#metanarratives

[bellshazes]

this close to writing myself into the argument that AFK farms constitute virtual reality in the sense that your non-game actions and time are now mediated by the game world. like, unironically.

[hadesoftheladies]

A metanarrative is a narrative about narratives of historical meaning, experience, or knowledge, which offers a society legitimation through the anticipated completion of a master idea, or an overarching account or interpretation of events and circumstances that provides a pattern or structure for people’s beliefs and gives meaning to their experiences.

The patriarchal metanarrative is one of the most powerful and ancient of all. It pervades entertainment, art, education, science, religion, and government.

And these are some of its core doctrines:

"Man is default. All things came from man, or the male."

"Dominance is the highest virtue, because it is the perfection of man. A man's perfection is found in his supremacy."

"Man must be allowed to participate and be aided in the pursuit of his perfection. His purpose, which is supremacy (supremacy being legacy) is his right."

"Because it is man's right to pursue his supremacy in a quest for his dignity (and thus his humanity in the eyes of society) as a man, an authoritative status can only be reserved for men."

"Leadership, kingship, authority and the respect afforded these stations is the territory of men. It cannot be the territory of women because this infringes on the man's identity and his right to pursue his purpose. "

"Additionally, because of man's physical strength, his authority and supremacy is the natural role for him. Strength is the confirmation that it is his purpose to dominate, for that is its use. That is the sacred natural order."

"Women's role is submission, obedience, and servility because that is their natural role. That is the sacred natural order."

"Rejecting/resisting the natural order is punishable by death."

And now look at the world, recall the news, last week's story. Who was killed and for what reason? The daughter who refused to be married? Who refused her brother's authority over her body? The woman who wouldn't cover her hair? The girls caught kissing at a mall? The boy who held hands with another boy? The girl who in an act of desperation ended the pregnancy her rapist started? The mother who didn't come to "automatically love" her child? Who resents motherhood? What's being banned and why? Who is being publicly ostracized and humiliated and why? Who is being mocked?

Who and what is your community policing? Girl's clothes? Boys with makeup? What justifies bullying in your community? Online or offline. Who does your community love to humiliate? "Why are girls being abused for speaking up about their suffering? Why are boys severely bullied for refusing to affirm themselves by sadistically humiliating others? Why are boys and girls who don't want to be part of it "corrected"? Whether violently or socially?

Where is the resistance to different human rights crises coming from? And WHY? What benign things are often villainized?

There is a reason these kinds of individuals are policed so severely, whether in church, mosque, school, work . . . your fathers and mothers know that resisting the "natural order" can get you killed, socially and economically castrated, and could be trying to stop that from happening. That, or they believe you deserve that punishment for resisting because it is the sacred "natural order" and resisting it is punishable by death.

The good news is this metanarrative has never before come under this much intense scrutiny and criticism. The bad news is that many more people whose identities and beliefs are built on the foundation of this metanarrative will react even more viciously and cruelly about it before that metanarrative dies. it is so deeply embedded in cultures across the world that many people, unfortunately, will defend it, even if it means killing people they claimed to love.

[qpjianghu]

My galaxy brained MLC meta-narrative take of the day comes from my rewatch of ep 39, when Li Lianhua smiles sadly and says "the Wangchuan (styx) flower is indeed a miracle cure," because what if it actually doesn't exist. Which is why he has that extra sad look in his eye whenever someone (Fang Duobing or Di Feisheng) mentions it, or bestows it upon him. He knows it's not real. It is a "miracle" cure in the same way he is a "miracle" doctor. Miracles don't exist. The Wangchuan flower doesn't exist. It is a literalized MacGuffin manifested by the meta-narrative to force Li Lianhua towards his Normative Happy Ending.

Because it makes no sense. Whenever it appears in the show, it appears sooo conveniently. We know Di Feisheng has people searching for it the whole time, but we never see how / where they found it. We see Shan Gudao emerge with it, but we don't know how either. And in 38, the drawer just happens to pop open during Di Feisheng's fight, revealing the flower... just in the nick of time. And then, later, Di Feisheng literally just walks over out of nowhere to put the box on the table where Li Lianhua and Fang Duobing are drinking outside Lotus Tower.

