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cardentist · 4 years ago

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I’m relatively new to the marble hornets fandom, but one thing I’ve noticed is that people don’t seem to realize just How affected jay was (by the operator and by the investigation in general) and how early on it started. which I really think is relevant when people point out some of jay’s apparent Poor Decision Making. this is Definitely because of how deemphasized it is in the show itself (Especially season 1) but you really can get a feel for it when you go digging.

I’ve talked before about how it’s Very Likely that jay already had some form of ptsd by the start of the series (Link) but what gives us the clearest picture of jay’s health is actually his twitter account. (Link) If you’ve never taken the time to read it before then I Highly suggest scrolling down to the bottom and working your way through, it’s a surprisingly fast read! but for the purposes of this post I made a Highlight Reel of really anything I saw that was relevant to either jay’s mental health, his physical health, or his obsession with the case that you can see in full here: (Link)

I’ll be using the most Pressing screenshots from that post to make my point here, but you really do get the full Effect scrolling through.

putting a readmore down to hopefully not spam people with screenshots ljksfad Warning for spoilers, talk of chronic illness, eating issues, difficulty with unreality, and other various mental and physical health issues

just as a note: this is going to have a Lot of focus on season 1 because this is where a lot of jay’s issues are established. I definitely have a Lot to say about the other two seasons but I won’t report on every instance where he’s paranoid or sick, I’ll be focusing more on the extremes!

looking through the whole series, videos tweets and all, it becomes Very apparent that jay has a Consistent pattern of behavior where he fixates on the investigation (and the people affected by it) to the detriment of his own health and safety. from the more mundane (digging through hundreds of hours worth of footage to exhaustion) to the more Extreme (following alex into the abandoned building Knowing he’s dangerous and that he’s probably going to hurt him because he Might find some answers).

(which on that note, while it’s definitely due in no small part to the influence of the operator and the extreme stress of the situation, you could pretty easily interpret jay with adhd, hyperfixating on research and video making.)

while I knew I’d find that going in, but I wasn’t expecting it to be hammered in so Quickly. this was posted the Second Day after his twitter had gone up

this continues, with jay occasionally mentioning how tired he is from compiling entries, feeling disorganized, and not being able to sleep in between him actively posting about sifting through tapes on a near daily basis. Then in july he starts actively getting Sick

104 fever, not well enough to work for Three Days. and there’s no telling how long it’d been building up without him noticing until then. he mentions being sick throughout august for long stretches of time (at least a solid week once), and it only gets worse from there

And something of note here, while he Does mention when he’s feeling particularly awful sometimes, for the most part he mentions his health when it affects his ability to go through and post about the tapes. there’s no telling just how frequently he was sick or exhausted when it Wasn’t worth mentioning. He only mentioned the results of the doctor’s visit a week later after he was specifically asked about it

and it’s Very apparent that whatever’s going on is Pretty Severe

it’s after this point that he largely stops giving us specific updates on how sick he feels, but it’s also still very clear that he is sick. he mentions how out of it he is or how Bad a week’s been after he goes long stretches without updates. and he’s still going to the doctors in November

that leaves me with the impression that things haven’t improved, he’s just stopped mentioning it. he tried getting help for it with no luck, the sickness didn’t stop so there wasn’t much more he could do about it besides adapt. while I’m certain that his health would fluctuate over the course of the show, I don’t believe he stopped getting sick. tim’s sickness never really went away, and jay was bad enough by the end of the series that he was having seizures like he was (there’s really no telling if that was his first or if it was just the first time it’d been Caught).

so from here on out it’s a safe guess that everything jay does is with backdrop of sickness and exhaustion.

then, of course, this is where jay starts being more open about his paranoia (which has certainly been an undercurrent for a while now)

also of note: this isn’t the first time he’s mentioned having a difficult time trying to keep things straight in his head and it won’t be the last. he was already starting to doubt his memories and his senses back in 2009.

moreover, paranoia and fear (and possibly fixation) about the situation has him holling up in his house, to the point that he’s running out of food. how long has this been an issue? and if it’s an issue in 2009, then just how bad is it going to be when he’s running himself in and out of hotels too afraid to stay in one location? how often has he been forgetting to eat while burying himself in tapes and fear?

whether it’s from the operator, his slipping memory, the results of fixating on his work for as long as he has, his frequent sickness, the paranoia, or any combination therein, we can add brain fog to the list

and again, a case for jay’s fixation on finding answer. he wakes up in his house with no memory of how he got there, confused and in pain, digs through the footage on his camera, and has the entry up the same day. this was the point where he’d visited brian’s house again, only to be teleported around and meet the operator face to face. he says in the entry that he’s never going back to the house again, that he’s done with the case, but well.

much further down the timeline jay would say that he had no idea what he was doing with his life before he started down this rabbit hole, that he was miserable and directionless and alone. He didn’t know what he would do with himself when all of this was over, he just knew that while he was taking the case on he was at least doing Something. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that this was always true, that part of his obsession with it was tied to feeling absolutely nothing for his life without it.

and sure enough, a week later and we get the idea that his paranoia is only getting worse, followed by him breaking and going back to search through the footage.

He posts more about his paranoia in february, but it’s in march that he’s scared out of his house by totheark only to have his apartment burned down. he only seems to learn about this march 24th, and he uploads the entry with the news footage on the 25th

while it’s true that he seemed to have taken a break after that upload, he’s back again on 4th with the cryptic text message. It’s between then and the 18th that he’d start his Long tradition of hotel hopping.

the final entry for season 1 is up the next day. We can’t know for sure exactly how truthful jay was when he said he was feeling better in entry 26, operator sickness tends to fluctuate with exposure just like any other mental illness. what we Can say is that jay got exactly 10 days of quiet between his apartment burning down and alex contacting him again, and after he was contacted he was afraid enough to start hotel hopping.

if 10 days is what jay merrick describes as a break, then my god. the implication that in an entire year jay merrick hadn't gone a 10 day stretch without looking at the tapes is, Something.

this is where things take a real shift, both in the narrative and in jay’s tweeting patterns! this is the period where jay went radio silent working with alex for 7 months, only to forget everything. the only insight we have on how he was doing at this point is what came before, and the tapes he’d uncover in season 2. my best educated guess is to say that he is doing Not Great.

it’s of course after the operator wiped his and jessica’s memories that he starts up tweeting again, he doesn’t remember why he stopped at this point after all. but he’s also far less talkative between entries. in the beginning especially we’d Hear when he was sick, when he wasn’t sleeping, because he’d update frequently enough that he felt the need to explain when he wasn’t able to. this change is most likely due both in part to not feeling safe enough to be as talkative publically anymore, and on his focus on figuring out what’s going on.

that’s not to say that we don’t get Anything from this time period however.

we get quite a lot of talk about lack of sleep, exhaustion, etc throughout the beginning of the year. insomnia and jay staying up late to work on entries is to be expected, but this is the first time that we hear about jay Oversleeping. I’d say he’s long overdue for it considering how much he’s gone through at this point (and for how long), though it’s Also notable as possibly being a symptom of either illness or depression that we Aren’t hearing about.

this one just makes me sad

it’s Relatively quiet after this, with jay making light commentary here and there. the general vibe is that he’s hard at work when, of course, entry 32 comes along.

jay just Stops after jessica is taken. he doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t even start looking through the tapes for over three weeks. he couldn’t keep himself away from the tapes for that long after he was face to face with the monster or after his house was burned down. that says more about his state of mind than anything else could have.

there’s some mentions of possible sleep issues and jay feeling paranoid (more specifically, not feeling safe anywhere at all), but things don’t Really pick up until march

jay tries to upload entry 37 throughout the day, but no matter what he does he can’t remember the password for the account. this continues on into the 22 Until

“enttry #37“ is uploaded the next day, the footage of alex’s birthday, it’s linked on his twitter, and then six days later

He posts about how the footage he’d found earlier was deleted on his laptop and how he needs to get back Fast. he takes a rest stop on the 30th to charge his laptop and look through the red tower one more time to make sure he didn’t miss anything. and then Nothing until

he doesn’t get back for nearly an entire Week. now, it’s important to mention that there’s been speculation that this was going to be where the original skully reveal would take place, which is believable enough. but whether or not that’s what it was Going to be, the implications with what we have Now are, troubling to say the least. we’ll probably never know exactly what happened here but It’s Not Good. what did he eat? what did he drink? how did he sleep? Poorly, I’d Imagine.

this may also be what his earlier brain fog was leading into. losing track of the days of the week turning into losing track of the days entirely. but we’ll never know for sure

after this we actually get quite a lot about jay’s general discomfort, paranoia, memory loss, and regret scattered over the months. none of it is specific but a lot of it is tied directly to his discomfort with the tapes, which has turned into a constant with every upload. we can certainly tell that he isn’t doing well, but this message is particularly notable because it mentions a specific symptom that we haven’t seen before.

at this point jay’s paranoia and anxiety is bad enough that he can’t sit in silence anymore, and if he’s mentioning it so casually now it’s likely been an issue for a while. jay doesn’t tell us everything, and there’s almost certainly worse that hasn’t been said.

jay has Significant problems with sleeping throughout august that seep into september, to the point that he calls it “worse than usual.” but this is overtaken by his horror at entry 49. jay censored alex beating a man’s head in, but he had to watch it unedited, and it clearly took his toll. he didn’t even want to share it but ultimately decided that the world needed to have it if anything happened to him. but that wasn’t the end of it.

he spends nearly the entire month trying to find Any sign of who this man was. this is a specific aspect of jay’s personality that I think gets overshadowed by the perception of him as stupid. what he is is overworked, over his head, and impulsive, but he’s not stupid. but this is an Excellent example of jay’s dedication (bleeding into obsession).

this is obviously speculation on my part, but I think you can read this two ways (or a mix of them both): either jay is worried that something about the operator wiped away the man’s existence (like being taken made people forget about him somehow). Or he’s motivated by guilt, feeling responsible for having been there the day the man got crunched only to run away, desperately looking for any sign that Somebody had bothered to care about him.

things are relatively quiet after this until just after entry 50

something jay’s mental health really doesn’t need: more evidence of people breaking and entering while he’s asleep. what’s interesting here is that he went much quieter after this, just a handful of tweets relating directly to the next entry. I think you could either read jay being less open about how he’s doing on twitter as him being Well Aware that the people who want to hurt him (or who he Thinks want to hurt him in the case of hoodie and masky) have access to it, and in part because he’s doing so much Worse now.

the end of season two that the start of season three, of course, brings tim back into jay’s life and with it a Much needed distraction from his fear and paranoia. we’ll never know how jay reacted to the news that alex had tried to kill him in the moment, but we do know that it shifted his mindset from passively digging through the old tapes to actively trying to hunt alex down. tim was a Living Breathing lead, something he could actually Grasp Onto. and in light of what was likely something Very horrific that became a new fixation for jay.

he’d live blog about looking for tim from november 28th to march 8th, this was the most active he’d ever been on twitter and I think it absolutely speaks to how desperate he was for this to go somewhere. he even got to do some breaking and entering ! that said, having a distraction didn’t mean that there weren't a few noteworthy.

jay’s Current lack of trust is what’s going to lead to his and tim’s blowout later on. we can’t know how tim would’ve reacted if jay had been honest from the beginning (and it honestly would’ve gone poorly anyways), but tim’s confrontation with jay was honestly using his anger at being lied to as an outlet for the horror he felt at learning the truth of what’d been going on. he definitely would’ve still been angry and hurt, but he wouldn’t have had a direction for that anger. they might’ve started working together sooner.

however at this point jay doesn’t know who wants to hurt him and who doesn’t, he doesn’t feel safe talking to strangers on the street, let alone someone he already knew stalked him for two years. both of their reactions are understandable, and you can see the collision course coming when you step back far enough.

jay is Very quiet about what’s going on with him at this point. there are a few updates about his general paranoia and fear as well as him live tweeting about things relevant to the plot (thinking about coming clean to tim, posting tweets and pictures of trying to find tim after hoodie stole his medication, solving the totheark code that troy forgot to post a key for), but there’s only a handful of standout tweets that give us something new about his mental health scattered throughout the series.

this absolutely does not mean that he’s in a better place of mind, but what it does mean is that he’s being less open about it. tim didn’t know just how bad jay was and he’d been living with him. the fact that we have less to work with at this point is more an indication that he doesn’t feel safe sharing anymore (he hasn’t for a while) and a possible sign that he’s already gone into denial about his health (not wanting to connect it to the operator because of what that’d mean for him).

that said, we can take a look at what’s left for us.

this is from after jay had tim take him to the abandoned hospital for the first time and before the entry of it went up. this is notable because it’s one of if not the first time that it’s been directly stated that buildings associated with the operator can cause sickness. that or we can infer that the operator was actively strengthening its influence on them at the time (which might’ve also contributed to both of their irritability in the entry itself).

