#not even an aspect its like. that implies its separate and its NOT its all integrated into who i am

[promisebastion]

okay yay .... my thoughts :) for starters (not related to au) i think gillion = rivvy, jay = spearmaster, chip = artificer or surv/monk . just generally .

but i do think that gillion would either be like a scug born into a colony very dependent on an iterator? like so this bapy was "chosen" to be the . bridge between the iterator and the colony (hence the mark ?) i do think gilly scugs name would be the chosen just since its on the nose .and i dont think itd be very subtle? would probably change as gillion adventured with the other two but .his titles are already there in canon so

chip i dont think would have a mark since to me his story is very similar to survivors? not much special going on . maybe swapped so where the .black rose gets swept away and he spends his life trying to find them again .and instead stumbles onto jay and gillion .

similarly to gillion i think jay's colony (aka just the ferins/the navy as a whole) would also be very centered around an iterator but the contact between scug colony as a whole and the iterator is much more than the gillion colony . so basically all the ferin scugs Would have the mark .and jays no different . as for the wings thing she had i think shed be like flying squirrel style able to glide short distances . in terms of more 1:1 comparisons

gillion is rivvy for the obvious aquatic reason and also the .obligation to help .the religious aspect of their journey even if they try to escape it. the slight headcanon floating around rivvy's story how they might have known pebbles before their campaign takes place, how they feel indebted or obligated to help. devotion to someone yknow yknow. i also vaguely considered gillion gourmand for gillion in the later episodes of riptide. powerhouse . clearly held in high regard by those around them .

jay is spearmaster because theyve both got the .mandatory obligation from someone in charge of them . they never consider leaving this . journey theyve been Told to go on . jay only ever defects because she realizes there something Better out there . also the harrowing experience of going into this Place that should be familiar/close to their roots (the iterator can, the navy prison) and getting your shit rocked so hard you start to Think about wtf youre doing .

chip as artificer/survivor . arti for the Price aspect of his backstory, and i think survivor for the black rose side of it. survivor instead of monk because. survivor to me is much more about trying to find footing after separation from family while monk kind of. chose to be separated . While monk's desperation to find survivor lines up with chip and arlin I do think survivor fits Chibo more . ollie is just a slugpup they found . gryffon and queen ithink would have already been travelling together before meeting the trio, just cuz i love them . i think queen would have it for reasons in the latest riptide eps . gryffon probably not i think hed just be like gourmand style and also still a monster hunter I at one point considered pirate lords as iterators but I think its more fitting for Aster and Lunadeus to be the iterators because i did already imply that with jay and gillion's scug stories. also because I think its so much funnier if Niklaus is an echo that just kind of shows up sometimes .watcher dlc echo style

any riptiders that are also coincidentally into rainworld want to hear my general rainworld(msc included) thoughts and what each slugcat the albatrio would be. and maybe if youre lucky ill share my scug albatrio thoughts outside of already established scug storylines

ooooo you love rainworld. oooooo slugcat ooooo

[peakyrain]

"proving" shifting through scientific evidence (& philosophic theory)

this post is heavily inspired by @voldyateme on tiktok. i saw her video and decided to do research on my own, and write a detailed post about this topic to make myself understand better. i also would like to mention that some of the claims irene made in her tiktok were wrong (and biased) i also wanted to clear some things up for myself.

fyi: long post ahead. this took me three days to understand and write. i might still be a bit unclear on my understanding of some aspects, but to avoid having to write a whole novel on the subject, i simplified my findings and shortened them by a lot.

-

john clauser is a physicist who won the nobel peace prize in 2022 for his work on quantum entanglement. his theory confirms that quantum particles can be entangled across vast distances, and that their behaviors are instantly connected, even if they're light years apart.

a very simplified example:

i: you create two entangled particles

ii: you send particle A to tokyo, and particle B to paris

iii: a person in tokyo measures particle A and sees it spinning up, then instantly, meaning instantly, faster than light, the person in paris will know particle B is spinning down

this is simply based on particle A or B's observation, w/o there having to be sent any message or signal between them. they behave as if they're one system - not two separate ones.

the moment you measure one particle, you're instantly aware of the other particle's state.

⭒ relating quantum entanglement to shifting:

okay so now we know that entangled particles act as of they're one system, even through long distances. so, if everything was once connected to the big bang, then on some level, everything may still be entangled. meaning you, your consciousness and other "versions" of yourself in other realities.

this could therefore suggest that we are already connected to all possible versions of ourselves. they exist within a quantum field of potential, and our awareness can shift between these versions by tuning into the version we desire - essentially by choosing a different frequency.

say you're listening to the radio. you know that you’re able to listen to any radio broadcast because there are thousands playing at the same exact time, but you choose which one to listen to, knowing you have the choice to change it to another.

it's the same exact with shifting. you know that there are endless versions of you in existence right this moment - you only have to choose to become aware of your desired self.

-

john wheeler, another physicist, proposed that reality is directly linked to our consciousness and what we observe. it's been demonstrated that particles don't move until they're actually observed. so if we're not observing something, it doesn't have a definite state at all. this is called the "observer effect"

the effect has challenged and in some ways helped disprove einstein's theory of realism. einstein believed that that the physical world exists independently of whether we observe it or not.

example: according to einstein, if a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to observe it, the tree still falls. this is shown to be false on a quantum level. that said, we can't w/ certainty say that the tree does (or doesn’t) exist if no one is perceiving it (confusing, trust me, i know)

wheeler also proved that particles will change their makeup based on our choices and observation. simplified, this means that reality doesn't fully decide its state until it's observed. it can have different outcomes, and our choices affect the past behavior of particles.

⭒ relating the observer effect to shifting:

we know that quantum particles don't take on a definite form or "reality" until they're observed. this implies that our observation plays a direct role in shaping reality - not just by watching, but also deciding. this implies that reality isn't fixed, but fluid, shaped by our decisions, thoughts and observations and means we can "choose" our reality.

quantum physics shows that reality isn't fixed until observed, observation and consciousness do play a key role and that multiple outcomes are possible. so our consciousness focus can be said to be the mechanism that "shifts" us into a desired timeline or reality.

-

way before quantum physics existed, george berkley, a philosopher in the 1700s argued the idea "to be is to be perceived", which is eerily similar to what scientists are exploring today.

he believed that physical objects don't exist independently of our own perception. so if no one is for example perceiving a tree, then it doesn't exist.

berkeley said that there is no such thing as matter existing on its own w/o a mind to perceive it. BUT! there's a twist. you see, berkley also argued the existence of God being necessary to explain how the world works within his theory of perception and idealism.

okay so, to simplify because it can be really confusing:

i: physical things only exist if they're being perceived.

ii: when humans aren't perceiving things, God is.

iii: the reason why the world keeps existing even when we're not looking is because God is always "watching".

this raises the question: if we're not perceiving something, and the only reason it exists because God is, then how do we know it actually exists when we're not perceiving it?

berkeley responded:

"we know it exists because we can come back and perceive it again, and it behaves consistently"

if you look at a tree, walk away, come back. it's still there. berkeley argued that you assume the tree existed the whole time because when you go back, the tree would still be there, at the exact same spot.

this consistency would therefore be explained by God's continuous perception of it. so even though you didn't perceive it the whole time, the fact that reality is orderly and consistent is reliable "proof" that something (God) kept it there.

critics have argued back that assuming God is perceiving all the time isn't proof that He actually is, so how would we know that?

the answer is: w/o God, things would just pop in and out of existence every time we blink and that doesn't happen. so God is used to explain why the world is consistent and stable even when we're not watching.

you can't personally perceive something that you're not perceiving, but you trust that it's still there when you go back there, because of God.

berkeley's theory is still relevant today because the things he imagined in the 1700s do line up w/ scientific discoveries today and i resonate w/ his theory, so i just had to include it even though God’s existence isn’t proven. it’s fascinating, really.

⭒ relating george’s idealism to reality shifting:

if, like berkeley said, things only exist when they're being perceived, and if reality stays consistent because someone is always perceiving it, then that means perception isn't just passive, it's creative and shapes what exists.

this ties back to shifting beacuse it suggests that your desired reality doesn't need to "appear" in front of you for it to be real - it only needs to be perceived. if you consciously focus on your dr, perceiving it in your mind as real, then by berkeley's logic, it is real, maybe not in the physical sense just yet, but within the field of awareness that gives rise to reality in the first place.

so basically: if reality is perception based, and you're perceiving your dr, then you're giving form to something that exists because you're actively perceiving it, and you are capable of being in that place.

[ohcorny]

i reread all of chobits recently as insp for my next TT book and every time i think about some aspect of it all i want to do is rip it open and tear it apart and go "why?". it brings up so many concepts and scenarios within the premise of "what if computers looked like pretty girls" but it doesn't want to commit to saying anything about it or take its own world seriously.

i have a lot to say about chobits. arguably i have more to say about chobits than even chobits wants to say about chobits.

chobits is about sex except it isn't about sex at all. chi's power switch is in her vagina. we're shown images of chi doing sexy things, she gets tricked into doing a strip tease, and two separate men try to finger her and she does her Do Not Touch Me There magic powers thing, and we eventually learn every time she resets from the power button, her memories are erased, so you can't have sex with her without deleting her.

but we never unpack why her reset button is in her vagina, or why it's so important that nobody can ever touch her, or why people's personal computers were built with vaginas in the first place (we never have it confirmed that all persocoms have them, but that two separate men try to touch her there imply it's expected). why do the personal computers shaped like women have vaginas if not to fuck them. as a product, it is expected that you will fuck them*.

*i assume, because the comic never says so!

the man who invented persocoms is the same person who built chi and her sister, and he built them to be daughters for his wife. he put the reset button in chi's vagina. we never find out why. we never get a HINT of why. he built the chobits so they could feel and fall in love, but also built them so they could never fuck. you can extrapolate a reason why a man might build his daughter-androids that way, but the series itself never touches it, and never makes any sort of point about it. it's just presented as an immutable fact that chi can't fuck without it deleting her, as if it was born of happenstance and not a person's choice.

what does that actually say about anything? what is it trying to say about sex? is it about the commodification of female bodies, how once they're used up sexually they're worthless? that if you can't love somebody without fucking them, what good is your love? that love without sex is okay (but also a huge burden and sacrifice a man must accept for the sake of someone else's happiness?)

what does it want to say! chobits is about sex, but it doesn't want to commit to any specific message about sex.

and that's just ONE issue i have with it. there are so many things chobits wants to be about but won't say anything about. it wants to be about the persocoms replacing human connections, we constantly get told 'gee people hang out with persocoms a lot', chitose publishes a whole inexplicable book series about people preferring persocomes to humans. it's to the degree that a prominent character's husband gets So wrapped up in (presumably) fucking his android that he locks his actual wife out of the house, having just straight up forgotten she exists. we don't have anything to say about it though. she falls in love with a new man. the people who hang out with their persocoms too much are all background characters in crowds. we never look at how the rise in persocoms has affected society as a whole.

it wants to be about grief, in the story about the man who marries a persocom and has to watch her slowly degrade until she can't remember him anymore, or the kid whose older sister died and he tried to replace her with a persocom who he dresses up/treats as a maid and lives alone with despite being omega orphaned and 11 years old. but then it's fine. the man who married a persocom gets in a relationship with a high school girl 20 years younger than him (CLAMP!). it's fine! the boy who tried to replace his older sister just accepts that the persocom replacement won't replace her. still treats/dresses her up like a maid and lives alone. is she his legal guardian. i don't know. don't worry about it.

and it wants to be about women, because everything about the story is about women, all the persocoms are women, all the tragedies are wrapped up in the death of a woman, or a woman's heartbreak, or a woman's feelings. but it has fucking nothing to say about women beside look how pretty they are. my boobs are E cup, sempai :) teehee

it makes me insane.

friend @amphiaria put it best as "Unfortunately the story is uninterested in itself" and i can never forgive it for being so aesthetically good, giving us the best design for an android (the ear things are Perfect) and then being So Fucking Bad.

in conclusion:

[everythingisamazing]

Viktor’s story, especially with the addition of Mage Viktor, becomes an exploration of chaos theory versus fate. While the "fate" aspect is made explicit through exposition ("In all timelines, in all possibilities") and the montage of Mage Viktor dropping different runes into Jayce’s hand, the element of chaos is mostly implied — primarily through the recurring butterfly symbolism.