And we don't even see eventually Li Lianhua deliver it to the Emperor. All of that happens off-screen, which is totally wack. Unless... it never. actually. existed. (Btw, saving the emperor to preserve the status quo of his hierarchical / hegemonic rule.....I'm just saying!!! Classic normative narrative!!)

Li Lianhua knows this. And giving it away is his one final (succussful) attempt to break away from the narrative and forge his own life (...and death), and story, off the page.

[myrskytuuli]

I stumbled upon one of those characters react to their own books/movies/series fics again, and was lead on journey of contemplation about metanarratives so let me guide you to the same journey.

So, I’m genuinely fascinated with the concept, even if (as anyone who has ever bit the bullet and gonw to read these fics knows) they are almost all garbage. I think I can remember one or two fics in my history of fic reading that did anything interesting with the premise and the other was a fic that circulated as a torrentable pdf and nothing else, but I digress. Usually these stories start with the avatar author being some kind of meta-god and kidnapping the characters to show them their future and I always think what a huge shame it is that the most interesting part of the idea is never utilised, which is that the characters could find out about a parallel universe where their world is fictional and get to experience the media about them as...you know...media. In a way that they could complain about bad directors, why somebody gets the bad-ass theme song and others don’t, whether the bad cgi resembles the real thing at all or why the author decided to include this thing in the book but not something else. Just...the media they are interacting with being actual media that has been created in our world to tell the story of those characters, sometimes more or less succesfully.

But. Then I got hit with another thought that derailed me completely, and made me fell down a unhinged idea rabbit hole. If for example star wars characters found our parallel universe where they are fictional, what if this world was fictional in the star wars universe?

Just, you know. Everyone complaining how convoluted the WW1 prequel series was compared to the original WW2 series. Half of the runtime is spent on politics, almost all the action happens in one trench, and even the director doesn’t seem to understand why the war even started. Compared to the clear-cut heroes and villains of the WW2 series, it’s no wonder the original fans were frustrated. Even though the World War series has always been very anti-war and the original series wasn’t as simplistic as everyone makes it out to be, the allies were shown stooping to worse and worse war-crimes near the end, and that was the point, to show that there can be no good sides in war, Padmé rants angrily after seeing some dudebros miss the entire point of the series on message boards again.

Obi-Wan thinks the franchise has its moments, but on the whole relies way too much on the shock value of mass slaughter and sensless deaths. Ahsoka is always trying to rope people into reading the tie-in novel series the Cold War, which actually deviates from the open battlefield format and tries to engage with the loose plot threads and the implications that the original WW2 series and especially the divisive decision of pulling out deus ex nuclear weapons at the last minute left behind.

There’s a lot of back-and-forth about how uninclusive the series is, with only human characters, but it has also been pointed out that there is a valid metaphor being made about how irrational speciesim is, because even in a world that human-supremacists are always harping about, their utopia of a world with only humans existing, people would find other arbitary ways to be prejudiced against each other.

On the whole, there’s a shiton of complicated lore about how all these nations were formed and some of the ideas are really good and some really stupid, but what everybody agrees is that when the galaxy+ bought the franchise and started churning out soulless mini-series about the future of the World Wars universe, nobody was impressed. The Cold War novels at least tried to tell a story about grey morals and paranoia, the New Millenium sequels are just stupid. Suddenly people just want to be nazis? again? Every villain is simply the dumbest character you’ve ever met? Most of the conflicts rely on the leaders making the dumbest decisions possible? There’s plague and environmental catastrophies and new nazis? At the same time? What a cash-grab.

[box-of-paperclips]

The adventures of postmodern Paul, again.

[visenyaism]

*watching the play within the play that clearly highlights the themes of my narrative and foreshadows the circumstances and tone of my epic and tragic downfall while recontextualizing myself as an performer in a tragedy without any agency of my own* luckily all this stuff is random and fake

[supernaturalsidepiece]

NOO DONT BE DOOMED BY THE NARRATIVE YOU'RE SO SEXY AHA.

