#nihilistic-void

[aerikvon]

[curly4830]

I think there's a lot to be said about games that take themselves seriously 24/7 vs games that have a little humor, especially horror. Let's take Lethal Company for example, very fun game. It entirely depends on you and your group's ability to take it seriously. With people who take it seriously it's just dead silence between everyone when they collect scrap, or very minimal talking. With people who don't it's just joking around with friends, like usual, it makes the sense of dread where you can't tell if someone's out of range, dead, or being quiet to play a prank on you. All 3 of those things are likely! In the same way, I think that's why Voices of the Void hits so hard for me. I like space, it's a pretty space-themed game. There's no hard objective, you can say fuck the signals and just go do donuts in your parking lot on the ATV the entire day. As @eliias-bouchard put it, "The game lets you choose exactly how much horror is in it, and yet revokes that choice constantly". You can turn the radar completely off if you want, ignore every monster or non threatening wisp outside, for better or for worse. You can choose to ignore signals entirely and make a living off fishing or mining if you want. You don't need to reset the power, but you likely will anyways, and I think that goes for most of these things. Fishing is fun, sure, but you could make a lot more money per day by doing the daily task. Most people couldn't live without the radar, either. The amount of blind-spots around the base just makes either it or an absurd amount of cameras necessary. I feel like I'm talking in circles here but it's a very good game, both on the surface and the more I look at the way the game is actually designed. It's free on Itch.io and I suggest checking it out if you have the time. https://mrdrnose.itch.io/votv?download

[merrilark]

Something something the poetry of Klaus being able to traverse not just through other people's heavens via the Void but across dimensions as well because Death is the one commonality that binds all the universes that are and ever will be together.

[oaxleaf]

horror which has the inherent value of humanity as its core message>>>

[exis-existentialcrisis]

Nothing Matters.

The universe itself was most likely created by some sort of mistake with the virtual quantum particles in the void before time. But how could that have happened? Well you see, before the universe, our everything, there was nothing. And what is nothing? Those virtual quantum particles. But how could they have created the universe? Well, given infinite time, infinite space, infinite probability and infinite possibility, anything can happen. And thus the universe was created.

After that, everything else was a “happy little accident”. Quarks, atoms, hydrogen, helium, more atoms, fundamental forces, stardust, universal expansion, gravity, stars, supernovae, black holes, galaxies, meteors, comets, planets, and solar systems. Everything just… happened. Of course, not instantaneously, but given how the universe was made from a presumably unexplainable source, this was pretty remarkable.

Then on one certain planet with a medium-sized star of which it orbits, water fell from the sky as meteors/comets brought water onto the planet’s surface. That water caused life. That life caused evolution. And that evolution caused destruction. And from that evolution and destruction, humans came to be.

We as humans spend our entire lives, the longest known experience to mankind, looking for validation from other people, only for us to realize those feelings are evanescent.

Once that ends, once we have witnessed the longest known experience to mankind, we decay. The area of space that was once inhabited by a living being is succumbed to nature. Eventually, we revert back into nothing, just how we started, and we become the very surface that other beings tread upon. Eventually, anyone or anything’s thoughts, opinions, or feelings about you dissipate and become one with the void. Feelings are also a confusing thing. Many atoms interacting with one another inside of an organ in your skull, creating something that can actually be sensed by an actual living being. Feelings are simply atoms coming together to create something for a split second, but then, so is everything else. Our breathing, out sight, our senses, our movements, those are all just atoms creating something for a split second.

On the topic of seconds, time is irrelevant as well. Everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen is occurring at one infinitesimally small instance. But if all of time is taking place at one infinitesimally small instant, wouldn’t that still be a place in time? Who knows. No one. No one can and no one will ever truly know everything.