Note: I’m not saying the butterfly only represents the “butterfly effect” or chaos theory. Like most metaphors in Arcane, it is layered and multidimensional. But: There is one scene where it seems to signify exactly that.

Before diving into that, I want to briefly summarize both chaos theory and the way fate functions within Arcane:

Chaos theory explains how small, seemingly insignificant changes — like a rock falling into a stream — can lead to massive, unpredictable consequences in natural systems (such as rivers, weather, or clouds), even though those systems obey consistent rules.

Fate in Arcane is best captured by Viktor’s question to Singed: “Do you believe in fate, doctor? Our paths carved before us, guided by an invisible hand?” That is: lesser beings being moved by the will of something more powerful.

Now, the scene that gave me a bit of a brain-gasm when I remembered it: Child Viktor, playing with his toy boat. He sets it in the stream, but stumbles and falls. The boat is carried off, and he follows it — directly into the cave, where he meets Singed.

And that’s exactly why the butterfly shows up here.

Because if that toy hadn’t floated off, none of this would have happened: Viktor would never have met Singed. Singed would never have given him access to Shimmer — which allowed Viktor to experiment on himself with the Hexcore. Singed also created Warwick, whose blood transforms Viktor into the Arcane Herald.

(Side note: I’ll write a separate post about Singed one day. I know this blog is Jayvik-centric, but that old man is my favorite character - the way he’s the silent centerpiece of the entire narrative.)

Everything that changed in the world because of that meeting, might not have happened, were it not for the flow of the river - something that NO character in Arcane, no matter how cunning or powerful, had any influence or control over.

I also keep coming back to Viktor’s line as the Arcane Herald:

“The divine intersection between order and chaos.” It’s dropped into the narrative without much explanation. At first glance, it seems like a throwaway grand line. But I think it’s key: this is what godhood means in Arcane’s universe.

To stand at the crossing point of chaos and fate. Because yes — Mage Viktor becomes powerful enough to exert fate-like influence over others (like Jayce). But still, there are forces entirely beyond his control. The Arcane Herald is the next and presumably final step in this evolution.

Now, to close this off, I am going to repeat something, I already mentioned in one of my older posts: Rather than viewing Arcane as a show that abandoned its political narrative after S1, I find it more satisfying to view the show in its totality as a philosophical exploration of oppositions, such as chaos vs. fate.

Every character’s struggle, every political thread, every moment of tragedy — is intertwined with something as tiny and random as a child setting a toy boat in a stream.

[daydreaming-scheming-demon]

the fact that the minecraft movie -- sorry, a minecraft movie -- completely misinterprets what minecraft is even about and so many people are still eating it up annoys me so damn much.

i mean, also the fact that every single aspect of the whole film is trash and yet people are still eating it up also annoys me. but i really wanna focus on how the plot completely misinterprets everything minecraft is actually about.

the movie isn't even out yet, but i could already see it the moment the leak about the piglin leader who hates creativity got out. and with the recent trailer, it's all the more obvious. a minecraft movie doesn't know what minecraft is even about.

and like, it's understandable. mojang has shown with their recent directionless updates that not even they're sure what minecraft is about anymore. but even they somehow have a better idea than whoever's writing the minecraft movie.

technically speaking, it's not a retcon. but it sure as hell feels like a retcon. the movie is trying to make out as if the entire game is purely about creativity, down to saying "creativity is key to survival". except it's literally not though, the creative aspects of the game are pretty separate from the survival parts. the game literally has different gamemodes separating the two.

and like, sure you can call survival tips like hiding in a 2 block crevice to avoid endermen 'creativity', but that's being lenient with the definition. and the redstone aspects are very much optional, and even for the contraptions that help with survival, most people just stick with the same few builds everybody knows.

survival and creative are separate modes for a reason. "creativity is key to survival" makes absolutely zero sense in the context of minecraft and i want to give whoever wrote that line a hard slap in the face.

but something so much worse than trying to make minecraft out to be all about creativity is trying to make the nether out to be the antithesis to creativity. which of course makes absolutely zero sense. players can still be very creative in the nether in the game, there's nothing restricting that. and literally nobody ever has played minecraft, entered the nether, and gone "this is the antithesis to creativity". no promotional material has ever made this out to be the case either. nor the subtle lore details. fucking nothing, ever, has ever even vaguely implied this to be the case. how can this be anything other than a giant fucking retcon?

and they make piglin society out to be this evil creativity hating society, and that's like their defining trait in the movie. that they hate creativity. even more of a defining trait than liking gold, which is their defining trait in the actual game. and they invade the overworld because they just hate creativity so much.

minecraft is such a unique fantasy world that you're thrown into with no explanation, and forced to survive in a beautiful blocky world. minecraft is about creativity, but it's also about serenity, and about survival, and about loneliness, and simultaneously about community. it's about the sadness of seeing your pet dog die, and about the beauty of your poorly put together first house, and about the fear in your first enderman encounter, and the wonder of your first trip to the nether. it's about building with friends, and griefing friends' builds, and fighting friends to the death. and it's about so so so much more. somehow, despite its rocky reputation Minecraft Story Mode managed to portray so much of this, while a minecraft movie fails to even portray one.

and yes, a minecraft movie can't even portray one of these things right. it doesn't even get the creativity aspect correct. the sets are bland and uninspired, the houses aren't built within minecraft's creative restrictions and so they look off and un-minecrafty, and the message is portrayed so so blandly.

that's another thing that really bugs me about this retcon: it's boring. it takes a previously ambiguous dimension and pig society that could be so many interesting things, and retcons them into one dimensional antagonists. that's not only ironically a very creatively bankrupt thing for them to do, but also leads to a boringly portrayed message. "creativity is good, the world is about creativity, and these guys hate creativity, so they're the bad guys."

you know what else already did this message? the lego movie. and that did it a billion times better. the message in that has layers, not just to be creative but to not have such a one track mindset, to think outside of how the world says things should be. and it also had a far more believable antagonist. instead of the villain just being 'i hate creativity because i am evil', he was a perfectionist who wanted everything to be exactly how he thinks they should be. this feels more believable because this kind of person is very common to come across when it comes to lego, for them to always want their sets to be perfect with not a single brick out of place. it's just an extreme exaggeration of that kind of lego fanatic.

also, the lego movie did its animation far better too. instead of making everything real life because the idiots up top think only live action movies are real movies, they opted to not only have everything in animated lego, but work within lego's limitations in creative ways to make the animation work. to portray the brushing of hair for example, they simple swap out an unbrushed hair piece for a brushed hair piece. and instead of real water or explosions they use lego pieces. damn, they even use lego pieces for the smear frames. that's going above and beyond. and because of all that, it feels like a love letter to lego.

meanwhile a minecraft movie is not only ugly live action, but can't even put together a single house that looks like it was built in minecraft. that's pathetic. that's absolutely pathetic. it's clear they don't actually give a shit about minecraft's unique visual style.

while i'm at it i also want to complain about the ugly terrain of this movie, where instead of looking anything vaguely like what you'd see in minecraft, they fill it with these uneven cubes making up giant cubes because they want to really exaggerate the gimmick of minecraft being blocky, as if the designers were all dementia ridden grandmas who looked over at their grandchildrens' ipads one time, thought to themselves 'it's all blocky, how quirky,' and then proceeded to make an art piece on it where all they could focus on was how blocky it is, and so it turned out all distorted and inaccurate.

i don't know what i find more outrageous; the fact that they think a mainstream audience will be stupid enough to go see it, or that they're probably right.

[kallianthiutdr]

Undertale’s Meta Narrative: Understanding the player's three main narrative “stand-ins.”

For those who came in late or are currently playing deltarune, I'd like to take a moment to revisit Undertale, its parallel story, for the sake of context in themes. In this post I will analyze the meta-narrarive of Undertale as represented through its main characters.

Frisk, Chara and Flowey/Asriel each represent a core aspects of the player while being distinctly separate from the player. Because, unlike the player, they can't be removed from their world. Their context.

In Deltarune, (I haven't yet touched Ch. 4&5 because of exam season,) the questions of control, identity, freedom, escapist sentimentality etc. are central–and the game provides an even more mature exploration of them, through a protagonist that is both completely aware of the player's control and outwardly rejects them. There's a lot more to discuss when it comes to analyzing Kris, but this is an Undertale post first and foremost, to provide some context to the same themes.

1. Frisk:

Playable, but not representative of the player nor a self-insert. Their character is purposefully vague and quiet, so that you ASSUME they are a self-insert, (just as you assume it is them you are naming at the beginning of the game,) while actually having a full personality & agency of their own.

They choose how to deliver the lines you make them say & go out of their way to introduce themself to Asriel by name without you doing anything to prompt that. Also, all by themself, they ask Gerson what would happen if Asgore adopted them–if he'd continue aging. This implies a semblance of free will outside of the player–as well as them having their own desires.

I like to think that frisk is aware of Chara, but isn't aware of the fourth wall or the player as a separate entity. They go on to live their life, having no control over the player's choice to reset. Hence why Flowey tells you to let Frisk live their life. The determination stems from their soul, awakening Chara and having the power of resetting appear. But once they're out of the underground, it is not up to them.

However, when they are in the underground–they provide the player with choices. To me, the dialogue options, the Fight vs Mercy mechanic and everything else, are things that Frisk is considering already. Pondering on, thinking about. They won't actually do anything that goes completely against who they are, hence why they refuse to laugh at the amalgamates, or why they refuse to even consider taking the soda from undyne's house or alphys' fridge. They hate soda! They also don't let you take any more pieces of pie, because they're intimidated by it, even though it'd be very useful. Their personality also shines through by what they are given determination by. The simplest, most mundane things–from pointless garbage, to small mice in holes. They find beauty in everything.

So, we have the characterization down–but what does Frisk represt as a figure? As our playable character?

Frisk is at that vulnerable age when you are first developing your worldview based on your influences.

In the pacifist route, Frisk represents innocence. They follow the strongest influence they've had–assuming they are a parentless child, that being Toriel–and learn to practice the way of mercy.

They represent the player's pure-hearted sentimentality. The player's ability to just love the game and its characters, as they explore the underground. The player's desire to understand what's going on for the first time, make their choices, develop their playstyle all while falling in love with the friends they make along the way and deciding that, maybe I would rather stay.

Their pondering to kill comes from fear, perhaps, at first, in neutral routes. But in genocide? There is no, "despite everything, it's still you" but instead, "it's me, Chara/ {your name}," which means Frisk has entirely lost themself in the process of wiping everyone out and someone else's influence has taken over.

