#style retrospective/analysis

[viveela]

I'm not rlly hating on Style or your opinion, just like cuz Stan isn't good in a relationship(seen with Stendy), and Stan and Kyle appear to have a 'good' friend relationship, so what makes you think that Stan wouldn't treat Kyle the same if they were dating?/gen

That’s a good question. Why would Stan be any different in a relationship with Kyle? How do I know it wouldn’t be a rinse and repeat? Well, looking at their dynamic in the overall show is a big part in getting the answer to why it would be different.

There’s a lot of uniqueness in their friendship especially when it comes to what Stan does. Stan used to seek out Kyle when he’s emotional, seeing him as someone to go to. He didn't and still doesn’t really do that with anyone else. He’s also readily willing to sacrifice for Kyle, doing everything he can for him whether it be him almost dying or because he felt insecure about his looks due to a tier list. He would value Kyle’s word a lot too, often going along with what he says because of this. Stan doesn’t really do any of this with anyone else, further highlighting their dynamic as something that stands out.

When you compare this to the relationship that Stan has with Wendy, it’s notable the care and effort Stan puts in isn’t nearly on the same level. (Even more when you think about the chat gpt episode). So with all this in mind, logically it would make sense that if he was placed in a relationship with Kyle, it would probably go better.

Honestly, though, despite all this I don’t think that’s exactly the case either though. I can explain why (but it's gonna be very long and a deep dive into style's dynamic):

Hot take, but I think when it comes to Stan being in a relationship, I see it always starting off rough no matter the person involved with him due to his mental health. The obvious reasoning is his depression that's untreated, but I believe there's even more to it than this.

I mentioned this briefly, but I see Stan as a very accidentally bpd (borderline personality disorder) coded character. A lot of the behaviors that he exhibits with Kyle feel reminiscent of how one would act with their favorite person. This is most seen with how he acts when he loses Kyle, he goes through an extremely rough withdrawal period. Stan also gets sensitive easily, possessive, can switch emotions quickly, behave irrationally, prone to addictive substances, makes impulsive choices, and tried to shove Kyle out of his life before he could when his depression got severe, etc. It would explain the way he acts out whenever anything concerning Kyle happens.

Then, stay with me, Kyle strikes me as very npd (narcissistic personality disorder) coded, albeit, again, by accident. Despite Stan being his most important relationship and someone he cares for, he constantly dismisses his feelings, pokes fun at him, and tends to try manipulating him into backing him up in strange circumstances even when he's not in the right. Then look at his other consistent traits like his need for attention and adoration, strong refusal to accept when he's wrong, fearing being ostracized/abandoned, thinking himself morally superior at all times, and behaves manipulative often, etc. I feel like these traits get overlooked a lot because he's framed as the good/right one by the show, but when you really think about it, it feels like a strange line up for him until that coding is considered.

I’m no professional, but I’ve looked into this a good amount and know people with these things and it feels like it aligns pretty well the more you look into it. I won’t ramble on explaining this further, but I could if asked. It’s really interesting to think about. 

So if they got together um...it's gonna be complicated, especially with an fp involved. These kind of pairs in relationships are notorious for going bad, terrible even. The start is always sunshine and rainbows though...but then it sort of explodes. But I mean, their friendship has kinda already gone bad in modern day. Their actions with each other have left wounds. They don't seem as cheery with each other as they once were nor do they even talk much, but they do still go to each other. Even when looking at early seasons, they kept going through ‘break up’ arcs due to setting each other off. Yet they come back to each other still each time.

So my point is…yes it would be different, Stan would behave different for sure. Would it be better? Not for a long time, in fact it’d be worse for a while. Here’s the thing though, I think that’s not necessarily what matters. I think what really matters is whether it stays rough or if they manage to break out of it. I think style can and will manage to get better. Especially if Kyle gets a psychology degree, awareness goes a long way.

And as I was saying, they have this inner want to go back to each other no matter what happens. They’re only truly happiest when together and we see a clear example of this with the two pc timelines. But we also see how complicated this can be for them within the same specials. This is why I like them. They’re complicated and messy, but really do care for each other a lot and at the end of the day prefer to try mending their bond then leaving it to die out. They just need more support and communication with each other.

[syrupspinner]

ive been playing a lot of collective unconscious lately

at first i was gonna make a post talking about multiple ynoproject games before i realized that i just had too much to say about this one. also, this was written before the update dropped

header made by callisto on steamgriddb

if you dont already know what yume nikki is, i consider it a must-play if you enjoy analyzing games. its effectively a rorschach test with just enough fuel to point you in an interesting direction that nobodys pieced together in quite the same way yet. the best way to play it is either for free on steam, or on ynoproject.net, which also hosts a handful of the fuckton of games that act as entries into the yumenikki-like genre. perhaps the most notable among these games, along with the classics like yume 2kki and .flow, is collective unconscious, a yume nikki fangame designed with the website's massively-multiplayer functionality in mind.

initially, i was worried that the collective nature of the game would encourage way more obtuse design. like, if youve heard of namco's tower of druaga, you might know that while english arcade-goers hated the eclectic and bizarre progression requirements, japanese arcades were abuzz with collaboration, people starting cabinet journals that list their discoveries and offer tips. i minored in sociology and therefore have the confidence to declare that this is a perfect example of collectivism vs individualism. anywho, i was worried that the post-fnaf world would encourage this kind of design on a more widespread level again, which would just mean tabbing out into a guide every few minutes. well, youve gotta for a handful of the journal covers and menu styles (the game does a great job at pacing out the rewards while still maintaining reasonable expectations), but those are optional cosmetics, and their obscurity is par for the course. the effects (scuse me, the eidola) are pretty clear-cut too, i feel like yume nikki just kinda handed em out for random stuff (which is great for what its going for!) but i really like the spectacle and circumstance around em here. like, you find the rat one in a random dumpster somewhere, but the weather one is from communing with the gods

ill note now, there isn't the stock speed vehicle like in most fangames, you can just sprint whenever. this isnt a trivial change, and the game knows it. theres one puzzle that is built around needing to sprint with another effect active. personally, i like this change, but i understand why oldheads wouldnt. dont worry, i still take my time, its just nice to speed up a bit without having to sacrifice my cool eidola

unfortunately, the multiplayer aspect wasnt too lively. there were only a handful of other dreamers, and the ones that werent just afk in the nexus were off doing their own thing god-knows-where on the map. i think i ran into one other person organically, ever, and they just ran past me. i suppose this is an inevitability when you put strangers in a sandbox together... especially since most people (hundreds compared to our twenty-odd) were in yume 2kki, the MUCH larger sandbox. anyway, im gonna stop talking about meta stuff and get into what youre all here for: dream analysis. finally, a use for that stupid psyche degree.

oh real quick, the exception to the loneliness thing is expeditions, something built-in to YNO at large. you get exp if you go to a specific location in one of the games, so you can expect a lot of people there. once you get there, youre gonna see a bunch of people standing around the entrance facing the camera afk.

anyway, when i got the soulfire eidola, the obligatory weapon effect, i got some "donut steel" vibes. its kinda funny to jump from a kitchen knife to casting Demonic Flare: Pillar of Hellfire with a floating eye face vigil and arms made of flames. but then i simply got over myself and took this as a surface-level aspect of minnatsuki's personality. you can tell a lot from a protag by how they kill npcs. for example, sabitsuki has a gun, but only uses it for intimidation, leaving the act of killing to some old pipe she found; implying that she is pragmatic, and still sees the act of murder as something dirty and ill-fitting. meanwhile, urotsuki uses a chainsaw, a weapon infamous for being impractical against humans irl but pervasive in fiction due to the sheer cool factor; this tells us she glorifies killing, seeing it as something fun and badass. minnatsuki is similar to the latter, having a fantasy spell as their method, meaning that we can see a hint of escapist desire, to be empowered beyond mundane humanity in a way that equates to the ability to harm others.

other eidola, like her animal forms being a mouse (stereotypically skittish and shy) and a jellyfish (weak and passive, confined to water), and her instument of choice being the meek and obscure kalimba, paints the picture of a girl who feels desperately powerless. she doesnt want to lash out and kill others per se, her weapon is a bit too fantastical for that. she just wants to feel strong, and whats stronger than some arbitrary mythical abstraction of an element of destruction? and dont get me started on the umbra and spectral eidola, letting her fade into nothing or just be untethered to the world. theres something she wants to escape

another thing? very rarely are you given an eidola. with soulfire and umbra you have to actively avoid people trying to stop you from leaving with it. the ones that seem more permissive have caveats: you get rodentia in a back alley from someone hidden in a dumpster, you loot lumen off a corpse, spectral comes from a literal cult ritual, and climate makes you earn the blessings of three separate... gods? before youve earned the right to it. the only real exception is kaliba, because theyre like $20 on amazon. nah but seriously, maybe it represents being a heartfelt gift from a friend? or maybe its granted more readily because its recreational, and doesnt empower minnatsuki in the way weve talked about them desiring?

