#not finished yet obviously

[punk-jules]

🩷🌸🌟

[chloesimaginationthings]

sorry if you’ve already been asked, but what’s your favorite FNaF game?

I’m a “Pizza Simulator” truther, it’s just the best one, though I’ll be honest “Help wanted 2” has really risen through the ranks for me, its probably my second favourite (that might update if the DLC pops off)

Sister location and FNAF 2 are close behind, they were OG faves

[len-tilsoup]

WHERE IS THAT ONE POST

THE ONE THAT WAS LIKE "WHAT IF YOU WERE THE EVIL TWIN, AND YOU MEET THE VERSION OR YOURSELF THAT SHINES LIKE THE GODDAMN SUN" OR SMTH

ITS ALL I COULD THINK OF THIS EPISODE

[aniihera]

Ok. I’ve been compiling my thoughts on the pathologic 2 endings for a while now, and I’ve finally pinpointed my feelings on them (enough to share at least). I’m desperate to hear what others think about them too.

Lengthy Kin-themed rant oncoming? Perhaps.

More under the cut.

CW: Spoilers for Pathologic 2 (of course).

- - -

To preface: As I am Māori, not Buryat or of the other cultures I have heard the Kin to be based on, my perspective is more from *my* understanding of what it means to be Indigenous than anything else. There are probably many things I’m missing. But I’d like to throw in my two cents, however relevant they are.

Suffice to say, my feelings are complicated. Stylistically and narratively, there was a lot that I enjoyed. From a reconnecting/ mixed Indigenous perspective, however, I still feel unwillingly bisected, torn.

At the culmination of everything, Artemy Burakh and the player are roped into a cruel, two-pronged choice. Destroy the Polyhedron along with the miracles of the Steppe, or let the plague devour the town as you lead the Kin back to its heart. In these scenarios, you either assimilate the Kin into the town, which many of them will despise you for, or push out the nonindigenous townsfolk by force, letting nature run its course. Any third option has already been amputated, beyond your will. You cannot protect the Kin completely either way, some will likely die from the plague in the latter, and the more fantastical will in the first, by being cleaved from the earth’s dying magic.

Diurnal, or Nocturnal. No matter how you look at it, the kin cannot thrive in either. For it to be a choice at all, hurt, to say the least. After playing the bachelor’s route in the first game, I’m sure that was deliberate in an anti-utopian sense, perfection is impossible etc, etc. But the first lens I saw it through, stuck with me.

When I initially read Isidor say this after Artemy’s trial in the abattoir:

“Facing the Future is the way of Love. Facing the Past is the way of Love. But the two are incompatible, and it broke my heart.”

I was devastated. The hopeless dichotomisation of future and past… and I could only construe it as assimilation or death in some manner (but I could not see what role it took yet). That feeling festered for a while, but I wanted to see it from another angle. I think it's natural to be sensitive to the words “progress” (which is usually linked to “civilisation” and colonisation) when anchored against Indigenous culture, but I didn’t want that to blind me completely.

On its own, I do like this line. It’s weighty. And I think it articulates aspects of Indigenous struggle well, to some degree. Going back to the “past” is somewhat impossible for many reasons. Decolonisation is needed but I don’t believe it means restoring the “past” fully by any means. Culture is not stagnant, and neither is the future. To say they are incompatible though pains me. Especially when contextualised inside the divide between the kin and the town. It is an intentionally agonising line, and successfully so. Pitting the themes of Past/Future, against, Kin/Town, is something I find hard to reconcile with. Even just the first part irks me; personally the past walks with me at every step, the future is void and useless without it in full view. But I wouldn’t say a line from Isidor (or Artemy’s subconscious) necessarily defines the game more than it does his perspective. For me, it is the patterns that follow and precede it.

Aspity is a very obvious portrayal of what it looks like to “face the past” completely. Visiting her sanctuary, It becomes very evident that her opinions of the non-Kinfolk sway towards genocidal. They must “flood the town”, as she put it. Considering their treatment on the Bull Project and well… everything else, It’s not unfounded. During the night visits, we develop a growing understanding of what is at stake for the kin. Their language, legends, arts, and traditions, and too many Kin are dying from pest and persecution (Its a familiar story). Herb brides are forced to sell their cultural dance to get by (another familiar story for Māori, kapa haka and tourism, our culture has also become a commodity out of necessity). Legends like the shabnak adyr too are warped by the townsfolk (as it is used as an excuse to target Kin women). Assimilation means these things for them too.