But what is everything? Our universe, our everything, came from the void, nothing. So it is safe to say that everything is nothing, but nothing is also everything. Correct? No. There is no fixed answer for this question. One can only wonder and wander their thoughts. Considering the theory that there are both higher and lower dimensions apart from ours that have completely unfathomable fundamentals and characteristics, there is no true answer to any question that will ever be asked.

[demoisverysexy]

The world is dying.

Everything you love is temporary and fleeting, and in time you will lose everything. Friends, family, hobbies, time, experiences, life: everything that you hold dear is slipping through your fingers like sand, and the more you try to hold on to these things, the more you will feel the pain of their passing away. Everything is filled with death and decay and destruction, and there is no hope to be found of satisfaction in anything. Where will you find it? Even simple pleasures cannot last. The meal that you enjoy the taste of will in time be finished, and the taste that it imparted will be lost and forgotten. How much better are the other things in your life?

We see this now with the world: even things we have taken for granted are dying. The world is on fire, ravaged by plagues and greed and wars and rising temperatures. The world is filled with suffering and pain and death, and nothing can undo these things. What hope do you have in a world free of these things? If tomorrow all wars and all plagues and all greed and all rising temperatures and even all death were suddenly and swiftly brought to an end, yet would death remain. How is this so? Because hunger is eternal, and when I get what I want, I am no longer satisfied by it. My wants and needs are ever changing. I am fluid and amorphous, and as are those who surround me. In time, the person I was will die, replaced by a different me than the person who came before, who is now dead. Every breath I take brings me closer to the grave.

And so too it is with my partner, my father, my friend, my mother, my siblings. If I and all those I loved were to never age and never die, yet would I still lose them all perpetually, because the people they were before would be lost to time. Nothing lasts forever. Everything is passing away. Everything in time will crumble to dust and no-one will remember it. There is no hope for recompense, not in this life, nor any half-baked hypothetical worlds to come. Even if they exist, they cannot offer an alternative to the perpetual death of all things.

The world is burning.

Death takes all.

There is no hope.

[psalmsofpsychosis]

okay but for real, spending an ungodly amount of time in the past 3 years around intellectually deadening media and people who mistake familiarity with brilliance has mostly made me feel insane, but it has also helped me develop the most straightforward approach to media i've had in years. Like, it's gotten very simple for me to gauge where i stand with people's creations and i love the sense of foundational simplicity i've found regarding my taste in media, like

you see, i need the art to tell something new, creative, distinct and interesting. If it cannot do that, then i need it to say something kind, compassionate and useful. and if it can't achieve that either, i find zero value in it, period. I've had so many people approaching me with the implication that demanding creativity and originality from media is somehow "wrong" and "weird" and "too much to ask for", as if i'm the problem for needing and expecting variety and novelty from art, the unspoken idea being "is it not enough that it's pretty? is it not enough that there are conventionally attractive able-bodied & socially sanctioned "hot" people fucking in it?" and no. the pervasive and invasive superficiality in your interpretation of stories and art is utterly boring to me, i really dont care how much "thin hot fuck young person" and "pretty aesthetics" you stick on your utterly dead and deadening narratives. I approach a piece of media and ask "is this telling something new? is this asking a different question whithin an intriguing framework?" and then i'm going to ask "is this kind and understanding of its subject matter? is it curious and openminded? is this information useful to our understanding of the world right now?" and if it cannot answer either question i'll drop it as fast as i picked it up.

[tiredb0nes]

Todays thoughts

I don't know when it all started. I don't remember when i didn't feel like this. I just feel this deep unhappiness. Im stuck in a purgatory where I'm just going through the motions. I feel like a captive. Theres a lack of human connection despite being surrounded by everyone. Everyday I'm fighting to find a reason to keep living. I'm running out of reasons. Is it real? Is my mind playing tricks on me? I don't know anymore..

[echoesfromtheabyss]

The end of civilization was always written and pictured as so cataclysmic and sudden.  Like one day it’s fine the next it’s raining fire upwards and everyone is speaking backwards.   Instead we get... well, this.  A slow escalation of horrors that are simply the conclusion of all actions taken before.  A simple harvest of a field.  