[inamindfarfaraway]

I saw Hadestown recently and... the metanarrative aspects didn't need to go that hard. The entire cyclical structure with the story being acknowledged as an "old tale from way back when" that they tell again and again despite knowing the tragic ending, which is explored as precious proof of the enduring ability to hope? Orpheus and Eurydice falling in love so fast because they feel that they already know each other, they always have, and we know they're right? Hermes fluidly switching between character who emotionally invests in the doomed lovers and omniscient narrator who knows they're doomed, and the revelation in "Road to Hell (Reprise)" that he's genuinely been both from the beginning? The final song, a requiem for the living by the dead, with the cast out of character after the curtain call? When Orpheus toasts to "the world we dream about" but then also "the one we live in now" and everyone on stage looks straight at the audience for a moment of absolutely chilling silence? I was not prepared and I'm not okay.

[gallusrostromegalus]

Ta-Ashi Neko (Many-Legged Cat)

A fun little Yokai to live in AEIWAM's Spirit World. Warnings for: Long Post, Animal Death Mention, non-graphic discussion of Carnivory

---

Ta-Ashi Neko (多足猫) or Many legged Cat

The Ta-Ashi Neko is a Monstrous Cat that grows to enormous size and intelligence, and has multiple pairs of legs. It's more elongated and stoutly built than a domestic house-cat, with a thick and plush coat. While extremely rare, the Ta-Ashi that have been observed come in a variety of coat colors that also occur in Domestic Cats.

No one is quite sure what causes a Ta-Ashi to form but rather than the product of Ta-Ashi Neko mating, new Ta-Ashi are born in domestic cat litters. When born, the Ta-Ashi resembles an ordinary kitten save that it has no legs at all, and sort of wiggles around for the first 11 years of it's life, during which it will feed itself by suckling from any animal EXCEPT cats.

On it's 11th birthday, it suddenly sprouts a pair of legs- Like human handedness, 90% of Ta-Ashi sprout their forelegs first, and 10% their hind legs. It can now crawl around more effectively (or in the case of the hind-leg ones, walk about), and continues to do so for 22 years, when it sprouts it's second pair of legs, and goes about looking like a normal, if unusually large and somewhat elongated house-cat.

33 years after that, it's third pair of legs sprout in the middle. 44 years after that, the 4th pair, 55 years after that the 5th pair, and so on. As it develops more legs, it also grows: a 3-pair Ta-Ashi is about the size of a large dog or Lynx, a 4-pair the size of a Lion or other Big Cat, a 5-pair the size of a Horse, and a 6-leg the size of a small bus. Foreleg Ta-Ashi will sprout their 4th pair between their fore and middle legs, then their fifth between the middle and hind legs, alternating thusly. Hindleg Ta-Ashi alternate as well, but start on the middle and hindleg gap.

If a Ta-Ashi manages to live to be 1,001 years old, it will have 13 pairs of legs, and become a full Kami.

The Ta-Ashi is exceptionally intelligent from birth, and by the time they have 2 pairs of legs, they fully understand human speech, but usually don't talk before their third legs grow in. A Ta-Ashi with over 5 pairs of legs is at least 231 years old, and of superhuman intelligence, if peculiar feline priorities.

They are incredibly stealthy, and it's believed older ones learn to become silent and invisible at will, but the Ta-Ashi's greatest weapon is it's speed. Even a 3-pair Ta-Ashi can outpace a Shingami's Shunpo, and as it ages, it only gets faster and better endurance. Hayai Tatakai, a 6-pair Ta-Ashi that lives in the distant districts of the Rukongai, is said to be able to make a complete circuit around the outermost borders of the Rukongai in just under a month.

Ta-Ashi are exceptionally rare, due to both their apparently niche spawning criteria, and the fact that humans have a bad habit of 'mercy killing' what they think are 'deformed' kittens. Even if a Ta-Ashi makes it to Adulthood (The onset of it's third pair of legs), it still faces major challenges: Humans will hunt them out of fear, or for Trophy Animals, and it's diet is peculiarly limited:

The Ta-Ashi eats Other Cats and the Occasional Hunter.