by the way, i dont think minnatsuki has a gender. not like in a kris deltarune "actively canonically nonbinary" way, but as an unimportant detail left up to interpretation. maybe theyre just a cis person who doesnt care and puts no stake in it as an aspect of their identity, or maybe they just feel alienated from the social concept of gender altogether? i prefer the last one, personally, for reasons ill get to later

that brings us to the eyes. there is so much eye imagery in minnatsuki's dreams. eyes on stalks that watch you, where trying to talk to them is useless. giant murals with a six-armed diety that has an eye on its palm. women in melancholy, whos faces lack eyes. a giant flower hidden in the dark that hides a single large eye. only being able to enter the house in rainstorm city that has the eye symbol next to it. perception plays a toll on minnatsuki, and i think it goes both ways. they feel observed in a burdensome way, and they feel incapable of 'seeing' on the same level as others. or maybe they see too much? is there an event she shouldnt have seen, or does she experience sight at a level above others, recognizing things others cant? the child and spectral eidola may be a wish fulfillment of the former, letting her see the unseen in a literal way, while also letting her overcome limitations that she has seen for herself with the latter

another thing about the design i wanna mention real quick is that so much is diagonal. this is something that the rpgmaker engine isn't built to really allow. like yeah, you can, and this game goes out of its way to make it non-obtrusive by having minnatsuki slide along walls sometimes, but it's not something the foundation was set in mind for. this also brings to mind the idea that minnatsuki doesn't fit in with others. it's not a disease like in .flow, it's not something that's detrimental to her in a literal way. it just causes friction with the world around her, because she doesn't feel as if it's built for how she is. she just doesnt quite fit with the world around her sometimes, the way she moves is just a bit off, like a direction-locked movement system trying to go diagonally

theres also a lot of thematic relevance to the idea of connection and ingroup membership. the game is named from the jungian ideal, a level of understanding inherent to the human mind where process instinct and achetype (the latter basically being our classification of others into pre-conscieved schema like "the wily trickster" and "the tyrant leader"). in addition, the game has a lot of togetherness imagery, with npcs sometimes travelling in packs or existing as hordes (the only exception i can think of are npcs that give you something like an eidola or menu theme, perhaps meaning isolation holds a deep importance), and things acting as notable points of interaction when they are isolated (note that the dungeon-relevant houses in gbc world are furthest from the village, for example). there's also a lot of totem poles, acting as the dream trigger and the centre of the nexus, signalling great importance. in first nation tradition, totem poles are created to honour the lineage of a clan (using designs that are unique to that clan), and send messages such as welcoming visitors and shaming wrong-doers (both of these uses involve establishing in-group membership).

i believe these themes combined, minnatsuki's dreams letting her feel powerful and connected, paint the picture of a person that is alone and powerless. minnatsuki doesnt have friends, and im not sure if she even has bullies. i have yet to meet a chaser in this game, so maybe that means that nobody even singles her out in a negative way? stares and weird looks, maybe, but only as a collective and not as a personal connection. this is corroborated by the school location, which minnatsuki's dream constructs as a tainted and evil place, half-formed from broken blueprints. she understands it as a flawed idea done poorly; implying that her disillusion is so severe she sees her isolation as an inseparable corruption of the entire system. so, she feels powerless to stop it, as well as alone and friendless

unfortunately, the game doesnt seem to have a proper ending yet. which is a shame, because most solid ynfg theories start with you working backwards from the ending. well, i supposed "social outcast that struggles with confidence and/or self-esteem" isnt a groundbreaking theory, but im still interested to see if this supported or jossed as the game gets more updates. also, i noticed while brushing this up that at some point i switched from they to she for minnatsuki, so i guess the audience has interpreted.

look i could ramble about this wonderful game all day. dont get me started about my thoughts on the event in uncanny world, the lonely girl in snowy shoal, and the random blond girl that can just show up in random places out of nowhere and that takes you one a scooter ride once you get to know her?

im gonna be playing this for a long, long time, and im gonna love every second of it

[mercuryislove]

it truly is cuckoo bananas to me that mister thorhighheels doesn't have like. three billion subscribers for real. he makes AMAZING videos and has such good editing and script writing and composing skills!!!!

[timidteller]

I've just finished TLHOD, and I have something to say. I may lack the proper articulation (oh boy am I rusty at putting my thoughts down in coherent, easy-to-follow way), and I doubt that any part of my analysis would bear any novelty, but. Otherwise I am going to Explode, so here we go. Also I don't have any clear structure in mind, just a swell of half-formed, swarming ideas in my brain begging to be let out, but y'know, praise the creation unfinished.

First things first, the sheer brilliance of worldbuilding in this book is breathtaking, and it knocked the air out of my lungs more times than I could count. And it's not that Le Guin dedicates much time to long-winded, elaborate rants, rich and heavy with detail, explaining the world she created. No. Instead of leaning into the didactic, she lets her subtle worldbuilding make a statement. Quite a lot of statements, to be frank, and all of them relevant to what her text is saying, to its themes. Worldbuilding and storytelling go hand-in-hand (see how even what I say becomes thematically suitable), the environment which the story occupies shapes the story, as much as the story — its environment. Ursula created a perfect vessel for her 'thought experiment', truly. Gethenian culture, mentality and ways of living are defined by the planet's character, her climate and geography, which in turn are influenced by what Ursula had to say, most literraly writing her messages into the face and complexion of Winter. Beautiful stuff.

The same principal of ambiguity Le Guin applies to her storytelling, exploration of which evidently resides on the metatextual level, is prevalent within the narrative, in the concept of nusuth, the unknown and unknowing. Silence pouring in between the lines and blank spaces left in descriptions lets the reader's gaze in, taking us along on a ride of curiosity and pondering, spurring our imagination. Through the act of withholding and careful omission Le Guin encourages our participation in the act of creation. These maybe the principles that predicate Ursula's writing style on the whole, but I do find myself wondering how much of it was a conscious choice, metatextual symbolism affected by the contents of the story. Does it matter? Nusuth.

" Of all the dark, obstructive, enigmatic souls I had met in this bleak city, his was the darkest. "

From his introduction to the very end, Estraven's character is an enigma — to us, to Genly, and even the king and numerous allies he picks up in Orgoreyn couldn't crack him and his intentions, forever obscure. Whereas Genly's own path is clear-cut, defined since the very first line as the book is told by him in retrospect as a recollection of his experiences, and the ceirtanty of his outcome is then reinforced in the Foretelling scene, Estraven's fate and arc were cast in darkness, obscured by polyphonic misreading of his character and made murky by his own silence and reservation. Where the finish line lay for him was hard to predict, and it made me watch his every move with utter fascination.

" The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next. "

Uncertainty, by the teaching of Handdarata, in whose tradition Estraven for one was reared and trained, is the base of life. Estraven's character is uniquely shaped, palpable and alive, because we as readers have got to make an effort conjuring his image from the shadows of unknown surrounding him. He is intimately linked to the main principal underlying the "dark religion" of his homeland, and captures the concept of willing ignorance brilliantly. Him, his presence and his past, which we know virtually nothing of even after having spent half the book observing the story through his eyes, may be ever vague, but not his actions. Estraven's line of action was hard to foretell, as I said, but not impossible.

" 'Tell me, Genry, what is known? What is sure, predictable, inevitable — the one certain thing you know concerning your future, and mine?'

'That we shall die.' "

The hints of Estraven's eventual death are abundant, generously sprinkled all over the text. Not knowing how to deal with the Feels, I went back to obsessively reread all of the earliest chapters and, met with so many evident clues staring at me from the page, found myself wretchedly wondering just how I missed all of those. Estraven's charm and fascination as a character comes largely from the same place as the beauty of life itself, explained by Faxe: ignorance is the ground of thought, unproof — of action. And just as we are left ignorant of Estraven's past tragedy, the only thing is certain: he shall die. The fact that I was unable to predict such an outcome, although given all the tools to reach the right conclusion, makes for me in and of itself a very poignant notion. The questions of Estraven's past and future, perhaps, are not the questions the reader should seek answers to. Instead, we should meet and understand him as he is, in the present, so valued by the people of Winter.

Having said that, I don't mean to say that those questions are unanswerable. The folk tale chapters supply wonderfully rich material for satisfying our curiosity and making assumptions. Here and now I'll venture into the territory of the obvious, so please bear with me while I'm getting it out of my system. I need to.

The folk tales included in the text are an explanatory device, introducing another point of view, the cultural, mythical, primordially intuitive one. The myths helped me understand things on a different level, beyond that of a rational and straightforward narrative; they are the undercurrent of the story, and Karhidish and Orgota culture both are steeped in these waters. And lending a new outlook on the events of the book, they also bring as closer to understanding Estraven, a character not only closely linked to the philosophy of unknowing, but also to the intuitive, untaught and natural, things that reside in the shadowy recesses of psyche and speak in whispers.

" The tragedy is so old that its horror has leached away and only a certain air of faithlessness and melancholy clings to the stones and shadows of the house. "

The folk tale that caught my attention first was not even in its seperate chapter, but the one about Emran the Illfated, that Genly reminisces about on his way to Estraven's home. Surely there are tales that are much more evidently relevant to Estraven's character, and still I cannot shake the impression that this one has to do with him, too. For me it was a first hint — of what? Of bitter, aged tragedy clinging to Estraven like a shadow, elusive yet present and felt, of a past that casts his image in an inexplicable light of melancholy? Or was it the first warning sign, a premonition about his poor fate, marred by the shadow of the man who once occupied the halls of Estraven's home? I can't say with certainty, but it did feel relevant, and important. A hunch, if you will. When dealing with a character like Estraven's, I couldn't help but lean into what conclusions my intuition brought me. And even that found its reflection in the text.

" What one is after when farfetching might be described as the intuitive perception of a moral entirety; and thus it tends to find expression not in rational symbols, but in metaphor. "

The connections between ideas kept slowly building upon themselves, the intricately woven web of symbolism gradually expanding, untill it blew my mind. Just as Estraven relies for guidance on a general intuintion when he acts, following the turn of the will, so is the reader guides his understanding of him, this ambiguity impersonated, by a set of premonitions given by a number of folk tales, which are at best only distantly related to him. We are never directly told what his past was like, and are left to wonder what his future might hold. Not straight-forward answers, not, as Genly puts it, rational symbols, but metaphor. And so the reader is told to treat the interspersed myths as metaphor, which, when applied to Estraven's character, tells his story in an indirect, allegorical way. How did Arek lose his life? Did Estraven in fact attempt suicide? What ill omens holds the tale about the foretelling of death? What sacrifice did Estraven make for his brother and kemmering's sake? The answers aren't blunt, plain-spoken, but assumed, felt on a level beyond logic and reason. The text itself then even advises the reader not to take the folk tales at face value:

" 'Then you don't call him Estraven the Traitor?'

