#it doesn't have to be about top surgery

[finelyagedlemons]

been thinking about protag jessica au again..............i wanna give lady JESSIE a proper witchy outfit one of these days for her game master look but here's her in a cool cape at least

[nightcrawlersimpblog]

My friend and I are t4t logurt truthers ✊😞

[2hoothoots]

i was having a chuckle to myself last night about Gristol, and how his plans are basically:

Restore Ford Cruller's memory

Find Maligula

???

Profit

but then... of course they are, right? this is Gristol we're talking about. Fatherland Follies drives home again and again that he's still operating on a child's logic, a warped and reductive version of the world that he never bothered to grow out of. both of his memory vaults center on the images of his childhood, this idealized version of the past that he clings to no matter what. and that's still how he remembers Maligula, too - as this saviour figure, who rushes in to help him when he's in trouble.

[ID: Two slides from Gristol's memory vault, Glory to Grulovia! Left: Gristol clings to Maligula's back as she summons waves to sweep away his assailants. Right: Gristol and Maligula waving from a balcony as the people cheer. Gzar Theodore brandishes a dagger in the background.]

like so much else, Maligula represents a return to this idyllic childhood - to the peace and simplicity of his youth, when he was free from worries and responsibilities. in his mind, he doesn't need to make any further plans - once Maligula's back, everything will go back to normal. Maligula will make everything better.

...is what i thought, but then i remembered this line:

[Screenshot source. ID: Gristol, in Truman's body, bows on his hands and knees in front of the newly-awaked Maligula. The caption reads: "Yes, High Priestess! I am here to correct the mistakes made by my father!"]

and that's kind of interesting, right?

to be clear: this happens directly after Maligula sees Helmut-in-Gristol's-body, and recognises him. her line before this is:

"Little Gzesaravich! Have you come to pay for your father's sins?"

my first thought was that Gristol hadn't expected to still be in Truman's body by the time he managed to find Maligula, and this was him trying to placate her and buy some time until he could explain the situation. but watching the cutscene back, that's clearly not what's happening here. Gristol is answering as himself, and his response of throwing himself to his knees before her is, as far as i can tell, genuine.

so what is going on here?

in Fatherland Follies, there's this line in the ride narration that stuck out to me:

"Why didn't the Gzar help Maligula in her time of need? No one knows, but historians agree - it is Gzar Theodore's biggest failure."

other lines mention Gzar Theodore's "mistake", and it's wording Gristol himself echoes in the screencap above. evidently, he believes that his father abandoned Maligula, leaving her to her fate at the hands of the Psychonauts, and it was that mistake that lead to them being driven out of the country - that mistake which he seeks to correct. maybe he even feels like he has a debt to repay to her for his family turning their backs on her all those years ago.

the 'High Priestess' thing, though - that's kinda weird, and threw me for a loop the first time i played the game. it took me until my second playthrough to connect the dots, and remember how the room in the Lady Luctopus - Gristol's room - was full of Delugionist scribblings and symbols.

[Screenshot source. ID: left, the walls of the hidden backroom in Gristol's hotel suite, covered in scrawlings of eyeballs and Maligula's name. Right, the pinboard from the hidden backroom. On its surface are photographs and newspaper clippings connected by pieces of string.]

i mean, look at this stuff! he had a whole conspiracy board and everything!

we learn very little about the Delugionists and their beliefs as a whole during the game, but i think drawing the connection here suggests two important things. one: that Gristol was in deep with this stuff. i don't know how he linked up with them - maybe via old family connections, or just good old-fashioned digging (we know he's skilled at worming his way into peoples' good graces, after all) - but it seems likely that he's begun to internalise their ideas, maybe even warping his own memories of events. and two: the Delugionists themselves are, if you'll pardon the pun, pretty far off the deep end.

like... i understand why PN2 didn't go heavy on the "mass-murderer cult worship" aspect of things, in the end, but man this is such a tantalising glimpse into the wider mythos around Maligula. Gristol is proud and haughty and thinks himself above everyone else; the fact that his first reaction seeing Maligula is to throw himself to the ground at her feet says so much about the way he's come to see her. he's not just trying to bring back Maligula, his childhood bodyguard. he's trying to bring back Maligula, the High Priestess of the deluge, the semi-mythical figure whose supporters believe even death couldn't stop. he doesn't even flinch at the way she confronts him, and maybe it's because he's bought in so completely to this deified figurehead, this idea of Maligula; more a living force of nature than a person. and it all comes back to the same place: an abdication of responsibility, not just to the person who protected him when he was little but to this avatar of floods and destruction. Maligula will make everything better.

i'd write more about my thoughts on the Delugionists but that'd be taking a hard turn into speculation, and this is already kind of long and rambling so i'd better end it here. but what an unexpected and evocative line, right? it's some of the only stuff we have to go off of regarding the Delugionists as a whole, but i think it does such a good job of hinting at the wider story - at teasing another layer to the mythos surrounding Maligula, one whose ripples we see throughout the game but which never quite breaches the surface.

[archersgoon]

being trans in charyn must be a fucking nightmare. imagine arjuro doing your bottom surgery. collegiati assisting. good god. like im sure the man's a good surgeon but his bedside manner...

[dkettchen]

too many good news this week and my brain isn't used to that ToT

[dreams-and-honor]

Partial diversity win! Jesus freak mother will accept me being bigender (i'm not) instead of being a binary transmasc!

[arttsuka]

If I may- *ahem*

BEGONE FOUL PESTILENCE THAT PLAGUES OUR DEAREST ARTIST’S TOOTH! BEGOOOOOONE! WASHASHASHASHASHAA!!! 🪄🪄🔥✨✨

Thank you for trying to magic away my pain, greatly appreciated ✨️

[dennisboobs]

i think everyone on sunnytwt needs to be sat down so i can explain to them what basic human empathy is. and then maybe i put them in a blender until they agree to write meta about the characters instead of whether or not charlie day got facial reconstruction surgery.

[a-bitch-made-fullmetal]

a concept that is so funny to me is that both Ed and Roy are trans but neither of them knows about the other

Roy takes his shirt off for some reason and Ed looks at the top surgery scars like "huh what kinda dumbass injury are those fr- WAIT A GODDAMN MINUTE."

[druidfolk]

i find it endlessly humorous that i can refer to myself as a trans lesbian, despite being AFAB, yet people continuously 'clock' me as AMAB anyway. these two things are not related btw

[missgenoard]

*deep nauseated sigh*

[softwaluigi]

literally so beyond fucked that I want to get a tattoo so bad but am Also afraid of commitment

[illogicalghost]

.

[highlifeboat]

Lmao, you really said, "I will have my canon transman! One way or another!"/lh

Nah, but really, you go off :p

Moira deserves more content 💜

I will, and if it can't be Jill (who I still wanna root for because she's still giving the vibe) it's gonna be the 20 year old afraid of fire arms who I've known for like... an hour.

Plus Moira would probably model himself after his dad, and I can actually tolerate Barry. Mostly because I don't remember him very well from the first game but I'm sure he was typical Macho Man Tough Shit.

Even though Moira is 100% giving Emo boy and not Macho Man.

(That said I promise nothing in terms of content)

It's not like I don't have transmen headcanons for characters that already looks like dudes, but I think a transman who hasn't actually started transitioning at all is... something. I dunno.

[somekindafairy]

god i know this is a dangerous thought game to go down but sometimes i really do just wish i realized i was trans earlier, like i really am out here feeling like a real person for the first time in my life in my 30's huh. :/