‼️The player sacrifices their connection to the world and characters to the altar of curiosity, (flowey) completion (chara) and the warped sentimentality of not wanting the game to end yet (asriel.) And so, the player has sacrificed Frisk, who represents exactly what made the pacifist route so moving. Connection.

Frisk is part of this world, the player isn't. Immersion broken, the narrative sacrificed, for a deeply unsatisfying process and a conclusion in which you literally sell your soul.

2. Flowey / Asriel:

Flowey is a character who, in order to fully understand, you do in fact have to play the game in each entirety. You have to become him in order to know him. He is everywhere, everything. The villain, the hero, the protagonist, the antagonist, the victim, the perpetrator, the tale of tragedy, the tale of hope, the tutorial for genocide, the key to true pacifist. The most important character in the whole entire game.

He represents the player's curiosity–and it's clear as day.

You know there won't be any real consequences. These characters aren't real, you can take it all back. And as you commit genocide after befriending everyone probably a hundred times over, you tell yourself, "I don't like this, I'm just doing this because I *have* to know what happens–" but do you?

Just because you can, does that mean you should?

Flowey becomes desensitized to violence and even dependent on it–in this world, it's kill or be killed. To challenge that mindset, is to pretend you haven't practiced it, haven't engaged in it–which is why he mocks you when you kill toriel, even accidentally–and then come back to spare her. He considers it inevitable that eventually, you'll play the game by his rules. And eventually, you do. Not because you have to, but because you can. In the friendly rpg where no-one has to die, you're still curious to see what happens *if.*

Flowey is unfeeling and disconnected. Soulless– even though another version of him really loves the people he's hurting now to see what happens. To see how they'll react. If he'll feel anything. If things will suddenly start making more sense and if his actions will start gaining purpose again. If he'll gain more information, maybe, instead of repetitive, predictable dialogue. And isn't that the whole situation of the player? The player, you–another version of whom loves these characters, hurting them to see how they'll react and if you'll gain new data. Curiosity killed the flower–and it chastises the player, too. Leaving them soulless and hollow.

Asriel, meanwhile, has all the love. Actively.

He has too much of it. He can feel everyone's heartbeat at the same time, aching for the same catharsis. He feels endlessly and he doesn't want that to end. He'll keep you there over and over because he doesn't want to let go of these feelings. He loves you, loves this world, this connection to the friends you've made–and doesn't want to return to nothingness.

He's willing to kill you again and again if it means you'll keep playing with him. He's willing to help you get different endings–willing to deprive everyone of their freedom, keeping them in the underground by force just so that the game keep going. And isn't that warped sentimentality entirely representative of the player?

You as the player keep depriving them of their freedom BECAUSE you love them so much and don't want your time with them to be up. The reason you keep re-creating that world, the reason you keep destroying it. Why you keep fluctuating between villain and hero, never letting go. And as you keep doing it, squeezing all the content out of the game, out of Asriel, he always asks–

“Don’t you have anything better to do?”

And no, the game doesn't punish you for loving it. It merely challenges the way you practice that love–because it knows, inevitably, you'll love it most when you're ready to let it go. And it knows, inevitably, that will take a while.

Onto the hottest topic, now.

3. Chara / “Y/N”:

Ohh, boy. We're really in it now. Let's delve into arguably the most misunderstood and controversial aspect of utdr.

The player's scapegoat, (pun intended) for their own terrible actions.

Chara is the closest thing to a self insert. You can name them whatever you want at the start of the game–still, they are their own character that predates the player's influence. They aren't your vessel. You don't design them. You don't shape their personality. Their backstory has occurred way out of your control.

And isn't that interesting? Your supposed self-insert, having control in places where you don't? Even when you're misguided to think the first human died via a mysterious illness, it's later revealed that they were, in fact, the one in control of it. It was planned.

Flowey doesn't seem to know the difference between Chara and the player. When Flowey breaks the fourth wall, something that Frisk never does–he talks to the player and calls them by Chara’s name, whatever that may be. It's what he recognizes to be his sibling’s name regardless of if it's your own.

But Flowey isn't a reliable source of understanding when it comes to Chara, considering a moment ago he also thought Chara was Frisk. He conflates these things, because he has no player behind him–yet held the same resetting power. He assumes there's no third party. He assumes you and Chara are one and the same.

Chara themself, however, MAKES A CLEAR DISTINCTION BETWEEN THEM AND THE PLAYER. "you and I are not the same," and "I do not understand those feelings," when it comes to the warped sentimentality that plagues you to keep replaying the game over and over. They don't get it.

So, Chara is the closest thing TO the player, but they aren't the player. They are the only person, however, aware of the player's presence. Of their influence over the game. And yet they also know something much more important: The player isn't part of this scripted world, so even as they orchestrate its reactions and events���they are never truly the one in control. The game is in control of itself, at the end of the day, so it seizes said control via Chara.

In the pacifist route, narrator Chara, (a headcanon so widely supported it might as well be canon) is light-hearted enough. A faded presence in the background, trying to match Frisk's energy while making the world more easier to navigate for them. They know the steps, the scripts, the names of each random encounter. They provide Frisk with helpful information through “Check” that would otherwise be unattainable to them, even if often times it's just silly commentary or snippets of judgement over tomfoolery.

In the genocide route, the execution points and the levels of violence increase right into Chara's file. The soul they share with Frisk is given their name–Frisk's determination having awakened their sprit. And as Sans explains, the more you hurt, the more you kill, the easier it becomes to keep doing it. Chara's soul–already open to violence, because of the “unhappy” influences of their youth–becomes corrupted. Pushed to the highest level of violence.

Genocide Chara represents the player's desire of completion. Of seeing things all the way through. Of getting stronger and stronger. Getting on top of their game, finishing all there is. Being untouchable.

Chara, the very person who wants to “erase this pointless world” considers the player to be sick, twisted and perverted for doing it again and again. And when, post-genocide, you attempt soulless pacifist, Chara doesn't let you forget what you did. They chastise you, they remind you of your lack of control to protect anyone after the game is over. They don't let you get away with feeling good about yourself–because if you cared about these characters the way you claim you do, you would have never done what you did in the first place.

Chara does not understand the player's warped sentimentality. They only understood completion. And why? Well, as suggested by the poem about the number 9 Toby Fox released, Chara wants to become untouchable because they've been afraid. Hurt, betrayed. Humanity wronged them. Violence was instilled in them by force. Nothing can hurt you when you reach a certain point of completion. A certain point of control.

They climbed the mountain in a suicide attempt–and suddenly, became the hope of all monsters. Think of the pressure, the weight of that on a child–especially a child that has probably internalized by now that love is conditional and violence is possibly the only way. They are loved by monsters as long as they provide hope that one day the underground will be empty. The (literally) fallen angel of the prophecy–the demon that comes when people call its name.

Chara attempted suicide a second time, in sacrifice. The attempt was successful, the sacrifice wasn't. They attempted to get control of the situation to fast-forward the release of monsters. They didn't trust joy, or love, but they valued those who offered it. Monsters.

But Chara never valued their own life, or humans in general. They loved the Dreemurrs, even if they thought indeed that their hopes of equality and acceptance by humans were baseless. They let them hope, because they were loved for it.

But their affections were real. From the sweater they knitted for Asgore, to the childish little details like filling the glass to the brim because “it's the most efficient way,” to the friendship locket they shared with Asriel. To their willingness to die, trusting him to do as instructed.

They, “weren't the greatest person” and Asriel, now, as Flowey, has to redefine that whole entire codependent relationship and its many flaws–Chara's many flaws–but that doesn't make Chara evil. They climbed the mountain, “not for the happiest reason,” but desperately tried to give meaning to their survival. To give back to those who showed them what Mercy means, not matter the cost.

They are part of this world, unlike the player. They do not share the same disconnect. They're cynical–but not uncaring. They laugh to cope with pain, they joke morbidly. Never do they show vulnerability. They're in control when they die, when they kill, when whatever–they have to be. It is but a shield. Weakness is taken advantage of. Weakness, holding back, not seeing things through–that's, in Chara’s mind, what got Asriel killed.

They aren't wasteful like the player nor overly sentimental like Asriel. They are a secret third thing–efficient. Will killing 6 innocent humans free monsterkind? Do it. Will erasing this world at the end of genocide put an end to everyone's suffering? Do it. Will taking control of the soul to mock the player also take away their false sense of control, their false sense they can do whatever they want? That their choices are inconsequential and will be forgotten in the grand scheme of things? Do it.

But if it's never necessary, they'll never do it.

Pacifist Chara responds to the violence of humanity with a plan to empty the underground & free everyone. Asriel goes along with it at first but doesn't follow through. Asriel dies.

Genocide Chara responds to the violence of the player with a plan to empty the underground by “destroying this pointless world,” Flowey goes along with it at first but doesn't follow through. Flowey dies.

They're nothing if not consistent.

At the end of the day, the game is wrapped in a shroud of their tragedy. The tragedy of two siblings, two best friends, two stand-ins for the player, endlessly haunting the narrative–holding each other to impossible standards and coming to realize neither of them are what the other thought. That doesn't mean they don't love each other.

And the player, to whom their tragedy is a spectacle–the player who orchestrates it–isn't even fully in control. Because the main character that represents them does not respect them in the slightest.

Frisk, Chara and Asriel aren't the only instances of meta narrative in the game, nor the only parallels to the player. From Alphys to Sans, the conversation is endless. And the themes of identity and freedom are at the core of every single character in this game.

It is those three children, however, that are most often misrepresented, misunderstood, mischaracterized–and forced into binaries. We try to frame Frisk as the pacifist ending, Chara as the genocide ending–we treat Asriel and Flowey as one and the same, even though the notion of simplifying it that much makes Flowey himself uncomfortable– (he tried to be Asriel but the trauma shaped him into something else. The expectation of having to act as Asriel despite not feeling like it broke him.)

It's no less stiff than arguments of their genders! neither frisk nor chara are JUST stand-ins for the player, they're characters beyond it and their non-binary identities matter. Chara bad, Frisk good is just another pointless gender binary we try to impose on them lmao.

At the end of the day Undertale is a tale, full of allegory, that can only be told through a video game lense, or else it'd lose a whole lot of nuance.

[victoriadallonfan]

Lets Talk: The Predator Franchise

About two months ago, I put my thoughts into my feelings on the Alien Franchise, and why I felt that they've been faltering so much.

It felt only fitting that I do the same for the Predator franchise, but I ran into a very curious thing... there's only one bad Predator movie.

A shocking statement, I know, but I'm not counting the AVP movie series (that's it's own separate thing). The Predator (film) is easily the only bad film in the entire series, but I'll get to that later.

First things first: lets talk about Predator (1987).

It's an all time classic, a great deconstruction of the 80's action film, with insanely quotable dialogue and memorable characters - not just the Predator itself, but all the human characters are easily recognizable.

Unlike the Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986), Predator is not predominantly a horror film, nor is it emphasizing a tough topic such as sexual assault. It does HAVE horror aspects (the first time they find the skinned corpses is intensely unnerving, especially when they realize that this group of marines apparently lost all self-control and fired in all directions), and it does touch a bit on how the US government is using its own soldiers as cannon fodder to destabilize third-world countries.

But it's not really built to scare the viewer so much as to present a simple idea: what if these action heroes met a bigger, stronger, more advanced version of themselves? And the result is a near total party wipe.