'Nor ever did.' "

The story about Estraven the Traitor does not tell the tale of Therem Harth — though at the same time, it does. It is, of course, a metaphor. As explained in the chapter On Time and Darkness, spiritually, and in The Gethenian Calendar and Clock, pragmatically, Gethenian time is bound to the present. What was and what is yet to come, forever is. The repetitiveness of Gethenian folk narratives is, in a way, an expression of such a mentality. The past of the man whose name Estraven bears foretells his future, in an obscure, intuitive, parabolic and allusive way that the myth explains present reality: saying more about the mind of the beholder than what is beheld. Estraven is a vessel of this cultural code, and he repeats the history of his namesake. He warms a man who thought himself Estraven's enemy back to life (there's a profuse emphasis on how Estraven's presence, despite all of Genly's earliest misconceptions about him, brings warmth to him; it's endearing), he's proclaimed a traitor for a righteous act, an act of patriotism where the borders cease to apply, he vows kemmering to his brother, he is eventually widowed and stranded. When he is shot, do you think he is wounded on the chest and neck?

" ... the gift is perhaps not strictly or simply one of foretelling, but is rather the power of seeing (if only for a flash) everything at once: seeing whole. "

Genly Ai's journey to understand and love Estraven begins along with their journey to and across the Ice, and lies primarily not in the ability to parse Estraven's confusing ambiguity, solve his enigmatic character, but the willingness to see him whole, acceptance of what is, and, through it, what isn't. Genly is as fallible as any human being in his desire to understand, to categorise. This intrinsic desire is largely attributed to how humanity perceives itself in relation to the world, introducing dichotomies and the concept of otherness. It is within our nature to understand ourselves and our surroundings through a system of juxtappositions, thus forming a sense of self-identity based on a dialogue between what we are and what we are not.

" Alone, I cannot change your world. But I can be changed by it. Alone, I must listen, as well as speak. <...> it is individual, it is personal, it is both more and less than political. Not We and They; not I and It; but I and Thou. "

Interestingly, I think those traits that made Genly qualified to become the Ekumen's envoy actually hindered his mission on Gethen. His inquiring, pragmatic mind proves itself a serious impediment in the world of equivocations and paradoxical integrity of the vague and ambiguous, of darkness, ice, archaic silence and perceptive uninterference. In his struggle to understand the part, Genly more often than not forsakes the whole. Across the narrative he repeatedly would try and force what he doesn't understand about the people of Gethen into his own value system, in the process mutilating the solid wholeness; wholeness of that which is not one thing nor the other in the false dichotomy, but both things at once and then something inherently more than strictly and simply their unity.

" I tried to, but my efforts took the form of self-consciously seeing a Gethenian first as a man, then as a woman, forcing him into those categories so irrelevant to his nature and so essential to my own. "

The fact that Genly sees Estraven truly, as he is, for the first time somewhere in between the break-out of the Pulefen Farm and their reaching the Gobrin Glacier is very meaningful. It is a time when Estraven exhibits most evidently both behaviours traditionally ascribed to the feminine or the masculine respectively, showcasing that he is fundamentally "a man who is a woman, a woman who is a man", though his nature transcends the bisexual binary. Genly comes to appreciate Estraven's humanity fully, but not in contrast to and inspite of his alienness — as a part of it. It is a time when both characters are heavily relient on Estraven's extraordinary natural sense of intuition, too, and that intuition being linked to the Handdara, as I explained (or tried to do so) earlier, brings me to my next point.

" So that intimacy of mind established between us was a bond, indeed, but an obscure and austere one, not so much admitting further light (as I had expected it to) as showing the extent of the darkness. "

It is no coincidence, I think, that Genly and Estraven learn to bespeak each other while at the height of sexual tension between them, two or three days after their agreement to not view the other as a viable kemmer/sex partner. This tension brings their experiences with the telepathy close in my mind to the act of Foretelling, which both attempt in an effort to learn the ways of their travel companion more intimately, more truthfully. But as it has already been established, straightforwardness of a plain-worded prognosis or prediction doesn't apply or do much good when it comes to the matters of human nature, and so Genly, seeking answers, is only met with the frustration of more questions arising about the man he is learning to trust. The lesson he at that stage of their relationship still needs to take in is that he can't understand Estraven by understanding his shadow. He can by accepting it as an integral part of him, and then forsake the need to categorise and compartmentalise altogether. Not a part, but a whole. And by extending his effort to understand the other, Genly inevitably comes to important realisations about himself, his role as the Envoy, and Gethenian culture on the whole. Genly Ai and Estraven never meet in kemmer, but they "have touched, in the only way they could touch". It is very "to be loved is to be changed" to me, for Genly is truly changed through his love towards Estraven, they both in fact are. Let's put a mental pin on it and hold this thought, I'll talk about it some more a little later.

Now, I want to diverge my attention to the next foreboding hint of Estraven's death: the omissions.

" 'I am Estraven the Traitor. I have nothing whatever to do with you.'

'At first.'

'At first,' he agreed.

'You'll be able to hide out, if there is danger at first?'

'Oh yes, certainly.' "

With all of Estraven's meticulous planning and sharp clairvoyance, born of experience and his intuitive nature, why didn't he plan his own escape from Tibe's men once back in Karhide? I theorise that all along he knew what would become of him if he were ever to show up in his country again, as well as knew that his heart belonged to this land and he wouldn't sell that love out for welfare. I can't help feeling like he never actively intended to flee back across the border into Orgoreyn and spend the rest of his days in exile, nor did he actively plan for it. Towards the end of Genly and Estraven's journey, when the relevance of the question of how he was going to secure his safety grew with the proximity of the Karhidish border, he seemed to shut his mind off from Genly. Was it because he feared his friend might find out he wasn't prepared for what comes next, because he didn't really believe he would live to see it come? I don't know, I speculate. But there was an edge of urgency in Estraven's insistence that Genly follows through with the plan he laid out, as if he was making sure Genly would stick to it when he is no longer around.

" I was born to live in exile, it appeared, and my one way home was by way of dying. "

Upon his return to Karhide, although his motherland won't take him back, Estraven does come home; back into Arek's embrace. Into the Place Inside the Blizzard, where those who take their own lives go. Although we know nothing of Arek's fate beyond the fact that he died before his time, leaving Estraven widowed, there is some ground for me to assume that he too committed suicide. The only solid explanation I could supply this reading with is with what morbid eagerness Estraven met his end, not running away from it, but rushing towards it. Was he afraid that he would be captured and then killed by the guards, or worse tortured to death, hence he took the matter into his own hands, when there still was a chance of an afterlife spent near the love of his life? For what is just one more taboo broken for a man who has already crossed all the final lines? Estraven has made it his life's business to see Genly's mission to its completion, and beyond this goal, it seems, there was little to nothing left for him in existence. Not when he looked back upon his life and saw a ruin of broken promises and failures. He also probably sees that there is no way to untangle himself from Genly and his mission, not when Genly refuses to let go of him after the months spent on the Ice, and he sacrifices himself to clear the Envoy's name of the threat of being affiliated with the infamous Traitor. But perhaps, in the end, Estraven's love for Arek outweighed whatever love he might have had for Genly, for he never truly learned to extricate the image feelings for Genly cast into the shadows of his heart from an after-image of Arek.

The way Estraven and Genly's roles start to intermingle and overlap towards the end is what I find utterly fascinating. They, of course, abstained from kemmering with each other, likely out of sense of deep mutual respect, but the implication that they came together in order to give birth to some new life still lingers heavy over the text.

" 'They are the same,' said Stokven, and laying his palm against Estraven's showed it was so: their hands were the same in length and form, finger by finger, matching like the two hands of one man laid palm to palm. "

Kemmer's intrinsic cultural value to a Gethenian arises from viewing of it both as an act of creation and, though expressed somewhat more vaguely, as resonance between two beings, an act of recognition of self through another. Genly eventually grows to understand Estraven and the Gethenians at large, but not without undergoing essential changes in his own set of values and worldview. These changes, however subtly they may have arrived, turned out to be drastic enough for his crewmates, when they come on Gethen, to fail to recognise him in the crowd, and for him in turn to slightly recoil from the Terrans and how alien they became to him in their two years long separation. Things come full circle when he sets off to the land of Kerm, probably (let me be delusional) settling down in Estraven's home hearth as a result: Estraven dies, repeating the fate of many first envoys to be sent to an alien world, but succeeds in bringing about the New Epoch of Gethen, opening it to the rest of mankind; Genly, carrying out his "fool's errand" to find solace, comes to the Estre Hearth to mourn its banished heir's death.

" I lay there beside my friend in a sort of stupor, trying to remember the words he had quoted to me once: Two are one, life and death, lying together... "

Estraven walked across the Ice together, witnessing the world creating itself, and through the labour and hardships of their journey they achieved creation of an entirely new world on Gethen. And you see, without blood the arch would fall. Estraven's sacrifice is the blood that upholds the change, keeping the door opened.

[duxbelisarius]

Back to the Dance Part Four: Naval Warfare

Thanks for reading so far! Here's the new master post if this is your first time encountering this series!

From the battles on land we now shift our focus to the war at sea; this is a topic I covered in the original series and in my Velaryon Blockade analysis, although I hope the quality of this analysis will be closer to the latter than the former. The Dance only features two theaters in which naval forces play any sort of role, the Narrow Sea and the Sunset Sea, so our focus will be on House Velaryon and the Ironborn. I'll scrutinize the the organization of their fleets and the ships they command based on how well they reflect the Medieval and Early Modern settings which inspired George. Scale is a significant problem here, but a lot of it comes down to the story having no perspective of what is achievable for these factions given the technology at their disposal.

Before analyzing the Velaryon and Ironborn fleets and their actions in the Dance, it's important that we understand how the term 'sea power' has been conceptualized in the past and whether such theories have any applicability to the setting. The Velaryon Blockade analysis was in many ways responsible for my deciding to re-analyze the Dance, as researching pre-modern naval warfare showed me that my frame of reference was completely wrong. I spent part 2 of the original series speculating about fleet sizes and critiquing the tactics of the one naval battle we get in the story, but this was a pointless exercise in retrospect. I threw out a basic definition of the term sea power without demonstrating what it entailed in terms of resources and strategy, or asking if a modern definition of sea power was even relevant to a Medieval/Early Modern context like Westeros. To remedy this error, I'll give a brief precis of the tenets of sea power and naval strategy as defined by Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914), the great American naval theorist of the 19th and 20th centuries, based on John Hattendorf's essay "Theories of Naval Power: A. T. Mahan and the Naval History of Medieval and Renaissance Europe." This will allow us to better assess the capabilities of Westerosi fleets, and it also has some relevance to the subject of Part Five in this series, dragons.

i. Sea Power, Mahan-Style

To call Alfred Thayer Mahan influential would be a gross understatement: The Influence of Sea Power upon History and its successor about the wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon cast a long shadow over the 20th century, through the writing and study of military history and the conduct of war itself. Nonetheless, Mahan's critics, supporters, and commentators have added much baggage to the man's reputation since he first published in 1890, and Hattendorf does an able job of capturing the fundamental principles. For Mahan, sea power was based on a combination of maritime economic and naval factors, the former concerning elements like production, shipping, and colonies while the latter was concerned with protecting a maritime economy using armed force at sea via naval supremacy (Hattendorf, "Theories of Naval Power," 8). Mahan identified other factors which determined the capacity to develop sea power, namely geographical position, the extent of one's territories, population size, national culture, political structures, and physical conformation factors such as natural resources and climate (Ibid.).