I don’t think this is notable because this is jay’s First nightmare, but rather I think it’s notable for him because his memory of it is totally gone. it’d make sense why this’d scare him at this point considering well, the entire series of marble hornets. but it does raise the question of how many more nightmares Weren’t worth sharing to him and how often they contributed to his sleeping problems.

next it’s worth noting that entry 67 messed jay up a lot. likely because it was solid evidence that alex was out there actively hunting them down (and just how close tim had gotten to being taken after he’d been throttled by the operator). He ends up posting about it Twice, as opposed to his previous strategy of not at all.

now finally, Finally. I’d like to talk about jay’s state of mind leading into his death. lets start with the timeline

jay doesn’t say anything at all between entry 74 and entry 75. tim had been running the account while jay was out of it, but jay had come to at least by august first, entry 75 was posted august 23rd. this is jay, and he has absolutely nothing to say.

he’s only just come out of his zombie state, he’s stolen the tape from tim (after trying to give him the chance to come clean), and he’s run off. we don’t get anything else out of him until september 3rd.

jay’s waited almost 2 weeks not only to watch the tape, but to even say anything at all. in my opinion? I think he’s afraid to not have anyone left to trust, let alone tim. he wouldn’t have given tim so much time to come clean himself otherwise, he wouldn’t be afraid of even looking at the tape otherwise. part of it is the sting of having his trust betrayed before, of closing himself off, and then trying to trust again. part of it is that he genuinely cared about tim. he wants to believe in tim, and he’s making it absolutely clear here.

it took him another 9 days to work up the courage to watch the tape, a full 20 days since the entry showing he got the tape was posted (and possibly longer, since we don’t know how long the video took to make). he was That afraid of not being able to trust tim anymore. of course, we know now that what’d actually get to him was realizing that jessica was gone. he’s mentioned before that he blamed himself for jessica being taken. that was what’d kept him going for years at this point and now she’s just, Gone. Gone For Good Gone.

the specific timeline here is a little harder to sus out. the gaps between some entries are too long to really make sense and what we’re getting on twitter aren’t as overt as they have been before. but here’s my best attempt to straighten it out.

jay sits on this for roughly a month, likely trying to process something that he’d used as a crutch to help him keep going bursting into smoke and grieving for someone he doesn’t really know but that he’d cared deeply for anyways. it eventually reached the point where the events of entry 82. he desperately goes back to the tunnel, the last place he saw jessica go in the video, for any last trace of her, any sign that she could still be alive, and doesn’t find any. he tries to reach out to tim, he tells him that he’s seeing things, that the world is shifting around him, that he’s sorry and that he understands why tim did what he did.

we don’t get an insight in what this month was like for jay, but it’s clear that he had a steady decline. he’s scared, he’s alone, he knows he needs help. and then the operator takes him. we never see exactly what happens to him after the seizure, and with the montages we’ve seen from tim’s titty cam it really could’ve been anything. but whatever it was it was enough to change jay’s entire attitude.

this is the last thing that jay posts before entry 77 goes up. it’s hard to say when this was posted for sure, because 77 was up 3 days later on the 16th, but I think it has to take place after jay was assaulted by the operator. jay thought he could call tim beforehand, we saw him try on video, and there’d be no reason to try to contact him through twitter if he knew he had an easier way. what this tells us is that jay woke up after the operator attack, tried to call him an unknown number of times, failed to reach him because the operator was still blocking his calls on tim’s end, tried to reach tim through twitter, and Then went out to try to confront tim likely believing that tim was intentionally trying to avoid him.

that mental image alone hurts me, but this means that even after everything jay was still trying to reach out to him.

at this point jay was in, some kind of denial just like everyone else. it hurt to feel like he was responsible for jessica’s death so he had to believe that she was still out there, he had to believe that it was someone else’s fault. he didn’t want to hurt tim like alex did, he didn’t want to push tim away like brian did, he wanted tim to laugh and pull jessica out of his closet where she’s been hiding this whole time. he wanted to believe the truth wasn’t real because it hurt.

the desperateness that he begs tim to leave his camera Also gets to me. jay’s mentioned for years that the point of recording and uploading footage was to make sure someone would know what happened if “something happened to him.” he pointed the camera away from jessica for 30 minutes and something Did happen to her. that's been weighing on him for years but never more than it has been for the past month.

then when hoodie comes for him, lets him free himself, and runs off one of the first things jay did was go to tim’s medicine cabinet and make a noise of frustration at finding all of the bottles empty. he knew that something was wrong, he knew that he wasn’t thinking straight anymore, and on some level he still believed tim. but there wasn’t anything there, everyone was gone, and he was running out of time.

now, I wanna paint another picture here. according to tim, the footage he found on jay’s laptop was dated the day before jay came to confront him. jay tried to reach tim through twitter at 8pm so it’s safe to assume that it was posted the day before he decided to meet him in person. jay spent october 13th getting his shit kicked in, he was hogtied on october 14th, and the entry showing their confrontation was up on october 16th.

jay follows tim, he searches through the school, and then chooses to keep watch in the building overnight.

jay’s had issues with food since the first day of marble hornets, Literally. it’s possible he snacked before he came to confront tim, or on the way to the school. it’s possible the upload dates are one off (the timeline certainly gets wonky going off of upload dates after this). but even still, at the time he was getting shot he was on at least day two without food (and likely much much longer), and at least 48 hours without sleep (again, almost certainly longer). On Top Of Everything.

jay merrick didn’t stand a chance

there’s so So much more I could get into, especially if I started poking more at the entries themselves or the Implications of some of the things I’ve talked about here. but that’ll have to come another time, I’m very tired jfklsd

#marble hornets #mh #jay merrick #slenderverse #creepypasta #spoilers #meta #god I hope tumblr doesn't block this from the tags again

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rontufox · 5 years ago

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Silver & Blaze Origins Theory

NOTE: This is just for fun and isn’t proven by canon material. EDIT 4/26/2020: Added a read more & better Silver evidence.

A lotta things bother me about these two. Based on the canon info we have (outlined in this in-depth post), we know they both originate from the distant future. When Blaze seals Iblis inside herself, she leaves the distant future and fades into the Sol Dimension. In turn, she becomes princess of the Sol Dimension, which later involves her in the events of Sonic Rush. Neither Blaze nor Silver remember one another because the Sonic 06 timeline resets. However, they do meet anew in the new timeline.

Time reset paradoxes aside... I have questions.

How did Blaze seal Iblis inside herself?

How did Blaze seal herself into another dimension?

How did Blaze arrive in the Sol Dimension’s present rather than its future?

How did Blaze become princess of the Sol Dimension by dropping into it?

How does Blaze have an affinity with the Sol Emeralds when she’s not from their dimension? (enough to turn into Burning Blaze)

Before anyone points it out, yes, I’m aware several of these can be answered with “bad writing.” But I want to have fun with lore and logic.

I’ve created a theory that satisfies all these questions. I acknowledge that one of the questions has a canonical answer, but the rest are based on assumptions made by the player. For fun’s sake, let’s question those assumptions. Then at the end I’ll present my theory.

1) How did Blaze seal Iblis inside herself?

Because her soul is alit with flames. That is, if you believe the answer from Sonic 06.

Let’s establish the rules the game lays out for sealing Iblis. First, Iblis can be sealed inside members of the Soleanna royal family.

Eternal Sun! The Living Flame that has been entrusted to the royal family! Fall into slumber with a royal soul!

- Duke of Soleanna

Second, Iblis cannot be sealed inside Silver.

We can rule out that Silver used the wrong incantation, wrong number of Chaos Emeralds, or that he must have special training or bloodline, because the third thing we learn is Iblis CAN be sealed inside Blaze. And she used the same method he did. The only difference is her soul.

Don’t worry. My soul is already alit with flames. I will be accepted.

- Blaze the Cat

To me, this explanation seems a little too convenient. An exception to the royal soul rule exists? And it’s a soul alit with flames? Which in of itself is a rarity considering no other character consistently wields fire powers, much less has these powers associated with their SOUL. And Blaze just happens to exist in Silver’s timeline AND is close enough to him to be involved in the events of Sonic 06 and have the opportunity to perform the seal?

Convenient as it is, it’s still an explanation. I could accept this answer... Or, I could point out a much more interesting factor to consider. Blaze just happens to have a royal affiliation... more on that later.

2) How did Blaze seal herself into another dimension?

This takes place in-game, yet there’s no explanation. Add in the fact that it’s apparently something Silver can do too, and it makes even less sense.

Come on, make it quick. Use your Chaos Control... to stop time. Then... seal us into a different dimension.

- Blaze the Cat

Considering Silver learned to use Chaos Control, it’s plausible he could’ve stopped time like Blaze asked. But how exactly was he supposed to seal her into a different dimension? There’s two possibilities: 1) Chaos Control, or 2) It’s an innate ability.

Innate ability is absurd. It’d make Silver way overpowered and begs the question why he never helped everyone escape from Iblis to a different dimension before this. But Chaos Control isn’t much better. Sonic, Shadow, and Silver all use Chaos Control to open time portals throughout Sonic 06. But not dimensional portals. On top of that, 2 people and 2 Chaos Emeralds are required to open these portals.

What amazes me is when Silver prepares to do as Blaze told him, he’s not even holding any Chaos Emeralds. How does he expect to do it with a flick of his arm?

In the end, it doesn’t matter, because Blaze herself is the one who does it. But establishing how unlikely it is for Silver makes it even less likely for Blaze. She never learned Chaos Control. And, seeing as only hedgehogs are known to wield this ability, it’s doubtful she can.

So... how did she do it? Maybe it’s some combined effect of Iblis, the Chaos Emeralds, and her soul, but... that’s a lame explanation.

There’s one more possibility if we watch the cutscene closely.

The Sol Emeralds.

It can be debated that she’s turning into Burning Blaze here. It lasts maybe 2 seconds. You can watch and decide for yourself here.

Burning Blaze brings the Sol Emeralds into the equation. And for me, they’re the best explanation for how Blaze transported to a different dimension. After all, they were a contributing factor in her transporting to Sonic’s dimension in Sonic Rush. Another thing of note is almost immediately after turning into Burning Blaze, she starts to fade away, suggesting that activating the form triggered her fade into another dimension.

There’s a problem though. Up to this point, Blaze has had no association with the Sol Dimension or its emeralds. So how can the Sol Emeralds be here?

Maybe you can argue she gained access to the Sol Emeralds by beginning to fade into the Sol Dimension itself. But how did she start fading into the Sol Dimension without first accessing the Sol Emeralds? A lotta people allow time and dimensional stuff to be a little paradox-y, but I don’t wanna be so lax.

This leads me to believe: Blaze has always had an association with the Sol Emeralds. How? More on that later.

3) How did Blaze arrive in the Sol Dimension’s present rather than its future?

Or, to ask it another way, if Blaze entered the Sol Dimension from the future, why does she end up in the present when she crosses back over in Sonic Rush and other games? Shouldn’t she end up in the future with Silver?

Frankly, if a series lets characters jump dimensions and timelines, it’s not that far-fetched to let them jump both in one go (see: Eggman Nega). But to give a less magical answer, the reason could be Iblis. The Duke was conducting experiments on Solaris in an effort to manipulate time. If Iblis is associated with time too, it could’ve taken Blaze to a different time in the Sol Dimension.

This question doesn’t add or detract from my theory, so I won’t include it in the last section. I included it here cuz it’s a good question I’ve seen asked.

4) How did Blaze become princess of the Sol Dimension by dropping into it?

Now here’s a big one.

Surely the Sol Dimension existed before Blaze entered it, as evidenced by its long history and heritage. And part of this heritage states the role of guarding the Sol Emeralds is passed down the princesses of the royal family. How can Blaze just drop in and become the princess when she hasn’t had any association with the Sol Dimension up to this point?

I see 3 possibilities: 1) Blaze transporting to the Sol Dimension caused the dimension itself to change and... conveniently make her the most important person in the dimension, 2) Some circumstance convinced the royal family to change their tradition and appoint Blaze, or 3) Blaze was always a princess in the Sol Dimension.

Now, earlier I said that I think Blaze has always been associated with the Sol Emeralds. I also think she’s always been a princess in the Sol Dimension. But, how, if she originated from the future? Hm... maybe it’s because she didn’t...

5) How does Blaze have an affinity with the Sol Emeralds when she’s not from their dimension?

I’m won’t bother presenting other possibilities with this one. The only option I can accept is Blaze was always from the Sol Dimension. Always a guardian of the Sol Emeralds.

So let’s get to the theory!

Theory: Silver and Blaze are from the past.

Oh yes. It’s conspiracy theory time

I don’t think Silver and Blaze are from the future. They were definitely there in Sonic 06, and Silver continues to reside there. But I don’t think that’s the time they originated from. I think they came from the distant past. Silver, from Sonic’s dimension’s past, and Blaze from the Sol Dimension’s past. And I think they knew each other there.

Blaze being from the Sol Dimension’s past makes the questions disappear.

1) How did Blaze seal Iblis inside herself?

She has a royal soul.

2) How did Blaze seal herself into another dimension?

She turned into Burning Blaze and the Sol Emeralds returned her to the dimension she belongs to.

4) How did Blaze become princess of the Sol Dimension by dropping into it?

She was already its princess in the distant past. When she returns, she’s recognized as such and re-appointed to her role.

5) How does Blaze have an affinity with the Sol Emeralds when she’s not from their dimension?

She IS from their dimension!

So here’s the basic narrative:

Long ago, in the distant past, Blaze was princess of the Sol Dimension. An unknown event displaced her and Silver to the distant future of Sonic’s dimension. They both lost their memories. Later, Blaze returned to the Sol Dimension’s present after sealing Iblis inside herself. Her memories were again lost. But the people of the Sol Dimension recognized her. Amazement spread across the land at the return of the lost princess of old. The royal family helped her regain her memories, or re-taught her who she was. She was then re-appointed to her role and continued life in her rightful dimension.

So what about Silver? What information supports Silver being from the past?

Truthfully, not much. At least not compared to Blaze. But I have a few broad points to support it. To explore them, we’ll need to go to the past.

The Past

What do we know about the past?

We know that technology was more advanced. Understanding of magic (emeralds, etc) was more advanced. The civilizations that wielded them flourished, but now, no longer exist. Doom was brought upon them after they misused their technology.

This narrative has been consistent in the games from the 90s to present day (seriously, check out the translated Japanese Genesis era manuals). Despite that, we rarely see this past for ourselves. Even time periods fans consider “the past,” such as the flashbacks in Sonic Adventure, don’t depict this technologically advanced time.

The only glimpses we have are rare ancient ruins that haven’t completely succumbed to nature yet--locations like Sky Sanctuary.

Sky Sanctuary’s more technological side is best seen inside the ruins. Revealed there are lots of glowing, geometric, cyan lights.

Now, where have we seen that before?

Usually, Silver’s futuristic design is attributed to him being, well, from the future. But what makes things “look” futuristic? Appearing more technologically advanced than the present. Now, is there anything about the future in Sonic 06 that screams “technologically advanced”? Everything is in ruins. It’s an apocalyptic world.

Which time seems more advanced than Sonic’s present? The past, or the future? Which time does Silver’s design most belong to?

Being from the past also better explains Silver’s powers. Technology and magic were better understood back then. If people can wield powers in Sonic’s world, the past is the time period it would be most common. And isn’t it unique how Silver and Blaze are the only two characters who consistently wield powers without the aid of technology or magical gemstones/items?

If you want a more direct comparison of Sky Sanctuary’s technological motifs next to Silver, here’s something I whipped up:

That’s all the support I have for Silver being from the past. Him originating from the past isn’t required for this theory to work, I just prefer it cuz it dovetails nicely into the whole theme SEGA has going for them. And into the next thing I’m gonna talk about.

I like to imagine that Blaze and Silver knew each other when they lived in the distant past. But how, if they’re from two different dimensions?

Dimensions

Let’s talk about dimensions. Sonic’s world has several. Sonic’s dimension, the Sol Dimension, Maginaryworld, maybe the storybook games? And there’s probably others I’m forgetting.

I’d argue the Babylonians are from their own dimension too. If you don’t already know, Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity reveals that the Babylonians were aliens that got marooned on Sonic’s planet in the distant past. But if dimensions are a thing in the Sonic world, what’s more likely? That the Babylonians were considered aliens because they’re from outer space, or because they were from a different dimension?

Knowing the Sonic world has these dimensions, and that people of the past were much more advanced... What if they realized there were other dimensions? What if they began communicating with each other? Formed relationships and alliances?

A world where it’s commonplace to communicate with those outside your own dimension. This is a world where Silver and Blaze could know each other.