I guess in the end humanity’s legacy is ruin.  

[bridge-arsonist]

Why The Voice Of The Cold Hates The Narrator

Replaying the Nightmare -> Wraith route and I'm realizing...

Jesus fucking christ, The Cold hates the narrator. Honestly, I think he might just give Smitten or Contrarian a run for their money.

He:

Doubts every word the narrator speaks

Insults the narrator whenever he gets the chance

Actively suggests killing the narrator, even stating that the princess could help do that

Not only suggests killing the narrator, but also suggests that—no—actually, death is too good for the guy. They should lock the narrator in a void just like the fake good ending. Mind you, this route doesn't even have the narrator do that!

Mocks the narrator when he finally gives up on trying to make you slay the princess

Seems happy that the narrator is gone, saying he had a feeling The Wraith could deal with him

I'm pretty sure Cold over here'd rather be playing Slay The Narrator.

Really though, upon further reflection, The Cold's hatred for The Narrator is also prevalent in The Spectre, where one of the few things he actually seems to have a firm stance on is "We should kill the Narrator". In the Greys, though he's arguably at his most nihilistic, he still seems to oppose the Narrator. He joins the Skeptic in his suspicions, and though he mostly just seems to be having a time provoking Smitten during the Burned Grey, he still does take the occasional second to spite the Narrator.

And honestly, come to think about it, it makes sense. After all, the Cold manifests not necessarily from slaying the Princess, but more specifically, from killing yourself. But not just from killing yourself, slaying yourself in The Tower at the hands of the Broken doesn't manifest him, but specifically by killing yourself to spite the narrator. I mean, other than Empty Cup and Moment of Clarity (Where we don't actually know how he manifested due to the timeskips), each iteration of Cold's manifestation checks out.

Spectre: You slay her, get the good ending, but then decide "fuck this and fuck your contruct", and stab yourself even as the narrator repeatedly urges you not to.

Burned Grey: You kill the Damsel, and in a fit of rage against both you and the narrator, the Smitten kills you, even as the narrator urges him not to. (Funnily enough, this means that, despite the Smitten's line of "you killed her, and so I killed you", it was the opposite, and the Smitten manifested the Cold)

Drowned Grey: You kill the Prisoner, and, just like in the Spectre's route, you kill yourself even as the Narrator urges you not to. If you refuse to kill yourself, Skeptic does it for you, seeming apologetic towards you, but definitely not towards The Narrator.

Wraith: You kill yourself as the Narrator urges you not to, and Paranoid also spends this route doubting the Narrator.

These routes involve various levels of emotion for the Princess, ranging from "My love! Still gonna kill you though" to "So scary! Still gonna kill you though", and an overall perception of the Princess as a corpse. But the Narrator? In all of the routes leading up to Cold's manifestation, the Narrator is met with hostility, usually leading to you killing yourself out of a mix of spite and suspicion.

So Cold's manifestation has two constants:

Some level of apathy towards the Princess, regardless of your previous interactions with her. Whether she's your perfect damsel or your worst nightmare, you don't care. You stab her.

Disregard for your own safety. You're just going to stab yourself, cool. It's better than this hell. Sometimes it's another voice fulfilling this requirement for you, like Smitten in the Damsel, or Skeptic in Prisoner depending on whether or not you willingly die.

Distaste towards the narrator. A conclusion that the Narrator is untrustworthy and distinctly not on your side. No matter how you manifest the Cold, it is clear that you do not like this pesky raven one bit. The Nightmater -> Wraith route shows this through Paranoid's constant suspicion of the Narrator. This distaste frequently, thought not always, occurs due to the Narrator attempting to force you to live out your life in the void, though it can also occur due to the Narrator attempting to make you live a life without the one thing you cherish (Damsel route).