There's also the case of how the Kin are depicted as more animalistic than the “more human” townsfolk. Oyun, Big Vlad, and even Artemy have a long history referring to them as such. To make the Kin less than human is inherently othering (as is any case where the empire views us as inherently more primitive or unevolved). The importance placed on Aurochs and being one with nature in Kin culture paints this in a less hostile light (Big Vlad’s view not so much). But I fear the effect this might have on player perceptions of the Kin will be negative regardless. I’ve seen a few statements about the Kin being a “hivemind”, I can't say I entirely agree. Many are divided on how they view Artemy, as well as what they desire for the future. I’ve also seen this in reference to when a few odonghe gift you organs for your tinctures, but at this point everyone in the town is desperate for a cure no matter the cost. Their more violent practices appear to weaken many fans' empathy for the Kin, painting the Nocturnal ending darker and darker. Getting rid of herb bride “marriages” would be a good thing at least right? Assimilation might be a good thing then? Nothing good comes without cost, and for the Kin this cost is too steep. Survival doesn't have to mean losing yourself piece by piece.

I will say that despite liking the non-Kin townsfolk, I do wish there was a larger Kin presence among the main roles. While we have Nara, Aspity, Oyun, and Taya, I understand how their presence does little to assuage the dread of seeing the rest of the cast wade out into the Steppe. For me, seeing Murky and Sticky in such a lost state during the Nocturnal ending, made me unable to see it as anything but a mistake.

Two other alternating themes are present through the endings. Childhood (miracles and dreams) and adulthood (waking up and walking forward). The dominant presence of children in Nocturnal, and the fact that walking through the near empty town really does feel like a nightmare, showcases this. The impossible has been made possible, the earth sleeps, sated. The endless cycle of responsibility, from father to son, from parent to child... Children rule the future here. In Diurnal, this cycle, at least, has some room to be broken. Responsibilities are weighed more evenly. Letting go of miracles and childhood dreams, that is the only future in this end. I’m not sure If i have to discuss how problematic it might be to place indigenous revival in the realm of childishness, and assimilation in the realm of growing up, but i thought i'd leave the notion there regardless.

Leaving how you view the two ends aside, it's obvious that Nocturnal has a heavier, gloomier tone.

Maybe having a third ending would’ve been reductive, to have one person so easily find a solution to unifying the town. But, it hurts so deeply to have that choice wrenched from your hands. The choice might have been severed by Isidor, but it felt like so much was possible for Artemy. With one foot in both worlds, the potential of true reconnection, i thought we could move past what was possible for his father. It felt like that was the direction Artemy was moving in, seeing the choices before him and bullheadedly trampling through the middle. Just like he did with the cure, finding the impossible connection.

As it stands, the endings are brutal. Survival for the kin is held by a thread, regardless of the direction you look. They either die a physical death, or a cultural and spiritual one (the two could very well be interpreted as present in both depending on how you look at it). By your conversations with Aspity, even if they survive, the Diurnal end is hinted to lead to an essential “dissolution” of the Kin as they know it. Wherein the differences between the Town and Kin will become so negligible that the two are no longer distinct. Which from my perspective is its own, however voiceless tragedy.

Ok, that was a lot of negativity but I’d like to be candid. Even despite all that, Pathologic is still one of my favourite games of all time. I saw someone say on here that Pathologic 2 is most interesting when allowing the player to decide where love takes them (even if they are led to extremes). Love being at the forefront, regardless of the choices you make, no wrong answers, that's what I appreciated most when playing as Artemy. Whether you chose to kill the three odonghe for Rubin, begged him to stay despite everything, killed Oyun, the Oglimskys, or the pest, it was for the love of something. The internal strife of having a mixed identity too, the rejection and affection from both sides, is something I related to even if the circumstances were miles apart from my own. I wish that Nocturnal aligned with that energy, that the nuances there were a little less stark. That opposing assimilation felt like less of a mistake.