Watching the original film, you realize that the Predator is depicted as incredibly unfair. The majority of its kills are it sniping someone from afar, rushing them when they aren't even looking (while cloaked), and doing a combination of the above. It would have killed Arnold while his back was turned, if the net trap hadn't been set in place.

Hell, it even kills a wounded soldier that Arnold is carrying, after Billy's "last stand" (that lasted mere moments at best, implying the Predator didn't give him the time of day).

(Also, speaking of Billy... he's psychic? Apparently?)

But yeah, the Predator depicted is not the honor clad warrior that some fans may stan (and some writers believe) but more like the equivalent of Counter-Strike hacker. The fact that it takes Arnold untold amounts of traps, ingenuity, and willpower for the Predator to finally face him man to man, no tech, no weapons is meant to be a testament to how impressive Arnold is.

Likewise, the Predator decides to blow himself the fuck up while cackling manically like a supervillain as he tries to finally kill Dutch, also opens him to showing that as alien as it is, it's remarkably human. A spite filled asshole of a human, but humanish nonetheless (amplified by him copying human speech on prior occasions).

It's a really great film about how alien life, if more advanced than our own, might see us as lesser people or outright livestock to hunt (keep a pin in that).

Predator 2 (1990) is often divided amongst fans.

Some hate the fact that it takes place in the "modern day" LA, instead of sticking to the blazing heat of the jungle (as the lore of the first movie implies that the Predator or a Predator visits at the hottest time of the season to create the local bogeyman figure), but this film does a fine job justifying the LA heatwave and honestly... the idea of keeping the Predator to one type of biome is pretty limiting. So I don't mind that.

As one can tell already, I don't think this movie is bad. As good as the first? No, it rehashes a bit too much for that. But it's still a fun and good movie.

And, notably, scarier.

But for context, Predator 2 is set in the far future of... uh, 1997 LA, where there has been open warfare between the LAPD and the Jamaican and Colombian Cartels. Like, not drug busts or stings, but actual warfare with armies of gangs and shit.

The late 80's and early 90's loved to depict LA as a dystopian hellscape where "law and order" was the only defense from total anarchy (as anyone who has ever lived in LA can tell you, racial tensions, especially between the public and police have not been good to say the least).

This entire setup is like a D.A.R.E nightmare or wet dream depending on who's asking.

(Also the Jamaican drug leader, King Willy, might also be psychic? This is the last time it's brought up, but man, I sort of wish we could see future plot lines where people are randomly psychic in these films.)

Anyways, the situation is certainly perfect for this Predator (named City Hunter to differentiate between Jungle Hunter), who takes to the city with a gusto. The difference in how the Predator is portrayed is fascinating, because the bare bones remain the same: he hunts people who are deemed as sport with alien technology.

Fitting with the ultra-violent theme of this film however, this Predator feels like a legitimately horror movie monster. Unlike the Jungle Hunter, City Hunter doesn't prefer to attack from afar, but rather ripping and tearing in close quarters combat, and when he does use ranged weaponry, it's stuff like spears, bladed discs, and nets that shred people into bloody messes.

And he's 110% a bigger asshole that Jungle Hunter: when the City Hunter decides to focus on our lead man, Danny Glover, he doesn't just hunt the man but psychologically torture him. He murders his partner - who is probably the least threatening human in the entire series - just so he can taunt Glover with his necklace at his own grave. He then copies the innocent words of a child just so he can use it as a creepy catchphrase when he decides to hunt Glover's other partners.

The iconic subway massacre perfectly exemplifies both aspects of the City Hunter. He interrupts a massive stand-off between armed civilians, gang members, and the police, just wading in and killing everyone indiscriminately as people frantically scream and claw over each other trying to escape.

(Speaking of, this film does have a LOT of fun having the Predator on modern sets. The above subway scene, City Hunter investigating a meat locker, and him performing emergency surgery in an apartment bathroom are all really cool).

Also, for being so divisive, this film creates a lot of Predator lore: the Predator won't kill (unarmed) children, he won't kill pregnant women, and he WILL kill the elderly if they are packing heat.

And this includes the trophy wall (with xenomorph skull - actually funny because we never see a Predator collect a xenomorph skull in the AVP films) and that the Predator tribe will honor and respect those who defeat their kind with a reward.

It does include that the government is aware of the Predator existence and tries to capture them, but this won't be a major plot line again until The Predator (2018) though it gets some tongue in cheek reference in Predators (2010).

Anyways solid film, lots of cheesey scenes and very tropey stuff that hasn't aged well (or aged in a way that makes it amusing). It's also that last movie that actually tries to be true horror, in my opinion. The rest of the films stick to Action with Gore, but Predator 2 is truly the last film where you feel like this was written to be a horror film.

Also, this film will be the last to really play into the world as being an overly dramatic action movie earth. It's all realism from here.

And then the film franchise will go quiet until 2004 and 2008 for the AVP films (that I won't cover here).

Finally, we get to Predators (2010), and obvious title call back to Aliens (1986) and I have to say, a pretty good trio of ideas: The human targets are actually kidnapped and dropped on a safari planet, there are multiple Predators with their own unique designs and gimmicks, and there is a internal war between the Bad Bloods (aka the Predators who break the "honor code") and the 'normal' Predator clans.

(It should be noted that Bad Bloods have been a thing for years in comics and books, but not really in the mainstream until this film introduced it to movie audiences)

I have to say, despite having a fondness for the film and loving the new ideas, this film is not as enjoyable as Predator or Predator 2. It unfortunately suffers from what I call 2010ism, where there's a lot of CGI blood/gore, a lot of lighting/shadows aren't natural in a horror sense, and the dialogue isn't memorable because it wanted to ditch the action movie dialogue.

The last part isn't necessarily too bad, and it even works with how Adrian Brody is portrayed as a cynical asshole who is purposely meant to be the opposite of Arnold in every way. But the most memorable dialogue is definitely from Walter Goggins (including his highly disturbing "bitch raping time" speech).

Also, it really wastes Topher Grace, Laurence Fishbourne, and Danny Trejo, along with the whole idea of a gang of multinational killers/soldiers/enforcers forced to work together. Not nearly enough time is given to them to bond as a team and have a moment where they show off how cool they are like Predator and Predator 2 did.

Coupled with the safari world being just... a jungle, it feels like a lot of good ideas with "safe" execution.

I don't mean to rag on the film, it's still very fun, and a lot of that is due to the Bad Bloods.

The idea of a particular group of Predators being so evil that they are even warring with their (smaller) counterparts is a great idea, imo, and these Bad Bloods are memorable for their gimmicks.

You had one who used drones as "falcons" to scan and scout out large tracks of terrain, another who employed alien "hounds" to harass humans like a fox hunt, and the leader who had a rapid-fire plasma caster that was overpowered as hell. They also employed other tech like alien bear traps, net traps, and voice decoys.

This movie definitely had the most advanced Predator tech seen on film at the time, making the Jungle Hunter and City Hunter look low tech by comparison, and I think also served to try and force the idea of the Bad Bloods being really "unfair" compared to others.

And of course, we get our first Predator vs Predator fight, which was suitably graphic and badass. Also, I liked that one Predator died by a human pulling a suicide vest attack. Idk, I thought it was pretty ironic considering that's what predators do when they are about to lose, and thought it was neat.

Ultimately, there isn't much else to say about Predators (2010), even though the film ends on a cliffhanger with more people (and aliens) being dropped on the planet. I enjoyed it, it had a lot of cool ideas, cool tech, and cool lore... but if the prior films could be compared to novels, this one felt more like a guidebook.

And now... eight years pass and we get The Predator (2018)

Where do I begin with this movie.

I guess I start with the obvious: it's bad. It's a genuinely awful movie with few redeeming qualities. I'd say it's on the tier of Alien: Resurrection, except this movie is actually offensive because of autism ableism (turns out that autism is actually the next step of human evolution and makes you naturally predisposed to using Predator technology).

And don't get me started on the sex offender controversy.

Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. It's just that this movie... jesus christ, I rewatched it for this post, and it feels like a fever dream.

The Predator (2018) ultimately, is a film that looked at everything that came before it and said, "What if we did it all on a grander scale? And make it bad?" The plot is that a Predator is being hunted by an even larger, more powerful Predator, because it plans on harvesting humanity. You see, in this movie, some Predators use the genes of animals they hunt to improve themselves. The Super Predator as he is called, is a massive 10 foot tall monster that has turned his body into a super weapon, with technology built directly into his biology.

The Good Predator arrives on Earth to warn humanity and deliver a "Predator Killer" suit of Iron Man armor that will help humanity defend the Earth from the oncoming invasion force. The Super Predator wants humanity harvested because... autism makes them super geniuses.... and he declares that a 12 year old boy with autism to be the greatest Predator he's ever met... just because he has autism...

Look, I don't know how the fuck I'm supposed to describe the plot of this movie. It's just bad. It's stupid. At one point they turn a Predator hound good by giving it a bullet lobotomy.

It feels like this movie hates everyone. It hates the Predators, literally killing off the Good Predator not even halfway through the film. It hates the cast, because all of them are forgettable except for Olivia Munn and Super Predator, and it kills the mystique of the Predators because it has Super Predator monologue like an actual supervillain.

The dialogue is genuinely awful, the actors have no chemistry, and the comedy (oh yes, this film acts like a comedy on several occasions) is the definition of cringe. I would call it "ChatGPT writes Predator" but honestly, ChatGPT could do it better.

Let it be known that my words do not do how awful this movie is justice. You can only understand how bad it is by watching it, but it's absolutely NOT worth the time.

Is there anything good about this movie? Besides the Holiday Special on home release?

The effects are pretty good. We see a lot of high tech Predator stuff and that's always cool. I think this had the highest budget of any of the films and it shows.

There's an action set-piece where Good Predator escapes from a government facility and uses an M4-Assault Rifle which is badass. One of the best action scenes in the movie and a neat tie-back to the government investigating them.

The Super Predator is a cool concept and I actually enjoyed him for a large part of the film. I liked that he could just pick up a human like a toy and gut him like a fish before tossing him aside. I love the idea of a Predator that isn't a hunter, but rather a soldier sent in to fuck shit up, showing off the different tech. Really gives the impression that their society has different roles and tech for Predators beyond hunting.

I wish they gave him a helmet and didn't let him monologue like a supervillain.

And that's it. That's the good stuff. Nothing else matters. It says a lot that I don't think Super Predator or the autism plot has been accepted into lore in comics or books.

It's even been argued that this film was deemed non-canon because of how abysmal the reception was.

Suffice to say, after this awful film, fans were pretty low spirit. Which made it all the more surprising when Prey (2022) was released 4 years later.

There was a lot of drama about this film: the franchise is dead, why is the film so woke for including woman and minorities, how can any human expect to beat a Predator with a bow?

This drama is stupid and should rightfully be mocked.

Prey (2022) was a breath of fresh air for the franchise and I'd argue the best film in terms of quality.

It quite literally goes back to the roots of the series and does something that really elevated the film: it made the Predator symbolise something!

This film takes place in the 18th century on the Great Plains, following Naru the Commanche healer who dreams of being a hunter. Meanwhile, a young Predator - known as the Feral Predator for his aggression - is dropped on the planet for his first ever hunt.