The only evidence I have to support this is the guardian structure. The first three dimensions I listed (Sonic’s world, the Sol Dimension, and Maginaryworld) all have their own guardian structure that started in ancient times and remain preserved to this day. What if the rulers of the past agreed to form this guardian structure to protect the magical items of the worlds, and to also preserve the autonomy of their individual dimensions?

Final premise

I’ll conclude this with a premise that resulted from my imagination running wild with this. If you like this theory, feel free to explore your own ideas! _____________

It’s the distant past. Thousands of years before Sonic’s time.

There are many dimensions. And within them, civilizations. Some more are advanced than others. Those with the technology to detect their neighboring dimensions have formed loose alliances with one another. This encourages cooperation between dimensions and is especially helpful when threats appear within or between dimensions.

In this era, there lives a princess named Blaze the Cat. She’s an inhabitant of the Sol Dimension, and Guardian of the Sol Emeralds. Her high position naturally involves her in interdimensional affairs.

Blaze is called to help investigate a problem shared between her dimension and the dimension famous for its Chaos Emeralds. While there, she meets a hedgehog named Silver (or already knew him beforehand). The further she progresses her investigation, the more serious the problem proves to be.

This is nothing we’ve seen before. Our worlds are in danger!

- A line I could imagine Blaze telling Silver

Perhaps it’s the first manifestations of the doom that will later be brought upon their worlds. Or maybe it’s one of the series’ godlike beings--Solaris, Time Eater, Dark Gaia, etc. Or maybe someone, or something, is meddling with powers they shouldn’t.

Eventually, Blaze and Silver face a final culmination of this problem. An event that either sucks them into time and space, or presents such danger to their lives that the Sol Emeralds pull them into time and space to protect them. Either way, they are ripped from their current time and thrown far, far into the future.

And they are never heard from again.

#sonic the hedgehog #blaze the cat #silver the hedgehog #long post #I hope you find this interesting!

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ardenttheories · 5 years ago

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With the current update, a few pretty little thoughts have been rumbling around in my head. I definitely think that my previous theory that Dirk isn’t actually the Ultimate Self holds a little more weight with these past updates, particularly when you consider that his biggest hangup as explained by Brain Ghost Dirk is an incredible Destruction of Heart - evidence that he’s still Destroying his own sense of Self and Identity by declaring that none of them can ever have happy endings and that, ultimately, they have no capacity to be normal.

How can you be the Ultimate Self when you’re so throroughly destroying your Self?

But that isn’t what today is about. Not entirely, anyway. No, what we’re focusing on today is a beautiful nugget of thought I had some three-ish days ago, following along the lines of what a Prince of Heart is.

Destroyers of Heart. Killers of the Self. At their worst, they eradicate all Individuality, all Identity - they create Splinters quite simply by fracturing their own Soul and splitting it up into itty bitty pieces. They take the core of a person and they snap it, crush it up, make something else and leave it behind.

They take the very concept of a person, and they erase it from existence (as seen with Lil Cal, because we can easily say that in making Cal’s soul the individual components - Caliborn, Gamzee, Equius, AR - lose their Individuality, the things that make their existences unique, and are therefore erased entirely in place of this being that is Cal) or displace it and remove the identity (as seen with Aranea; if Brain Ghost Dirk had completed his removal of her soul, where would she have gone? Wherever she ended up wouldn’t have been her, and her whole sense and understanding of herself would have changed - or, perhaps, she simply would have been eradicated from existence).

Of course, what we have to consider as well is that a Prince of Heart’s Splinter, by warrant of being a piece of the Prince’s original soul, is also a Prince of Heart. At least in theory.

We also have to consider that the original Prince is also the Splinter’s Self; they’re connected by Soul, fractured as it may be, and while their piece if uniquely their own and can develop as they exist, that tie never actually fades. This is why Dirk can, as his “Ultimate” Self, superimpose himself on the will of ever Splinter and take away their narrative importance. He’s the original, the strongest, and they are all simply parts of him that he can freely use.

Except, of course, that we have one Splinter that isn’t wholly Dirk. One who has found his way into the unreality of the Candy timeline, and secured a small piece of the narrative for himself.

Brain Ghost Dirk, for all intents and purposes, is as much a product of Jake as he is a Splinter of Dirk. Dirk is the basis, the foundation; but only so far as Jake perceives Dirk to be. Funny, how this Dirk isn’t nearly as maniacal as Ultimate Dirk. There’s more a sense of grounded acceptance than anything else, less of a hatred towards Jake as a symbiotic relation to him. There’s moments where he maybe reveals more than he wants to:

DIRK: People like us don’t get happy endings.

JAKE: Is...is that really how dirk felt the whole gosh darned time?

DIRK: It doesn’t matter.

And, yes, this could be him brushing Jake off, a facile remark to quickly sway along the conversation towards something more relevant, but the next panel seems to hold a distinct awkwardness. Something that holds more of a confession than a callous slide along.

This Dirk is Dirk as Jake remembers him to be. He even admits this to some degree - that he doesn’t always know which parts of him are Dirk thoughts and which are Jake thoughts. Nor does he seem to be entirely proud of the fact that it is a Dirk though. It’s not a consensus of “this is right and you should listen”, it’s “yeah, sometimes I struggle with figuring out which parts of me are you and which parts are the big man upstairs”.

He’s definitely still undeniably Dirk. He says nothing matters because they’re gods, because the world comes first at the expense of all else, even personal happiness, and being a hero means making those sacrifices.

But he also absolutely flirts with Jake the literal first moment he can - “Not to say the sloppy drunk look isn’t working for me, because it absolutely is” - and doesn’t that just go entirely against what Dirk does to Jake in Meat? What happened to “I’ll never let you hurt me like that again”?

He’s absolutely still Jake enough, too, to see everything in Candy as still oddly relevant. He doesn’t appear and immediately try to disappear, to make himself dissipate because he exists in an irrelevant timeline. Nor does he even suggest that this is a split timeline - that something here isn’t right and that they need to find a way to the true ending.

What does he say instead?

DIRK: We’ve had this conversation before, dingus. I’m you. And I’m me. But I only exist because of your powers. The fact that I’m manifesting here, in the new universe, outside of a dream, is evidence in itself for just how absolutely boned you are.

DIRK: What are you doing? There’s a war happening. All of your friends are out there fighting, and you’re just here, what...dusting?

DIRK: Taking care of a house that nobody actually uses?

DIRK: You’ve been a useless sack of shit for two decades. I’m here to kick your ass back into active duty.

All things that suggest that this Dirk sees the Candy timeline as something Real and Relevant, is acting on Jake’s own personal desire to do something. This isn’t a Dirk that sees things as some wider game, or believes that there’s a point to plot and relevancy.

He’s disconnected from Ultimate Dirk enough to host none of Ultimate’s memories and plenty of his own, and he’s enough of Jake to be mired in the unimportance of a long-dead timeline. It’s completely likely that he’s locked out of everything to do with the Meat timeline and that his existence is just another show of how immediately irrelevant things appear in Candy (he is, after all, a very irrelevant Dirk) - and that means he’s got no idea what Ultimate Dirk is trying to do. Connected enough to think like him, yes, but it’s also implied that Dirk has always sort of thought like this, that it’s not unique to Ulimate.

He’s Dirk enough to know that sacrifices have to be made and that being a hero means not being happy, but Jake enough, it seems, to try edging towards that sort of better ending anyway.

So, lets recap. We have a Dirk that isn’t wholly Dirk, who thinks enough like him but is still contained within the irrelevancy of Candy and not actively flipping shit about it. A Dirk who, by all intents and purposes, is still very much a Prince of Heart with suitable Princely powers, as seen from his time within the Game. A Dirk with the ability to Destroy Souls and the Self as much as any other Dirk, who is tied to the wellbeing of Jake English.

Allow me to posit the idea, then, that Brain Ghost Dirk ends up being our hero.

What else could possibly Destroy the “Ultimate” Self? Only another Prince of Heart could possibly be able to completely erase all imprints of Ultimate from the timeline. (Of course that isn’t true, but it’s the most poetic and, I find, the most satisfying conclusion to come across). It’s literally what they’re made to do; to Destroy the Self and all it contains even down to the infinitesimal components.

Another Dirk, one gifted with narrative relevancy, allowed to flourish in this irrelevant timeline, already pushing towards plot without going too damn far. One with all the powers of Dirk but - so far - without the overbearing Epilogue Dirk mentality. One that’s more aligned with what we knew of Dirk before all of his corrupted development, and who will likely continue to be this way since most of him is founded on what Jake perceives Dirk to be. One who can’t suddenly go too far because he can only know what Jake knows.

This would bring that old prophecy full circle as well. That one where Jake was meant to be the hero all along, the one to take down the big bad. Lets suggest, then, that Brain Ghost Dirk - as a facet of Jake - does the deed. It’d be poetic both in that sense, and in the sense that Dirk Destroying himself is the ultimate show of a True Prince of Heart.

He’d have reason to do it, too. Jake’s goals are essentially his goals, and he pushes Jake to do what he’s always wanted to do but could never achieve alone. If the two timelines somehow came together, and Jake was made aware of what’d happened in Meat and who Ultimate Dirk was... There’s a chance that, combined, they’d think Ultimate Dirk is bullshit enough to need taking down.

Or, even better. Since Brain Ghost Dirk seems not to care about the irrelevancy of this world, lets imagine he does find a relatively happy ending. One where he eventually becomes aware of “Ultimate” Dirk, or where Ultimate poses some sort of threat. As the one Dirk who’d found a happy ending, however relevant or irrelevant it might be, he might not be so willing to give it up.

Because, hopefully, he’s enough of Jake to eventually see everything that Ultimate Dirk is doing and think it’s an unjust cause rather than a necessary one.

It would, of course, also allow the potential for redemption. A Prince of Heart doesn’t have to actively destroy the Soul or kill it, either. That’s just one incredibly powerful, incredibly terrifying prospect of the Classpect. Brain Ghost Dirk could easily just Destroy the “Ultimate” Self. Strip Dirk back to bare basics and force him to live through the consequences of everything he’s done, confiscate the narrative and ensure that Ultimate is no longer an issue.

He doesn’t have to Destroy everything about the main Dirk. Just the parts that are making him a villain - the same way Dirk did to himself in order to justify becoming Ultimate in the first place.

So, while this latter part was a little more fanciful, I still think the core idea remains. Brain Ghost Dirk is still a Prince of Heart, and Princes of Heart are wired to Destroy the Self. The Ultimate Self isn’t spared from this - if anything, it’s even more at risk. It’s the conglomeration of all Selves, the perfect (supposedly) unity of Identity. A Prince of Heart can have a field day with what that means.

(The way Ultimate Dirk already has, if you consider that he’s just overwritten every other Self with his own Identity rather than become all of them in one unique bit. But again that’s me being highly skeptical that a Prince of Heart can even achieve true Ultimate Self status. Something like it, maybe, or what they think it means to be Ultimate, almost definitely. But to actually be the perfected, unique, wonderous amalgamation of Selves living in harmony? Hell no.).

He could very much be our final hero at the end of it, or at least work towards amping Jake up to that goal. I would assume that’s why he’s suddenly relevant again, why he’s managed to slip through the net. And how perfectly ironic would it be, at the end, if Dirk’s taken down by one of the Splinters he always said felt suffocating? One of the Splinters he’s told us, directly, that he’s no longer afraid of?

#long post//#ardenttheories #homestuck^2 spoilers #homestuck meta #prince of heart #I'll include this here just in case. It's an interesting thing of nothing else and could apply to Princes of Heart in the future #brain ghost dirk

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shidoukanae · 5 years ago

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Pokemon SwSh Theory: Sonia suffers from (or was supposed to suffer from) PTSD

Having played through the Pokemon Sword and Shield games, I noticed something very interesting about Sonia’s character. If you talk to her outside of the game’s forced story parameters (and listen to her during a few of them), you’ll find that she seems to have a character arc revolving significantly around one thing: her trip into the Slumbering Weald when she was younger.

I don’t know how many other people have picked up on this because, through watching YouTuber’s playthroughs to refind scenes where Sonia says things, I’ve realized I’m probably one of the few people who keeps talking to her after story scenes are done just to glean more about her character through the hopes of changed-up dialogue.

And, wow. There’s A LOT about Sonia that either goes unsaid or is swept under the rug entirely during the development of her canon character arc.

To start this off, let me posit an idea that I hope will make sense by the end of this: Sonia suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD.

I will also note I hold no true credentials to properly identify PTSD or claim that I’m an expert on PTSD. I have only done background research on PTSD and its symptoms so my guesses are noobish at best. However, I will try to represent the disorder as accurately as possible but if anyone has the credentials to stop and correct me please do because I realize I’m out of my element here.

This said, let me give a rough timeline of the lore tidbits given to us as players about Sonia and then corroborate them all together at the end to make sense of why I think Sonia has PTSD.

First off: let’s start with what Hop says to you at the very beginning of the game after the Wooloo ramming the gates enters into the Slumbering Weald.

As stated above, Sonia once went into the Slumbering Weald and came out of it in a “real state”. It’s unclear what Hop means by this but, considering the context of the conversation (in which Hop is saying the forest is dangerous and it’s off-limits) it can be assumed Sonia was badly messed up by her trip in the woods in some way (and, given further context, I would prefer to imagine she’s been messed up in a mental way).

The next piece of information on this event comes from when Hop and you are about to receive your Dynamax Bands as well as after the occasion. Magnolia and Sonia are gathered in the living room and, as you enter a conversation about what you and Hop saw in the woods, Sonia asks:

This is worth noting because it shows Sonia holds an interest in the Pokemon they met in the woods. This is also further backed by what she says if you talk to her directly after this scene where she goes:

As seen, Sonia seems to recollect something about the Slumbering Weald (most likely seeing/meeting the legendary Pokemon) but is unable to consciously explain why she feels uneasy. This suggests that not only did Sonia come out of the woods in a bad state - she likely came out of the woods with no memory of what happened.

This is further emphasized when you talk to her in the Slumbering Weald after the post-game occurs. She meets the both of you in the Slumbering Weald. An obligatory cutscene occurs and, right before the cutscene where you put back the Rusted Sword and Shield occurs, you have a chance to talk to her. Here she says:

This gives the suggestion that, while not consciously able to recollect what happened to her in the Slumbering Weald, she remembers enough to still experience anxiety at being within the forest.

All these factors combined lead to a single conclusion: Sonia once went into the Slumbering Weald, came out of it badly shaken, and because of her experiences there she suffers from selective amnesia. She unconsciously shows signs of having met something freaky (as hinted by the fact she has probably met the legendary before) and she also seems to have no recollection of what happened during her time in the Slumbering Weald despite expressing anxiety and unease at being in the woods/being reminded of them.

