discover who they were (examples i remember: a pet, a mirror, a piece of art, a toy, demon ect)) but one of the players is a ghost that used to be human. The players should slowly figure out what they were previously by the end of the game when the winner is revealed.

IDEA 2: more standard yume nikki fangame. In my mind it's called 'Sheepish Kill.' Only options are to externalize pain with violence or internalize pain with depression. No dialogue. Should be indulgently goth and edgy.. Though the plot in this idea is so loosey goosey that it is less a game idea and more a vibe.

In both ideas there is a strange 7-11 pharmacy they could buy healing items at, a dorm to rest at, and a caretaker of main hall.

the sheepish kill girl could just be an npc in the table top game. That is how I imagine it usually..

[siixkiing]

I know I’ve complained about this in the past, I know I can simply turn beta on and have my posts unrebloggable BUT it seems its not just my HC posts anymore either...so that solution would only solve half the problem.

BUT, I am once again saying this to whomever keeps reblogging my stuff for Sun Wukong to FUCKING STOP. It should be a written rule and just common sense that less stated otherwise, any post made by an RP Account is not FREE to reblog by anyone - Mun Post, Headcanons, IC Post (less you are a fellow RPer), Threads, and such are OFF-LIMITS.

I am getting sick of seeing notes on my posts and noticing the reblog is private, which means I can’t actively find the user to block them. It’s making me want to post less and less for my muse too. 

[sundial-bee-scribbles]

Hi I drew some doodles of Yan Fuka because why not

Text below because it's unreadable fhetwfsrafagscfsdd

「♡ INVENTORY ♡」

Kitchen knife:

35 DMG

"Good for cutting food and flesh alike."

Red ribbon:

+25 Health

"Un-concerning bandages."

Locket:

+10 Sanity

"There's a picture of Oliver inside."

----

I feel like he'd be less of a controlling yandere and more desperate to get on Oliver's (chose him because both bias and because the poster of that one art intended it to be Oliver he's after 👍🏻) good side.

He'd be less of a jealous person (unless Oliver was explicitly interested) and would probably kill only if they were annoying Oliver.

With how Oliver is he'd probably support Fukase despite how fucked he is.

Anyway jgndgdvdf here you go

"good for cutting food and flesh alike" EYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY 😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎 SORRY i swear im normal

the locket w/ the picture of the object of affection is +10 sanity?? press (x) to doubt...

love how point is vibing there too. no. 1 murder accomplice in the world

even tho i dont really ship oliver & fukase this is interesting hmm

[jacksintention]

.

[monotone-artist]

psst i'd just like to say, always ALWAYS feel free to send me asks talking about ur ocs, fandom-based or not!! i love ocs very much and i'm always happy to hear about them

[phynali]

As the world's most random note about tagging, because I think of this every time I tag a post with an updated tag, I... "update" my tags

Meaning that over time as my moods and blog topics and interests and dialect and mutuals and inspirations all change, I'll go from using one standard tag to a another for that same exact content.

And I don't know if anyone else really does that or if it's a weird me thing?

When I first had a humor tag i called it "snort laugh" to convey, literal or just in tone, "this post surprised me into a half scoff laugh or making a snerk sound". It was inspired by a mutual's "ugly laughter" tag because i didn't want to steal that perfect tag whole cloth. But almost a decade later they're still using that tag and I've cycled through "snort laugh" and "laugh rule" and variants on "lmao" and "humour" and some i can't even remember. Right now I'm intermittently tagging "I loled". None of these have ever really fit well enough to stick around and I still think "snort laugh" every time i try a new one, even if i never liked that tag much either.

Some of my index tags are static and unchanging and some I still use, even if I used to tag every other post with them and now use that tag once a year maybe (social awareness comes to mind). Some I've always had 2 or 3 versions of, either because I like one but keep another for indexing or blacklisters (doggo and dogs) or simply because I can't recall what I use (was it world building or worldbuilding? Bat fam or bat family?) and end up converging as i decide on when and then diverging again when i change my mind... again. Many overlap a lot (positivity, daily dose of positivity, faith in humanity, love, human beings), while all actually being distinct enough i keep them all.

But with over a decade now of this account it seems it'd be a strange little nightmare to plumb, the work of a historian or linguist to go through the changing tides of tags and indexing, and I have to wonder what conclusions or insights they would be able to glean if they did, and what it might say about me.

[raphaelderberry]

so this is probably my best digital painting yet!

reference image is from here (x) I have no rights to it and make no money from this.