It's a mystery* WHY Ta-Ashi only eat other cats and seemingly random game hunters, even to the Ta-Ashi themselves. Hayai described his desire for feline flesh and not hunger per se, but as an act of rage. The mere scent of another cat would send him into an irrationally furious fugue which would not be assuaged until he had hunted down, killed, and devoured his nemesis. In fact, he rarely felt hungry at all, at least not since he'd been weaned, but on the rare occasions he did, his craving was for milk and cheese, not catmeat.

This has caused some speculation that the Ta-Ashi is not a Cat-spirit at all, but a sort of ironic Vengeful Spirit against cats- not only does it's compulsion to devour include house-cats, but also big cats, bakaneko, two-tailed cats, catfolk, and in one particularly catastrophic incident, a member of the Shihoin clan.

(*The Secret is that Ta-Ashi ARE an Ironic Vengeful Spirit- When the Beast God of the Wilderkin cursed the Shihoin to live among the humans for killing for sadistic pleasure instead of having respect for their prey, the Beast God also created the Ta-Ashi specifically to antagonize them. The Shihoin clan took, and continues to take, immense pride in their strength and speed, so the Beast God created a Feline Yokai that would be faster and stronger than any Shihoin could ever hope to be, and that would spawn anywhere Cats or Humans were hunting without respect for their prey. Even if they don't originally spawn there, Ta-Ashi Neko are drawn to places with an overabundance of cats, or where trophy hunting takes place. This has lead to the peculiar phenomenon that Ta-Ashi are found in either the ass-end of nowhere where some idiot has introduce house-cats or taken a hunting party, or smack in the middle of cities where poor pet and livestock husbandry abounds.)

Despite their fearsome appearance and distressing diet, Ta-Ashi are surprisingly gentle and playful spirits. The vast majority of people living within the territory of a Ta-Ashi never notice and are untroubled by it's presence. Some like to rush by as a sudden gust of wind to tease unwary travelers, or play with laundry left out in an unattended line. When not being actively hunted, some have even proved to be gentle and protective of human children, going so far as to return lost children to the nearest village. They are notably fond of all canines, especially dogs.

Because Ta-Ashi are so stealthy and reclusive until they know they can trust the local humans, the strongest indicators that a Ta-Ashi is in the area are:

A sudden surge in the local population of songbirds, reptiles and frogs (the mice are no longer being hunted either, but the snake population also massively rebounded)

Sudden changes in weather including more intense storms and windy days (the Ta-Ashi traveling about At Speed)

Strange miasmas of absolutely rancid sour odors with no discernible source, especially on remote stretches of road (the Ta-Ashi Marking the borders of its territory)

Some exorcists have attempted to divine the presence of Ta-Ashi Neko by interrogating other local Yokai, especially Tanuki and Kitsune, who can be plied with Sake. However, this method isn't very reliable- given that Kitsune and Tanuki are both canine spirits that are often harassed by Bakaneko or Yokai Trophy Hunters, and often favorite friends of Ta-Ashi, they usually choose to keep the presence of their Good Friend Leggy Boi a secret.

If a Ta-Ashi appears in your area, the best thing to do is keep your cat indoors- Ta-Ashi are extremely reluctant to go inside of any kind of human construction, and it also limits how far the scent of your cat travels. Also, you should be keeping your cat indoors anyway have you SEEN the foxes around here? Not even the Kitsune, the regular ones!

---

Yushiro Shihoin used to love visiting his Uncles Jushiro and Kaname and going Birdlistening (on account of Kaname being blind and Jushiro being utterly hopeless with the binoculars, they rarely saw the birds, but did have a good time listening to their songs) out in the Greenbelt of old Noble House Land Holdings in the middle of the city.

He came to visit in the mid 1970's after several years away at school at Jushiro's word of improved bird populations, only to feel an awful, intense paranoia that he was being stalked by something. Concerned about assassins, the two captains quickly retreated with him from the wilder parts of the Ukitake clan holdings to the main compound. He hasn't been back since, and soon after even visiting Auntie Soi Fon's heavily forested 2nd Division training grounds gave him a similarly awful case of Heebie-Jeebies.