Obviously, you can see the parallels between the two as Naru learns to use tricks and tools to handle her weaknesses, while Feral uses brute-force and high tech equipment to slaughter the animals and humans of the planet. The Bear hunt scene, where Naru is forced to flee from a bear and helplessly watch Feral kill the creature with it's bare hands (haha), thus condemning her in his eyes as not a threat is perfect character foil.

Also, he's such a piece of shit, cheating the moment he feels like his prey has the better of him. But in a good way that makes sense for his character.

But on the grander scale, the Predator represents colonialism. A secondary antagonist of the film are the French fur trappers, who have been skinning wild buffalo and depriving the commanche of their food source, openly compared to the Predator skinning animals/humans for trophies instead of resources.

It's actually a lesson Naru has to learn from her brother and mother, that to become a true hunter is about doing so to support a community, not just for ego and idolization.

Its no accident that the Fur Trapper leader dies when Naru sabotages his gun and Feral dies when Naru does the same to his gun as well, with both of them trapped and crippled without any means of escaping their demise.

This film finally moves to make the Predators feel like evil villains who are supremely selfish, much like the first 2 films emphasized (and the third film did to a lesser extent).

But talk of how amazing Naru is as a protagonist and how great the Feral predator is as an antagonist, the film is just good. The cinematography is gorgeous, the actors are great, the Predator effects and costume are terrifying, and lore wise, it does a lot to show that the Predator society is not stagnant.

They evolve over the years and it shows.

And my god are the action scenes incredible. The Predator vs Fur Trapper fight is probably one of the most iconic scenes in the entire franchise now, and for good reason.

Or Naru's knife fight massacre

All in all, this film really shows that the Predator films can be more that action films and... whatever the fuck The Predator (2018) was trying to be.

These films can be used to explore the history of humanity and symbolize concepts that deal with oppression, bigotry, and dehumanization.

The title of Prey - the focus on making the protagonists human - versus the Predator title is incredibly fitting.

While a sequel is left up in the air, we do have confirmation that a new standalone film - titled merely Badlands - is set to come out soon.

I can only hope they learned the right lessons from Prey and we can leave the horrid past of The Predator (2018) behind us for good.

[mutfruit-salad]

read your criticism and have a genuine question about your thoughts on the branding scene. i completely understand how max's branding is inherently tied to a racist history, and it always will be, but i dont feel like the scene itself was written with that bias/intent. thaddeus also gets branded in later episodes and it's implied to happen to every aspirant upon their promotion. at what point in writing are black characters morally barred from specific story points because of their similarities to a history that's not directly related? sort of similar with barb, at what point can black characters not do bad things at all, especially in a story where there are near a dozen non-black characters who do worse things? also considering it's implied (at least, i understood it as) she's sticking to vault-tec to protect her family?

I am not in the best position to comment on this, because I am not black. I will do my best to add what I can, but this is a space for others to chime in.

Barb is interesting because she's essentially become the person who did the most heinous crime in the entire setting- by far and away worse than anything anyone has ever done. There really aren't white characters who did worse things- because all the crimes of Caesar or the Enclave or whoever else pale in comparison to being the one who literally set into motion the total annihilation of all nations on Earth. (This is setting aside her willing participation in the inception of the vault experiments- which is an entirely separate also horrific crime.)

The issue is they've created a setting that is, as presented, colorblind. Race is invisible to the writers, who did not consider it meaningfully while producing the show- as is often the case with white creatives putting characters of color into their stories. Colorblindness does not always produce entirely racist results- and when done with tact and intentionality it can even be revolutionary. Look at the relative inclusivity of star trek as an example, and the radical depiction of Uhura in the original series.

The thing that makes Fallout different from Star Trek however is that it is not depicting its colorblind future with tact and intentionality. This is a show that is intensely concerned with depicting the specific brand of nationalistic American politics of the 1950s and the Cold War- and they've reproduced that system for the show but with a black woman at the head. That's where the issue comes up.

This was a system that had racism baked into it by design. It still does. American Nationalism and corporate violence are built on racism against black people and other minorities. And this show desperately wants to depict these things, but they've decided to put a black woman at the head of them. They're depicting systems that are, by their nature, violently racist- but they've decided to portray them as being run by a black housewife.

Fallout 3 does a similar thing with how it depicts every major slaver as a black person. Eulogy Jones, the slave buyer at Paradise Falls, the head slaver in the Abe Lincoln memorial, Ashur in The Pitt. Hell Mothership Zeta adds in a black woman from the wasteland and even SHE'S revealed to have been a slaver. This is something Bethesda consistently does- depicting ideologies and practices with a deep history of racialized violence- and then showing black people at the head of them, seemingly to try to avoid actually addressing any aspect of racism in their stories outside of hamfisted metaphors like synths and ghouls. (I use Fallout 3 as an example but Fallout 4 does many of these same things.)

Thaddeus does also get branded, and he does also get treated to the same demeaning servanthood as Maximus. The difference, quite frankly, is that Thaddeus is white. There are just some things that are straight up inappropriate to depict happening to black characters without appropriate thoughtfulness and context. Never before this series has the Brotherhood ever done brandings- and yet this show opens with it in the first episode and introduces this brand new jarring concept with the visceral image of a black man being branded by faceless fascist cultists.

It's also important to note that even if they didn't intend the scene as racist, it still is. Like I don't think the scriptwriter sat down and said "oh I'm gonna do a racism" cuz intent just doesn't matter here. The scene was intended as a way of showing the severity of the brotherhood- but it also thoughtlessly reproduces images of historic black violence.

@orange-coloredsky I know you've been talking about this stuff all day, and your initial posts about the antiblack racism in the series were what prompted me to write my thoughts today- which is what this ask is in response to. I was curious if you have any other input with all this.

I'd also be more than happy to have any additional input from people better suited to answer these questions.

[boundwithpurple]

wow this person was malding about me for weeks. 1. game of thrones is trash and i am not obsessed with it i am obsessed with its prequel hotd which is simply mid rather than bad and which i only wish was more softcore but they took the titties out :( 2. this is always the strategy to discredit me but like one will note none of my insights on abuse are gleaned from…hotd itself…its gathered from other places (my life, deep engagement with the theory and literature of trauma) and applied to mid TV. like it’s this common tactic of what is essentially attempted sexual humiliation where one aspect of a survivor’s life (sexual expression through erotic writing) is used to discredit the rest (actual lived experience, academic literature read) even though since i don’t separate any of it out it is really easy to discover i do as much of the latter in my blogging life as the former. 3. never, never once in my life, have i ever said or implied i am the only opinion or the only one with valuable knowledge or someone everyone needs to agree with. in this area that actually goes against my every stated principle and ways of operating and it really bothers me enormously, more than all the rest. i would never say only people with my own responses were abused or that people who disagree with me were not abused. i have never said that. point me to where i have ever said that.

[calamarispiderart]

FUCK i meant to send the other ask to this art blog but uhmrmmm answer on whichever one u see fit lol:3

for ur cccc doodles sometimes i see u draw mind w like a bag of blood attached to him(i forgot the medical term lol) i was wondering how u got the idea for this concept and if theres any reasoning behind it its so cool:3 YAY UR ARTS AWESOME BTWW

hihi!! ohh yes his iv... B:•] i draw mind with an iv all the time for a few reasons, the most banal of which being simply that i feel it suits him! ive always heavily associated mind with medical imagery... iv is the default but i really should draw him with more things going on than just that !!BX•P

for specific thematics though, theres a few layers to it.

one is the idea of mechanical things - iv drips are on the lower end of this in some ways, but medical tools to support the physical (flesh) body hold a particular match to the image mind is said to present... ive sat in the hospital waiting room with my nanny in the past and had an iv drip myself and some of the tools they use to measure and support someones life look so... solid, metal and plastic and tubing.... mind is frequently associated (most obviously in a fanon sense but also within the album itself with his voice FX and lines like the mechanical hands line) with robotic imagery, sometimes going so far as making him an actual robot. however!! he is so human!! he is just as human as the other two, and if anything his (implied and somewhat explicit) denial or attempted dissociation from that makes him even more so.

so... putting him in a thematic position where hes reliant on external, mechanical things to keep himself (his body-flesh-brain) alive, its very fitting for him to me.

it also lends well to an air of mutual fragility and firmness. mind is a very intense and firm character, stubborn, but he is also, to me at least, very fragile... so opinionated, so pushy, so unwilling to accept the possibility of being wrong even in the better times of the album... that speaks to a fragile personality. he cant accept or even consider the possibility of not being right.

ive always had a strong image in my head of him leaning a little bit too far, heavy, on his iv stand for support, with an intense glare, knuckles white from how hard hes holding the metal. inherently an unstable position, but so sure and so defensive and so strong willed... weak in body, reliant on the solidity of metal, stubbornness and your own grip to keep you up... theres a really good contrast there.

and! well theres always more to say but another aspect of that design trait for me is blood. all three of hms are so... bloody, to me. lifeblood, violence, lots of things to do with blood. heart is the most blood-associated to me but... ahh, ill try not to ramble too much with the other two because the focus is on mind here... they all bleed in different ways. for mind, to link back into the prior thematics ive alluded to, he keeps his blood outside of himself. technically. thats whats in his iv, at least. his own blood, or a form of it. ignore the potential medical inaccuracy haha!

in keeping his blood outside of himself, feeding it back in through a controlled drip, that is intended to reflect again his attempt at separation from humanity - more specifically, from bias. human error. when heart calls him a machine, while it is a metaphorical insult... i find the insults people choose to use tend to be a bit personal as well. particularly so with these two. they pick things that are meant to dig, and that requires a level of truth. so... to some extent, mind doesnt Want to be biased by humanity the way heart (and soul...) is. he wants to be above it all, and since blood is blood is flesh is life is animal, it feels right for him to try and keep all his blood outside of himself. but! in doing so!! it again betrays his own existence!!! you can see his blood, its right there, and when i draw them fighting, the iv tends to be easily caught in the crossfire. hes created a vulnerability in his attempt to be invulnerable. hes a very ironic guy in his existence.

hummm potentially more to be said but at risk of getting repetitive ill stop here. these are all the main things i can think of. so! yeah B:•]

i think its really fun. iv drips are just generally fun to draw as well, theres lots of different designs... i get pretty stylistic with minds because i can, but the parts of an iv are just generally so fascinating and fun to draw to me..! you could potentially say all of this is just an excuse to draw those ?!!? (jokes...or is it?!?!?)

hummmm thank you for the ask!! B:•∆ always nice to have an excuse to ramble about my thoughts on these things. hope youre doing well B:•]

[thewertsearch]

Ask Comp 07/09

Anonymous asked: also, thats pretty distinctly not vriskas handwriting (page 2196). the hell is terezi even talking about?

Terezi, for god's sake.

@manorinthewoods asked: I'd like to note that Pyralspite's eyes are either an eighth the brightness of Alternia's sun, or Pyralspite has the ability to psychically burn out people's eyes just by wanting to. Probably the former. ~LOSS (30/8/24)

I should have guessed that Vriska's cruel and unusual punishment for Terezi was yet another case of Mindfang Roleplay.

I think it's likely that Pyralspite does have some sort of ocular ability. After all, Terezi's lusus had a vision-based power, and she's probably Pyralspite's direct descendant.

@gogogoat495 asked: Say, what do you think of the reuse/mix of animation and music from Dave: Ascend to Seer: Ascend? Is it a simple callback or are there deeper parallels between the characters and story beats?