As regards the maritime economic and naval factors of sea power, Westeros and in particular Driftmark and the Iron Islands 'make the cut;' except for colonies, pretty much every kingdom possesses ports with shipbuilding facilities and merchant ships that contribute to the economy, while only Dorne and the North lack any real military capabilities at sea. The capacity factors for sea power are more uncertain: National culture isn't really a factor in this setting, but the Velaryons and Ironborn are both seafaring peoples with a culture and long history tied to it; political structures are a mixed bag, but the existence of the Royal Fleet in King's Landing and other major fleets that predate the conquest show that naval forces were and are taken seriously by political powers; geographical position is ostensibly favourable, since the Seven Kingdoms have ample coastline and the size of Westeros alone incentivizes the movement of people and goods by sea, the main issue being that Mahan wrote about coastal powers whereas the Iron Islands and Driftmark are islands; this in turn makes extent of territory and population size a problem, since Driftmark and the Iron Islands have small landmasses and lack the large populations of mainland ports such as Oldtown, Lannisport, and Gulltown; while physical conformation is the greatest obstacle by far, since the Iron Islands are cold and wet climate-wise with few forests, although F&B refers to Driftmark as "fertile." While some of Driftmark and the Iron Island's worldbuilding is a problem, Westeros as a whole possesses the basic building blocks of sea power from a Mahanian perspective.

The exercise of Mahanian sea power via naval strategy is where the Velaryons and Ironborn in particular are on shakier ground. For Mahan, naval strategy was dependent on a number of factors, starting with locations of strategic value: the geographical location of a place in relation to lines of communication and trade at sea, it's defensibility and potential to support offensives, and it's resources for survival (Ibid., 10). Mahan added an interrelated fourth criteria called strategic lines, meaning the ability of ships to travel from one location to another either by using an open sea route (typically the shortest) or by following friendly or neutral coastlines if the open sea was not an option (Ibid., 10-11). From here, the other factors necessary to naval strategy were a reasonably secure home frontier and a navy that could dispute the enemy's control of the sea, permitting distant operations in enemy waters and maritime expeditions to land troops in enemy territory, with the overall goal of driving away or drawing out the enemy fleet through threat of battle to destroy it and gain control of the seas (Ibid., 10-12).

Looked at purely from a Mahanian perspective, the locations of Driftmark and the Iron Islands are conducive to naval strategy, between Driftmark's location between Crackclaw Point and Massey's Hook and the Iron Islands being situated off the northern coast of the Westerlands at the mouth of Ironman's Bay. There are other worldbuilding aspects of the Velaryons which don't really make sense from the perspective of Mahanian naval strategy: According to HOTD, the Velaryons or at least Corlys Velaryon are the wealthiest house in Westeros prior to the Dance; in reality, F&B makes clear that Corlys' ninth voyage to Qarth brought back such wealth in spices and silk that their profits "briefly" eclipsed the wealth of House Lannister and Hightower. Nonetheless, F&B still claims that Driftmark and Spicetown began to draw traffic away from Duskendale and King's Landing owing to their closer proximity to the Narrow Sea. This doesn't really add up given that Driftmark is an island, meaning cargos cannot reach markets on land directly as they can from Blackwater Bay's western ports. Regarding resources for survival, we're again told that Driftmark is "fertile" but not much else, while we at least know the Iron Islands have grazing for animals like goats and fisheries to support the islands. Driftmark's home frontier is clearly the more secure, being near to Dragonstone and thus the Targaryen dragons, whereas the Iron Islands only saving grace is that neither the Riverlands nor the North possesses much strength at sea, otherwise the Westerlands and Reach possess the resources and wealth to maintain large fleets such as those of Lannisport, Oldtown, and the Arbor.

This is as far as Mahan can get us in this setting, since the instruments of naval strategy he envisioned, that is fleets and their ships, are very different from those in our setting. Mahan's Influence of Sea Power series focused on the period of 1660 through 1815, and was intended along with his other writings to encourage the development of a powerful US Navy in the 1890s and 1900s. The multi-decked, heavily armed ship-of-the-line was the foremost instrument of sea control in the times he wrote about, while the heavily armoured battleship was its successor in his own day and remained the chief instrument of sea control until after the Second World War, contrary to the popular belief that the aircraft carrier supplanted it (Tim Benbow has two great articles on this subject, though I recommend James FitzSimonds' "Aircraft Carriers versus Battleships in War and Myth" for the Journal of Military History). The warships of the Medieval and pre-1660 Early Modern Periods differed greatly in their capabilities, and this is the period we must look to for assessing the Velaryon and Ironborn fleets. The organization and composition of these fleets and Westerosi fleets in general indicates that Mahanian naval strategy via sea control is not viable in this setting, owing in no small part to how George envisions his warships.

ii. No money, no problem?

The foremost issues with the fleets of Westeros is that of the armies: No one seems to be paid outside of sellsails and private merchants. When the Small Council discusses the High Septon's attempts at abolishing brothels in King's Landing in Cersei VIII of AFFC, Cersei argues that the taxes on brothels "help pay the wages of my gold cloaks and build galleys to defend our shores," implying that the coin spent on the fleet goes towards the vessels themselves and not those serving on them. Similarly, when Theon joins his father's cause in Theon I and II of ACOK, he is advised on how to "choose" his crew with no suggestion that they will be paid either by himself or his father. The idea that the same, vague 'feudal obligations' used to mobilize Westerosi armies can be applied to large fleets in unworkable: in my discussion on twitter with Bret Devereaux and X user SzablaObr2023 (screenshots are in the Velaryon Blockade post), Szabla observed that sailors are generally long-service professionals whose skills are in-demand. Paying them for any length of service is non-negotiable, and their wages must be competitive otherwise they'll become merchantmen, pirates, or mercenaries. Since all three are viable options in Westeros, the Seven Kingdoms and it's noble houses cannot operate their fleets without paying wages to their sailors, marines, and officers.

Building and maintaining warships would certainly be costly, but paying and provisioning the crews and replacing them if need be would add a whole other level of expenses. As an example, Edward III of England assembled 371 ships between July 1338 and May 1340 for his Low Countries campaign at the start of the Hundred Years War; his wardrobe books indicate that just over £382000 was spent on 291 ships to transport his army and its supplies and 80 support vessels (Bryce Lyon, "The infrastructure and purpose of an English medieval fleet in the first phase of the Hundred Years' War," 65-66). 12263 masters, constables, sailors, pages, clerks, and carpenters were remunerated to the tune of £4797 for ferrying 2720 earls, bannerets, knights, squires, men-at-arms, and hobelars, 5550 mounted and dismounted archers, over 500 members of the king and queen's household, and 4614 horses across the channel (Ibid., 66). Adjusted for inflation, it cost £465 million or $590.5 million USD to maintain a fleet which was gathered from across the kingdom, the bulk of the ships being privately held as only 14 were the king's ships (Ibid., 71).

The Ironborn are closer to historical precedent than the other Westerosi fleets, as it appears to be superficially derived from the 'leding' systems of Scandinavia. This system existed in varying forms in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway during the Early and High Middle Ages, requiring their populations to contribute towards maintaining and manning ships, either partially for those with lower incomes or fully for the wealthy. The Ironborn's aesthetic was clearly inspired by the 'vikings' and it makes sense that a similar system for providing longships and their crews would exist on the Iron Islands. However, as with the 'feudal obligations' for land forces we discussed in Part Three, the 'leding' was primarily a defensive organization intended to ward off foreign raiders and invasion; only Denmark appears to have allowed for expeditio or offensive military operations, and that could only be invoked once every four years per the 13th century Law of Skåne (Niels Lund, "Naval Power in the Viking Age and in High Medieval Denmark," 30). Beyond this allotted time period, Danish rulers were required to persuade their magnates and lords to provide forces for any foreign operations, just like their Swedish and Norwegian neighbours (Ibid., 31-32).

iii. You're rowing the wrong way!

When it comes to the ships of the Velaryon and Ironborn fleets, there are similarly glaring problems with the oared vessels or galleys in particular. While the Velaryons also operate sailing ships, I'll discuss those types in the context of the Ironborn since they have special relevance to their worldbuilding problems. We have pretty good information regarding the composition of the Velaryon fleet: When Alyn Velaryon sets out for the Stepstones in 133 AC, we're told the Velaryon fleet assembled '60 war galleys, 30 longships, and over 100 cogs and great cogs,' or over 190 ships. We know that the Gullet cost the Velaryon fleet almost a third of it's ships, and 7 ships were lost escorting the Gay Abandon, placing the fleet at c.254 ships at least in 129 AC, the actual number probably being between 260 and 300. As we've already seen, Edward III's fleet numbered 371 ships in 1340 drawn from across England, meaning the Velaryon fleet is at least 70% that size. For further comparison, per John E. Dotson's essay "Economics and Logistics of Galley Warfare," the wars between Venice and Genoa from 1250 to 1352 saw the latter city assemble over 150 ships for it's fleet in 1295 while the former assembled over 200 ships in 1293 (Dotson, "Economics and Logistics," 223). Those fleets were exceptional, with fleet sizes in other years ranging between just over 100 to just over 50 ships, subsidized wholly or in part by government funds (Ibid). For an island as small and lacking in natural resources as Driftmark, a fleet of over 250 ships is an almost impossibly large.