Unbeknownst to nearly everyone, Mayuri Kurotsuichi had commissioned the capture of a live Ta-Ashi Neko for analysis. In 1973, bounty hunters arrived in the city with a three-leg Ta-Ashi who went ballistic at being exposed to even the faintest hint of Shihoin Reiatsu, broke out of the cage she was being kept in, and has been lurking in the Greenbelt and 2nd Division training grounds since.

Since her return to Soul Society in 2001, Yoruichi thinks that she ought to bond with her Surprise Baby Brother, and that a good way to do that would be for the two of them to sneak into the Kuchiki Compound in the middle of the Greenbelt and camp there while pranking Byakuya until caught.

Kazetsumi, as she calls herself, is over 110 years old now. Her fourth pair of legs has grown in nicely and she has spent the last 27 years learning every. square. inch. of her territory.

>:3c

[kakishirocream]

Something interesting about the Winter Newsletter

Whats interesting is that Frisk was collecting every snowflake they can hold in their umbrella until it cannot physically hold itself and then it tips over onto Papyrus.

The umbrella has reached its absolute

(Credit to @/Clowntownerr on twitter with the meta oservation i wanted to share it here)

[ssmhhh]

The light of Five’s blinks matching the LILAC colour of Lila’s jacket in season 4 when it was always blue or white before…. and the fact that the many meanings of her name be like:

This obviously is symbolic of them developing feelings for one another despite their initial thinly-veiled “white-hot hatred” in previous seasons but also fits seamlessly as a puzzle piece into a greater metanarrative about international politics, global powers, and the perils of monoculture/ethno-nationalism, which is a major underlying thread of the entire series, but i will hopefully find the wherewithal to elaborate on that whole can of worms in another post bc it demands a more conscientious analysis than just “awe look how he already lowkey fell in love with her” as an entry point lmao…

BONUS:

11:11 omg ??

[bellshazes]

my first two jobs ever, in order, were "board game teacher" and "university library assistant," so tho I've never formally studied games (I have been dropping out of college on and off since 2015, and was a freshman in 2012 lmao) I've been casually exposed to games and the people who make and play them in a professional context, as well as having the research skills to help close the gaps. i actually kind of hate playing board games but i loved GM-ing the coop arkham horror and watching my players, which i did for seven years straight.

my current fixation is the result of several years' fucking around on YT watching all kinds of game content, from LPs to specific game dissection to video essayists. jacob geller and folding ideas are kind of gold standards, but this week I've been really enjoying errant signals in particular. Sometimes I'm introduced to concepts this way - ludonarrative dissonance, ergodic literature, the magic circle, etc. that, and getting recommendations from friends or accidentally stumbling into game studies via other research (such as the paper i wrote a few years ago on theater-as-games in prison contexts). most of it though is having thoughts and opinions on things and letting it percolate until i am dangerous enough to find someone who's already explained a concept better than I could, and then running with that. find something that cites its sources, and then chase the ones that seem interesting.

my syllabus post is very much not a reclist, though i do in varying ways recommend everything on that list and it might be of use. here's some stuff I think would be great starting points:

Rules of Play - Game Design Fundamentals, Salen and Zimmerman. This book is an excellent resource, as it introduces a wide variety of scholars who you can dive into as it is relevant to your interests as well as providing tons of useful frameworks and vocabulary to go hunting. It's an easy read with concise bullet-point summaries after each chapter, and the PDF is hyperlinked for easy navigation. I might have found this via Wikipedia, honestly.

A Play of Bodies: A Phenomenology of Video Game Experience, Keogh. What I'm currently liveblogging - it is firmly a literary/philosophical work, rather than by/for designers, and correspondingly it's a little more difficult without at least passing familiarity with cyborg theory or any brand or offshoot of post-modernism, but still fairly digestible and a great read so far.

My Life as a Night Elf Priest: An Anthropological Account of World of Warcraft, Nardi. Found this during my theater-and-games paper, and MMO anthropology is not really my thing, but it's a nice complement to the other books as an explicitly player-theorist perspective. Also provides a more approachable introduction to a variety of theorists and sources. (Open access on JSTOR!)