Well, they are both lead-ups to a climactic fight between 'siblings'. Other than that, though, I'm not really sure. Dave and Terezi have always got on very well, but I can't really see any direct parallels in their personal arcs.

@manorinthewoods asked: Mindfang's classism is ridiculous. This woman straight up said 'one of such middling 8lood' about someone literally one step below her on the ladder. If she were Tavros, she would be oppressing Aradia so hard. ~LOSS (29/8/24)

In Terezi's own words, she's 'a little too teal' to be considered a true highblood. I think there's a hard line of separation here, where anyone below Vriska's caste is considered a midblood at best.

In other words: to be a blueblood, you really need to be a blue-blood.

@manorinthewoods asked: Nepeta, whose handle is arsenicCatnip, uses arsenic's atomic number as a significant element of her quirk. This implies that arsenic has the same atomic number in Alternia as on Earth, which in turn means that, at the very least, the two universes likely share a periodic table. Odd, given how one has widespread psychic abilities and the other doesn't. ~LOSS (29/8/24)

I think it makes sense that Earth inherited some of its scientific concepts from Alternia. It wouldn't be the first thing we inherited!

@heliotropopause asked: TG: maybe if you kill her at least we can finally stop obsessing over her Hah! homestuck's been over for over for almost eight years now, and people are still doing vriscourse to this day. There is no escape, i'm afraid.

'Vriscourse' is kind of killing me. I'm kind of disappointed that this is my first time hearing the term, because I'd probably have been using it this whole time.

@probablyapineapple asked: im not completely caught up on reading this liveblog yet (currently up to s67) but i think youre on track to understanding these characters better than literally anyone

Well, thank you! I have, admittedly, posted some rather hot takes in the past, though. If I recall correctly, my Act 5 shipping chart was my most controversial post to date.

@bladekindeyewear asked: Back during these times in the comic, there were broad theoryposting camps advocating for both narrower and broader interpretations of Aspect domains/powers. I know you're avoiding as much outside influence as you can, but I'm wondering if maybe after the end of this Act, you could accept some community Theorydiving from around this time that could unlock more tools for you to understand hidden evidence for Aspect Stuff you might have missed? […]

I'm definitely considering something like that. Specifically, I'd love to take a look at some of the comic's early theories - ones that had already been disproven by this point in the comic. That'll allow me to get into the headspace of Homestuck's earliest theorists, without influencing my own as-yet-unproved theories.

@manorinthewoods asked: Perhaps an older Legislacerator's job is less actually trying to pursue justice, and more going through cargo cult-esque rhythms of justice, taking its trappings and trying to bring it about while having no understanding of what they're actually doing and what the meaning of their actions is. Maybe, like the Subjugglators, they're an entire social class/blood color based around a single cult? ~LOSS (28/8/24)

I think Dave was pretty on the mark when he described early legislacerators as bounty hunters. Maybe they assumed something marginally closer to an attorney's role in Alternia's modern age - but in Redglare's era, the ideal legislacerator was a violent thrill-seeker, more concerned with bloody combat than courtroom paperwork.

@violetsquare111 asked: I do wonder how big, exactly, is the multiverse in Homestuck. I guess that's a bit of a weird question if there are "infinite universes"… but infinite potential doesn't mean infinite already-existing universes, does it? For some reason I always thought of the amount of Sburb sessions/universes being fairly small, in the grand scheme of things. Less than a million, maybe. I really don't know where I got that from, and there's probably some throwaway line in the comic contradicting it, but if applicable then it's another possible explanation for how Perfect Jack would be one-of-a-kind.

It's not impossible. That would imply that the overwhelming majority of sessions are doomed to fail - but, honestly, they might be! After all, neither of the sessions we've seen so far have been unambiguously successful.

@iris-in-the-dark-world asked: i had a dream that you went from page 3703 to page 7053 in one day

You dreamt of Sally on Adderall.

@spiddermen asked: hihi i just caught up with your liveblog and im so happy to have a chance to reread hs along with you, the first time i read it was when i was like… twelve? so nine years ago? and pretty much all of it went over my head. but now im finally getting to appreciate this masterpiece and your observations are making a lot of stuff click for me as well. so its cool to finally get to understand how freaking good this story is and i cant wait to see you react to some of the crazy later stuff also i hope this doesnt trip the spoiler sensor but some of the answers to the questions you're asking are only answered in sequel material so i do really hope you'll read those, they're ignored by a lot of the fans but they're honestly really really good and i feel like you're the kind of person who would get the intended experience out of them. and psycholonials as well! everyone ignores it but it practically is homestuck (2) to me

Thank you! And yeah, we've talked a bit about this before. Cat and I had a discussion about the subject back in Act 3, and I'm well aware that this comic isn't going to answer all of my questions. Honestly, it would be pretty surprising if it did - I've been digging really deep into aspects of the comic that are clearly just meant to be background details.

As for whether I'll be dipping into Hussie's other projects, or Homestuck's non-canon material - I'm certainly going to check them out, but only time will tell whether they get the full liveblogging treatment. That said, if it addresses questions of mine that Homestuck itself doesn't elaborate on, consider my interests piqued.

@manorinthewoods submitted: I sorta skimmed Homestuck, and missed out on basically all of the Flashes going through, so I totally missed the fact that WQ wrote a romantic fanfic about herself, which is really funny. It does have a serious aspect, though - it implies something about her relationship with WK, no? I suspect they may be friendly with one another, but fate gives their relationship a bit of tragedy - as well as a bit of 'we are simultaneously both forced to be in a romantic relationship and also only being co-rulers'. Is WQ<3WK a thing? Doesn't have to be. I suspect it may be something like WQ<>WK […]

Plus, Carapacians are clones, so it's not like the Royals need to make any heirs. Really, they only need to be co-workers - but the idea that they might have a moirail-adjacent relationship is very cute.

Anonymous asked: Grimdark Rose: "Vengeance and rage are all I live for now, seeing my dead mother makes me feel nothing, I will-" John: Exists Rose: "OMG bestie hiiiiii" ~DJ

First Vriska, now Rose. It seems like John's the perfect calming influence for any out-of-control Light Player.

Anonymous asked: Not sure if you noticed, the tapestries about the kids' quests are all referencing the [S] pages with misattributed quotes associated with each kid (pages 82, 307, 444, and 2988). The quotes are, respectively, from Maxims by Francois de La Rochefoucauld, The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot, Drop It Like It's Hot by Snoop Dogg, and possibly an original piece by Hussie ending with a line from Hamlet. I don't think any of them mean anything.

The quotes might not be Hussie originals, but they definitely seem to evoke the kids' respective Quests. Dave's quote is a bit of an exception, though...

Anonymous asked: "They wait for he who would drop it while it's hot whilst the pimp's in the crib." I mean, you laugh NOW, but knowing Andrew and this comic, can you honestly say this won't end up having an incredibly important and literal meaning? @walkerbehindyou asked: Is there a quest more suited for Dave than to show up at his denizen’s (certainly the pimp of LOHAC) palace in the past and drop straight fire?

...but perhaps that means it's foreshadowing something we haven't seen yet. If Dave ends up making a Choice, I wouldn't put it past him to rap an answer to his Denizen.

@iris-in-the-dark-world asked: the soundtrack of the grimdark rose segment really gets to me. i'd highly recommend the first few songs of that album

Black Rose/Green Sun was a great song. It evoked a very different feeling than anything we've heard before, and really highlighted how alien Rose has become, now that she's been fully submerged in darkness.

@manorinthewoods asked: Ooh, here's an idea - when you do the Sahlee-and-Sally Let's Play, set it in an alternate Sburb that's based on all of your incorrect theories. Every Land has a God Tier Moon orbiting it, for instance. Would be really cool - your theoretical Sburb has a lot of super fun stuff in it. ~LOSS (12/8/24)

Oh, I like that idea. It means I can finally bring back the anti-Skaia, which is probably my favourite since-disproven theory.

Anonymous asked: I never realised that the pillow that Rose uses then is the one from her mum - well spotted :,(

A mother will do whatever is best for her children.

And a daughter will remember what was best about her mother.

Anonymous asked: So. Do you think that a Horrorterror-Boosted Rose has any chance against a First Guardian Prototyped Jack Noir? We've seen that if left alone Jack can destroy Entire Worlds and his teleporting is Nigh Instant, plus who knows how far he can go in a single teleport! […]

Dark Rose is arguably a God-Tier level threat, but we've just seen Jack one-shot a God Tier. I don't think she has a hope - there's only so many bullet-time stabbings she can take!

Anonymous asked: its really interesting to see you say that rose saying she felt mom was a sister and a mother at once made u feel like there must have been camraderie. for me, it reinforced the idea that moms parenting forced rose to act like a peer to mom when it came to her alcoholism? in the sense that moms alcoholism took her out of commission, and made it so that rose had to take care of herself in a lot of ways that a parent would, putting them on similar levels. So its interesting to see a different interpretation!

It's not impossible. To me, Rose's monologue reads as if she's trying to express her admiration of her mother. This is the first time she's admitted to having positive feelings for her guardian, and I think she's regretting that she never voiced these feelings to the woman herself, before it was too late.

That's just one reading of her words, though. I think her monologue here is meant to be ambiguous, just like the Lalonde mother-daughter relationship always was.

@manorinthewoods asked: Ooh, you're thinking of a Carapacian player, huh? That would be interesting - imagine if they go in with, like, complete knowledge of how Sburb works, so they prototype something super strong in order to buff the Ring that they then steal and equip. ~LOSS (12/8/24)

That would be interesting. Carapacians are the only species where the game can't fully compensate for the power of your race by buffing Underlings, since buffing the Underlings would also buff the Ring I'm abusing!

@skelekingfeddy asked: re: troll romance: i generally lean towards xenopsychology, mixed in with a secret 4th thing (humans can also feel troll romance), with a little dose of propaganda, and also an undercurrent of parody (because Hussie. everything has an undercurrent of parody (e.g. pretty much all the trolls are based on internet stereotypes). i COMPLETELY disagree with the notion that the quadrants are made up unhealthy bullshit. i think theres a genuine evolutionary biological origin for the quadrants if matespritship is all about Companionship, then kismesissitude is all about Competition, Rivalry, a drive to push yourself and make yourself better. both are generally healthy and beneficial in their own ways. the evolutionary basis for moirallegiance and auspisticism is the need for pacification, a better half, to prop up matespritships and kismesissitudes and keep them from being interfered with (as described in-comic). each quadrant is the result of a genuine primal, biological urge

I don't necessarily think the quadrants are fabricated, but I do think that the version of them that exists on Alternia are unhealthy more often than not, particularly when it comes to black romance. Monogamous auspisticism requires an overwhelming amount of emotional labor, all the kismesissitudes we've seen have been toxic at best, and there has to be a better way to do this.

Anonymous asked: My brother's been going through your liveblog recently and it's been fun getting to re-experience it through him, especially being reminded of all the theories you have that are shockingly accurate in very inaccurate ways. The two that come to mind are your theory that Jade was engineered in a lab (which, she kinda was, but that's not unique to her) and that John's version of Sburb is bugged (the meteors, it turns out, were a part of the game as it's meant to be played, but this whole 'tumour' thing sure isn't). Also, while I'm here, going to recommend checking out Temporal Shenanigans by Rachel Rose Mitchell, which is a gorgeous fansong about Aradia that shouldn't have any spoilsies at this point. I would also rec PhemieC's music with the caveat that many of their songs are spoilery - while most of the troll-specific ones should be alright, I'd definitely say to get someone else to go through them first to be certain. Hope you're doing well!! And I look forward to seeing more of your liveblog if and when you return to it! -Megido

Oh yeah, I was talking about how Jade was made in a lab! I'd totally forgotten about that theory.