Moving on to things that show even further that Sonia suffers from PTSD, here’s a list of notable things Sonia has said/has shown that I will relate back to the disorder:

-Sonia has lost her purpose in life and feels like she’s going nowhere, showcasing insecurities in her position in life. This is most notable in her introduction if you talk to her after forced dialogue is done with:

and later on when her grandmother calls her out on doing nothing meaningful with her life:

It is also further lamented on by Sonia in two different conversations - each of which has her reassuring you that it’s just “adult stuff” and that you don’t need to worry about her problems (showcasing the potential for her avoiding her problems or, at the very least, not wanting to talk with others about them for support).

(^^^ I would like to note that it is Very Interesting that you, who is obviously much younger than Sonia, has been given the chance to tell Sonia “are you alright?” or “You’ll be alright!” to her at two different points in time. This, combined with the fact that Sonia tells the player they have a sharp insight later on, seems to suggest that the player can tell that something is, indeed, not right with Sonia and this obligatory offering of reassurance by the game is meant to hint something is off with her. Keep in mind that Sonia always deflects your concern for her with “I will make it through, don’t worry about me” which suggests she doesn’t want to open up to anyone else about her problems or acts like they’re trivial when they’re really not for her.)

From this alone, it is very likely Sonia suffers from some form of depression. It is strongly hinted at throughout the narrative that Sonia is disappointed with her lack of purpose in life and that it is impacting her negatively.

I would also like to add as an interesting side-note that there is a tendency for Sonia to sigh a lot in the beginning of the game. This is more a fun fact than general proof of her being depressed but I find it interesting to see that she is sighing a lot - especially since I would suspect sighing is usually associated with sadness, tiredness, or an overall feeling of exhaustion.

-Furthermore, adding more on to the above, it seems like Sonia is estranged from the people she’s supposed to care about. This is most noticeable with Leon who she’s childhood friends with and once rivals with. Despite supposedly having a close relationship with him (as the game offhandedly suggests the potential for), I couldn’t help but notice how...hostile?...Sonia is towards Leon.

She snaps at him for being unable to remember their status together as rivals (granted, she had the full rights to as he was pretty much ignoring her), she shows insecurities in her life when she compares herself to him, the big strong Champion of the region (as shown above), notes with annoyance at how he has his “head in the clouds”, and even in her introduction she outright treats him with frustration, telling him off if he’s come to ask her about “some superstrong Pokemon again”.

For someone who’s supposed to be friends with Leon, these bouts of irritation seem a little offputting and overly aggressive. And while I do think some of what she says is meant to be comedic (because it certainly did amuse me to watch her introduction scene so the humor aspect worked if so) I also think it’s very telling of how she puts herself at a distance from Leon and even keeps him at an arm’s length with her childish behavior.

-One thing to notice is that Sonia has supposedly (and I say supposedly because this was never been pitched until Sonia outright states it in the post-game) lost her interest in Pokemon and her passion for it. This is reinforced by two different things in game: the lore provided by the inside of Opal’s gym as well as what she tells the player and Hop in the opening scene of the post-game.

In Opal’s gym, there is a section where you can find Opal’s notes on Sonia. There it is specifically noted that she “gives up too easy” and that this problem of hers is due to the pressure of being the granddaughter of the Pokemon professor. This further ties in to Sonia’s insecurities of her inability to go anywhere compared to her grandmother but it also showcases that she doesn’t have the passion to truly put her heart into the gym challenge she set out to conquer.

Furthermore, Sonia’s loss of passion about Pokemon can be noted in the post-game when she outright tells Hop and the player:

Sonia straight up admits a loss of love for Pokemon that she has now regained by involving herself in the lore of her region. This truly emphasizes the point that Sonia had, at one point, lost the passion she once had for Pokemon but now has regained it after performing the character arc she develops in the games.

...Now, with all these points said, I think it’s about time I relate these pieces of proof back to the idea at hand: Sonia suffers from PTSD and these circumstances and bits of dialogue prove it.

(Above from here)

To explain, PSTD is a disorder that occurs after witnessing a traumatic event. It develops in a person in different ways, but some of the more major symptoms include: a loss of passion in activities you once enjoyed, an estrangement from people who remind you of the event (or just estrangement in general), depression, and those with PTSD may suffer from dissociative amnesia (which is the forgetting of an important event related to a certain trauma).

You see where I’m going with this, right?

Sonia displays all of these symptoms. She has lost her interest in activities she once enjoyed (such as her love for Pokemon), has an estrangement from people she’s supposed to be close with (noticed by the way she keeps Leon at an arm’s length), suffers from depression (as can be seen by Sonia’s insecurities, her inability to open up to others about her problems, as well as her constant feelings of having no purpose in life), and especially suffers from dissociative amnesia (as she has no recollection of what occurred in the Slumbering Weald despite showcasing feelings of unease and anxiety about it).

All these factors combined, I think it’s hard not to believe that, at some point in time, Sonia was meant to not only tackle her problem of not having a purpose in life but, also, not getting closure for what happened to her in the Slumbering Weald.

The game makes a significant point of showing that Sonia’s involvement with the legendaries when she was younger has impacted her character growth up until now. And, I find it absolutely crazy to believe that these ideas were brought up only to be dropped (and completely forgotten to be erased in canon) when nothing much came from them.

Sonia could have had a really good character arc on getting over her PTSD, learning what happened to her as a youth and coming to terms with it through her journey to discover the legendaries (which would, of course, have forced her to come back to the Slumbering Weald to find closure for the trauma she experienced before the plot began). Instead, she gets half the closure she needed - finding her purpose in life - and leaves it open-ended as to whether or not she truly got what she needed (figuring out what happened to her in the Slumbering Weald and realizing she can move on now that she knows about the strange pokemon that traumatized her once before).

#putting this under a cut because whoo boi this is huge #Sonia #Professor Magnolia #Leon #pokemon Swsh #PTSD #also godammit youtubers why do you keep skipping over the optional NPC dialogue after forced dialogue is done and over with #i had to replay the game just to find these quotes again for proof jfghhfgj #Can you tell I paid waaaaay too much attention to Sonia during my playthrough of the story?#Because I totally did and I think me doing that paid off with this post fhgjfgj #also obviously there are some holes and stuff here because the game never fully fleshes out the critical Slumbering Weald event for Sonia #but from what I've gathered it seems like there was at once a moment in time where Sonia was meant to have history with Zacian and Zamazenta #and her journey of becoming a Pokemon Professor was not only supposed to help her get closure for her life that has gone nowhere #but also closure for the event that scarred her when she was younger and came out of the weald badly messed up bc of the legendaries

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theorynexus · 5 years ago

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Well, I accidentally seem to have ended Homestuck’s Meat Epilogue on 69. I might just cut this page off half-way through so I can get a 70.

That’s all we need: 69 with Meat. Will the innuendos and double entendres ever cease? ... Oh, and before I continue, I just wanted to ask: Jake’s supposed illegitimate children mentioned via the rally sequence--- is that a reference to Hiveswap and Grandpa Harley? I have not actually played or watched a playthrough, so I can’t be certain, but that nonetheless seems to be the case. Hmm. There were some other thoughts that I’ve had over the last few days that I wanted to add in there, and I’ll do so if I remember them as I continue with this post, I guess. Most importantly, I would just like to announce that I’ll be taking a little break before starting up my Candy liveblog. I want to experiment a bit with starting up a reread of Homestuck from the beginning and creating a sort of interesting narrative that relays all of the important things that pop into my head as being important/relevant for certain early pages, either because they connect to them plot-wise, are foreshadowing said later events, or represent important themes/ideas being implemented early on. I’ll at least spend a dozen or so posts on doing that, I guess, before I start the epilogues back up again. I don’t know if I’ll continue doing that or move on to Homestuck^2, after I am done with Candy. Maybe I’ll go back and forth between the two, at that point, depending on how popular said quasi-liveblog information/analysis jamboree becomes. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Oh, hey, we seem to suddenly be in a war zone. I wonder if this is retroactive dream bubble shenanigans, if this is what’s happening in the Black Hole, somehow (or, erm... trans-black hole, for souls that are seemingly destroyed? Maybe there’s a second afterlife-- not counting the “afterlife” that comes from reviving via dream self or whatever?).

Yep. Seems to be “what happens to those who get sucked into the black hole.” My guess is that Alt!Calliope created a sort of new world or story or paradise for them to “play in,” or whathaveyou. (In which case: Whoops, LE’s going to be in there, assuming he didn’t get split into his constituent parts of Gamzee, ARquiusprite [or AR and Equius?], and Caliborn. This of course assumes that Alt!Calliope does not and/or cannot exclude anyone from said realm, which might indeed be quite possible.)

Hehe~ Meat. Also, that “Deed is Finished,” seems to reference the end of the Meat Epilogue. For some reason, it also makes me think of Christ just before his death. As for Jade’s behavior... again, the obvious parallel is with the, “ What a daring dream, to combine the finest qualities of humanity with the elegance and nobility of the animal kingdom. How you wish you could know their world,” line from about Jade’s introduction. Not all TOO much to say, there, albeit it’s a bit silly. We’ll see what implications it has. (Quite the nice image, her being so covered in blood, with a giant pool of it surround her, as well~)

This suddenly feels like an excerpt from an entirely different story, with the same characters; yet a different setting. Somewhat like the supposed sequel/prequel story (or parallel tale?) that will supposedly come out eventually for Doki Doki Literature Club? I wonder when that will eventually be released... . But I am distracted. I guess this impression to some extent comes as a result of the similar military-ish themes.

MECHA DAVE?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

(But in all seriousness, my suspicion is that this Dave comes from the Candy timeline. The alternative is that he might actually be from within the Homestuck^2 period of the Meat continuity? My impressions are somewhat hard to sort out, there, though.) Wait a minute... I for some reason have a sudden impression of there being a Davebot in one of the Dream Bubble walk-arounds. Is that a false memory? Nah, I guess maybe I was thinking about the e-bubbles, or something, upon looking into it.

Well... that’s interesting. I like that glowing shades business.

I appreciate this confidence. I wonder: Is it because he’s gotten in touch with his ultimate self, or what? That seems quite likely. I wonder how strong the connections are between these new split timelines emergent via the epilogues. They should be pretty strong in connection, regardless. Hmmm~

***sudden glint of a galaxy reflecting in the glasses***

Well. I guess that no further interactions will ever definitely and definitively occur between Alt!Calliope’s realm and the living world. Probably. The imaginary line lines are quite intriguing and compelling, though. It... feels like something more should be said about it, and likely I shall indeed be compelled to theorize on the matter at a later date, perhaps when I have more perspective on the matter. Right now, however, my mind feels a bit fogged, and I am uncertain about what to make of it, both in the sense “what I ought to sculpt my understanding of it into,” and also in the sense of, “what theory and/or explanation ought I to craft from this jumble of words”? For now, I suppose we’ll just have to wait, and I will have to thank you all for following along with my epilogue liveblog(s). I hope you and the others who join you in the future shall continue to enjoy and perhaps even enrich yourselves by following along as I post all that comes to my mind, either whilst I am reading, before, or after. ... Dangit, I didn’t make sure to write a Post 70.

#Homestuck Epilogue #Homestuck Spoilers #Meat Epilogue #Homestuck Liveblog #Homestuck Epilogues

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myfandomrambles · 6 years ago

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Why does it need to be magic amnesia?

So I really don’t think the idea that Shadow Weaver has been constantly wiping Adora’s mind or otherwise directly mind controlling should be what they do. Not because it's not possible in the story, but I think that plotline would be damaging for Adora’s and Catra’s characterization and arcs. Muddle the back story, and damage the relationships between Adora & Catra and both of theirs with Shadow Weaver. And on a meta level, it would really suck to see someone really ruin a story that handles abuse relatively well to other family orientated shows and gives views on emotional abuse and how abuse can work on multiple people at once.

Looking at Adora adding this component take away the really interesting aspect of being someone who really did eat propaganda wholesale and deals with internalized abuse. It makes a character who was brainwashed instead of one who grew up in this abusive home but makes the choice to do better. It would be less interesting if the reason she didn’t recognize some of the worst of Shadow Weaver's behaviours and the Horde at large actions is that she literally doesn’t remember it. The story of direct mind manipulation makes a black and white reason might have believed less than tasteful things and makes it not there fault or we get a story of someone who swallowed propaganda or was an abuse victim not knowing things are wrong and that being something that excuses bad behaviour. Right now Adora isn't either of these, she is someone who was abused and propagandized but saw harm and made the choice to be better. But she isn't just a puppet, she did buy into the ideas and that's different. Her arc starting in episode one gets smashed and kills a really fascinating idea of her unpacking abuse she didn’t even know was happening.

Catra’s arc also gets screwed up if you did that. Her arc is put into motion by Adora’s realization of the Horde hurting others, but not seeing it had already hurt people and Catra in particular. Catra spends a lot of the series finding her own voice but what pushes her over the edge to reject her love of Adora is centred around her remembering that Adora promised to help her but didn’t. That she watched abuse but was willing to leave her to keep being hurt. If the reason Adora doesn’t take horrible abuse into account is she never remembered it, or worse say she didn’t remember the “promise” scene in their bed it kills this whole arc. The idea she didn’t take this into account was self-rationalization, internalized abuse etc. means Catra does have a point, even if stopping the horde is the right choice overall. It creates a simple sitcom level ""misunderstanding"" which is just less interesting.

Their whole dynamic is worse if we're inserting direct mind manipulation and the back story is confused. We can’t know what of her actions was her won violation or only from direct/fantasy style mind control. It calls into question if Adora remembers any of the stuff just catra saw in the memories, not just how they see it but if she knows anything. Along with questions of if she knew other things that she now forgets. As well as how much can Shadow Weaver directly controlled in her mind, if we start making her directly screwing with magic if things were done voluntarily.

It also doesn't actually track with Catra's character to not notice anything. If someone kept forgetting all this stuff she would be curious. We know she is aware of the Horde’s manipulation in a large part she would be aware enough to see stuff like that. I understand there are plot holes in general, but it makes the characters weaker which is the shows strength.

Lastly, I would just hate it from the meta-perspective. I love that Adora is a victim of believable emotional and psychological abuse and is both the hero and makes bad choices based on the abuse. Having a character who went through plausible style brainwashing instead of fantasy/sci-fi brainwashing was nice. Characters who are still partially responsible for their own actions combined with being victims of manipulation are so relatable for abuse victims who often act on being misinformed and never taught healthy love even when trying to make the right decision. Like why make it be this impossible act of magic mind control when you have this honestly pretty good depiction of abuse and trauma as the background for a really great and understandable hero. Also we hardly ever get emotional/psychological abuse victims why steal that?