Apathy towards most things, but one thing's for certain: You don't trust that Narrator guy. He tried to make you live out a crappy, boring life for eternity.

Cold's attitude makes sense when you look at how he was created. Just like Smitten was made by deciding the princess was an immediately trustworthy damsel in need of rescuing from the pesky narrator, or that the witch is a gorgeous woman whom you can save by giving your blade in spite of the narrator's wishes—Cold is made through deciding that neither your nor the princess's safety particularly matters, but fuck that narrator guy. He sucks. As apathetic as the Cold likes to act, he reacts to Smitten's threats and the Princess's murder attempts with "interesting", and reacts to the Narrator's explanation of the timeline with "we should kill him".

So, my point?

Well, I think that—not only does the Cold hate the Narrator—but hating the Narrator is part of him as a voice. He's cold, apathetic, and he hates the Narrator. It's been baked into his very being through the choices that you make. The princess doesn't matter, your physical well-being doesn't matter, but know that the Narrator is an untrustworthy little prick.

TLDR: Replaying Wraith made me realize that the Cold probably hates the Narrator very very much, and he does so because it is baked into his very being because of the choices you made to manifest him. You go, king. Let your inner hater run free.

[prokopetz]

Inadvisable tabletop RPG premise #137: Fantasy setting where wizard towers have approximately the same role and cultural significance as Cold War nuclear missile silos. It’s impossible to really hide the fact that you’re casting a high-level spell, and extremely difficult to defend against one, so all of the world’s greatest wizards are locked in a mutually assured destruction scenario; the moment any one of them tries to perform a world-shaping act of magic, all of the other great wizards will smell it and immediately respond by casting Fuck That Guy In Particular.

The setting otherwise superficially resembles a perfectly standard Generic Fantasy Setting, though any close examination will rapidly reveal how deeply its culture is informed by the looming knowledge that the world is perpetually one wizardly temper tantrum away from total annihilation, and the extent to which the conspicuous Generic Fantasy atmosphere is a deliberately constructed facade of business-as-usual over a howling void of nihilistic uncertainty.

[nihilistgf]

"The active nihilist sees in the unknown future and despair at our current situation, a call to arms. Meaning is found in approaching the void rather than in the false knowledge of what is on the other side of it. —Attentat

We are nihilists regardless of whether we call ourselves by the name, because we have no road out of this. We have only the starlit wilderness... The first act of navigation is to set foot in the wilderness. Only then can we put our hands against the bare earth, feeling for the dim warmth of those fires still smoldering beneath. —“Hic Nihil, Hic Salta! (A Critique of Bartlebyism)”

With every rebellious footstep we take, we are entering an unknowable void. There are no reliable maps of the terrain that our struggles will occupy. No one has a leg up on the question of liberation. So much has been tried and so much has failed, let us finally admit that we don’t know what is “right” or what will “work”. Nobody knows how, why, or if a dominant order will fall. We don’t know if there are enough letterbombs in the world to bring an end to nuclear power, nor do we know if a well-timed mass uprising in Auschwitz would have actually succeeded in shutting down the camp. Despite what anyone tells us, there is no guarantee that the workers of the world are going to rise up, nor any assurances that such a thing would even lead to a desirable situation.

Though we have inherited a great many ideas about how to confront domination, we know that nothing is set in stone. From the shattered tools and bones of our predecessors, we craft our own weapons. Nothing is guaranteed to work, yet we attack regardless. We do so naked, having shed the rags of morality, ideology, and politics that had accumulated over time. We confront this world raw, in all its horrifying glory." - blessed is the flame

[cheatsykoopa98]

1 AM ramble but someone just pointed out to me you can see zooble's room in their pin wrapping background

not only do we get to see what their room looks like, we also get an official look of the zooble box, and a mirror for them to look at themself. now I think this might be important. pomni had a scene in ep 1 where she looks at the mirror in disbelief that she looks like that now, and we know zooble changes their parts every day. I think caine did that to "help" zooble with figuring out their gender identity, which maybe or not be helping, considering what I hear of people experiencing gender dysphoria not liking to see themselves in the mirror.