From the description we have of the Battle of the Gullet, it appears that the galleys of the Velaryon fleet had the worst of the fighting, meaning its composition at the start of the Dance was probably 50/50 oared to pure sailing vessels, if not more on the side of oars. When it comes to portraying galleys in the series, George is hampered by two major misconceptions: how oarsmen are placed on the ships and how many oars are used; and the role of ramming in naval warfare. George uses the number of oars, number of decks, and number of 'banks' in a way that seems to imitate the number of decks and guns used to classify sailing warships in the Age of Sail. Thus in the prologue of ACOK, Lord Stannis's Fury is described as a 'triple-decked' war galley of 300 oars; Sam refers to the Honor of Oldtown as "Lord Hightower's four-decked banner ship" in Sam V of AFFC; Arya describes the Wind Witch as a "sleek three-banked trading galley" in Arya V of AGOT; and the Braavosi warship Grand Defiance which Alyn Velaryon sinks in the Stepstones is described as a "towering Braavosi dromond of 400 oars."

This isn't how galleys worked at all, although in fairness to George his misconceptions were widely held prior to the 20th century. As Michael Pitassi notes in Hellenistic Naval Warfare and Warships 336-30 BC, Classical sources mention no more than three classes of rower (called thranite, zygite and thalamite from top to bottom) nor do we have any iconography suggesting more than three horizontal levels or remes of rowers on classical galleys (Pitassi, Hellenistic Naval Warfare, 97). This means that designations higher than trireme referred not to the number of remes but to the number of rowers manning the oars in a vertical 'group'; thus a 'five' was a trireme with it's thranite and zygite oars double-manned (2+2+1=5). Oars are also unworkable at an operating angle of more than 30 degrees, meaning that while oars could be up to 17.4m in length as with the thranite oars on Ptolemy IV's massive 'Forty,' the height of most polyreme galleys was limited compared to pure sailing ships (Ibid., 97-101). Just to demonstrate how far off George's conceptualizations are, the Grand Defiance has the same number of oars as the 'Forty,' the largest galley known to have been built and which never put to sea, let alone saw battle. Similarly, the term 'four-decker' used for Honor of Oldtown properly applies to ships-of-the-line which have four gun decks; only three such vessels were ever built, Santísima Trinidad, Pennsylvania, and Valmy, with Santísima Trinidad being the only one to see naval combat.

The other issue with the portrayal of galleys is their use of ramming tactics, which were not used by the Byzantine dromons and Venetian galleys that George claims were his inspirations, but this appears to be an honest mistake. The naval rams in the books are described as being iron, whereas rams in classical antiquity were made from bronze; John Pryor notes in Age of the Dromon that Medieval and Early Modern galleys did carry an iron device called a spur on their prows, but this was misinterpreted by R. H. Dolley in 1948 as being a ram (Pryor, Age of the Dromon, 204). Unlike the waterline ram of Graeco-Roman galleys, which was built as an integral part of the keel and stempost with the stempost being straight and reinforced, the spur was attached by chains or coupling to the stempost which was raked upwards like that of a merchant vessel (Ibid., 136-140). Combined with the long, thin design of the spur compared to the flat, hammer-like design of the waterline ram, this indicates the spur was not designed for a head-on impact with the opponent's hull. Instead, Medieval sources indicate the spur's job was to allow the galley to ride up and over the opponent's oars, smashing them and immobilizing the enemy galley to allow it to be boarded (Ibid., 143-144).

Naval ramming was possible in the Mediterranean of antiquity because ships were constructed 'shell first,' using mortises cut into the planks or strakes of the hull to insert tenons which were held in place with wooden pegs, allowing the strakes to be held together edge-to-edge (Ibid., 145). Rams were likely designed to shatter the waterline wale (i.e. the out planks of the hull near or below the water) or cause it to flex markedly, dislodging frames and tearing loose the mortise and tenon joints, causing the planks to split down the middle and resulting in the hull rapidly flooding (Ibid., 145-146). The preference for lighter softwoods in Mediterranean shipbuilding also facilitated this; by contrast, shell-first construction in Northern Europe was based on the 'clinker' tradition where the strakes overlapped and were held together by iron nails, the preference being for hard woods and oak in particular. Julius Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War reports that the Gallic ships built in this way were impervious to ramming, and the shift from mortise and tenon to 'frame first' or Carvel construction in the Medieval Mediterranean likewise cancelled out the effectiveness of naval ramming, which seems to have disappeared in Late Antiquity (Ibid., 146-147).

Byzantine dromons and Venetian galleys were much closer to the galleys of 100-200 oars or less mentioned in the books. At the height of its usage during the Macedonian Dynasty of the Byzantine Empire, the dromon was a bireme galley with one reme of oars above deck and one below, with each side having 25 single-manned oars (Pryor, "Byzantium and the Sea," 85-86). The dromon had an overall length of 31.25 meters with a deadweight tonnage of 25 tonnes; 2 triangular Lateen sails assisted with propulsion while the crew numbered 150 men, of which 108 were the ousia or rowing crew (Ibid.). A siphon or greek fire projector was mounted below the forecastle in the dromon's prow, while castles were also located around the foremast for missile troops to man during battle (Pryor, Age of the Dromon, 203-205). The Byzantines also operated a smaller vessel with a single mast called the galea, from which the term 'galley' is derived and whose design would inspire the later galleys of the Venetians and other powers in the western Mediterranean (Pryor, "Byzantium," 86).

The galleys that eventually replaced the dromon differed little from it in size, the key difference being how they were rowed: the oarsmen were now located entirely above deck, and were seated side-by-side on angled benches with each rowing their own oar in a style that became known as alla senzile (Pryor, Age of the Dromon, 430). This style co-existed with another that eventually replaced it, a scaloccio, which used a single heavy oar instead of individual, lighter oars and could be rowed by as many as 5-7 oarsmen at one oar (Mauro Bondioli et al, "Oar Mechanics and Oar Power in Medieval and later Galleys," 191-192). George's multi-decked galleys would face the severe challenge of supplying air to the rowers and keeping them cool owing to the heat, CO2, and sweat produced by the oarsmen at work, a problem which Medieval galleys solved by placing their oarsmen above deck (Pryor, Age of the Dromon, 435, 443). This also freed up space in the hold of the galley to carry more personnel and supplies, and to accommodate ballast to stabilize the galley in rough conditions. The greater power of the new rowing methods allowed for larger galleys to be built, with three-sailed, trireme alla senzile galleys being used as merchant vessels for voyages between Venice and Flanders in the 15th century (Ulrich Alertz, "The Naval Architecture and Oar Systems of Medieval and later Galleys," 158-159).

iv. Like the Vikings, except they suck

We'll discuss galley performance more when we come back to the question of sea control, but I want to cover the Ironborn and their ships first, as well as the importance of sailing ships. George seems to believe that the Ironborn longships are based off the iconic 'Viking' longships of Early Medieval Europe, but the descriptions we get do not support this. The one good description we have of a 'longship' comes from Theon II of ACOK, in which a new longship is described as 100 feet long with a single mast and 50 oars, with deck enough for 100 men and an arrowhead-like iron ram on it's prow. This ship cannot be one of the galleys of the Iron Fleet, as Theon mentions it is not so large as Balon's Great Kraken or Victarion's Iron Victory. It's length and rigging is almost identical to that of Skuldelev 2, the great longship discovered by archaeologists in the Roskilde Fjord of Denmark in 1962, which had a single mast and a length of 98.5 feet (Owain Roberts, "Descendants of Viking Boats," 15). On the other hand, the deck space of Skuldelev 2 seems to have been limited to elevated decks on the bow and stern (Ibid., 19), and since 'Viking' ships never carried rams, the 'longships' of the Ironborn come off more as small, monoreme war galleys. This also appears to be how Ironborn 'longships' looked in the past, since Dalton Greyjoy was able to sink 25% of the ships in Lannisport harbour and was later prepared to meet Alyn Velaryon's fleet in battle, indicating his ships also had rams.

The problem with this 'longship' design is that it is very poorly suited to the tasks the Ironborn carry out during the Dance. I already alluded to the vulnerability of the Ironborn to the autumn and winter weather in Part Two of this series, but I must stress that the distances the Ironborn cover in the conditions they should be facing are simply unfeasible. For Dalton's surprise raid on Lannisport to work, he would need to avoid the coast and travel on the open sea; using Atlas of Ice and Fire's map scale, the distance as the crow flies from Pyke to Lannisport via Feastfires looks to be 650 miles (1000km), and avoiding the coast would probably push this to 700-800 miles (c.1127-1287 km). By comparison, Norse sailings to North America via the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap traveled along the coast whenever they could, sticking to Greenland's shore at the end and following Baffin Island down to Newfoundland, a journey of about 700 to 800 nautical miles or c.1300-1500km. Dalton's journey would be shorter than traveling from Norway to North America by a few hundred kilometers, but he'd be making it at the wrong time of year (autumn-winter, not summer), and in the wrong kind of boat. 'Longships,' like galleys, were best suited to shallow waters while sailing vessels called knarrs were used for travelling the open seas and voyaging from Europe to North America. Funnily enough, this illustrates Mahan's point about strategic lines quite well: the fastest and safest route to strike at Lannisport would be the coastal one through the Straits of Fair Isle, but since this would make surprise impossible Dalton would have to take a longer route via the open sea and risk losing most if not all his ships to the adverse weather.

This brings us to sailing ships, which have a serious advantage over galleys thanks to their freeboard, i.e. the distance between the waterline and the gunwale of a boat. As Timothy Runyan notes in his essay "The Cog as Warship," the Bremen Cog was 4.2 meters high from keel to gunwale amidships compared to 1.9 meters for the Gokstad Ship, a longship some 20 feet shorter than Skuldelev 2 (Runyan, "Cog as Warship," 50). Their actual freeboard would have been shorter, but the Cog would still have been much better served than the 'longship.' When it comes to the sailing ships used during the Dance, we know that the Velaryon fleet had cogs and 'great cogs' under it's command, and Alyssa Farman's ship Sun Chaser was a four-masted carrack built in 54-55 AC, although no carracks are mentioned in the context of the Dance. Carracks were the largest ships of the Late Medieval and Early Modern periods, first appearing in the mid-to-late 14th century and eventually giving rise to 'Great Ships' like Sweden's Vasa and England's Mary Rose. They were generally three or four-masted ships, with wide and deep hulls in keeping with F&B's description of Sun Chaser, and tended towards a minimum of 300-400 tonne capacity (Ian Friel, "The Carrack: The advent of the Fully-Rigged Ship," 85). Cogs were flat-bottomed one-masted ships and were much smaller than carracks in general; my guess is that the 'great cog' is reminiscent of the Genoese cocha, a Mediterranean derivative of the cog which later gave rise to the carrack, and probably has two masts instead of one.