There's a lot more I could delve into but this is pretty long already. This post could all read like nonsense/surface level, but I’m curious to see what other people think! Especially other indigenous folk, I’m dying to know how others interpreted the endings regarding the Kin.

[raiiny-bay]

made this & then realized i wanted to make something else instead

[weebsinstash]

Alright bestie I’m on that shit again

So yandere Superman, right? Like obviously your fucked. The only other yandere in existence that might just be able to keep you from him is Batman, but even then he’d probably sooner work together just to ensure your safety- but that’s a prompt for another day.

Back to yan Superman, imagine you’re his darling and he is “keeping you safe”. But one day, you get snatched up by some organization that wants to use you as leverage or some shit, but you are just sobbing in relief at maybe being free- only to have Superman show up and do some not so super things to everyone who “stole” you

There are just so many casually horrifying things about Superman that people don't realize until you start like digging into his lore. "Oh he's super strong and a super fast flyer" actually he can do basically anything at those super speeds to the point he can literally even PROCESS THOUGHTS at near light-speed which means he has Absolutely Terrifying reaction times and can make plans and schemes on a dime, which, you know, can be even better utilized by him being intelligent. He has natural invulnerability so if you throw a punch at him too hard you could literally shatter the bones in your hand and he can't even control that, like you could literally hurt yourself with him on accident! He can see across INSANE DISTANCES and his x-ray vision doesn't have like a set range so he could do anything from, peep inside buildings to spy on you, to looking under your clothing for any bruises or injuries or even self harm marks, to peeking behind your hero disguise to learn your true identity, to seeing if there's anything inside your stomach and seeing if you're eating properly. Like jesus christ he literally found out Lois was pregnant from waking up one morning and suddenly hearing the heartbeat of the FETUS, there's literally nothing from him pulling that stereotypical "I know you're nervous or lying or afraid because I can literally hear your heartbeat increase" scary bullshit

And let's talk about Lois for a sec because my god her death was literally what kicked off the Injustice timeline? And there are other forms of Superman media where she just straight up dies naturally of cancer! Sure we could take the easy way and say "in this au Lois never existed or was just Clark's friend and he loved YOU" (which is my preferred default tbh bc, no competition for Reader lol) but I mean if you're going for that angst, that real whump, a yandere Clark Kent that just lost his wife/unborn child to either the Injustice incident or cancer, now overcome with grief? And in those cancer timelines they usually already have a son, Jonathan, and sometimes Jordan, and here's Clark thinking, well, his boy needs a mother, and he's got these weird feelings for you, and lil Jonny clearly has affection for you, maybe bring a bit of a platonic yan himself who sees you as either a big sister or even a secondary mom, so... be his wife maybe?

Like my god if Reader somehow helped him through the grief of losing Lois and managed to avoid "fully activating" Superman's anime villain arc, like he's going full fascist in the Injustice 2 Bad Ending, then some shit DEFINITELY goes down when Reader gets taken away. It just reactivates all his trauma. No! He can't lose anyone else! Jonathan can't lose anyone else! You're not just someone he loves, you're his FRIEND!

You're just huddled in whatever cell you've been kept in with your black eyes and bruises and knuckles bloodied from trying to fight back when you hear Clark's voice and you look up with excitement that just falls immediately off your face because holy shit did he just unlock that thumbprint scanner with a severed arm, and suddenly you're realizing there are other shades of red on his costume and dripping from his fingers

I can only imagine like, ngl I considered a sequel to my fic Doubt where Reader escapes the manor and runs into Supernan as the only other person who can protect you, so here we would have the inverse: you're the only one who knows about Clark's increasing instability and, while you still have your own freedom and autonomy, try to speak to Bruce about it, and now you have Batman Vs Superman: Competing For Your Heart Edition. I can only imagine what sort of unhinged reactions there would be if you think you've got Batman alone and you're beginning to cry all "Bruce I'm really worried about Clark, he isn't acting like himself, there's something wrong with him" and. Clark is like literally using his x-ray vision to read lips through the walls if he can't use his super hearing to outright eavesdrop.