You know, her Dreambot is actually interesting in retrospect. The bed that controls it looks suspiciously like a Quest Bed, which makes me wonder just how much Grandpa knew about Sburb's lore, and what exactly he was trying to do here.

Anonymous asked: I find it a bit funny (in good way) how aspects of your troll and human sona are kinda opposites, like life and death type of thing, sweet

Really, it's mostly just me hedging on my own Aspect. Plus, having two 'sonas lets me explore twice as much Sburb lore, allowing me to come up with two weapons, Lands, Title powers, and the like.

Within the hypothetical context of the fic, I've been thinking a lot about why there'd be two Sallys. Like, was one 'sona partially cloned from the other? If so, who was the original? Technically, the Alternian version would have existed 'first', but the existence of time travel ensures that that doesn't mean much.

@manorinthewoods asked: Rather appropriate that Rose's weapon is her Thorns. ~LOSS (10/8/24)

Ayyy!

@ipunchvampires asked: "You should understand [Rose has] been corrupted by various entities with some rather questionable motives," says Entity with Rather Questionable Motives corrupting her. Kind of the perfect Doc Scratch line, honestly.

Doc Scratch is an awful person, but he's still a funny fuck.

@heliotropopause asked: wait. is that *Guybrush Threepwood* in the boat there??? @elkian asked: At the risk of being the 88th person to say something, the troll in the dinghy is a Guybrush Threepwood cameo (using the more cartoony style from Curse Of Monkey Island etc.). Man's truly unfortunate, or maybe he's lucky for not being a focal character? XD Anonymous asked: that 'one random motherfucker on a little dinghy' is in fact, guybrush threepwood from the monkey island series, thrown in as an easter egg by one of the artists who made assets for the flash @sanctferum asked: the troll on the dinghy is Troll Gybrush Threepwood. the guest artist for that scene confirmed this on the now-defunct MSPA forums IIRC

Ahahaha. Mystery solved, I guess!

I've been wanting to play Monkey Island for some time - and now I need to, so that I can understand the true backstory of of GY'BRSH TRPWUD.

Anonymous asked: I love this section, because I think it really shows something about Dave (and Rose). Because Dave just says whatever pops into his head, when he's getting command prompts, he just repeats them uncritically. (That also supports that when he said he didn't love his Bro, it was his honest reaction) @ben-guy asked: David "Zero Filter" Strider was absolutely not ready to have thoughts beamed directly into his head by an exile lmao @krixwell asked: It's so funny to me how when thoughts are incepted into Dave's subconscious mind, they just come falling right back out his mouth at the first opportunity. Filter, what filter? Those sunglasses don't hide shit.

Reminds me of his stress-rambles from early on in the comic. The reason he wears those shades is, I think, because he is a naturally expressive person - he just doesn't want to be.

[sillyyuserr]

A deep dive on the contrasting themes of tbhk (misogyny/breaking gender stereotypes) 🖊️

Tbhk or better know as Toilet-bound hanako kun is a manga both written and illustrated by two woman, that is semi-nonfiction-fiction. It uses themes and/or topics of the supernatural, yet taking place in an accurate highschool setting. The creators of Tbhk, AidaIro, are both presumably in their late 20s, as a past work of theirs, was made in 2011, when they were still students. if we estimate they were both 15 in 2011, they would be 28-29 years old respectively. Despite being on the younger side, and despite both being girls, AidaIro seems very traditional in the sense of norms and values. Yet, they seem open to breaking those same values.

for example, many gender norms are broken. Those being:

Akane/Aoi. This relationship trope has been set up to be the very one sided obsessed type. And it’s not very common to see the guy, be the hopelessly obsessed one. Akane, in a primarily female dominated field.

Kou. A key trait of his is that he’s always cooking or cleaning. He’s the housekeeper, he’s an incredible cook, and he takes care of his little sister. That being a primarily female dominated field.

the contrast to those being: sexism. Examples:

The woman in this manga, do practically nothing. Despite the main character being female, trust me when i say Nene did more heavy lifting in the PILOT CHAPTER.

we don’t see much individuality from any of the woman. Yes aoi’s getting some from akane but at the end of the day you can clearly see no doubt they’re still getting together. Despite all her character growth she’s still just a soon to be wife. And i hate that. I hate that so bad. She had a whole arc where she separated herself from Akane, only spoke to Nene, really stood her ground with boys, only for her to end up right back with him cut it OUTT.

And don’t even get me started on the infantilization of every single woman. I love akane but COME ON. I don’t remember exactly where it is but he’s said things like oh i’d never lay a FINGER on a girl implying he’d never hit a girl which like ok polite thank you but i feel like that shows that he don’t see woman/girls as other people, he views them as more fragile, and that its such a sin to throw a punch at a GIRL. But for guys? nahh nahh he’ll fuck up teru anyday.

Get your twig ass arm away he’s on the other side of the damn QUARRY as you guys smh..

The literal SECOND aoi picks up a sword he takes it from her fucking hands LORD

akane, my guy, that look was so warranted you lucky she’s polite i woulda beat you ass

she even said she knew how to use it he’s just so self righteous FUCK ALL OF YOU

Her ass was NOT playin!!!

Another aspect could be every female character (excluding Tiara) (duh) having a love interest.

EX. Aoi, akane

Nene, hanako/kou

fucking no.2, misaki

every mother in the story ( - Aoi’s), her husband no willing single mothers, just depressed divorced ones. No #feminism#singlemom at all. Aoi’s moms whole character is being divorced, Mitsuba’s moms whole character is being a widow, yet Minamoto’s father (despite being entirely absent) is not known for also being widowed? His wife is dead and he’s not seen as a struggling parent. The single father gets sm grace but he’s clearly having a hard time parenting his own children. Kou doesn’t even set up a spot at their table for him. He’s literally just not there.

Theres a lot more that could be said, but i’m going to just leave it here i’m tired 😭

ALSO I WAS SUPPOSED TO POST THIS WAYY EARILER ABOUT 2 WEEKS EARLIER BUT IM PREPPING FOR EXAMS and i got jumped twice

[xesnox]

Illager presence in the Ancient cities. Not a coincidence, but a calculated decision. - Theory.

I am from now on going to use (this font) to highlight sections of me explaining points seperate from the theory itself for anybody not fully tied into the lore, as Minecraft lore is a really really deep rabbit hole and every theory generally builds on other ones, especially with just how many different interpretations there are I feel like it’s easier to clearify some things directly after mentioning them as not to confuse anybody!

But if you’re already in the know and or don’t care about sources and context you can skip over them easier this way! Also makes it more pleasant to re-read after the first time.

I’ve previously talked about this on Instagram, but I believe that the Illagers (the ancient city structure “Camp” as stated by the files is separated from the main structure, though spawns as part of it given its position, it uses traditional Illager blocks like dark oak and resembles the wool room.) and the Ancients (as loot indicates, these are the same people who built the fortresses, strongholds, end cities (ect). Developers have specifically stated that the cities were made by “an ancient race (of builders)” before, I believe this was in the Minecraft Live for the Ancient cities, I’m not too sure though.) living together in close proximity within the Ancient cities was a calculated decision from the Ancients POV.

Knowing what we do about the Zombie virus, (this is a very common theory and there’s a lot to it, but essentially both the overworld and end are infected, whilst it’s too hot to survive in the nether which is the reason piglin become infected when crossing dimensions. The mobeastiary implies this might’ve been caused by the Wither which would actually make an essential amount of sense timeline wise.) Villagers have some level of an immunity and can actually be cured, unlike both builders and piglin (Regular Zombies & Zombie Piglin), needing to be bit to contract it, instead of being affected by the airborne strain which is a lot more violent in progression and has no cure. If you look at the timeline, with the Ancient cities being second to last in overworld structures to be made, then the Ancient populations infection numbers would’ve been at an all time high. (Assuming it was caused by the Wither; which, atleast I believe, was summoned during the Nether war, ending it abruptly as the humans just fled the Nether to avoid it, destroying the now ruined portal in an attempt to lock it in the nether. Which would mean that from that point onward the Overworld infection would’ve begun spreading.)

It would only be logical for them to take in Villagers to take care of the infected without running the risk of spreading the airborne disease further. Especially considering that we don’t know what the exact symptoms of a plague infected builder are, they could be as subtle as a cold or unusual fatigue, or maybe it’s similar to rabies where you’re asymptomatic for weeks until it’s too late.

This could also explain why the Illagers have a limited ability in things soul energy (summoning vexes for the Evokers, the entire ravager thing. List goes on.), and aren’t targeted by the undead, both things the Ancients (as we see in the trial chambers, which show early versions of the ominous pattern. Aswell as the ability to summon allays in legends, similar to the vexes for the Evoker, and the entire idea of playing with life they’re clearly based around, see blazes, creepers, the Wither, the breeze, or even the skeletons which are a result of necromancy.) discovered first. (If you squint, this is also kind of confirmed by legends, with the whole “the illagers were so inspired by what the heroes were doing, they copied it” which could be applied to I think more than one sector of their dynamic. Legends is a bit iffy regarding canonicity but I think it does show rough intentions in some aspects.)

Because, in this case, it could imply that the Ancients might’ve taught the Illagers some general basics to better navigate both living together with them, aswell as taking care of their sick. As after all, if you had a group of outsiders helping your prideful people whilst you’re vulnerable, you’d atleast want them to do it properly, with the knowledge you’ve acquired. This would also clearify why there are so many similarities between them and their culture.

The at the time Villagers were completely separated from the rest of their people, stuck with a group they idolised as guardians of the overworld and/or Devine entities, completely vulnerable to being desensitized to whatever deviant behavior the Builders were by this point up to regarding morally dubious magic and practices. (let’s not forget the human skulls scattered around the ancient cities) which would completely explain why they would’ve been so suddenly kicked out by the village upon return. (Again grabbing to the mobeastiary, all illagers are exiled villagers. They canonically don’t reproduce so it’s less of a seperate species of villagers and more of a collection of deviants operating under the same hierarchy, more cult than group if you get what I’m saying.) It was less of a “some individuals in our village being up to evil stuff in their basement” and more of a gradual process that affected an entire subgroup at once. All illagers operate as a group, they clearly share similar ideals, this is what this theory lead me to believe caused this.

A group of villagers starting out as wanting to help the sick (of people they already idolised), therefore separating themselves from the main population to follow their guardians, and eventually turning into a cult like sect made to continue the legacy of the Ancients after they no longer were.

I think their hatred for the villagers comes less from being exiled, and more from the point of view that the villagers are doing wrong by not trying to help as they did. Like somebody standing by scrolling on their phone as your celebrity crush chokes to death. Bad analogy but I think for this theory in particular it works, I have many ideas as to why they hate the villagers though.

[transraccoon]

On transandrophobia and the concept of co-substantiality

I refrained from talking on this topic as it's not a debate in my french leftist circles but seeing how it's prevalent here on tumblr, I think it's a good opportunity to talk about some concepts.

First of all, on a linguistic note, people people create words to suit their needs. The etymology doesn't matter : if transandrophobia is created to description "the specific oppression that trans men suffer", it does not imply that mysandry exists. It's an opression specific to an identity.