and I do think the mirror is important, we get to see a little bit of the others' bedrooms as well, kaufmo, ragatha and gangle's, and none of them have mirrors from what I can see. maybe caine noticed pomni looking in the mirror and thought pomni might want one in her room just like zooble, not realizing pomni probably hates to look in the mirror and not see herself

also lets look at the other characters bedrooms

ragatha seems to be very tidy (assuming everyone has to clean up their rooms and considering how messy pomni's room is) and not have that much stuff. a box of toys that she might or not play with considering its positioned as a seat for the piano. we dont know if she knows how to play (according to goose she knows the cello, so she could know the piano as well) and having so little fingers in her hand might actually not let her play the piano properly. caine could have just heard she likes music and put a piano in her room. also notice the piano is in the middle of the room taking center stage and we cant see a bed (yet). ragatha has mentioned nobody needs to sleep even though they can. do you think she (tries to) play the piano at night while everyone else assumedly sleeps? there is a song sheet at the piano but I cant read if it has an actual song name written on it.

also she has a shelf full of things that might be of her interest or template things caine put there. like balls of yarn, books, a gloink (how did she have a gloink before ep 1?) and a framed picture, which if it has an actual photo of someone there could open up a lot of theories to who is there. also the gloink being there points to either ragatha having already lived through a gloink adventure and keeping one in her room or keeping one after an adventure where she was hurt by kaufmo and abandoned by pomni. why would she want to keep it if thats the case?

gangle's room is very dark with black walls. we cant see much but I believe she is in a really deeper depression than pomni. I believe to the point where she doesnt have the energy to try to escape, just mask as much as she can before her happy mask is broken again, poor gangle :/

we dont get to see kinger or jax's room, even though I think there is a kinger door in the corridor. maybe kinger is too paranoid to sleep in his room. jax's only shows his door with the void breaking into view. maybe we wont get to see his room until the very end. also I remember there was a theory jax knows where the exit is, but doesnt leave. I dont think its true considering goose said jax deserves to be stuck in the circus, implying he cant leave just like everyone, but since he "has keys to everywhere", what if he has been to the void without caine knowing? pomni never made it through the end but if jax did, maybe what he saw there pushed him to be how he is now. maybe he doesnt see hope in escaping and thats why he turns into such a bad person, he could be a nihilist in that way

anyway sorry for the long post, I just had a bunch of ideas popping up in my head from this little detail I should have noticed when pomni's pin was released

not only do we get to see her room but we also see the blocks spelling CBA, not sure if the B is supposed to count or not but its the second time pomni is associated with C&A, I do believe she was an employee there

[natigail]