Of course as you suggested, I'm always a slut for ideas with"oh shit I ran to this guy to help me and he's ALSO crazy, now they're teaming up and I'm in some weird shared/poly situation with TWO nutjobs". Lmao you go to Bruce concerned about Kal and Bruce goes to confront him and Clark just drops "did you know Y/N has been hiding self harm cuts under their hero suit also wow they smoke HELLA weed and im worried about their lungs and all the stuff they do when they're alone that no one else knows about 🥺" and suddenly here's Bruce " thanks i hate this actually :)" and there's a scheme concted to spy on you or move you elsewhere.

I've even thought of "Reader oh nooOoooOo, that, giant monster or villain attack or whatever also coincidentally destroyed your shitty little apartment complex? You mean Clark 'accidently' got sent flying into your building or smacked some giant creature into it and now you don't have a place to live? And you're broke too? Oh no 🥺 Well, BATMAN has this nice big house with lots of room in for you to stay toooootally 'temporarily', we PROMISE uwu"

Batman is the one who can put a tracking chip injected into your skin or even disguised as a filling in one of your teeth, and Superman is the one who can zoom off to rescue you/retrieve you "faster than a speeding bullet". I think one of the only people who could bring them down together at that point would be like. Fucking DARKSEID and, Jesus no, you definitely don't want HIM treating you as a pet 😭 the evil Batman that was brainwashed by him in the Apokolips War movie was scary enough (and scary HOT, lmao, let him keep me as some sort of prize and the only luxury Darkseid will allow him as a reward for his obedience. Lord Batman goes from having a meeting talking about like enslaving people to returning to his quarters and railing tf outta you because he's still holding onto some slim vestiges of humanity where he cares about you but also using you as his personal anti stress fuck toy)

[cassiopeia-mori]

redraws i did for fun, the original (and cooler, frankly) doodles are from @no-hl btw go check them out and follow them and like all their posts and reblog all their posts and

(old man yaoi)

[theswedishpajas]

Ok but what if…

[hisuianwilds]

the end of jjk if gege wasnt a coward

[clearancecreedwatersurvival]

Never seen a homoerotic rivalry I wouldn’t ship.

[thatgirlonstage]

man the way Magnus entrusted his relic to Jack and June because they were good people with rustic hospitality and it turned an entire town into a place of betrayal and coups and distrust and finally an inescapably looping nightmare for years where death was perpetually an hour away and the way that the town was ultimately saved with kindness to animals through reuniting the purple worm with her children and the self-sacrifice of the town's self-appointed protector

and the way Merle's relic took love that had bloomed from rivalry and twisted it into a desperate need to prove oneself capable and better, to become unto a god, the way it drove Sloane to run away from everyone she cared about rather than reach out to them for help, and the way it was only stopped with peacemaking, with reaching back for her still when all hope seemed lost, with Hurley leaping headfirst into silverpoint knowing full well she would be killed but doing it because she cared about the person inside even at her worst, even when she was irredeemable, even when no one else would think to find anything human left in there at all

and the way Taako's relic was put to the use of science and exploration and used, for a while, successfully, but with too much greed, with too much selfishness, with too much focus on Maureen and Lucas's goals and too little trust of other people's word on how dangerous these relics are, the way it ultimately became the tool of a creature trying to claw its way back to the life and loved ones it knew and had lost, a creature that had long since lost its sense of self, that had merged with others just to survive, and the way familial love was necessary to stop it, the way Lucas got to his worst out of love of his mother and the desperation to do anything to get her back, the way he got brought back to his senses by that same love and the realization of how badly he'd failed her, the way he was still an untrustworthy dick at the end but they let him go anyway and he came back when it mattered

the way Lup's relic was locked away for a decade and ultimately uncovered and reactivated by Gundran's desperate desire to reclaim what once belonged to his family, the way it was not stopped, the way the loss of Phandalin haunts the narrative, a reminder of failure and of people the boys couldn't save

the way Davenport's relic gets caught up in a game of smoke and mirrors while on the harsh time limit of the end of a journey, the way part of Jenkins' ploy is that he seems utterly unthreatening, the way Hudson's death and the loss of his head in particular is practically collateral damage, the way the train could not be saved but this time the people were

the way Barry's relic is in the hands of two liches who are very obvious and intentional foils to him and Lup, but even more than that, the way it's so buried in the suffering of losing everything that makes you yourself, over and over and over and over and over, the way Wonderland is designed to make you eventually dependent on this cycle of loss just to stay alive, the way it's only beaten by changing the rules of the game

and of course the way Lucretia's relic stays glued to her side, the emblem and reason for her loneliness, isolating her in a bubble of her own making, until, of course, she lets her family back in, and as raw and painful a reunion as it is, as it has to be, because you can't stay safe from your mistakes forever, the seven of them together find the solution she could not find alone

