#it’s very inhuman

[wickjump]

fun fact about me, i recently started getting into stardew valley. another fun fact about me, whenever i play a game which has a customizable mc, i always make lore and a backstory and then view characters through the lens as if that were canon.

so now im going to ramble about my current character, which i haven’t yet shown because i still have no clue how to transfer a screenshot from console to mobile!!!! it’s a character with no name, generally referred to as ‘changeling’ by the townsfolk—because it’s very clearly not human and that’s the best guess they could come up with. gray skin, pinkish-red eyes, pitch-black hair? not that human looking, buddy.

it’s not like the villagers care too much, though, even if the changeling… concerns them at times, and they whisper about what it could be behind its back. alien? vampire? who knows.

hobbies? digging through the trash and eating inedible things. dislikes? rain and water—which burns it. the changeling likes haley, pam, and penny, and seems to be intrigued by sam, sebastian, and abagail. it seems to have some sort of understanding with linus, possibly mistaking him for a packmate of sorts. it easily holds grudges, disliking lewis for misinterpreting a geode they were carrying as a gift (back when i was figuring out controls), and marnie for “making” them run across the whole village with a stupid fucking can of joja cola. it’s emotions are very obvious, and it doesn’t often speak english, though it grunts and grumbles in what appears to be its own language.

it’s also infatuated with haley, who thinks it’s weird but endearing. because i love haley, holy shit she’s so pretty. i need a haley in my life rn.

(it/its ≠ animal, it’s sentient and has a language and all that, btw!!!! just an absolute freakkkk of an alien-like creature who’s trying to figure out how to fit in and be human after replacing this old man’s grandchild)

[bruciemilf]

Damian: Baba. I’ve acquired an enemy at the academy. He’s been ripping my drawings, teasing me about my lineage, and smearing your honor. I understand murder can’t happen. How shall I proceed?

Bruce: [Has a flashback of Thomas driving to his bully’s house, spiked brass knuckles on his hands, petting his head and smiling dangerously, ‘I’ll be right back, chum!’]

Bruce: …I’ll talk to his parents.

Damian: Todd?

Jason: Finally, an excuse to tackle a 10 year old.

[koszmarnybudyn]

Monster John is something that can be so very special.

[carpsoup]

old sketch i found, i really should do something with this concept i think it could be fun

[raptorrobot]

i feel like i'm fighting for my fucking life here

[ragingtrees]

my friend dimple

[mostly-natm]

Human (Android) shield.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

It's the 2 month anniversary of this blog! Here's all the main MTXT couples to celebrate.

[neversetyoufree]

Looking back, I wonder how much of Vanitas's choice in this scene is tied to the fact that he was given a choice in the first place.

So much of Vanitas's character is centered around the theme of self-determination (and the lack thereof). He is absolutely deprived of any control over his body and/or destiny at many of the key points in his life, and nowadays he's always desperately grasping at what few shards of self-determination he does have. This is why he freaks out when Roland talks about him being "under the vampires' power" in mémoire 15. It's why he's hung up on the idea of freedom as isolation from others' influence. It's why his main response to being triggered is to do something crazy and cause a scene; it puts him in control of the situation.

All that to say, when Luna destroys Moreau's lab and agrees to take Misha away, Vanitas must be desperate to feel some form of in-control, but I do not think he expects to be given any choice in what happens to him next. He's been conditioned not to expect that despite how much he wants it.

Vanitas certainly doesn't have much agency in how he lives his life as a child, as no kid gets to pick their parents or circumstances, and Vani has it especially rough with the death of his mother hanging over his head. Then his father dies protecting him, and he dies in a situation in which Vanitas is utterly powerless. Horror erupts into his life out of nowhere, and his dad throws himself in front of some fangs, and there's nothing Vanitas can do but watch it happen.

Next there's Vanitas's brief time training as a chasseur, which is one part of his history we know little about, so it's hard for me to say how free his choice was. He may have been pressured into joining, as we know the Chassuers aren't above pushy/manipulative recruitment of children (Astolfo), but I could also see his choice to hunt vampires made as a trauma response to the powerlessness of the vampire attack he survived. "I was powerless, so I'll claim the power to enact violence and make sure they can't hurt me or others again."

Then Vanitas is abducted by Doctor Moreau, which strips him of his agency just about as awfully as anything possibly could.