"I figured hey, if I'm here, I might as well be honest with myself. So I dug into the archives. And I found teenage Dan. Do you remember HELLO INTERNET? There I was, eighteen years old, your average caucasian British boy with your problematic vocabulary, just wanting so desperately to be liked. I then saw myself age twenty, as a student. Not that I was actually studying anything other than the male anatomy. I had no plan. No prospects. I was in desperate need of a haircut. Jesus Christ. No, look, that was not a hairstyle. It was geometry. My hair was a square. I then saw myself age twenty-two as an adult, just trying to make my way in the world, taking any job that I could, no matter how inauthentic or degrading. And look. I don't hate these past versions of myself, alright? Apart from the square one, it can get in the fucking bin. Mainly, I just feel sorry that it took them so long to work out who they are. I then stumbled across the video titled Existential Crisis. In which I utter the optimistic nihilistic epithet: 'embrace the void and have the courage to exist'. Embrace the void and have the courage to exist. It sounded nice when I said it but for some reason it just didn't hit. I had accepted the absurdity of the world but at that time, I hadn't accepted myself. Looking back at it, it finally clicked. Anyone who has suffered with depression or any kind of trauma that seriously affects your self-worth hopes that one day you're going to have this sudden revelation and then everything is fine. I had my revelation alright. I am unapologetically gay! Don't know if you hadn't picked up on that, so far in the show. But just having this revelation did not immediately fix all of my problems, because I still feel that inherent burnt-on brand that I am wrong. And that doesn't just go away. No, I know what my problem is, alright. My problem I am always living for the future. Every day I am thinking about this dream future where all of my dreams have come true and all of my problem have gone and everything's fine. And so, every day in the present of my life can be this joyless unrelenting grind towards that future. But it's okay. It's going to come any day now, right? Learning to look yourself in the mirror and being honest about what you've been through and keep living in spite of that can be hard. It takes a long time and a relentless persistent resistance against the way that you've been trained to feel by the world. But that doesn't just mean you should give up. Because, sure, sometimes in life, you may feel trapped. I felt trapped by my sexuality. You could feel trapped by your culture or your community. Hell, you could be literally trapped in an elevator but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to get out. 'cause, sure, when I look at the state of the world, I am very tempted to just go: You know what - we're all doomed. But that isn't courageous. That is cowardly. It's the easy way out. Even if it is, as I hope you'd all agree, a really fucking cool name for a show. So that's the thing. You can either say to yourself, every day is just a discontent emoji or you can find the courage to force your inner smiling cowboy hat, ye-motherfucking-haw! And just try to find in everyday life. Which is why I made this show. So I'm not living in the future but I'm just right here, right now, with you, just trying to have one good night. And look. Hey. Who knows, huh? We may all be doomed. Death may be inevitable. But first, we get to live. Life might at times be a struggle but just being here, to put one foot in front of the other every day is living. So please, do not let the doom drag you down. You are important. You matter. Please, stay hopeful for the future. Appreciate life. Embrace the void and have the courage to exist." - Dan Howell, closing monologue of his show "we're all doomed" (2022-2024)

[guujikaroko]

I gotta say, the relationship between Wanderer and Lumine is incredibly intimate in the weirdest way possible.

Like, she knows the trajectory of his entire life. From the abandoned puppet to the wandering eccentric to the nihilistic Harbinger to the simple drifter. She's seen the memories of 80% of all that AT LEAST.

Lumine has met his facets, pretty much all of them; outward appearances, masks, festering negativity, sorrow, fury, the deep void beneath it all, and what came after too. She has seen him at his very, very worst and has seen him crawl out of there and stand up.

And the Wanderer is... Pretty much okay with that? He doesn't mind at all?? There's isn't embarrassment or anger or anything that implies he might not be comfortable with the Traveler knowing him from inside out??? In fact, since he asked for her to name him, I'd say he pretty much encourages it????

This has kinda been driving me crazy for a while because since when do you get along so well with her, my dude? Was this an Enemies to Lovers thing for you? Are you on the tsundere phase right now? Is she even aware at least?

[eesirachs]

hi, i'm currently not religious and i have a lot of negative baggage associated with religion as well in addition to having ocd (trying to be religious made my ocd severe) but i feel like there's a hollow meaning to my life and everything that i do is pointless. i understand that this is probably just depression, but i feel like this crisis of meaning is linked to a spiritual void. but i can't really turn to organized religion either. for a long time i've felt rejected and hated by god, like i exist just to be a spiritual punching bag. i just feel so nihilistic. i don't expect you to be able to cure this feeling and i don't want to put any pressure on you, but i'm kind of just throwing spaghetti at the wall at this point

faith is not some rigid thing that you’re missing if you’re not in a religion. faith has praxes and relationship and ritual. find a support group, a pasta dinner, a book club, mental health support—name these things sacraments, find heaven through them. if you reach your hand out, you’ll find god has his extended, already