[ladykyriaa]

Turns out Raven of the inner palace is doomed romance right from the start, but I can't find myself to be angry bcs them not ending up together actually makes sense but damn it😭😭

[ghost-in-the-corner]

No one is allowed to talk to me about computers until January

[b4kuch1n]

ough brain is doing SO bad but sometimes. there are colors

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

Hi hello I watched all of carmilla in a weekend when I was 17 because a student teacher who in retrospect I had a bit of a crush on mentioned that she knew one of the actresses. also I am pretty invested in all your recent vampire stuff because I watched iwtv in 2 days last week because your edit intrigued me

oh hiiii 🫶 thank you for indulging me. thats so cool that you watched iwtv! did it live up to the expectation?

i also watched carmilla at 17! or like, 17-19. i found it when s2 had just started and followed it to the end. did something permanent to my brain but i think it was a good thing. on rewatch now im like, i was right to like this. like it's a solid show, it's good. it has its flaws obviously but it's well written, the emotional moments still get me, i can see why i liked it and i still like it now even when it's not anymore, you know, meeting every need that baby gay me didnt even know they had

what it doesnt reaallyy do though - i dont remember if i posted abt this or if i left it in my drafts but - is explore vampirism as a concept. their subject matter is more lesbianism than vampirism. which is great! thats what they wanted to do and they did it and it's very good. but reading interview with the vampire the book rn im realising how much potential vampires have to be metaphors for like so many things and i started wondering like 'wait, did carmilla just not really engage with it or did it all go over my head'. but it just didnt really engage with it all that much. which again is fine bc that wasnt what they were doing. im glad they were more about the lesbianism than the vampirism

but there's this interesting difference in framing, because in iwtv they keep calling armand 'ancient' right? and emphasising how old he is. and he's like 500? and i was like 'wait isnt carmilla like 400?'. she isnt, shes 340, but still, thats getting there, you know? and we know quite a lot about her history, but kind of just the Big Events. when she was turned, the events of the novella, coffin of blood, silas. thats sort of what we know. but none of the long lonely slog of history day to day you know? with armand i feel like we can really feel how much time everything takes. how every one of those years is made up of single days. with carmilla i dont feel that as much. i keep kind of thinking about daniel, when louis calls him a boy in the first episode, saying "im an old man, with all the triggers that come with it"

because carmilla might look 18 (or mid twenties at this point) but she has lived all that time. shes also seen her native land be claimed by like a succession of ruling powers, right? like armand. shes been buried alive, like louis. when lestat is born, shes already 80 years old, shes lived a whole human lifetime, and the entire adult part of it shes been a vampire. shes lived through 1680-1870 being a lure. i compared her to abigail hobbs in some tags on a post, i dont know if youre familiar with hannibal the tv show, but i do also kinda keep thinking about that comparison

if youre not familiar, in the first episode of hannibal the murderer of the week is this guy garrett jacob hobbs who kills and cannibalises girls who resemble his daughter. and later on it turns out she was made to be his lure. like they'd go places and he'd sent her to the victims to make friends and maybe get them back to their home or smth. not sure if they specified all the details. but that's what carmilla did for mother. and in s2 we hear from mattie that while every couple of decades carmilla had to lure victims for the fish god, she also seemed to just enjoy humans between those times, right? like the doctor, gets lonely, gets a new companion. but we've only sort of got mattie's mocking word for it ("dont eat him, hes a poet! or her, shes got such a wonderful voice. or that one, shes just too pretty to ruin"), we don't know exactly from carmilla's point of view what she was doing or why. if mattie's talking about stuff that happened after the blood coffin, 1950-now, then i think it's a fair assumption based on what carmilla says in the s1 sock puppet show that after she'd figured out what the real situation was and what her role in it was, when she'd started trying to save girls from being sacrificed, that she mightve been doing the same trying to save people from becoming mattie's victims. it's probably more likely that she was just trying to find excuses to stop mattie from sucking someone dry rather than actually having like an aesthetic based morality. but it might be a bit of both. im still trying to figure out what her philosophy actually is, like i dont know what existentialism actually means ghkfjghkj but i will