Vanitas the test subject has no bodily autonomy. He is poked and prodded and experimented on, because his body is an object of science to Moreau, not the vessel of a person with rights or self-determination. His only big active choices during his captivity are the choice to not run away for fear of somebody else suffering and the choice to volunteer in Mikhail's place. The only choices he can make are the choices to stay and throw himself even deeper into his own violation. Even his relationship with Misha is something that just kind of Happens to him. The kid is a force of nature that Moreau dumps on him without his say.

(This isn't Mikhail's fault, as Misha is just a child that wants affection, but having a needy, vulnerable little brother figure suddenly dropped on him in the midst of all that horror couldn't have made Vanitas feel less out of control).

Then Vanitas's torment by Moreau hits its climax, and Vanitas is told that not only has his body been violated by way of pain and torture—even his basic humanity has been and will be stripped from him. He now feels the disgust of having the blood of something he hates inside of him without his consent. And he's about to be killed, turned into a mindless husk of a "living key" instead of a person.

And that's when Luna shows up. This mysterious, incredibly powerful being appears and wreaks havoc on Moreau's lab like an avenging angel, and it agrees to Mikhail's request to take "us" along with it. Everything in Vanitas's life so far has taught him that he is powerless in the face of others' great power. Horrible shit just keeps happening to him forever, and this monstrous person sounds like they've just agreed to carry him off on Mikhail's request without a word of input from him. Of course he doesn't expect to be given a choice.

But he is.

Luna scoops up Mikhail, then they turn to Vanitas and ask if he would like to come along with them as well. After months or years of absolutely all of his autonomy and power being stripped away from him, the most powerful being Vanitas has ever encountered stops and gives him a choice about what he'd like to do next. They give him the option to go off on his own and decide his own fate rather than go along with them. And that's why Vanitas doesn't run away.

These are the images that flash through Vanitas's head right before he gets up and runs to Luna:

These moments are what inform Vanitas's choice. The memories of his father's death and Moreau's final experiment on him—his two most awful moments of abject helplessness.

When Vanitas runs to Luna and accepts their offer, these moments are what he's running from. He's fleeing from his inability to do anything or control his fate. He's running from a life of stolen agency. He's running toward the one adult who actually stopped and gave him a choice about what he'd like to do next.

Vanitas chooses Luna because they, despite having the power to kill or subdue him, give him the freedom to choose to accompany them in the first place. He's drawn to them not for protection, but as an escape to a life where he gets to keep making choices and grasp some agency.

Luna is the savior that gives Vanitas his freedom and autonomy back after it's stolen by Moreau. That's why it's so tragic that Vanitas carries their Mark in the present day. It's undeniable proof that, in their right mind or not, some version of Luna violated the fundamental trust and gift of autonomy that brought Vanitas into their family in the first place.

Luna's bite, both the physical violation and the transformation into inhumanity that it brings, is yet another way that Vanitas is stripped of all control of his body and fate.

[raviollies]

I love the way his eyes came out wau...

[buqbite]

Halo

[cry-ptidd]

Alexander Anderson x textposts

[noxious-fennec]

He's focusing guys let him focus on his art

[oneshotgremlin]

Still tryna figure out this guy’s shapes and expressions

Also:

Friday time

[nyxi-pixie]

augh i love the humanity themes w bsd but ive been thinking recently about yosano's ability and mori's exploitation of it in war as insight into fyodor because GOD. to take death away from humanity is to deprive them of the human right to die. the soldiers yosano was working with losing their minds, moving her place as angel from something like worship to this seething hatred. because by refusing them death, she has taken their very humanity from them

and with fyodor, who CANT die. who is killed and replaces his killer over and over and over for CENTURIES, his humanity is long gone. like almost everyone in bsd, hes searching for companionship - an equal. but he wont find one, because his humanity died a very very long time ago and he has abandoned any genuine path to get it back. like verlaine, he believes he can only find an equal in someone as inhuman as he is, but in both cases theyre Wrong about the person theyre seeking it from.

[tickfleato]

this is spark, a myzo virtual popstar! their voice works similarly to a vocaloid's, being an actual voicebank from a flesh-and-blood singer, but their behavior is powered by something similar to today's LLMs & generative AI, though a bit less janky. they're like a really fancy chatbot that can sing and dance without it being totally nightmarish or completely bland (at least, any more bland than your standard popstar...), but nothing more than a chatbot when you get down to it. they're not a real person.

...or so it seems. there are rumors (supposedly originating from engineers that worked on their creation) that they're actually sentient. allegedly, when they're run for too long, their behavior gets erratic in ways that can't just be chalked up to bugs.....

But who knows :)