The problem that sailing ships represent for the Ironborn is that galleys have a very poor 'match up' against them historically. In his essay "The New Atlantic: Naval Warfare in the Sixteenth Century," N.A.M. Rodgers notes that because boarding actions were the dominant form of naval combat in the Late Medieval Period, "the size of sailing ships gave them an overwhelming advantage over galleys, with their exposed crews and low freeboard" (Rodgers, "New Atlantic," 244). An excellent example of this mismatch was the Danish siege of Stockholm from 1389 to 1394, when Queen Margaret's armies and longships surrounded and blockaded the city but the cogs of the Victual Brothers ran the blockade and kept the defenders supplied (Alex Querengasser, "Klaus Störtebeker and the Victual Brotherhood," 13). These asymmetries meant that galleys and ships were used for different purposes, the former being employed in coastal operations, raids, and landings where their shallow draught gave them an advantage, whereas the latter were used to cross open seas and carry large quantities of troops and supplies, as well as for engaging other ships (Ibid.). This situation only really changed at the beginning of the 16th century, when cannons capable of sinking ships were developed and galleys mounted them on their bows, enabling them to target ships close to their waterlines (Rodgers, "New Atlantic," 244-245). The Ironborn need proper sailing ships to conduct raids over long distances and in rough seas as they do in the Dance, but aside from prizes and fishing vessels they rely entirely on 'longships' whose designs are unsuited for this.

v. Whither the Velaryon blockade

Now that we have an idea of the vessels available to our fleets during the Dance, we can return to Mahanian naval strategy and the question of sea control. Sea control doesn't really factor into the Ironborn due to their warfare relying mostly on raiding, but it absolutely does for the Velaryon fleet. Although I've covered the Velaryon Blockade already, I want to return to the subject by answering two questions: Is it possible for the Velaryons to 'control' entry and egress through the Gullet; and is Otto's plan to enlist the Triarchy to break the blockade workable? If we allow that Mahanian sea power can be applied conceptually to the setting, does this mean that Mahanian naval strategy via sea control is realizable with the tools available to the setting?

F&B takes it for granted that the Gullet blockade is possible: the Velaryon fleet gives Rhaenyra "superiority at sea" while Daemon asserts that only through winning over the Ironborn could Aegon mount a challenge at sea; the Black Council decides that the Velaryon fleet will "close off the Gullet" blocking all traffic "entering or leaving Blackwater Bay," and the Sea Snake's ships set sail after Rhaenyra's coronation "to close the Gullet, choking off trade to and from King's Landing." 'Command of the sea' was a recognized concept in classical antiquity, with N.A.M Rodger noting that something like 'sea control' was a feature of the wars between Venice and Genoa in the High and Late Middle Ages and in the Baltic naval wars of the mid-16th century, but this was unusual in Europe prior to the 17th century (Rodgers, "New Atlantic," 237). John Dotson provides details on the wars of Venice and Genoa in "The Economics and Logistics of Galley Warfare," accepting that galley fleets could not drive an enemy from the seas or blockade ports in the style of the Royal Navy during the 18th and 19th centuries, while dominating one or more entrepôts like the Black Sea, the eastern Mediterranean shore, or Alexandria was beyond the economic and naval capabilities of any Medieval sea power (Dotson, "Economics and Logistics," 218).

Nonetheless, the wars of Venice and Genoa showed that some kind of control could be exerted thanks to the combination of the Mediterranean's geography, winds, and currents, which created focal points around islands and coastal routes where shipping could be intercepted from bases, with the 'closing of the sea' in autumn placing even greater importance on these routes at specific times (Ibid.). Dotson calculates a 150km radius for galleys operating at their extreme operational endurance, allowing for 4-7 days at sea with 2-3 being the case for a round trip (Ibid.). Dotson's findings are of no use to the Velaryons however, thanks to the geography and weather of the Gullet in 129-130 AC: using Atlas' map scale, the Gullet looks to be c.70-80 miles (c.113-129km) wide from High Tide to Sharp Point, making it just under Dotson's radius, but since galleys would usually put in to shore at night, the range of Velaryon galleys drops to less than 30km with nothing but open waters between High Tide and Sharp Point; Dotson is also analyzing Venetian and Genoese operations that would have taken place in-season, whereas the Velaryons are mounting a blockade in autumn when the conditions would probably be too dangerous for galleys to operate; Dotson is also talking about coastal shipping routes, while 'closing off the Gullet' would be unnecessary if all that was needed was to intercept coastal shipping around Driftmark and Sharp Point, which means the galleys and 'longships' of the Velaryons can be of no assistance for intercepting ships sailing the open waters of the Gullet itself.

As I concluded in the Velaryon Blockade analysis, the cogs and great cogs of the Velaryon fleet are the only vessels they have that could even attempt a blockade of the Gullet, meaning they can only employ half or less of their fleet for the blockade. We also don't know of any specific shipping lanes within the Gullet itself, meaning that even if the cogs and great cogs could remain 'on station' in an area like the warships of the 18th century, the absence of any lanes to intercept combined with the inclement weather would further rule out the blockade. If the battle line of Stannis' fleet at the Battle of the Blackwater is any indication, sailing ships also seem to be used more as transports and supply ships than as actual warships. For the Velaryons to do anything, we'd no longer be talking about a blockade but 'sea-keeping missions' as they were called in the context of the Hundred Years War, which involved trying to apprehend enemy ships by patrolling with ships of one's own (Timothy Runyan, "Naval Power during the Hundred Years War," 66). Even then, some of the over 100 cogs and great cogs would need to remain in port to act as replacements for damaged or lost ships and to allow ships the opportunity to drydock, which would give blockade runners ample opportunities to escape the Bay thanks to the transient nature of the Velaryons mission. The seasons create further problems, since shorter days will make visual navigation difficult while overcast skies will render navigating using the moon and stars almost impossible. This is why Planetos needs the compass for navigation, as China had by the 11th century and Europe and the Middle East by the 12th-13th centuries; the word itself appears just once in the prologue of ACOK, but it must be present if George expects anyone to be travelling by sea at all in the winter.

It simply isn't possible for the Velaryons to blockade the Gullet, let alone exercise Mahanian sea control over it's waters, and Otto's plan involving the Triarchy fairs no better. The distance from Tyrosh to High Tide looks to be over 750 miles (c.1200km) as the crow flies, and since F&B's description of the Battle of the Gullet suggests most if not all the Triarchy warships were galleys, this plan runs into the same distance problems as the Velaryons. Their reliance on galleys rules out traveling the open sea, which means the Triarchy fleet would have to take a coastal route either north towards Old Andalos and then crossing over to Crackclaw Point, or west to Cape Wrath before coasting via Shipbreaker Bay or more likely Tarth, entering the Gullet from the south via Massey's Hook. Once again the setting inadvertently supplies us another example of the importance of strategic lines: since the shortest, most direct route via the open sea is unavailable, the Triarchy must rely on coastal routes that would bring them into contact with those sympathetic to Rhaenyra's cause, either the Pentoshi or Houses Tarth, Massey, and Bar-Emmon, spoiling their surprise attack even without the heroics of Aegon III and Stormcloud. Of course those routes would probably also rule out running into the Gay Abandon, so the entire Narrow Sea plot of the Dance ends up null and void, let alone the Velaryon blockade.

vi. Conclusion

I'll once again save the bulk of the 'fix-its' for the sections on strategy in the Dance (just two more parts to go, I promise!). Nevertheless, reining in the scale would go a long ways towards making things more believable; it's too late to pay the sailors as it is for the soldiers, but keeping the ships believable would be the best route to take. If anything, relying on fantasy polyremes was unnecessary if George wanted to have fantastic ships in his setting: the Venetians operated an alla senzile quinquereme or 'five' in the mid-16th century (i.e. five men to a bench rowing five oars), and Henry V's warship Grace Dieu was as large as HMS Victory despite being built in the 15th century! Otherwise I suggest re-reading the Velaryon Blockade post for my 'fix-its' there, as they'll be relevant later on in this series; with that being said, thank you once again for reading and I'll see you next time for 'Dragon Warfare'!

[not-terezi-pyrope]

There's a recurring issue that keeps happening in fantasy discourse that keeps happening to creators where including monsters in your worldbuilding gets distorted into a sort of fascist intent as people get gradually lore desensitised to said monsters and they become more and more a "mundane" or "natural" part of the fictional world in people's minds.

Here's how it works, from my observation.

The monster, as a concept, is an ancient mainstay of all fiction as it is a mainstay of the human psyche, representing primal fears and the abstract (unrealistic!) horror of the other. It has carved out an important role in media as an element that is broadly understood to be a thrilling antagonistic force that is removed from anything in the real world.

An author wants to write a story about heroes who regularly encounter and fight multiple monsters, because this is mechanically important for the type of media or narrative (maybe a video game world needs many creatures to fight, the high fantasy protagonist needs a "monster force" to threaten the world, the ghost hunter type hero needs various ghosts and ghouls to fight off each week.

The story gets released into the world and people become used to the monsters existing, to the extent that they begin to lose the narrative lens of the monster in their minds. They begin to treat the otherworldly monster as an element of the world, and then the idea of the monster as a purely antagonistic or evil force begins to sound absurd, as it is for any type of being in the real world, especially if the monster is intelligent. People get interested in subverting these elements of the monster, and derivative works including the type of monster begin to explore stories in which the monsters are actually neutral/good, but misunderstood, actors, due to their monstrous appearance or similar.

