#it feels thematically Complete to me

[novantinuum]

it is literally So funny to me how many people are going apecrap on twitter about Ian retweeting a recent "revive steven universe" poll post with an eyes emoji like. that means Nothing, people. he is just jotting down notes of general fan interest, i am sure.

ESPECIALLY in this dark day and age of shitty treatment of animation workers- i supremely doubt that there is any secret, significant progress being made on some SU revival right now.

[mr-president]

I think one of my favorite Funtermina things is how it uses characters as narrative foils, specifically in how those characters interact with each other and everyone else.

Karin and Daan’s is the most discussed as it’s probably the most apparent within the text: their volatile opposing viewpoints on life via their upbringings (despite being extremely similar otherwise). When Karin and Daan interact, it’s like a person arguing with themself. They clash like ammonia and bleach, unable to reconcile how similar they are (haha cleaning chemical analogy) yet toxic in their association.

Marina and Levi represent the different realities of Prehevil, what with Marina’s privileged upbringing versus Levi’s absolute shitshow of an existence. And yet, they get along incredibly well and form a cadence with one another because through each other, they can reconcile their upbringings in Prehevil. Levi is the Prehevil Marina tried to escape—Marina is the Prehevil Levi hoped to return to.

Marcoh and Olivia are interesting because—and I will argue this to the death—their relationship is wholly as siblings. And they’re also deeply connected by their relationships with their sisters, specifically how those sisters formulated and defined how they see themselves. Marcoh has done nothing but live to protect his sister, while Olivia has forever lived in her sister’s shadow. Their identities revolve completely around their sisters, and this also colors their relationship with each other as siblings.

I wish it was explored more, but I think there’s a level of disenfranchisement when Marcoh fervently tries to protect Olivia the same way he protected his younger sister (edit: rb for amendment). He clearly sees her in that role, and Olivia’s already got guilt written into her about her disability making her a “charity case.” I say this also because of their different opinions on guns, power, and death: Marcoh has no bloodlust and seems exhausted when he has to hurt others, while Olivia becomes almost jubilant when she receives a gun. And those reactions to enacting violence are directly informed by their relationships with their sisters: a begrudging responsibility vs empowerment.

My favorite is probably Abella and O’saa as foils. As characters they’re probably my favorites, and their foil makes it even better.

Abella easily connects with everyone around her, ensuring that they’re all getting along (or not killing each other) and she tries desperately to help everyone, even at her own detriment. She cares, so much, even too much.

O’saa on the other hand, is the exact opposite. He actively chooses to connect with everyone as little as possible, to the point where you can kill someone in front of him and he won’t give a shit. This is, obviously, to his detriment in terms of his goal towards enlightenment. He cares too little, even if at all.

They perfectly represent the dichotomy between altruism vs selfishness, the mundane vs the macro, democracy vs individualism. Fundamentally, both Abella and O’saa get shit done, and what makes them so compelling as foils is how similar the results of their different processes are.

Both of them are the only two that are capable of saving everyone. Abella does so by interacting with many of the other contestants, while O’saa does this by ignoring everyone and just occam’s razoring that shit. They both get shit done and to the greatest net success, but in both cases, because they operate on extremes, it’s to the detriment of themselves. The game shows this literally because, well, they sacrifice themselves to Logic for the greater good, but the game also implies this detriment via their moonscorches.

Chaugnaur represents how others have reduced Abella to a sexual object for their pleasure or a mindless brute for labor. It is a physical manifestation of how interacting and connecting with others can be to one’s detriment because Abella often cannot control how people see and define her. Mastermind, on the other hand, is O’saa’s brain swelling and overtaking everything else on his head to the point where he is blind (save for the eye) and mute, only able to speak in mumbles. Mastermind is how O’saa values logic, knowledge, comprehension over anything else, becoming blind to other viewpoints save for his own. Additionally, it’s unable to communicate or connect with anyone else, only able to ruminate get never share its thoughts.

Abella is one of the first to Moonscorch; O’saa is one of the last. I love them as foils because even though they’re the most different in terms of anything, they don’t hinder one another at much all. They’re just kinda chill. And this makes sense because their dichotomies aren’t volatile like Karin and Daan’s, nor complementary like the others. Rather, they operate in balance—you cannot be too altruistic without some selfishness. To help everyone and to achieve enlightenment, you must consider both the mundane and the greater picture. Society operates on a shared democracy and on empowering individuals.

Still, the fact that even operating on the extremes has the greatest positive effect (in terms of utilitarianism) really says smth abt whether these values even matter. But I’d argue that they do matter, cause it’s that question of whether it’s worth it to suffer or even sacrifice for the greater good.

As a whole, each foil represents a central theme/motif of Fear & Hunger: internal vs external locus of control (Karin and Daan), environment dictating identity (Marina and Levi), relationships and their impact (Marcoh and Olivia), and the thematic shitshow that is Abella and O’saa.

Tldr; the game is about some girls and their boy best friends.