Adding that messes with their pretty rare depiction of how growing up in an abusive environment can make even non-abusive relationships (like with siblings) heavily dysfunctional. Also showing that abuse might be visited upon victims differently. Adora is made out to be the perfect kids, yeah, but it causes an obsession with being perfect person, entirely fragile sense of self, a fear of showing any weakness, believing love was tied to being what others wanted and twisted her ability to show and receive affection. Catra, on the other hand, was explicitly told she was worthless causing lashing out because she couldn’t get lower, being made to be lesser than all the other kids, she felt completely reliant on Adora as the only one who cared for her, she also feared weakness but became angry and hard instead of Adora’s hero complex. Catra shares her confused understanding of love and coping. She was openly berated instead of the covert manipulation and received the direct physical lashing out that kept everyone else in line to not end up there.

Instead of Adora not knowing about The Horde and accidentally victim blaming being a depiction of how differing abuse forms differing coping mechanisms, internalized abuse or willful ignorance instead it’s just magic! It's mind control, it's not someone who struggled with reality like you, or feeling betrayed by a loved one, Nah that couldn't be real. What a huge screw you to the abuse victims who related to Adora and Catra.

I don’t understand what would be gained from this plot at all. Besides a Chekhov's gun-type “well they introduced it!” but they could just have mind erasing or similar magic used later on. I really can’t think of a way this adds to Adora or any other character, just being a plot twist doesn’t make it interesting. I’m also not saying brainwashing wouldn’t be traumatic in and of itself, but that it is complicated in an annoying way and isn’t more traumatic or interesting then what we have now.

If you have a reason it would be interesting in a character, thematic and narrative way I would like to know, because I really don’t get it. And Again I’m not saying by the mechanics of the world and timeline it’s not plausible just that it does nothing to enhance the story.

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vmheadquarters · 6 years ago

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ASK THE FANDOM--RESPONSES

Here’s this week’s Ask the Fandom question:

Did Logan and Parker have sex? If so, was he the first guy she slept with after her rape? And, despite Mac’s “one woman red light district” comments, was Parker a virgin before her rape?

And here’s what you had to say:

@atreider—I dont think Parker was a virgin before the rape, which is why i like the storyline more. Because it doesnt matter if you are promiscuous or the virgin mary, it doesnt give anyone the right to take what you dont give willingly. Rape is rape, regardless of what you are wearing or your past sexual history. I also dont think she was as loose as she seemed. I dont think Logan and Parker slept together, because I dont think she was ready post rape.

@absolutelyiris--Did Logan and Parker have sex?

I’m not sure. Maybe? Either way would be plausible to me.

If so, was he the first guy she slept with after her rape?

I would say yes if they did.

And, despite Mac’s “one woman red light district” comments, was Parker a virgin before her rape?

No, she wasn’t, and there’s nothing wrong with that.*

* Listen, that “one woman red light district” just made me remember why I have never been a Mac fan. The whole “I’m not like THOSE girls bullshit was one of the worst parts of season three.

@troublescout--Co-signed.

* And I like Mac, but like all characters on this show, she should be held accountable for her bad behavior and her prejudices. The “red light district” comment was not a proud moment.

@nicemom93--On the Mac issue – I completely agree with the above. I would go a step further and say that the blame that Parker heaped on Veronica for allowing her to be raped, while unfair in the way that Veronica’s blame for Madison is unfair, would be more accurately pointed toward Mac, who painted a ‘slut’ picture of Parker for Veronica, and then sat outside the room while the rape was taking place. Veronica only believed what she did because she believed Mac.

Regarding Logan and Parker, I tend to think no. As long as he was in a relationship and being treated decently, it seemed like he could deal with his sexual urges without putting pressure on his partner. The fact that he and Veronica did not sleep together in the summer between Junior and Senior year supports that. Parker was healing and he knew it, and what he needed most was someone who treated him like a worthwhile human, which she obviously did. If they had slept together, after her past experience, I think she would have been more upset when she broke up with him over still loving Veronica. She didn’t seem to be experiencing the level of betrayal that she would have felt if she had slept with him and then realized it wasn’t really her that he wanted.

With all that said, if they did sleep together, I absolutely think he would have been her first, post-rape. I just don’t think they got to that point before he felt the need to beat down Piznarski and reveal his true feelings.

@iamjmgardner--I think there was a real sweetness to Logan and Parker’s relationship and really don’t know whether or not they slept together. I think there’s a very good chance that they might have and Logan would have been her first post-rape, but if they did, I imagine it would have been Parker taking the lead. I don’t see Logan putting any pressure in any way on her.

I never liked Mac’s comment about Parker, but I think it was important for her character at the time. We really didn’t get to see the fallout Beaver’s actions had on Mac. They’re alluded to, but it’s never fully explored by the show. I think it’s important that Mac, as a flawed character who had been traumatized in a sexual way, (attempting sex with Beaver only to have things not work and then being abandoned without ANYTHING in a hotel room on graduation night without an explanation), would have had some residual anger and resentment from that.

If Beaver was her first serious boyfriend, it makes sense that Mac would be angry and probably jealous of seeing another girl her age (Parker) who could simply enjoy sex without all the baggage someone like Mac was carrying at that point. Characterizing Parker as a slut (while unfair and inaccurate) was Mac’s way of sidelining her own trauma and directing her anger and resentment toward someone else.

Note: Both Mac and Veronica struggle to direct their anger toward the men who hurt them and deserve their wrath (Beaver, Duncan, and Dick) and instead misdirect it toward the women that remain on the sideline of their experiences but represent a different model of femininity–women (Madison, Parker) that can enjoy sex on a fun/casual level without the emotional trauma that Veronica-Mac carry.

@mysilverylining--Strongly agree with most of the above, and the general way in which the show was written to separate Veronica/Mac from the “slutty bimbos”.

I would go a step further and say that the blame that Parker heaped on Veronica for allowing her to be raped, while unfair in the way that Veronica’s blame for Madison is unfair, would be more accurately pointed toward Mac, who painted a ‘slut’ picture of Parker for Veronica, and then sat outside the room while the rape was taking place. Veronica only believed what she did because she believed Mac.

This, I disagree strongly with.

Regardless of whether Mac/Veronica thought Parker was slutty, the only blame goes to the rapist, Mercer.

The situation could easily have been reversed – Mac inside the room and Parker waiting in the hall. Regardless of Mac’s perceived score on the promiscuity scale, if Mercer’s clippers sounded like a vibrator, I can’t imagine Parker, Veronica, or anybody else being willing to barge in and interrupt her time with Mr. Buzzy (or a partner, for that matter).

I could write screeds on Veronica and Mac’s misogyny, but in this particular case, they did nothing wrong.

@nicemom93--Just to clarify, I don’t think this part of my statement stood out enough.

while unfair in the way that Veronica’s blame for Madison is unfair

Nothing in what I wrote was to suggest that I’m shifting blame to Mac for the rape, I don’t agree with Parker blaming anyone but her rapist, although her doing so is unfortunately real. In both real life and fiction, it’s an all too natural reaction for people to find someone they can reach to blame. In this case, Parker chose Veronica. What I was trying to establish was that Veronica was about as much of an innocent bystander here as she could be.

If the show’s intentional comparison here had been Veronica being blamed for Parker’s rape to help her realize that her blame of Madison for her own rape is misguided, this might have been an interesting twist in the narrative. However, we never see Veronica own that error in perception, so I have my doubts about that being purposeful.

@mysilverylining--Okay, I see what you’re saying, but you could argue that in order for Parker to misplace blame toward Mac, she would have to be aware that Mac thinks she’s slutty or that Mac was even waiting out in the hall.

100% YES for the second part. Wouldn’t it be great if it had been used as a learning experience, rather than immediately forgotten about?

@troublescout--Reblogging for excellent commentary.

I also wanted to say that while I could see Parker and Logan having slept to together or not slept together, most of the arguments I’ve seen are for why Parker would NOT have slept with Logan. To play devil’s advocate, I’d like to put forth that there is a real argument to be made for them having had sex considering the way the show framed Parker’s experience and behavior post trauma.

I think it’s worth noting that while Parker’s rape was obviously very traumatic, it was not the typical “suffer in silence”, “no justice to be found” experience. Her rape was immediately reported, it was being investigated, and she was one of a group who decidedly refused to make her feel alone in the situation. The Lilith House empowered Parker post her rape (not always in the healthiest ways, but they did). They inspired her to take action, be an advocate, help pursue justice. She was surrounded by a group of people who told her that she wasn’t at fault, gave her a sense of agency, and allowed her to gain ownership over what happened to her. She even joined Take Back The Night. (Also, my memory is a little fuzzy, but didn’t she also do some counseling?) Even when she felt slut shamed by Veronica, she confronted her. And then when Veronica revealed her own rape, it further asserted to Parker that she was not alone in this experience and even though Veronica thought Parker was engaging in consensual, non-vanilla sexual activity, she in no-way thought that Parker was “asking for it”. Mac and Veronica were her advocates as well, actively providing her friendship and searching for her rapist. In addition, Mercer, her rapist, was brought to justice, which is a level of closure most victims never know.

All of this is to say, Parker had multiple outlets to address and process her rape in a way that might have led her to feel comfortable engaging in sexual activity sooner that other victims of sexual assault might.

The idea that she wouldn’t have had sex because she was “healing” is a misnomer. Sexual activity in a safe environment can be a form of therapy and healing.

These facts, combined with the fact that Parker herself actively sought out a new romantic relationship (even before sparking with Logan) and that in Logan, she found a boyfriend who was both familiar with trauma and who she knew could be trusted to have a sexual relationship with with a rape victim, make it perfectly plausible that 9+ months post-rape and 3+ months post becoming a couple, Parker and Logan may have slept together.

I felt like it was important to state this because there is no set timeline for when and how a rape victim re-enters into sexual activity. If Parker was ready to sleep with Logan, that’s totally okay and doesn’t in anyway negate the trauma, severity, or atrocity of her rape. Or it’s lingering effects.

On a completely different note…

Not in the posts above, but many times before I’ve felt like people want to say that Logan didn’t sleep with Parker, or that he didn’t sleep with Hannah, because they don’t like the idea that he would sexually be with someone else besides Veronica in a loving way. It’s often reasoned that Parker and Hannah wouldn’t have been ready (even though Hannah straight up asked for sex and went back to his hotel room for that intended purpose) instead of saying “I hope they didn’t because as a fan, I hate the idea of Logan with someone else”.

If Parker or Hannah wanted to sleep with Logan, I’m sure he did sleep with them because he had legitimate affection for them and wanted to have sex with them. Logan loving Veronica doesn’t negate his ability to have a real emotional attachment to others or sexual desire towards them. As LoVe shippers, we may not love the fact that it happens, but it is okay that it does. And it’s actually way healthier for Logan.

@atreider--Well stated and great thought out responses. Thank you for you insights.

Mi_miantra‏ @mirana_eli (via Twitter)--Nope, Parker was definitely not a virgin. Remember she brought few guys in their room few times. Isa‏ @Isazu (via Twitter)--I don’t think so. I think Logan never pushed the subject and she wasn’t ready to have that type of relationship. Now about Parker being a virgin I have no clue but I think Mac's comment was an exaggeration. Louise‏ @lmr_80 (via Twitter)--I think they did, absolutely. Logan may have waited for Veronica but I don’t think that was his standard behaviour.

#ask the fandom #vmhq #veronica mars #vm ask the fandom

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ploppythespaceship · 6 years ago

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Once Upon A Time Watch - Season 7

I DID IT. I FUCKING DID IT. I FINISHED.

Good Things:

Gonna say it right off the bat -- this season isn’t really good? But it’s also not bad. I had a good time watching it and personally, I think it’s stronger than seasons 5 and 6 were.

I love a lot of the new cast:

Andrew J. West as adult Henry

Dania Ramirez as Cinderella/Jacinda

Gabriella Anwar as Tremaine/Bellfrey

Mekia Cox as Tiana/Sabine

Adelaide Kane as Drizella/Ivy

Rose Reynolds as Alice/Tilly

Tiera Skovbye as Robin/Margot

Daniel Francis as Facilier/Samdi

Also, I think it really helps the narrative to make Cinderella a woman of color while her stepfamily is white.

Drizella is the standout new character, and I love the twist that she cast the curse, not her mother. She has a very good and satisfying arc.

For the earlier episodes of the season, I actually like more of the focus on day to day events in Hyperion Heights, rather than grand epic magic. It’s something I missed about season 1 that I’m glad came back.

This season also struck a fairly decent balance between day to day events and grand magical schemes. Characters were woken and regained their memories slowly, until both plots could interweave into one story. It had a few missteps but for the most part worked fairly well.

Alice and Robin are adorable, and I really appreciate the writers letting a lesbian couple finally take the center stage, rather than only being implied (Mulan/Aurora) or only lasting a single episode (Ruby/Dorothy).

I like Tremaine being Rapunzel. That was a nice way to combine the stories. And I much prefer this Rapunzel to the random one-off Rapunzel in season 3.

Tremaine giving her life to save Lucy is a nice touch and a good end to her character. She had a pretty solid arc for the season that I enjoyed.

At first I hated Alice being Nook and Gothel’s daughter, but it’s growing on me. I think because it’s a similar situation to Robin and Zelena, where the woman became pregnant by pretending to be someone else and tricking the man (hey OUAT writers, that’s rape, please remember this), but instead of excusing Zelena they keep Gothel as the villain the whole time, and it’s made very clear that Gothel is not Alice’s mother in any way that matters. It’s also a really nice connection for Nook, since he doesn’t have the relationships with the rest of the cast the same as regular Hook.

I like the finale taking place in the Wish Realm, purely for the sake of all the cameos they can bring in. I wish they’d played that up a bit more, honestly.

Overall, I like Rumple’s ending and his sacrifice. He did the right thing fully believing that he wouldn’t get back to Belle, and that’s ultimately what got him his happy ending with her. Good shit, good shit.

I also like how the entire story turned into Regina’s redemption arc, going full circle from the Evil Queen to the Good Queen. It’s cheesy, but it’s nice.

Bad Things:

It’s really obvious that they only had a handful of the original actors at their disposal. Some characters are unceremoniously written out, while others are awkwardly shoehorned in. They get the hang of it eventually, striking a balance between the old and the new, but for a while the setup is very awkward.

The downtown Seattle setting just isn’t working for me. Storybrooke had a very distinct feel to the entire town, and its locations were almost like characters in and of themselves. Meanwhile Hyperion Heights is just a generic downtown area that doesn’t stand out from the rest of the city at all. Also, people can freely come and go... but only sometimes. It’s very unclear.

Alison Fernandez has little kid charm, for sure, but not enough to really carry the series the way she needs to. I just can’t get attached to her the way I got attached to little kid Henry -- though I think it’s more down to the writing than her performance. They don’t let her carry the story, it’s all wrapped up in the other characters.