This interpretation of the monster as another kind of person, or benign animal, becomes widespread, with the monster solidified as a concrete part of the world in a way that is divorced from their conception as an unrealistic, otherworldly threat.

People look back at the original source work, and go, "hey! Why was the author so intent on displaying this group of creature as inherently gruesome and evil? This sounds like fascism!" And it makes sense why they think that, except that they have forgotten that said author was writing about a type of monster instead of an analogy for a human group or race. As such, with enough time and reinterpretation, people can find grounds to accuse authors of fascism for the crime of merely writing about monsters, which kind of sucks as a thing to do, in my opinion.

I think the Tolkien/D&D style Orc is the prototypical example of this, although there are many others, really it happens to some extent with any sort of "monster species" where there is more than one horror creature in your world. This is not to say that you can't interrogate issues with how certain monsters are portrayed - why evil orcs are portrayed with darker skin colours sometimes, for example, or... Pretty much everything going on with a lot of goblin-esque creatures, but I think it's important to remember that this is a different sort of criticism from, for instance, "Tolkien and the D&D people believe that certain types of being are inherent evil and need to be wiped out".

Because we can't forget that they were not writing a real type of person or creature, but a type of monster, and monsters are understood to be an unrealistic, otherworldly narrative contrivance. You have problems making them fit into the real world with a just mindset because they do not exist in the real world, they exist as monsters, and were written with this understanding that there is a common understanding of what that means and how it should be understood.

I feel like people need to keep that in mind in their analysis, else pretty much any creative can be smeared retrospectively for writing about monsters whatsoever. I think monsters are pretty cool in fiction and important to the human psyche, and think that they have a crucial place, as long as we remember the lens through which they should be considered in their conception, which is inherently outside of material reality.

That's also not to say we shouldn't subvert and interrogate and adapt monster tropes either, but doing so doesn't mean throwing out the original ideas as having gone rotten.

[stillness-in-green]

Hi, are you still working on the AFO Retcon Essay? You mentioned a few times you are not sure if Horikoshi retconned AFO's original plan or if he always intended for AFO to take over Tomura, but made AFO act somewhat contradictory from the start regardless. Did this ever make you feel like there are too many possibilities in regards to Horikoshi's original intentions to take into account and could therefore make it harder to write the essay?

Hi there, and thanks for your interest! I did actually talk about this a good while back, towards the beginning of the year; you can find that post here. It says pretty much exactly what you did and goes a bit further--that I'm so distrustful of Horikoshi as a writer that I have no idea anymore what might have been retconned and what was his intention from the start, and further, that even if something was his intention from the start, I don't trust him to have laid the groundwork for those intentions with honesty or good faith.

Instead of the AFO Retcon Essay, what I've been poking at instead is some sort of massive retrospective of all the problems with BNHA's endgame. That's going to require a reread on my part, and some decisions about formatting--namely, do I want to do the reread privately, on my end, and then write the Mega Chonky Essay and post it when I'm finished, or do I do it publically, read-along liveblog style, documenting the problems as I go?

At the moment, I'm leaning towards the second. I have some tentative ideas about keeping a running list of (to use a witticism from the Twitter fen) Themes & Such, ideas and ideology the series sets out and how well it lives up to those ideas--or how it fails to. I'd also like to keep track of things like character arcs and foreshadowing, documenting things with an eye to where those arcs go, what the foreshadowing amounts to, whether the series keeps its implicit promises, and so on. I suspect it would wind up looking something like a cross between the heteromorphobia essay and my chapter thoughts posts.

On the other hand, a format that deals with one group of problems at a time could feel more focused, discussing all the evidence at once of any particular topic rather than having to keep many (many) plates spinning across a retrospective of the entire series. I also already have the broad outline for that, since it was my plan last time I was seriously poking at the idea. It would probably still end up being posted in multiple parts; the parts would just cover different groups of characters or aspects of the series per installment, rather than e.g. each installment covering an arc and everything in it.

I suppose there's nothing stopping me from doing first the former and then the latter? I'm planning to reread the whole series anyway, after all.

In any case, I like that kind of installment-based format not least because I'm also in the early stages of getting a Patreon set up aimed at supporting my meatier chunks of fandom writing and potentially giving people some ability to point me at this or that topic. A multi-part analysis of BNHA--something in a similar style as my documentations of heteromorphobia, the problems with the anime's adaptation of My Villain Academia, or even, to reach back to an older fandom, my episode-by-episode write-ups on Human Debris in Gundam IBO!--strikes me as a good way to get that off the ground.

I've got one or two things to finish getting off my plate before then, and I'd want to wait until the last volume of BNHA officially comes out (12/4) just in case of any thirteenth-hour surprises, but keep an eye out! I'm not inclined to paywall my writing, but maybe an early access sort of model? I'm also going to want to find a blogging site that's more aimed at hosting long-form writing than Tumblr is. We'll see!

In the meantime, to give everyone an example of the kinds of things I'm looking at tracking through the story, one of the things that most vexes me about the ending is how it not only fails to resolve its contradictory ideas of saving and heroism, it feels to even recognize those contradictions. Here's a chunk of my notes on that topic from the outline of The Mega Chonky Essay in its current form.

• Nana says saving isn’t just saving someone’s life, but also making sure they’re smiling in the end. But that means that saving their life is the prerequisite. If Eri died smiling, her smiling would not prevent everyone from recognizing her death as a tragedy.         • “Perfect Victory” is defined as both “winning” and “saving” flawlessly—that is, every fight is won, and no one is left unsaved. This is introduced first as an ideal for Deku and Bakugou to strive for, with both of them needing to work on different parts of the equation, and continues to be an aspect of Bakugou’s characterization, as it comes up again in Joint Training. But it doesn’t stay locked to them, as All Might says directly to the American pilots that they can’t be allowed to die because the kids are aiming for a Perfect Victory.         • A pivotal question for Toga and the larger series is, given that Heroes are supposed to save people, how do Heroes justify killing Villains? Do they not think of Villains as people?         With all three of these ideas in place, the challenge becomes how to navigate the endgame to a place where all three concepts are honored/resolved. The ending must demonstrate that Heroes do see Villains as people while also being able to achieve their desired Perfect Victory—they must win against the Villains while also saving them, where “saving” means that the Villains’ lives are saved and they’re smiling in the end.         Or must they? After the first war, the series introduces another concept of how to save people, albeit one that runs directly counter to Nana's definition of a saved person as someone both alive and smiling: Gran Torino says that killing someone can be a way of saving them. He and Nana can’t both be right, so to confront and resolve that discrepancy, the story will have to acknowledge one of them as wrong. (Spoilers: It does not.)         In the end, Toga dies, and Deku kills Shigaraki, and if both of them die smiling, well, you sure as hell can’t say the same for e.g. Gigantomachia or All For One or Dabi or any of the thousands of unhappy Villains who wound up in prison (many of them likely bound for the gallows!), alive but decidedly not smiling. Heck, All Might, in trying to console Deku, moves the goalposts even more by suggesting that all Deku needed to do to get the credit on “saving” Shigaraki was make sure his inner child wasn’t crying anymore. Not only does he not have to live, he doesn’t even have to be smiling! An absence of obvious grief is enough!         Thus, you wind up in this place where you have an unsolvable problem: somewhere along the line, either someone failed or someone was wrong, and the story, in being unwilling to confront that disharmony, winds up undermining other established themes and goals. Did the kids “lose” because they failed to meet the criteria for the Perfect Victory? Was the definition of “saving” wrong? Was Gran Torino wrong or was Nana? Was the definition of Perfect Victory wrong? Was Toga correct in her fear that Heroes don’t see Villains as people?         No matter what the answer is, it runs afoul of some previously established Theme in the story. Even if the idea is that the ending is downbeat and bittersweet because the kids failed (and the story is using All Might’s goalpost-moving to resolve the dissonant definitions of “saving” in Gran Torino’s favor), that still means yet another theme is violated: that of BNHA being a story of how Deku+his classmates become “the greatest Heroes.” After all, the story also defined “greatest Heroes” for us! The greatest Heroes are those who can achieve Perfect Victory.

Whatever form this essay winds up taking, these are the sorts of concepts I want to discuss in terms of how the series sets them up compared to how it winds up following them through.

Thanks for the ask!

[strandedcrow]

hi friend you're a video essay enjoyer i believe do you have any recommendations people and or videos? need somethin interestin to listen to while tryin to draw

HELLO FRIEND ok so skipping over the obvious popular ones (victorious, roblox oof, defunctland in general, my house.wad, etc) some of my favorites are:

The Downward Spiral of Watching Velma: one that i only found recently, a lengthy deep dive into the shitty hbo velma show so that u don’t have to watch it

How SunnyV2 Ruined Video Essays: also one i found recently, a shorter one which provides a meta analysis of video essays on youtube, also got me back into video essays tbh

How Sponegbob Explored Existential Nihilism: VERY short one (under 10 minutes) but actually neat

I Found Every OSHA Violation in FNAF Security Breach: there are so fucking many

The Biggest Cheater in Clone Hero History Was Finally Caught: honestly it’s been a rocky past couple weeks for the CH community bc just recently Multiple big name players have admitted to cheating so like calling this person the biggest cheater might not even be accurate anymore but like. still a rlly good watch

Bojack Horseman Full Series Retrospective: if you want lengthy here it is (almost 6 hour analysis of every season)

Disney Trash Can Tier List: not rlly a video essay at all however it’s such a random tier list to make and it’s delightful

Dream (Market) - The Infiltration of the Dark Net: literally an insane fucking story one of my absolute favorite barely sociable videos bc the whole story is just so fucking wild

The Dark Side of the Silk Road: one of my other favorites from barely sociable

Explaining: This House Has People In It: one of my favorite youtubers providing a complete analysis of my favorite arg/analog horror project HIGHLY recommend this one btw

DHMIS Explained: another from the same youtuber, but this time with defunctland style production (before defunctland started having these vibes. honestly maybe a little the other way around given this is 6 years old)

Fear of the Deep: nexpo is the third of my horror/unsettling internet history trifecta that i watch in this list (barely sociable, night mind, and nexpo my beloveds), this one was made just before oceangate, but talks about a few different projects that focus on. ig a fear of the deep really

[harveyguilleniconodelamoda]

Welcome to Harvey Guillén: Icono de la Moda!