[romanken]

defending incest is so crazy i don’t care how you try to rationalize it!!!!!! nobody gaf about it being in the media but y’all creaming yourselves over a child & parent having sexual encounters is DISGUSTING. idgaf and who are you to tell victims how to fell about it ??? quickly!!!! people are rightfully allowed to be upset over incest you freak. you lot romanticizing it is ridiculous begging to see lestat fuck claudia… begging to see a child & parent have sex…. yes i actually do think you should kill yourself if you do!

1. “fiction has no effect on reality” all the war propaganda we learn about cmon now, you truly don’t believe that. literally just look up the normalization effect in media

& idc what any of you say you wouldn’t scream “i love incest” with your full chest in real life bc you already know

Okay im pretty sure this is what you're pressed about which 1. It's hilarious you're not set enough in your convictions to respond to me publicly on twitter but instead had to find my tumblr and anonymously tell me to kill myself and 2. I never expressed my interest in seeing that kind of content whatsoever because I... dont interact with or want to see that content. Which I think is pretty clearly explained in my thread... in which all I did was point out that iwtv is a gothic text of which incest has been a common motif in since the genre's inception in 1764. Also pretty funny to say "you wouldn't scream I love incest irl" which like yeah I wouldn't but 7.8 million people tuned into hotd. My mom ships helaemond. Because. It's fictional

[commsroom]

to me, the question of whether hera would want a body is first and foremost a question of autonomy and ability. she has an internal self-image, i think it's meaningful that the most pivotal moments in her character arc take place in spaces where she can be perceived the way she perceives herself and interact with others in a (relatively) equal and physical capacity, and that's worth considering. but i don't think it's about how she looks, or even who she is - and i think she's the same person either way; she's equally human without a body, and having a body wouldn't make her lived experience as an AI magically disappear - so much as it's about how she would want to live.

like most things with hera, i'm looking at this through a dual lens of disability and transness, both perspectives from which the body - and particularly disconnect from the body - is a concern. the body as the mechanism by which she's able to interact with the world; understanding her physical isolation as a product of her disability, the body as a disability aid. the body as it relates to disability, in constant negotiation. the body as an expression of medical transition, of self-determination, of choice. as a statement of how she wants to be seen, how she wants to navigate the world, and at the same time reckoning with the inevitable gap between an idealized self-image and a lived reality, especially after a long time spent believing that self-image could never be visible to anyone else.

it's critical to me that it should never imply hera's disability is 'fixed' by having a body, only that it enables her to interact with the world in ways she otherwise couldn't. her fears about returning to earth are about safety and ability; the form she exists in dictates the life she's allowed to lead and has allowed people to invade her privacy and make choices for her. dysphoria and disability both contribute to disembodiment - in an increasingly digitized world, the type of alienation that feels like your life can only exist in a virtual space... maybe there's something about the concept of AI embodiment, in particular as it relates to hera, that appeals to me because of what it challenges about what makes a 'real woman.' when it's about perception, about how others see her and how she might observe / be impacted by how she's treated differently, even subconsciously. it's about feeling more present in her life and interfacing with the world. but it's not in itself a becoming; it doesn't change how she's been shaped by her history or who she is as a person.

i think it comes back to the 'big picture' as a central antagonistic force in wolf 359, and how - in that context, in this story - it adds a weight to this hypothetical choice. hera is everywhere, and she's never really anywhere. she's got access to more knowledge than most people could imagine, but it's all theoretical or highly situational; she doesn't have the same life experiences as her peers. she has the capacity to understand that 'big picture' better than most people, but whatever greater portion of the universe she understands is nothing next to infinity and meaningless without connection and context. it's interesting to me that hera is one of the most self-focused and introspective people on the show. her loyalties and decisions are absolute, personal, emotionally driven. she's lonely; she always feels physically away from the others. she misremembers herself sitting at the table with the rest of the crew. she imagines what the ocean is like. there's nothing to say that hera having a body is the only solution for that, but i like what it represents, and i honestly believe it'd make her happier than the alternatives. if there's something to a symbolically narrowed focus that allows for a more solid sense of self... that maybe the way to make something of such a big, big universe is to find a tiny portion of it that's yours and hold onto it tight.

[windcarvedlyre]

Having Komaeda brainrot is wild because you can read 10 different meta posts and fanworks about him and get 12 different characterisations.

Some are wildly wrong and rely on misunderstandings of the surface-level plot of the game, taking other characters' reactions to him as fact. Some are good-faith attempts that are still off, but understandable if the person has a life outside of thinking about the character; he's intentionally hard to understand and the official translations of some lines and his sarcastic-sounding english voice make it worse.

And then you run into people that write theses and 500-chapter masterpieces displaying just as much brainrot as you, meticulously going through his various appearances, pruning them based on quality, and combining them into a glorious, convoluted map through his many contradictions. People you deeply respect the dedication and critical thought of.

And you still have a different view of him.