While Andrew J. West perfectly captures Henry, he also highlights how dull of a character Henry really is. There’s nothing really distinct about his personality or anything to latch onto for the lead character.

Everything about Rumple this season.

I didn’t care for Rumple and Belle’s final episode with the silly Up montage. And it makes no sense that Rumple spends all those years with no idea how to get rid of the dagger, but then as soon as Belle dies he knows that he needs to find the Guardian. Why didn’t he do that decades ago? That was very unclear.

They also?? Don’t explain what the Guardian is?? Ever?? It’s yet another mysterious title they give to people without ever fucking explaining it. First Anastasia is one. Then for some reason, Alice is, and we’re never given any further info. It’s the multiple Saviors from season 6 all over again.

And then to top it all off, Rumple’s immortality is removed... with the Author’s Pen. You know, something he could have found ages ago. He’s a smart dude, he would have thought of that.

Honestly, Rumple has lost all of his presence and power. It’s like he’s background noise, and it’s a waste of Robert Carlyle.

There's too many competing villains in too short a span of time, and they keep trying to one up each other. Like it’s a twist, there was secretly an even bigger villain behind it all. It’s like matryoshka dolls, but with half-assed villains. And I don't like the chief one being Gothel. There’s nothing wrong with her, but she’s just not nearly as compelling as Tremaine, Drizella, or Facilier.

The repeated Dark Curses start to feel like a cop out, but Drizella managing it without crushing anyone’s heart is the biggest cop out of all.

Robin and Zelena's mother daughter squabbles are really forced and feel like something out of a bad Disney channel original movie.

Why the hell does the curse go back in time as well? It doesn’t add anything but confusion. Now it could have been really cool if they’d shown Henry’s phone conversation only from young Henry’s side in the premiere, and that’s what prompted him to wander the realms. They could have left the mystery of that for the entire season, making for a satisfying reveal. The way it was set up, it just seems odd. It’s like they realized last minute that they had a timeline error and hastily wrote this in to cover for it.

The finale’s big bad is Wish Realm Rumplestiltskin, which is... okay. But feels repetitive since we’ve been so used to Rumple for so long.

I... I don’t understand how Rumple’s sacrifice wound up killing the other Rumple. They didn’t explain that. It’s not like characters split with the Jekyll/Hyde serum, where that’s clearly established as a rule -- these are two different versions of the same character, I... I don’t... yeah, okay.

#personal #ouat rewatch

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sillyfudgemonkeys · 4 years ago

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uhhh i moreso mean the folks who wanted P4D to have less plot and more waifus (aka main character waifus, which is likely why P3D/P5D were all about the main casts+the DLC packs, even if the practices were scummy) it could just be bc i hang out with more casual persona fans, but usually they either don't know/forgot P4D had a plot, or think it's non-canon since P3D/P5D aren't (The dream stuff is just a cheap way of sayin it aint canon imo)

030 Pfffftttt I’d say egg on my face, but you know, both ideas/reasons can coexist kfdslajfakjf; (edit: fyi I’m laughing at myself here, just want to make sure there’s no miscommunication DX) Yeah Atlus probably tried to go the “fluff/waifu/character exploitation” route (by exploitation, I mean just....using the chars to get people to buy the game regardless of quality), sadly either those people don’t make up a suuuuuper big part of the fanbase (like the uber lore people) or they just didn’t buy it cause it wasn’t worth it. (cause sales were abysmal compared to the rest of the franchise let’s be honest)

As for canon, if this helps. P3/5D are canon, just because they don’t remember doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Memory wipe isn’t new, P2 did it, PQ1 did it (and it played a part in the Arena games, in part that it completed a narrative and the other is that it helped make sense of how the P3/4 kids trusted each other so fast despite not knowing each other, as well as call backs/call forwards) and they all happened/weight on the franchise. Hell it ALMOST happened with P3′s ending and the Dark Hour (probably cause they were Persona users they remembered, lucky duckies). Do I think P3/5D will have a similar effect? I dunno, same with PQ2.

Are memory wipes cheap? Yeah. Is there a good established reason in the universe? Yes, Persona users will rip the fabric of reality apart if they kept their memories (of obvie the events that involve meeting in diff timelines and stuff), because like a Chie Galactic punt or eating Aigis’ bullets.....it can happen. And this is both a good and bad thing, well if handled poorly it’s bad (the only other “bad” thing is it feeling cheap but eh).

It’s good because it allows Atlus to explore A LOT of different ideas, try a lot of different genres, and see how different teams would interact with each other, and/or even foreshadow new events (mainline and sideline games alike). It’s bad when.......you know...they literally throw it away. The foreshadowing part remains to be seen with P5′s spinoffs, but they def don’t feel like they are exploring the potential they could be. I’m mostly aiming it at P3/5D, as much as I give PQ2 shit it is at least an attempt. *glances at P5S* you feel like a midway between P3/5D and PQ2.

P3/5D needed to pick a lane: put a bit more story into both games, put a bit more gameplay into both games, or just say screw it and combine the two and sell them as one game. But in the end it felt like they just threw it away because they figured they could cash in on the waifu/character lovers, super lore nerds, and MAYBE rhythm game fans.....But they probably didn’t count on that the former two either aren’t that big oooooor those consumers smelled a fishy product, and the latter I don’t think Atlus has made a decent foothold in that genre to just rely on them yet.

(.........sorry again if I missed your point again anon, and if I just went on a long rant again fdlksajfajfk;ajkf orz)

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neuxue · 7 years ago

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I've run out of good books to read, I naturally thought of you as someone to recommend others. I read the riddle master trilogy because of you and liked it so hunting for anything you like really! Pretty please

You read Riddle-Master!!! I really cannot overstate how excited I am whenever someone tells me they’ve read those books, so this makes me very happy!

Other recs...let’s see. I don’t know your taste in books, really, so I’ll just toss out some random ones. If you’ve already read them all, let me know and I’ll try again.

1. His Dark Materials will probably feature on just about any recs list I ever make, because these books were my Formative Fantasy Experience at age 7 and I never got over them. They also feature two of my favourite characters in fiction, and one of my favourite...well, ‘relationships’ is not really the word I’m looking for, but it’ll do in a pinch. This is one of those series that reveals something new every time I read it; I loved the story as a child and I love it as an adult and some of the things I love have shifted, but there are enough layers in there to be intriguing no matter what you’re looking for. These books are also somewhat Controversial and admittedly not for everyone - if you (or anyone else reading this) want more detail/explanation of that, feel free to message me.

2. If you enjoyed Riddle Master, I’d recommend Alphabet of Thorn, also by Patricia McKillip. It features more of her beautiful, lyrical, dreamlike prose, along with a rather fascinating take on the nature of stories. It’s probably my favourite of her standalone novels.

3. Neverwhere might be my favourite of Neil Gaiman’s works. A familiarity with London takes this book from good to excellent, because he doesn’t stop at the surface level; the nature of the city is woven through the story and warped in a way that somehow perfectly captures the reality while at the same time painting a picture that is nothing like it at all. Gaiman is always good at twisting the mundane in alongside the magical to both juxtapose and seamlessly combine, and this book hit that balance just right for me. If you like his weirder side, American Gods is also incredible. The ‘I believe’ monologue has been burned into my brain since I first read it, because wow. If you are not as much a fan of his weirder side, may I suggest Stardust?

4. You may have heard of some guy called Brandon Sanderson, so I’m not going to spend that much time on his books here, but I’ll toss out a recommendation for The Emperor’s Soul, which is probably one of the lesser-known stories in his Cosmere universe, but is also one of my favourites. Shai is such a compelling and fascinating character, and the novella deals creatively with the nature of identity.

5. Time travel is usually a pet peeve of mine rather than a fondness, and I’ve never been all that into historical fiction, but Connie Willis’s Doomsday Book might be the exception that proves the rule.

6. In a sea of vampire stories that range from uninspiring to cringeworthy, Sunshine by Robin McKinley stands out as an excellent exception. This is dark urban fantasy done right with a side of freshly baked cinnamon rolls (literal, not figurative, and . If you imagine a story that is its own coffeeshop AU, this is precisely nothing like that. Well, except for the coffeeshop. The narrative is very stream-of-consciousness and if you find loose ends frustrating this book is probably not for you, but if that doesn’t bother you, it’s definitely worth a read. (Even the loose ends are done well).

7. Speaking of Robin McKinley, The Blue Sword is another childhood favourite. I haven’t read it in probably over a decade, so I suppose I should go back to it before recommending it, but I read a lot of your standard fantasy hero’s journey stories in that time, and this is one of the ones that stands out in memory, so that probably says something.

8. It’s not fantasy or scifi, but I really loved The Still Point, by Amy Sackville. The prose is beautiful, and the way the chronology is split, with two separate and not-quite-linear timelines anchored more by the evocation of still summer heat and frigid arctic winter, suits the story (stories?) perfectly. It’s definitely one of the better examples of nonlinear storytelling I’ve come across. “It is exhausting enough, grasping at the past as it slides through the present, without letting the future interfere.”

9. The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch is one of those books where I know full well it has its flaws, and some of those would maybe put me off if it were any other book, but I love it to pieces. You know those books (or characters) that feel like they were written either as a personal attack on you or a personal gift to you or really a combination of the two because damn you, author, why must you do this to me? Yeah.

10. Throwing a random nonfiction rec in here with A Primate’s Memoir, by Robert Sapolsky. It’s worth reading even if you’re not particularly science-oriented, because the science and research is really only a backdrop against which the story is set. I laughed out loud, in public, on numerous occasions while reading this and it’s another regular feature whenever I recommend things.

11. I see Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein recommended frequently, and I wholeheartedly agree. Another historical fiction story, which again is not usually my thing, but it’s excellent and surprising, and very well-told.

12. Kushiel’s Dart, by Jacqueline Carey, is another that is very much Not For Everyone, and actually when I think about it it should in so many ways have fallen into the Not For Me category, but it didn’t and I enjoyed it immensely. I liked the first book better than the rest in the series, but YMMV.

14. Vicious, by V.E. Schwab, is just fun, if you enjoy friends-to-enemies and/or villains and/or superheroes. It’s unapologetically edgy and honestly kind of ridiculous, and doesn’t at all try to be anything else, which is what makes it work.

15. Howl’s Moving Castle, by Dianna Wynne Jones. If you’ve seen the movie, the book is...well. It’s sort of the same story, by which I mean if you were to write out the main plot points on index cards you’d end up with a roughly matching set, but other than that it’s almost completely different. And kind of incredible.

16. It’s definitely for younger readers, but one of the series that’s held up well for me is the Young Wizards Series, by Diane Duane. The first one reads a bit like the first Harry Potter book in the sense that it’s almost too young to work well as a starting point if you’re older, but even by the second book it grows up quite a bit. I’ve always enjoyed the way she’s constructed her magic system, and you can tell she’s a writer who knows her science but also sees art and beauty in it.

17. Bone, by Jeff Smith, is my favourite graphic novel, though it’s frustratingly difficult to get hold of a complete copy. It’s weird and fun and surprising.

18. Operation Mincemeat, by Ben Macintyre, is another nonfiction book, and I know there are a million and one WWII stories out there, but this one is wild. If you’re even remotely into espionage/intelligence type stories, give this a read.

My goodreads is also here. It’s not even close to a complete list, but anything I’ve given three or more stars is something I’d say is probably worth a try. Also if anyone else reading this has recommendations to add, please feel free!

#this turned out to be a rather random list #but maybe you'll find something #recommendations #asks #beyourowntailwind

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clonerightsagenda · 8 years ago

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I quit writing Homestuck meta a long time ago, but I guess the pre-4/13 fervor is infectious, because this popped into my head and wouldn’t go away. So here’s some musings on Homestuck, the ending, and its portrayal (or rather, erasure) of character identity and agency.

Let’s rewind back several years and a few subsubacts, to the meteor and battleship crews’ not so triumphant arrival in the combined session. Two of the kids’ number have been mind-controlled and forced to work for the Empress. Two have been thrown in prison. One has been banished to the outer reaches of space. The rest have been divvied up and placed on various Lands, given different tasks to be completed for the Empress. Even in beating SBURB and winning the game they have no escape, because she intends to rule the new universe they create… until it spawns Lord English and is destroyed.

Things look bleak. And things look even bleaker when Game Over rolls around, and most of the cast gets exterminated. But wait! John Egbert, Heir of Breath and leader of the Beta session, has gotten his hands on a miraculous artifact supposedly useful as a weapon against Lord English. He now has the ability to travel throughout time and space and to change things that usually cannot be changed. While his friends get wiped out, he fights the “tyrannous author” figure who has been telling their story wrong and wins. Surely with his newfound abilities, he will set things right and lead them to freedom.

Except. Not really.

Oh sure, John “saves the day”. He uses his retcon abilities to create a new timeline where everyone lives and wins the game. But is it a victory? And did everyone really live?

I’m going to argue that the ending of Homestuck is a tragedy where characters’ identities are frequently ignored or overwritten in order to serve the utilitarian aims of the narrative (and Skaia). I do not make this argument believing Hussie intended it. I think the dip in quality and coherency at the end of Homestuck was the product of an author who was tired of his project, had lost track of a bunch of plot points and characters, and just wanted to be finished. But I do think its treatment of identity is drastically different from the rest of the work and sends some disturbing messages about how “happy” that ending really is.

Alternate Selves

Dave and Davesprite. Vriska and (Vriska). Pre- and post-scratch. Bro, Dirk, Hal. Throughout the comic, we’re shown that alternate selves are different people. They may begin as the same when they split apart, but in not too long, their personalities diverge as part of lived experience. Bro is not Dirk is not Hal. They have certain base characteristics and sometimes experiences in common, but they are different people. Most members of the fandom would agree that it’s silly to suggest that they aren’t.

And yet the ending of Homestuck asks us to accept something very similar. The Game Over iterations of characters are wiped out, and a new set takes their place. While earlier parts of the comic train readers to view the loss of any one iteration as significant and the introduction of a new iteration as something different (Rose’s grief over losing her mother cannot be completely abated by the introduction of Roxy; Rose’s mother is still dead. And I suspect the fandom would not have been pleased if Dave had died forever and Davesprite had been anointed sole Dave survivor.) this asks them to do the opposite. Oh, sure, the characters you’ve been following for years are dead and never coming back. But here’s a new set!

Even more eerily, the characters themselves go along with it. Rose, who saw a version of Roxy die in front of her, is perfectly content to greet a new version. GO!Roxy’s arrival absolves Jane of the guilt of killing her best friend, and apparently the other Alphas aren’t at all perturbed that the Roxy joining them has a different set of memories. (I’m not sure anyone even tells Dirk, who was out in space for all of this.) John, who has a history of looking down on alternate selves (his entire fraught relationship with Davesprite versus the “real” Dave, his proclamation of friendship with “past Terezi”) apparently has no problem meeting up with a version of his sister who has no memories of the three years he spent with another version of her, and neither does she. The GO! survivors slot right into the retcon kids’ lives to fill some available gaps, even though earlier they would have been considered separate people by the story, not replacements.