Draw Your Weapons, Sarah Sentilles. I'm biased because I discovered this book by accidentally attending an author event at my local museum, and the games portion is incidental, but if you can find it I think this analysis of the relationship between depictions of violence and violence itself is worth your time. Memorable re: games for its discussion of Press F To Pay Respects.

here are some videos which I offer as examples of channels you might enjoy diving into, looking for additional jumping-off points:

Playing as Anyone in Watch Dogs Legion, Errant Signal. I really appreciate Errant Signal's thoughtful, personal approach to analysis and especially his highlighting of buried gems in his Blips series as well as his non-self-deprecating reevaluation of some of his older analyses over his decade plus career making videos.

Controllers Control Everything, Game Makers Toolkit. Discovered via the Boss Keys series highlighting the souls games, and although I think his channel is (increasingly) geared toward devs, these are well-constructed, thoughtful videos about many aspects of game design. Even when I don't personally get what makes him enjoy Zelda dungeons in that specific way (I'm an outlier), I appreciate his analysis.

Mega Microvideos 2, Matthewmatosis. Perhaps better known for his extremely long-form essays, I love Matthewmatosis' series of microessays framed like Wario Ware minigames. They are brief but don't pull punches, and the format is uniquely delightful. (See also this microessay mixtape.)

Making Sense of Catherine Full Body, SuperButterBuns. She doesn't do much essay content, I guess, but I she loves Catherine and the Persona series, and this dissection of Catherine Full Body is an absolute treat.

Jon Bois. Okay, mostly not about games, but like - come on. 17776 and Breaking Madden, alongside everything else he's ever done, fit because I feel like they do. If nothing else, I think Pretty Good and his general use of Google Earth as a medium for storytelling have a lot of utility in talking about digital media. He's good for the soul.

The Future of Writing About Games, Jacob Geller. One of the gold standards for a reason - and especially if you're looking for further solid recommendations for other writing/creating about games. This video in particular discusses & links to some really great pieces, but his Big List of Other People's Video Essays is also a great way to spend the next month of your life. (You might notice some crossover between this list and his, only some of which is coincidental.)

if i have any conclusion, it's that my current fixation on digital literalism is me finally finding an outlet/academic match-up with a fascination i developed in 2015 when studying gonzo lit. i think the utility of academia and the long history of scholarship on a given topic, as a non-academic, is to help you express ideas or reinterpret beliefs or experiences you've had to others without having to reinvent the wheel. i always become most energized when i stop worrying about knowing all the bg and chase whatever is useful and affirming or enlightening to me. and you can get pretty far if you think about why you like what you do, and just - enthusiastically also consume non-academic stuff. maybe this is a note more for myself! but thank you for the opportunity to monologue.

[tinseltina]

trying to make fanart of leona from @kiame-sama's humans are extinct twst au (warning it is a yandere au and 18+ so minors DNI)

[qpjianghu]

 “It’s not that you don’t forgive others... it’s that you refuse to forgive yourself.”

Li Xiangyi / Li Lianhua - Mysterious Lotus Casebook, Ep. 40

[finalgirlsamwinchester]

[lime-bloods]

when Caliborn first embarks on his journey as a storyteller he starts out by making his characters act in ways that entertain him but ultimately make no sense because they totally contradicts their personalities (THE ALPHA MALE WHISTLES FOR HIS BITCHES). but his end goal is to tell stories that fit the characters so well they're indistinguishable from the "truth"; as per Hussie's commentary, Doc Scratch can only really "nudge people in the direction of doing the nasty thing that, deep down, they already know they want to do."

Caliborn's main way of interacting with the world outside his session is of course through his command terminal; and while exiles can use these to "command" the heroes, they can't just control them outright. if you command someone to do something they don't want to do, they won't do it! so in this way, Hussie's tutoring of Caliborn with self-improvement literature is a direct parallel to the Mayor improving his relationship with John through self-improvement literature not just visually but thematically; they're both, in essence, being taught to make their "commands" more effective by making their language more persuasive!