This bring me to a critique of some interpretation of intersectionalty. That it would only be intersection of oppressions. As you can't be oppress as a man, there is no intersection between being a man and being trans (so no need to use a different word than general transphobia).

This interpretation is honestly baffling. I'll take an example that I think everybody will agree on : Black men are more often arrested by police (or killed, or put in prison...) than white people because of the racial integral state. But also more than black women, why is that, how can we explain that this police brutality is more harsh on black men ? The same reason as the stereotypes saying that black men are more violent, criminal... This is a specific oppression for black men (who may choose to create a word to describe it).

This is not to say that black men are more opressed than black women. There are differences on the kind of racism that they suffer. Intersectionality is not the addition of oppression, it is used to describe specific interactions of class, race and gender and the social relations associated with them. (even if in general men oppress women, everything depend on the social relations)

(If you'd like to delve deeper into the subject, I suggest you read up theories on subaltern masculinities.)

There are still a lot of critics of intersectionality to do. As a materialist, I prefer the notion of co-substantiality of the social relations (CSSR) (coined by Danièle Kergoat, french sociologist).

A social relation is a antagonistic relation between two social groups around an issue. it's a relation of material and ideal production.

Social relations are co-substantial : they form a knot that cannot be cut at the level of social practices (except from an analytical sociology perspective) and they are co-extensif : when deployed, the social relations of class, gender and race reproduce and co-produce with each other.

CSSR doesn't naturalized the categories for example : "workers and woman" are part of gender and class relations. Sometimes in the struggle, they can form a collectif subject, original in its practices, but a subject always in process and not reductible to that category.

This is the main issue with intersectionality "mapping the margins" this means fixing the categories, naturalizing them. This concept struggles to reflect a shifting and historical relation of domination.

Multiplicity of categories hide the social relations. But we cannot separate social categories and social relations where they were made. Working with those categories is risking to leave blind spot. Spots that can be the strongest aspects of domination, just as they can be bearers of resistance.

Co-substantiality is the complex dynamic interweaving of all social relations; each leaving its mark on the others, modulating each other, building each other up in a reciprocal way; the fact that they form a system does not exclude contradictions between them.

Refusing to reason in terms of fixed entities allows us to put the political subject (and not just the victims of domination) back at the center of analysis, taking into account all its ambivalent and often ambiguous practices.

[changelingsandothernonsense]

WIP Word Game

Rules: You get a word and share a sentence/excerpt from your WIP(s) that starts with each letter of your word.

Got tagged by both @skyrim-forever and @sulphuricgrin

tagging @archangelsunited @firefly-factory @nyarevar @scholarlyhermit @hircines-hunter @viss-and-pinegar @vehksfingerguns @saltymaplesyrup

I've got both BITE and NIGHT

These come from several separate wips. Most are Joshi's pov but Sydari's got at least one.

BITE

"Bed’s a little smaller than expected but I think we’ll fit,” She mused as she took off his helmet, the thin plait he had fashioned his hair into falling over his shoulder, “if you are still okay with sharing, I mean?”

Teldryn nodded, pulling down his scarf as she removed his goggles, “Told you, I don’t mind, Lukal.”

She smiled at him, her thumb brushing along his cheek, he could feel the leather of her gloves sticking to his skin a little. They had been doing this dance a lot over the last few years, though it had been getting increasingly more frequent since they arrived in Skyrim. One of them would linger too long or say something that implied they wanted the company of the other. He often wondered what would happen if he just stopped dancing and just admitted how he actually felt. Gods, he’d tried so many times but there was always something that would trip him up. The timing was never right and honestly, he was terrified that he was reading her intentions wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d made an idiot of himself like that, fuck, it wouldn’t even be the first timed he’d fucked up things with her. What if she pulled away from him again? What if she left him?

I opened my eyes and took everything in. To say my surroundings were grim would be an understatement; this place was absolutely miserable looking. I found myself lying in the middle of a circular platform, its edges framed by pointed arches that reminded me of the Old City of Mournhold, only cold. Everything here was just so cold, an otherworldly chill that bit into my bones in a way that not even the furthest reaches of Skyrim did…even if it felt close. No, Hermaeus Mora’s realm was unlike anything I had seen before. The sky was cast in a hazy, almost sickening green that had me feeling nauseous whenever I looked up at the whirlwinds of loose papers suspended above me.

I slowly got to my feet, I could still feel that twinge in my hip as I reached for my cane, balancing myself before grabbing the rest of my things. I had hoped that maybe the part of me that Mora would pull into Apocrypha, was that same aspect of myself that wandered my dreams. I guess I was hoping to land here as my pre-Corprus self, at least I’d be able to move around without half my body crumbling.

I bit down on my lip, feeling that painful prickle that confirmed what I had first thought when I felt my hip twinge— My waking consciousness had been transported here and judging by the silence, I left Nerevar behind. I just hoped I could get all this shit over with before Nerevar figured out what was going on.

The Bosmer that was straddling his lap that night had hair that was almost as dark as his, and she had those strange, entirely black eyes that reflected the light in a way that reminded him of a large feline. It was something that usually haunted him— what with Mouse having similar features. Though she seemed eager, and he was…well…he’d had a confusing day, to put it mildly. What the Bosmer was trying to do made sense. Sex was simple and gods sometimes all he wanted was simplicity when his thoughts swam like they had that night.

“Erandur, I’m a travelling priest of Mara,” he replied, nodding towards her, “Your husband’s from Morrowind, yes?

She nodded, swallowing a little, “He has his own way of dealing with it but—”

“But you still worry,” Erandur replied, his voice calm, “I won’t lie to you, I do fear for the people of Dawnstar.”

She felt her heart jump into her throat for a second, “So there is a curse?”

“No, not a curse,” Erandur shook his head, his shoulder-length, silvery hair catching the light of the firepit, “But the cause is just as sinister, I’m afraid. These dreams are manifestations created by the Daedric Lord, Vaermina. She has a voracious hunger for our memories. In return, she leaves behind nightmares, not unlike a cough marks a serious illness. The nightmares echo her presence as she feeds.”

NIGHT

No…no he wasn’t mad at the Dunmer that stood before him. Not really, he had no idea who Teldryn was or why they were travelling north aside from what little information Hassour had given him. His guide was just trying to do his job and all Teldryn had done was fuck around for the past twenty-four hours! No, once again he was being reactionary— his fucking about was directly related to Cosades dropping that stupid fucking Nerevarine guarshit on him like he was some sort of Imperial marionette dancing on a string— and dance he must less his wardens choose to cut those strings permanently. Teldryn wasn’t angry at his Ashlander guide, he was angry at the Blades!

It always came back to this fucking conscription!

It keeps wearing her face!

Teldryn flung his arm over his face in a huff, last thing he needed was to get himself all fucking bothered over a woman who he had no idea of the availability of… not to mention the whole fucked up way they’d been acting towards one another wasn’t helping his anxieties. Sure, he totally got why she was shitty with him, he’d attacked her twice and she did say that he’d need to earn her respect. It’s just that every time he did that something would happen to make him slip up. He’d shove his foot in his mouth over and over again and she’d snap at him for it… which just made him want to win her affections more!

Gods he hoped so, he didn’t think he had the patience to roll himself another tin’s worth, he’d been going through a whole tins worth a day since coming off…whatever the fucking pain-killing tonic Sydari had given him that made his brain prickle like he’d tasted fucking skooma. He’d been seeking tobacco to dull the anxiety it was causing him, though he knew it would never leave him entirely. Only time and not fucking with the stuff would do that.

“He should accept them, ancestors willing,” Erra replied, Teldryn noticed that he began to fiddle with his glove, having taken one off as they were speaking. He watched as the mer’s rust painted fingers pulled at the dyed wool and wondered if his guide was hiding something from him.

“You don’t seem all that confident,” Teldryn prodded, “What aren’t you telling me, Erra?”

Erra’s eyes widened as he shook his head, “It is nothing— It should be nothing….”

Teldryn furrowed his brow and tilted his head a little, looking up at his companion, “No, it’s not that I don’t want to be travelling with you. You’re fine. It’s um…” he paused, drumming his fingers on his knee as he gathered his thoughts, “It’s this job, what they are getting me to do. I— I don’t want to be doing this.”

His guide sighed as he removed the cork from the vessel he was holding and gulped down the contents before gingerly placing it back in his pack, “Why do you not ask your khan to change jobs?”

“I can’t.”

To those tagged, your word is DREAM

[speckled-jim]

Let’s talk about how Basquiat’s Slave Auction relates to the themes of remembrance & trauma in IWTV.

All the artwork we see displayed in Dubai is evocative of painful memories. It’s present in every single room we've seen, so much so that I'm surprised it took Louis this long to summon Daniel back for a redo of the ’73 interview.

The Basquiat piece is first seen in 1x3, an episode that starts with Louis telling Lestat about Jackson Square’s ugly history as the site of slave executions, and ends with a race riot caused by Louis’ actions. It also marks the beginning of Louis’ struggle with self-definition: he cannot divorce himself from humanity as easily as Lestat. He cannot divorce himself from the camaraderie, kinship, and mutual support/responsibility so integral to minority communities. Yet, as a vampire, he is now inherently separate from such aspects. By the time we meet Louis in Dubai, he lives in isolation, for all intents and purposes, his contact with humanity limited mainly to the penthouse staff. The art is evidence that he still craves a connection to his roots; however, it's no longer a positive connection centered on belonging, but a reminder that the gap has grown even wider.

Our next encounter with this piece is in 1x4, when Daniel finds "Rashid" praying in the same room.

The framing choice is quite interesting: the painting doesn’t dominate the shot, but its presence is still prominent. It’s physically behind Rashid/Armand, but more to the side of him than his back, and although there’s light streaming in through the windows, Armand’s just on the outskirts, sharing the shadows with the painting. It’s a rather startling image, considering how closely the piece depicts Armand’s past, not just in terms of the events he can remember but the jumbled manner in which they exist in his head: broken fragments, rather than coherent memories he can recount.

Thus, it connects to the previous episode’s introduction of the painting, which appears in the background just as Daniel casts doubt on the accuracy of Louis’ own memories.

On the surface, these appear to be lucid and orderly enough that Louis can form an unbroken narrative account of his life, but are they? When Daniel challenges Louis on the stark differences between the story he told in San Francisco and the story he is now telling in Dubai, Louis quotes Daniel’s own words at him, calling the second interview an “odyssey of recollection.” This implies some recognition on Louis’ part that his memory’s imperfect, even when it’s not “an admitted performance.”

Slave Auction likewise contains a chaotic profusion of themes: the lasting scars of slavery, racism, and failed assimilation, overlaid with images of black men as entertainers and athletes, a superficial success applied like a band-aid over a gaping wound. Is that not the very core of Louis de Pointe du Lac? Fathomless, unaddressed anguish buried under a placid façade of wealth? A lifelong attempt to gloss over his innate pain as a man grieving the loss of his family, his community, his connection to humanity?

Not for nothing the arc words of these two seasons have been “memory is a monster.” Many horror enthusiasts say that one of the scariest things you can do is never show the monster in full, instead letting the audience craft its image from their own fears. Louis has spent decades living with just such a monster always at his back, too terrified to turn around and face it for fear of what he’d see there.

And then, in the final scenes of s2, he finally finds that courage, only to realise that the monster, all along, was just love.