[danothan]

I like to think of halbarry as two gay men who haven't come to terms with their sexuality and complete denial bc of their trauma and bullying

like what you said in flashpoint paradox where in that timeline he got the support system and no trauma I think

I think it makes sense to me them being gay than bi/pan. etc

oh this could not have come at a worse time, i’m drawing the most bisexual halbarryisms in the world rn 💔

[thecryptidzenith]

hi! I love your Midnight Oil fic, it’s so good! I have a question about it-more specifically Baron. In the fic, Baron seems to be based on Fig’s lies instead of Riz’s, but during the baronies/con era, it seemed implied that Riz was at least dreaming of them. Am I wrong, and if not, will the fic ever expand on that?

Hi! Thank you for the question! There are a lot of moving pieces in Midnight Oil and in all honesty, I don't know for certain where they're all going to end up, and I certainly didn't know for sure what the fic would look like up to this point when I started, let alone beyond that. All this to say, when I put that Baron foreshadowing in the Baronies era, I had no idea what I was going to do with them and simply trusted myself to figure something out in the future. Obviously, I did! But unfortunately that foreshadowing does not match what I ended up doing with them. If/when I go back to do any edits, I'll definitely change it.

This strategy of leaving myself threads and trusting that I'll pick the back up has generally worked well in Midnight Oil--I had no idea what I was going to do with Jean when I left him alive, and I didn't decide that Nazca was going to be Poxson's red herring mom until I wrote the last chapter where she's alive--and it maintains my enthusiasm for writing, but there are drawbacks to it.

Baron specifically was a huge question mark for a long time in terms of how I was going to incorporate them, or if I was going to incorporate them at all. There was a version I played around with for a bit where Kalina basically created Baron and thrusted them in Riz's direction after Aelwyn got captured as a replacement for her (predictably, he took it extremely poorly) but that's not what ended up happening. I didn't know Baron was going to be Fig's thing until I wrote the chapter where it's first mentioned.

So that's my answer, but that's very much from a writing perspective. As for an in-universe explanation (and this is largely me talking out of my ass) Baron is already semi-formed at this point in time and wants to play with their cat?/sister?'s toy for a little bit before daddy says he's off limits because Riz is doing important work.

[lemongogo]

[s0fter-sin]

i miss when we all interpreted shigaraki’s quirk as true decay rather than just reducing things to dust. i remember fics that had him rot things as he touched them and it was so much more visceral

[shirogane-oushirou]

wah...

love to come back from an intense, angsty daydream like

anyway. baking something yummy for ren in my mind now. wrapping him in a warm blanket and handing him some hot chocolate. sjkdnfkjn.

[honestlyvan]

(Crossposted from DW)

I know this, also, is not really what they’re thematically about, but along with Ouroboros^2, I would have liked it a lot if there had been some kind of... developing dynamic between the two Ouroboros forms. As it is, the Interlink forms are still very strongly divided based on dominance, each form having the Glowing Eye Of Hemisphere Priority, and being colour-coded to match their kingdom. The rigid division is maintained throughout the plot even though we see mutual influence between the pairs in the character development side.

I also really felt like the gameplay mechanics weren’t explored to their full potential, with Interlinks being unable to participate in Chain Attacks and not having fusion arts of their own.

It would have been nice to see some exploration of what that sort of intimacy would actually do to a relationship. It would have been cool seeing them take over each other’s Ouroboros forms, have stronger mechanical rewards for chaining arts between the two forms, maybe even have the differences start blurring until the Interlink is more of a mixture of the two features, with the voiceblending matching the ambiguity of who’s in the driver’s seat.

Basically, I wish the game had made good on the idea that they’re not Kevesi Ouroboroses, nor Agnian Ouroboroses, but rather a secret third thing.

[here-there-were-dragons]

that’s just a tundra fae veilspun

[luxraydyne]

wait, dude, wait. aini was supposed to be cosmic horror??

girl, seriously? i dunnooooo i’m not really feeling it fellas

[calenhads]

yeah. it runs in your jeans.

[tamaharu]

being one of the first ones home around holiday season is interesting because it means im bringing the packages in most of the time, and sometimes that means! i see something i was not meant to! anyways guess whos getting the third volume of o human star this year :3

[robotsafari]

i know riku was pointing at sora’s heart in that one kh2 scene because wordless storytelling is a virtue (and unfortunately becomes straight up nonexistent in modern kh) and like the audience already knows, they dont need to spell it out and its also just a very riku thing to do but…..

can i say something. it’s probably not canon at all but i always found it strange how riku-ansem’s voice went back to riku after the reveal that it was riku. it feels strange, like could he always do this? switch his voices back?

the way riku stays silent most of the time feels like he doesn’t even want to hear ansem’s voice come out of him. but the pointing part with sora (and many other scenes) feels like he only speaks when he finds it necessary, which doesnt feel necessary now that his voice is back to normal, because thats what we hear, and that should be true.. unless you think of it this way:

headcanon: riku’s voice coming out of riku-ansem can only be heard by sora and kairi (and by extension, the audience) after feeling his heart’s connection. (the thing where they closed their eyes and felt his heart)

i like to think that to anyone else he still sounds like ansem, including.. to riku himself. so he does the same as before, because to him, nothing has changed. he feels that hes still not himself, even after his friends know that its him now.