Characterization

I’m not going to get into how nearly everyone’s character arc and development got dropped (or expound on why ‘real people don’t have arcs’ is nonsense) beyond that the majority of characters get sidelined, used as means to an end, and/or objectified, which also impedes their agency and identity. That’s another post. But what I will focus on is how one character who gets brought to the front of the stage exemplifies the destruction of identity for the sake of utility that this ending seems to prioritize. That character is Vriska Serket.

Now, Vriska is a lightning rod of fandom de88. But identity and the negotiation, suppression, or recreation of it has always been a big thing for her. Vriska emulates Mindfang and adopts many of her nastier behaviors on Alternia in order to survive their violent culture and her dangerous lusus. This is the explanation for a lot of her actions, but it doesn’t excuse them. Throughout the story, she frequently teeters on the edge of realizing and accepting that her behavior is wrong (GO!Vriska gets closest, although she never quite makes it). Retcon!Vriska, though, has had that spark of self-awareness snuffed. Puffed up with self-importance over having reality literally rewritten to save her life, she’s cruel for the sake of cruelty and forces everyone else to go along with her power gamer strategy regardless of whether it’s a good choice. When she encounters GO!Vriska, who we can presume is closer to what Vriska might have been without all these toxic influences, she lashes out at her and seems disgusted by who she has become (her more authentic self?). GO!Vriska then wanders off, encounters Terezi, and vanishes from the story entirely. Retcon!Vriska is the one who “defeats” (?) Lord English before vanishing as well. She is sold as the missing ingredient that leads to a victorious timeline – the version of Vriska who has rejected and lost her true identity under a warped façade, turning into the monster she always fronted as. Inspiring.

The Dreaming Dead

(EDIT) Since we just talked about Vriska, let’s talk about her pawns. The dreaming dead get jerked around a lot throughout the story, but the first time Vriska and Aranea steal their minds, it’s supposed to be messed up. The image of Scorpio signs hovering over their blank expressions is eerie, and John (the hero) points out it’s ethically dubious. Later, Sollux bails because the whole thing makes him “feel dirty”. The first time dreamers die at English’s hand, it’s portrayed as horrific both through the presentation in Caliborn: Enter itself and Dave talking later about how after witnessing “the screaming and the killing” he’s had a hard time sleeping. We even recognize some of the dreamers - the version of John killed hails from Davesprite’s timeline, and we even followed his time with Vriska briefly. These ghosts have identities. We know them.

In Collide, though, dreamers are dispatched in droves without fanfare. They’re simply a distraction Vriska uses until she can get English with the weapon (although why she needed a diversion I’m not sure, since she doesn’t exactly try to sneak up on him). They change hands between ‘leaders’ without ever having voices of their own, and their deaths have no impact. It’s just visual noise. The dead only matter to the extent that they can serve main characters’ aims and the narrative.

Ultimate Selves

In the last handful of pages of the comic, Hussie introduces the concept of “ultimate selves” through Davepeta. Apparently combo sprites can remember all iterations of themselves (although they don’t particularly act like it, but whatever). From this perspective, they find differences of selves meaningless, and inform Jade that every self is important because they help create your ‘ultimate self’, which is a compilation of all selves into a sort of Platonic ideal. This means, they tell poor Jade, that she didn’t really miss out on three years with her friends! Her ultimate self had a great time. Why this is supposed to be a consolation to this Jade, who had a shitty time, I am not sure.

Again, this flies against the established differences between selves that earlier Homestuck prizes. Alt selves have different identities. They’re different people. Claiming the boundaries between them are meaningless erases that. The concept of an ultimate self makes sense from a reader’s perspective. We get to see all the different paths the characters go down. We get to look at different selves and use that information to inform our reading of the character or our grasp of some of their inherent qualities. But that doesn’t apply to the characters themselves. It’s cold comfort telling this Jade that another version of her didn’t suffer alone for three years. She did. If this were leading up to some massive memory merge between timelines then I might acknowledge it held water, but as it is… it reads like the attempts of an author to justify a bad decision.

We have whatever Terezi did in Remem8er (a beautiful flash, but no one can quite determine what it meant) but we don’t know whether she actually accomplished retrieving any memories because she never gets to talk about it. (The flash also implies that every death spawns a ghost, which is directly contrary to previously established game mechanics so I won’t really get into it, but that does further complicate the whole identity thing we have going on here.) And I’m not sure I buy Davepeta’s pep talk at face value, as I’ll expand on in the next section.

Sprites Squared

Oh boy. If you’ve followed me much you know I hold a grudge against these entities for a whoooole bunch of reasons. But among other things, they’re an excellent example of lategame Homestuck’s identity destruction at work.

The combosprites take characters in pretty bad shape – struggling with depression and alcoholism (and Nepeta, but she seems mostly along for the ride. I mean, she doesn’t even get a Heart symbol as part of Dp’s outfit) – and perk them right up. Setting aside the fact that this is weirdly like the whole ‘smile away your problems’ shtick in Trickster mode, something even more sinister seems to be going on. Neither of them act all that much how you’d expect them to. Davepeta doesn’t talk much at all like either of their components besides surface level quirks and cat puns, imo. Jasprose, after Rose died lamenting that she didn’t tell Kanaya she loved her, rebounds at lightning speed. But let’s move right on over to the smoking gun, where Davepeta suggests dating Jasprose shouldn’t be off the table, even if some of their components are related. “The Dave part of me is saying no no no,” they say, “but that brain tantrum just cracks me up”.

This seems to imply that the components of the combosprites are in fact 1) separate 2) sentient and 3) not pleased. And were sprites ever true unions of personalities? We don’t see much of Erisol or Fefeta, but as soon as he’s distressed, ARquius’s two components start speaking separately, and based on Tavros’s comment that being Tavris wasn’t that bad versus Tavris screaming that they’re an abomination, that sounds like it was mostly Vriska talking.

So if Davepeta doesn’t sound much like either of their components, and at least one of those personalities is still independently yelling somewhere in their subconscious, who ARE they? I’m not sure, but I’d sure take their cheerful promotion of “ultimate selves” with a heaping pound or two of salt. (EDIT) Especially as I’ve argued elsewhere that it’s in Skaia’s best interests to have a bunch of game victors complacent about the sacrifice of hordes of people for the Big Picture, and sprites are a mouthpiece for Skaia and the game. And even more so since the message of the combosprites’ “fixing” of their components’ emotional distress seems to be that the way to achieve happiness is to stop being you, much as the Game Over kids were only able to stop suffering by ceasing to exist at all.

Retconbound

Finally, let’s look at John’s finest moment, altering the timeline so that everyone lives. He’s Breath – communication, freedom, travel – given ultimate agency by the juju powers. But… he doesn’t get much agency. He’s following Terezi’s orders, written in blood (Blood, an aspect of bonds and binding). And he seems rather unconscious or uncaring of the effect he’s having. After picking up the ring, he drops by a set of meteor kids recently transported onto LOMAX and enjoys a touching reunion, saying hi and hugging them… and then teleports off to make that never happen. What was the point of that display of friendship? What even happened to that group of kids, in a timeline with no ring of life? We don’t know, and the narrative suggests we shouldn’t care, any more than John does as he blithely flies away. We’re racking up a bunch of characters and timelines who are merely there to serve the narrative’s latest whim or need, not because they’re important in themselves.

And here’s the kicker. That juju, that magic device that saves the day? It’s powered by four Beta kids’ souls trapped inside it for eternity. We don’t know what timeline they come from, or whether they ever escape. They are faceless, voiceless, identityless plot devices that give John the ability to do what he does. They’re the culmination of how this narrative treats its characters in the endgame – as tools to get to the last page. Skaia doesn’t care who walks through the door, as long as it has warm bodies to hatch the frog and keep its cycle going. Homestuck, it seems, doesn’t care which set of characters prevails as long as it can close the damn curtains at last.

And the thing is, you could have gone somewhere with this. After all, how many troll ghosts are in the bubbles? Thousands. We don’t follow their story and then watch them die, but a bunch of versions of those characters we know and care about died and festered in the furthest ring. There could have been a point made about how Skaia is happy to consign groups of children to the scrap bin if they don’t fulfill its aims, how horrifying the whole system is and how little regard it has for life. Current set of tools broken? Fixing them would take too long and they’re not useful now, so bin ‘em and start fresh. Someone has to win. Doesn’t matter who. A quote by Hussie occasionally makes the rounds talking about how many Marios die before the end of a game, but we only care about the one who wins. Maybe that’s what he was going for, but I think he missed the mark tonally. (EDIT) Not to mention that the story’s biggest villain is a Lord of Time who, besides losing most of his own identity beyond a love of destruction long ago, is all about forcing people onto the paths that serve him despite what might be better for them and who has a whole subplot where he actually attempts to rewrite their story with crappy, subpar imitations of every character. You could easily have made a connection there, but that would suggest the villain triumphed in the end. Elements of the final flash almost seem to point in that direction, but the story still tries to play things off as a victory.

Because in the end, I think the Homestuck ending sucked. Some people say it’s a psycheout and the Epilogue will have more, or reveal that it was written by Caliborn, or whatever. Guess we won’t know until it arrives. But as it all stands now, I think it sucked a lot. And I could write about the dropped character arcs or messed up plot points, but I honestly try not to talk too much about post retcon HS because it depresses me that something I was so fond of ended so terribly. I wouldn’t have been happy if it had ended as a blatant tragedy, but I could have at least respected it a little more. But this? It’s not just that many characters sidelined and ignored, that plenty of important plot points are ignored or forgotten, that some of the writing and pacing is just poorly done. After an entire comic’s worth of emphasizing the differences between iterations of individuals and the importance and value of those independent lives, characters are treated as interchangeable and expendable as long as they get the job done. Utilitarianism rules the day. That’s how to win the game, to get this hulking behemoth of a tale to limp to its final rest. And the story tries to play this as a happy ending, and that’s the worst bit of all.

#homestuck//#bluh bluh huge bitching alert #meta

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joibittle · 7 years ago

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NEW RELEASE for summer 2017 !

I’m thrilled to have a conversation text with Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster published by Palais de Tokyo and Flammarion Editions for their recent catalogue Dioramas Contemporains (with a selection of our images).

http://editions.flammarion.com/Catalogue/hors-collection/art/dioramas

Also, the catalogue includes a segment by my colleague and friend Stephen C. Quinn from the American Museum of Natural History as well as essays by Marcel Duchamp, Louis Daguerre and many others.

OUR CONVERSATION (English translation below) ... on the real, the non real, clock-work-time-machines, painting on walls, transformations, Ballard and the others...

DGF: The first time I saw the diorama halls at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, like many visitors, I was mesmerized by this incredible display of landscapes. They connected so directly with Duchamp's «Etant Donné», pre-cinema panoramas, and multiple other 19-century exhibition devices which had been slowly replaced by cinema and more conceptual or abstract ways to exhibit objects, informations, beings, places and stories. Thinking of exhibition as a medium that encloses all parameters – from title, to lighting, to sound, audience, and time – has always been an important part of my artistic research and practice. I have always been more interested in immersive artworks than autonomous objects and fascinated by 1:1 scale, period rooms and staged moments.

So when I was invited by Lynne Cook at Dia to imagine a project for the newly re-opened Hispanic Society (which has a fantastic library but only until early 20th-century), I thought it would be exciting to imagine a new annex with 20th-century books that would appear in a completely different way and exist in landscapes almost like living species. Instead of animals or humans, one would see books in a desertic, tropical or atlantic landscape. I really wanted the dioramas to look like the ones at the American Museum of Natural History and not a superficial interpretation so we contacted the museum and I had a first meeting with Joi Bittle.

JB: When I got the call to work with Dominique and Dia, I was just completing a background painting for an exhibition at AMNH, where I was applying the traditional painting techniques of James Perry Wilson. A senior colleague recommended me for the project, explaining to me – with some bewilderment – that it was intended to be contemporary art. Now, nearly ten years later, Dominique and I have pushed our conversation beyond traditional diorama techniques, as we explore environments, art history, architecture, film and literature. So far, we have created three deserts, one jungle, one swamp, an underwater scene and a tree top canopy, all site-specific and human size.

Both in the field and during the painting process itself, I'm hungry for knowledge and for pushing physical limits. With that, science fiction stories and our talks about supernatural- strange things have become essential to visualizing these landscapes with Dominique. An important part of then constructing the diorama for me is to physically enter the actual landscape, and then, I stay a while. I create a private “mapping” of geologic history, personal explorations in the field, observations of animal life, and scientific studies of ecology. I'm interested in how time, humans and non-humans have impacted a place.

In the end, though, our dioramas are not illustrations of a landscape for the purpose of education as they are in the context of a natural history museum.

DGF: The process to elaborate these «landscapes with books», or places somehow containing their own bibliography, mainly novels but also some essays specially in the new «Mangrovama» is a long one. The first step is to define the landscape, which emerges as a combination of visions, places and typologies that I have in mind combined with Joi’s own investigations and research on different real sites/fields.

So each landscape contains a very precise, dense and real amount of geology and plants, but also a lot of thinking about time, like when is this landscape happening on a longer timeline? But also at which hour of the day are we encountering this moment? The shadows play an important part... Time becomes an interesting question, too, in relation to the time necessary to elaborate the landscapes in advance, and then to make them exist on site. They require several weeks to install, far beyond the usual amount of time planned for an exhibition installation, which forces museum schedules to adapt. It almost seems then that the realization of the diorama becomes like a clock for the rest of the exhibition.

From the construction of the curved walls until the closing of the window(s), and the separation but also conservation of the landscape, there is a long and impressive sequence of moments that become invisible to the viewer but give a presence and a density that would

be impossible to obtain otherwise.

JB: Yes, people often react with surprise when they learn the diorama is built on-site up to the opening of the exhibition, like a clockwork-time-machine of sorts! Our dioramas are a kind of speculation, assembled from fragments of what was, what is, and what could be. They evolve by being worked on, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. But it's a puzzle without a key to tell us how it should look in the end, and we have to discover that. This part is very exciting, as the surroundings of the curved-walls demand a focused discovery of the difference between the literal and illusionistic spaces. Then, the physical movement of the body must navigate that difference and guide the painting process for me each day.

Since I was once a student of the traditional techniques, I can now develop 2-D with 3-D and derail from the rules. The first step is to create an illusion of deep space on a blank white wall, with only a piece of charcoal, a ladder and a calendar of days pinned up nearby. The horizon line grid, a color temperature and a mental narrative directs the work from there, while we always remain open to chance.