i also found it pretty striking in the movie when shes turning back into a vampire she says like "this was supposed to be done, you know? the blood lust, the self-loathing, the sleeping tied to a chair in my own bedroom". thats what defines her vampirism, wanting blood and hating yourself for it (the third part is a joke/reference to s1 but also i think meaningful for how she sees her relationship with laura when she IS a vampire. little bit of that 'she will reject me for my monstrousness' shining through). and thats what defines vampirism for lots of vampires across the genre obviously, but i dont know, it struck me. we dont get a lot from carmilla's pov, we know a fair amount about her, but the story is always told through laura. we get laura's diaries, but just snippets here and there from carmilla, what shes thinking, how shes feeling

and i love that shes a philosopher. i love that thats how she seems to try and find something to hold onto, in a world that kind of moves around her, having been murdered, kidnapped, turned and groomed to be a lure on the cusp of adulthood, never having been properly loved (the relationship with her father wasnt good she says in s3, and her mortal mother i dont think has ever been mentioned (like laura's)). the only good relationship she seems to have had for the better part of 3 centuries seems to have been mattie, and mattie seems to love being a vampire. i can imagine carmilla just sort of going along with anything mattie wants to do just because shes so desperate for that friendship. not like, against her will necessarily really. but more like, she hasnt even had the space to develop her own will, you know? and philosophy lets you do that. philosophy gives you frameworks to understand the world and to develop your own opinions on it. and by the 21st century she seems to have developed those opinions, she has a sense of her own values, but shes also still stuck in that same situation. shes jaded and cynical in the face of laura's optimism and strong moral code a lot of the time in s1 because she feels probably pretty powerless. like she does what she can to save some girls but at the end of the day shes scared of her mother and she has nowhere else to go really, right?

i like how she grapples with that over the course of the series, in tandem with laura grappling with her black and white morality. she sort of jumps ship from her mother to laura bc theyve fallen in love, but then laura still stuck in her hero thinking refuses to see her monstrous side. not literally bc i think the biological vampirism never seemed to be a problem for laura, but morally. the having murdered. carmilla needs laura to see that and love her while seeing it bc the last girl she loved rejected her for being a vampire.

but you see her kind of swing back and forth in s2. she softens first with laura but then they break up and she leans back hard into the sarcastic cynic defense mechanisms, leans hard into "im a monster, dont expect heroism from me". but thats like, it's sort of learned helplessness i think. it's powerlessness, resignation. bc morally shes not a monster. maybe she doesnt have as strong a drive to help other people as laura does and is a little more selfishly hedonistic in that she just wants to enjoy her/their life, but she doesnt hurt people for fun, she never has. she just sort of didnt have another option for a Really long time. so she pretends she doesnt care. "im a vampire, this is what i do, this is who i am". but clearly from the way she talks about it when she turns back into one, she doesnt enjoy it

and i like how she goes even further in s3, where she starts swinging even more to the heroic side, bc she sees hope. shes like "wow if we kill my mother, i'd be free". theres hope and she becomes like a lot more active. and shes like that at the start of the movie too, a lot happier, a lot more relaxed, and then vampirism is back and bam depression gfhgkjh like shes immediately more gloomy, ashamed of her past and her self, retreats into herself

sorry i just took this as an opportunity to dump all the carmilla thoughts floating in my head on you. you didnt ask fhkghgjh consider this an open invitation to you or anyone else to come talk to me about carmilla

[overly-verbose]

Does the Kahoot theme apply at all to the upcoming chapter?

To some of it, certainly!

Some of it not, especially after A Point - but yeah lol, pretty accurate besides that 😂

Everyone's doing some THINKIN' there

(maybe some overthinkin' in places, heh - but honestly one really can't blame them 😂)

Poor SIkuna, man - Sweet Dreams were not made of this 😔😔😔(😂)