For humans, the appeal of a diorama is its ability to deliver a sense of wonder in multiple dimensions, by transporting us somewhere else, by tapping into our own “reality” and presenting a virtual biodiversity for our senses. With this comes the problem of setting a piece of the natural world into architecture and making the non-real, real, or maybe that's the other way around?

DGF: Since an exhibition is also a kind of philosophical device to increase consciousness and awareness in our relation to art, narrative, existence, space and time, it's deeply interesting to explore this tension between what is existing inside and outside, what feels artificial or real, what is represented, imported, staged and how we react to that. How much we accept to be affected by what we see or feel and what kind of memories it produces. I have never been so much into autonomous objects and artworks because I’m totally fascinated by the limits (existing, invisible or not) rather than the center.

The blurred zone which exists between life-size environments/installations like dioramas, rooms or other type of spaces and the rest of the exhibition/context is a zone to research. The spatial and visual paratext composed by the full exhibition, the exhibition space, the city, the landscape around and even the audience is an important dimension which is somehow redefined, «transplaced» and channeled in an incredible way by the diorama. There is a kind of magic mirror situation of two spaces looking at each other. The books – inside the landscape – act for the viewers like in the beautiful Fahrenheit 451 scene in Francois Truffaut’s film in which humans have to become living books in the forest in order to keep literature alive – or the way people become/are called books like in the 1973 film Soylent Green. One of the books appearing underwater in the «Mangrovama» swamp is a graphic novel by Richard McGuire which beautifully shows the superposition and stratification of different moments/periods/situation in one place.

With Joi and J.G. Ballard I learned a lot about all the different landscapes contained in one and how going through these landscapes can transform us and affect our psychogeography. Sometime we can even identify completely with a landscape or a biotope like in the «Swamp Thing».

JB: The creature swamp thing was a blessing in disguise for us and began emerging under our skin together! We started talking about it when building Desertic the year before. His curious obsession of seeking through chemistry and environment end up accidentally transforming and revealing the invisible self.

Working with Dominique awakens this spirit! Quickly, we cross reference these connections, taking us into a garden of forking paths.

Artists and scientists together have the chance to push the boundaries, or ignore them completely. As an artist, this setting continues to help me learn and unlearn all the time. As with Ballard, the fundamental principles of science run deep through his vision, and this no doubt has led him into a mix of both logical and invented worlds, producing a knowledge through story telling.

Consider Mangrovama – a synthetic carpet is laid down outside the interior of the diorama. During construction, I know the carpet will be placed there in the end, but it has no significance for me in the moment. However, for us, this is not unlike getting a fossil mold or light fixture to fit just right, thus making the landscape a single unit.

Split by glass, the real moss sculpted by hand and the moss-like carpet evoke a strange reoccurring memory for me. The space brings me to my childhood bedroom where I made drawings and played with plastic dinosaurs on a comfortable floor, imagining far off worlds to come. Here, the real and non-real elements together in our dioramas aid in a deeper sense of dreaming, and these dreams could be our most important guides to another new reality.

DGF: As one diorama leads to the next, and while we were processing «Mangrovama»,I was also reading Leigh Brackett’s beautiful romantic description of planet Mars, which, like Hubert Robert’s paintings, integrates a fantastic sense of ruins and gone ancient cultures. Mixed with the present, with nature and desert, an idea also appears in Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles strongly critical of the human way to colonize new landscapes and planets without any questions or doubts about possible destructions – and definitive loss – of other possibilities. The new dream/diorama might be about another planet and about these questions. We have now collaborated for almost 10 years and I hope there is a lot more to come until 2058 ...

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster

Joianne Bittle

2017

#dioramas #palaisdetokyo #joibittlestudio #joiannebittle #dominique gonzalez foerster #mangrovama #centre pompidou #painting #sculpture #art #nature #science #museums #science fiction

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ardenttheories · 5 years ago

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The Importance of Narrative Persona in the Homestuck Epilogues

As with everything else in Homestuck, the narrative persona is a key cog in the overarching mechanism that creates the story in the specific way that it’s read. It isn’t something that’s left up to chance or personal reference; every instance of narrative persona change and use is intentional, and this isn’t more obvious than in the Epilogues - wherein it aligns even more with the fuctionality of Heart as an aspect.

In simplistic terms, there are three narrative personae; 1st (I do this, I do that), 2nd (You do this, you do that) and 3rd (He does/did this, he does/did that). Each has a very specific function and changes how we read a text.

Now, admittedly, Homestuck completely fucks with these known conventions.

The 1st person typically represents a narrator - think of literally any book. Most young adult literature does this, and so does a lot of the young teens stuff (think Percy Jackson, Skullduggery Pleasant, Twilight). You read the text as if it’s a story, as if you’re in the reader’s head as they experience everything - or as if they’re writing this down some years later from memory, and you’ve happened to stumble upon their memoirs.

In Homestuck, it’s used by omniscient narrators to talk directly to the audience. It’s pretty much only used whenever Doc Scratch and Hussie himself - or, in one case, Caliborn - wants to include us within the narrative. It transitions a distanced audience into a character itself, which later comes to be represented by the MSPA Reader.

The 2nd person typically represents an imagined reader; the person the book is trying to reach out to. Think about self help books for this. When they’re written, they’re made with the intention to directly connect with the person reading it, to offer them advice and solutions. It wouldn’t make sense to write in the other personae, unless the author decides to speak directly to you.

Again, Homestuck subverts this. Instead of speaking directly to us, the narrative is used to draw is into the character. Every time the text says “you do this”, what it truly means is “you, the character, do this action” - but the internal nature of the “you” pronoun means that, inevitably, it also comes to mean “you, the audience, do this, because you are now this character”. We exist through every character in Homestuck, become part of their world and the reason their world continues. We are John as much as John is - which is why it’s so important that a lot of the later acts of Act 6 are written in pesterlog chats. They become people because there is no “you” pronoun to blur the concept of “them” and “us”.

And, finally, the 3rd person narrative. This is used for distance. This is the most open of the personae; the most transparent. There is no hiding unless the author specifically chooses to hide, trapping us within the narrative framework of a very specific character. It’s typically used to give the reader the most omniscience; here we read the things that characters think, do, and feel that even they may not be privy to. An involuntary reaction, the racing of their heart - things they would ignore, or think of as unimportant, we see with eagle eyes and latch onto desperately. We can also see the thoughts of other characters within the same framework; we know that the man loves the woman, but the woman finds him dull, and boring, well before the revelation is brought to light before the man.

Homestuck doesn’t actually use this much - and if it does, it doesn’t leave much impression. The sole case I can think of is during Sollux’s introduction - and even then it’s to inflect the narrative with Sollux’s voice, exiling us from the internal structure of the 2nd person narrative because he doesn’t want us to be him.

This is what makes Meat and Candy so wildly interesting from a narrative standpoint.

The 2nd person narrative, as explained above, is very personal and very internal. We, by the point of the Epilogues, are used to reading it. It’s easy to lull us - as well as every other character - into a state of security because it’s how we’ve always read the text. It’s natural. It’s soothing. It’s how we are, how the characters are, how both have always existed.

It represents us, them, the combination of both; it gives us insight to the deepest depths of the characters; it gives us the right to exist within the universe on a very personal level. It isn’t just John going away on a trip through the narrative; he takes us with him, drawing us into his thoughts and feelings, his biased narrative, his single point of view.

You can most likely already see the parallels. Bias. Internal. One sole point of view.

But here’s another thing about the “you” narrative; it’s commanding, and it doesn’t distinguish or define boundaries.

The same way that “character” and “audience” blur, so too does “John” to “Jake” unless we’re made actively aware of the transition. You could say “you feel the wind flying through your hair, cool and soothing. You wonder to yourself if you’ll ever feel this free again”, and unless we’re told that the first “you” is John experiencing and the second is Jake feeling, we’d never be any the wiser.

This also means that things can be hidden in “you”. Reread the above sentence.

“You feel the wind flying through your hair, cool and soothing. You wonder to yourself if you’ll ever feel this free again.”

An influence is there, firm and captivating. We’re being told that we feel a fleeting freedom. We’re being influenced into a thought process, an action, and it isn’t immediately noticable because we’re always told how we feel. We’re told a thousand different ways through a thousand different people that we feel, we think, we see - but how do we know that this is reality?

How do we know that we, us, them, feels truly sad? What if, in truth, they’re having the time of their life? What if they don’t question their freedom at all?

The 2nd person narrative, as introduced in Homestuck, is the perfect conduit for the Heart aspect, and this is why it’s so vital that it’s used by Dirk in Meat.

Dirk’s able to enter the narrative not because he’s some incredibly meta persona with big brain powers - like, admittedly, he seems to think - but because the personae he uses forces him into an internal role within every single character he comes into contact with.

Heart is the individual. It’s the bias, the feeling, the stubbornness of only seeing your side. The 2nd person narrative encapsulates all of this - but it also facilitates the destruction of the individual by forcing us to see only the narrow spectrum of internal influence.

We’re told what we do. What we see. We’re told that we’re doing an action, and we’re told that we feel this specific way about doing it. We’re told that we are now this character, even though there’s nothing to distinguish one “you” from another beyond minor ticks and thoughts and the individual pieces that make up the whole person - and even then we ruin that, invading who they are so that we can become them, too.

This is the perfect vessel through which a Prince of Heart - a Destroyer of the Self - can cause his chaos. What easier way to destroy the self than to pose himself as the self? To become the thoughts, feelings, and actions of every character on an internal level? To become that voice inside them that guides them - to become who they are completely, to fill them up on the inside and erase every aspect of them with the overarching “you” until “you” stops being “character” and “audience” and becomes “Dirk” instead.

Dirk steals this narrative from us. Once he’s in control, he switches to the 1st person because he is us. He is everyone; he’s everything they ever were, and everything they will be. He no longer has to hide within the 2nd person narrative because there is no individual left but himself. Finally, the only self that remains in tact is his own, and he can lock us into a position of complete isolation from the characters we once were, lived through, connected with, by speaking to us directly - by asserting himself as the only self, the only character, through which we can interact.

So, if this is the importance of the 1st and 2nd personae, what about that ellusive 3rd?

The 3rd person narrative is distanced. Out of all of the narratives, it’s typically considered the most unbiased. It’s one of the easiest and only ways for the author to show us every single aspect of every single character, laying them out bare before us. We are not the characters, the way we are when it comes to the 2nd person narrative; nor are we completely locked out from them, the way we are when it comes to the 1st person narrative.

We are somewhere in the middle, caught in a void of seeing but not acting, and feeling but not influencing.

The characters are free to be themselves within the framework of the 3rd person narrative. All we see is what we’re allowed to see - in this instance, what Calliope wants us to focus on - but in no way can we directly influence, for instance, what Jake feels or does in any capacity.

Every action becomes their own. We, divorced from the individual, are permittedly only to view through a glass what happens. This is why the Candy timeline also feels so awful; it’s hopeless, in the sense that we cannot act, cannot reach out, cannot suffer with them. We can suffer in isolation to them, yes; but their feelings are theirs, and we can never be privy to them the way we should be.

Think of it as the difference between community-run Nuzlock Streams and Nuzlock playthroughts. You’ve likely seen them before.

In streams where the viewers press buttons to decide where the character goes, everything that happens feels like a direct consequence. If a Pokemon is accidentally released, the pain is felt by the viewers for having caused the action; if a Pokemon gains a name, the pride is felt by the viewers for having completed the naming screen. Every action is influenced by us, contains our mark, and as such the emotion runs so much deeper.

In streams where the viewers watch someone else play the game, the joy is felt as a consequence of the player’s own joy. We feel their pain because we see them hang their heads and cry. We have no actual influence in their actions, and we can’t help avoid it, but nor are we to blame for it. The emotion is there, but it’s muffled.

This is why Calliope is so reliant on the 3rd person narrative. It’s one Dirk can’t access; it’s impersonal in a way that Heart can’t enter, but it’s not the destruction of self he needs to exist. If anything, it facilitates the individuality of self moreso than any other narrative does. It rids us of narrators and influence, and provides us only with what is actually happening, felt, seen, rather than what someone wants us to have happen, feel, see.

Of course, this isn’t perfect. Even Calliope can influence the narrative; she makes Jane go back and put the Lolipop JuJu back down gently, with reverence, even within the 3rd person narrative. But this is a timeline wherein Dirk has already destroyed the sense of individuality. It’s easier for her to influence where individuality is lost than where individuality is fostered to such a degree that they lose their plot relevance.

Therefore, the Candy timeline is the only timeline where we can see the characters for who they are; the people they’d always have been were it not for an influenced narrative driven along by an author with a purpose, a plan, and a plot to follow.

Unless, of course, we’re being lied to.

I said at the beginning that the 3rd person isn’t used much in Homestuck, and when it is, it’s to give Sollux a voice without letting us be him.

It’s entirely possible that Calliope is doing this. That she’s influencing the Candy narrative without exposing herself, without allowing us to be the characters.

She’s divorcing us from them while directing and guiding them the way she desires, letting us watch but not letting us be. She could very much be taking something impersonal to ensure that Dirk, as a Heart player, can’t influence the timeline she so desperately needs to keep as hers; if it’s divorced, external, and wholly isolated, there’s no way for Dirk to be privy to the narrative, to exert himself over the existing characters.

In either case, the 3rd person narrative is deeply important for the Candy timeline; it’s the only narrative that Dirk can’t access, and therefore the only one that’s safe from his influence and interference. This is why it’s Calliope’s haven. This is why it’s important for her to foster her plan within such a broken timeline - and why it’s so important for Dirk to foster his plan in the Meat timeline.

So, for the TL:DR

The narratives within the Epilogues are intentionally chosen as a direct consequence of Dirk’s Classpect.

As a Prince of Heart, he needs a more internal narrative - the 2nd person - in order to influence and overwrite the characters with his own personality, especially one that destroys the boundaries between characters and audience and makes them more open to his commands. If we can’t tell the difference between us, them, and each other, then there’s no way we can tell when he arrives to destroy the sense of self all of us own. The 2nd person narrative is everything Heart stands for, and is likely the only reason Dirk is able to control the narrative at all.

Likewise, this means that a 3rd person narrative - one that’s external and closed off - can’t be used by him and becomes ultimately meaningless, and perfectly fits the requirements for Calliope’s own timeline; one where Dirk simply can’t access the narrative at all because it goes actively against everything his aspect stands for.

Of course, it then becomes questionable as to whether or not Calliope has actual influence over the 3rd person narrative - because Homestuck is all about the subversion of expectation, and this seemingly uninfluenced narrative would be the perfect place to show how much a narrator can actually influence characters without us wholly knowing.

#long post//#ardenttheories #homestuck meta #homestuck analysis #homestuck epilogues

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