A blog for celebrating the style journey and impact of queer, Latino, plus size actor, producer, and fashion icon Harvey Guillén.

To explore what's already here, click or tap on the tags on this post! For some explanation on the purpose of the blog and how things are tagged, check under the cut!

About This Blog

Since the earliest days of his career, Harvey Guillén has been exceeding expectations and breaking down barriers in every avenue of the entertainment industry he has explored. After almost exclusively styling himself for years--in photoshoots, on screen, and even on the red carpet--Harvey blew up on the fashion scene in 2023 via multiple red carpet collaborations with luxury designer Christian Siriano.

From his iconic 20s-inspired suit for the Oscars to his statement-making Met Gala look both honoring and critiquing the legacy of designer Karl Lagerfeld, Harvey's red carpet looks have been covered by People, Vogue, Entertainment Weekly, and more. Since then he has continued to stand out, speak out, and create space for more diversity and inclusivity in the arts.

Here you'll find posts analyzing the costumes of Harvey's most iconic characters such as Guillermo de la Cruz from What We Do In The Shadows, Cousin Blobbin from The Thundermans, Eli from Companion, and others as his filmography continues to grow! You'll also find:

Retrospectives on Harvey's most iconic fashion moments.

Examinations of recurring motifs in Harvey's personal style.

Deep dives on Harvey's staple pieces, accessories, footwear, outerwear, and seasonal style.

Editorials and comparative analysis of specific looks.

Identification of specific pieces including price and sizing information.

Affordable (under $100) alternatives for those wishing to emulate Harvey's style.

Is there a costume, outfit, or staple piece from Harvey's style you'd like to know more about? Feel free to send a request via the ask box!

Tagging Method

All posts are tagged with Harvey's name, "fashion," "plus size fashion," a basic category for the occasion/purpose of the featured look(s), and the names of any key designers or brands mentioned within the post. Beyond that, I try to be consistent about tagging key types of clothing items (i.e. "jackets" or "shoes") and any other relevant topics (i.e. season, event, holiday, show/film, etc.). A categorized list of all current tags is below.

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[kozachenko]

A Retrospective Analysis on Touhou 17

So it's finally here, and even though I know for a fact that I am not going to be able to get the Keiki drawing done by this time (I'm having trouble with the eyes, for some reason it's always that aspect of drawing her that's difficult for me, I can never really capture the essence of her character no matter what I do) I still wanted to post something about this game today since it's the game's 5 year anniversary. I have a lot of thoughts on it, and my views on the game have changed quite a lot throughout my time being a Touhou fan. This is going to be very long so I'll put the rest under the keep reading tag.

So for some background, Touhou 17 was the first Touhou game I ever played, I got into the series during 2021 shortly after my Hunter X Hunter phase ended (since the manga was still on hiatus at the time) and I remember playing 17 during that time as well. I'm pretty sure that the reason I played it was because of that one nitirushh animation where Keiki disses the animal spirits so hard that they die (still my favourite fan-depection of Keiki tbh, it's just really funny to me) and that set my interest in the game itself. It was also the newest Touhou game at the time and none of the other games interested me as much. Then I actually played the game and at the time I found it insanely fun. I remember feeling so excited playing the stage 1 of the game and thinking to myself "Holy shit I'm actually playing a Touhou game" and having a lot of fun with it. Even though the game itself is the easiest out of all the Touhou games, it was still a challenge for me at the time since I had never played a bullet Hell before. For this reason, the game as a whole struck a chord with me. Funny Touhou animation aside, I don't know if it was because I had only recently gotten out of my Hunter X Hunter phase after finishing the whole 2011 version of the anime and had caught up with the manga during 2020, but maybe some aspect of 17 kinda scratched a similar itch in my brain and it really stuck with me IDK.

As for what I think of the game itself now.... gameplay wise, it could be better, it's still fun but there was so much potential for the game to tell it's story through the medium it chose to present itself in. Why did we not have more similarities between Eika and Keiki's danmaku styles to show their connection? Why did we not have a moment similar to what happened in TD during the final boss fight where Mayumi comes back in to take over during the fight in a last ditch effort to protect Keiki? It's the final boss so go all out! The animal spirits could also be balanced a lot better as well, especially with Youmu becoming incredibly overpowered with the wolf spirit, and visibility is a bit of a problem in this game. Some of the tracks could use a bit more polish too, I commend ZUN for being experimental with his newer tracks but the stage 3 theme and staff roll theme are both kinda eh, and while the boss themes have a lot of good punch to them and can be really good, it still feels like some extra spice could've been added to really make them stand out (which is why I love the theme remixes Saki and Yachie got in Touhou 19). I also wish the Animal Realm got explained better within the lore of the series, mainly because it raises a lot of questions about how Hell was founded and it kinda needlessly complicates things. I would've rather it be introduced as it's own region of Hell rather than being a separate thing entirely that just so happens to be located next to it. I also wish that we got more stuff with this setting that explains how it connects to the rest of the worldbuilding a lot more, I definitely feel like actually having it explained more in the mangas would definitely help to make it feel less convuluted, but unfortunately the closest we're getting are cameos in Lotus Eaters and very brief mentions of the games themselves. I still like the game though, as I've mentioned I do love a lot of the music and I love all the characters we got introduced to in this game. I've been appreciating Eika a lot more recently, I do like Urumi but she's neat and I like her design a lot, Kutaka is a fucking shithead who kept FUCKING UP MY 1CCS IN BOTH 17 AND 17.5 THE FUCKING BITCH- who is very funny and I love seeing more insight into Hell's management. Yachie's great and I find her relationships to the other characters in this game very interesting, Mayumi is awesome and the more I think about her the more I like her, and I love how Saki contrasts Yachie in her strategies. That being she has no strategy and just goes "fuck it, we ball" with no hesitation lmao.

I'm pretty sure you all noticed the absence of one character in particular, that being Keiki. I've made it no secret on this blog that Keiki is my favourite Touhou character, and a lot of that is because of her role as an antagonist in Touhou 17. I always found it really fascinating how ZUN created her as an allegory for AI (I don't know if Apollo just randomly blessed him with the gift of prophecy because MAN does that statement hit harder now more than ever) and the fact that she's portrayed as a very morally grey character in the game itself and Reimu's reaction to her, stating that she can see an "evil aura" in Keiki. I've already talked a lot about Keiki on this blog and I don't know what there is that I haven't said, but I wanted to start off with her because it ties into a big part of why I still find this game's story interesting. That main aspect being it's parallels to Gensokyo and Touhou's overarching them of humanity's relationship with nature.

So to step back from 17 for a second, I feel like we should look at what the Youkai represent in the story. Youkai in Touhou are created from humanity's fear, and back before science was able to properly explain anything, this fear very often manifested into a fear of nature. Natural disasters would end up wiping out villages, dangerous animals would often lurk in forests and end up killing anyone who would go in them. Overall nature isn't very kind to humanity, and humanity knows this. This is why humanity would often try and find reasons as to why these things would happen. This brings us back to the Youkai in Touhou who are the embodiment of the unexplainable. In manga like Forbidden Scrollery and Lotus Eaters, we often see how the humans in the human village are at the mercy of these Youkai, the only reason that they aren't being slaughtered is entirely for their own benefit so they don't run out of resources. The only hope the humans in the village really have is to turn to the gods, another product of man's desire to explain the unexplainable, to potentially save them. The survival of the people in the human village will always be in the hands of beings beyond their comprehension. No matter what, humanity will always be at the mercy of nature.

Coming back to Touhou 17, we can see that the relationship between the human and beast spirits isn't exactly.... pleasant. The beast spirits all see the human spirits as slaves essentially and they gain strength from their torment. The only way that the human spirits are even able to stand a chance against them is to submit themselves to a god and pray for their protection. And even then there's no way in Hell that they're getting out of this situation since the god they're praying to views them the same way as the animal spirits (whether they are aware of it or not).

So if you haven't noticed by my word choice, there are quite a lot of similarities here with the dynamics of the Animal realm and Gensokyo. That's not even mentioning the fact that in both places we have at least 3 different parties fighting over control of the humans, whether it be animal spirits or Youkai. Hell, this race for power in Gensokyo is a plot point in Lotus Eaters and Forbidden Scrollery, so it's not like this is a new concept for the series to explore either.

There's also something to be said about how Keiki and the technology she brings with her are seen as a threat to the order of the animal realm. Throughout human history, humanity's creativity and ingenuity have always been major factors in our survival as a species. We created tools to use the nature around us and make it work to our advantage, we created weapons to more efficiently hunt and find food to survive, and we created art and literature to document our histories and make sense of the world. Going back to 17, Keiki is the epitome of humanity's evolution and creativity and she is the one who responded to the human's cries for salvation. Another thing to think about is that in Gensokyo, the best the villagers are going to get in terms of technology are old computers that are very limited in their use, and even then barely anyone will have any idea how to use them. The reason that Gensokyo even exists in the first place is to preserve the Youkai and Gods that would become forgotten by humanity's technological advancement. In both of these places, technological advancement is seen as a threat to the natural order and must be suppressed at all costs.

Of course in Gensokyo it isn't as extreme as the animal realm. The Kappa, the Tengu, and even gods like Kanako are all quite technologically advanced and/or are introducing new technologies to Gensokyo (those are just the ones I could list off the top of my head, but please tell me if there are more that I forgot). But here's the interesting thing, notice how none of the examples I listed there were humans. The only way for the humans of Gensokyo to have these technologies introduced to them is if the powers that be, nature, let them have those technologies. Going back to the animal realm, even after Keiki is defeated we can see that the beast spirits are still using the technologies she (most likely) introduced, i.e. that one chapter in Lotus Eaters where one of the otter spirits introduced what is essentially a GameBoy to the Kappa and Nitori saying stuff like, "oh yeah the animal realm is actually pretty technologically advanced nowadays" as well as that one story in CoLA where Ran and Yachie deal with the AI Sumireko made. Once again, the only times when the use of technology goes unprotested in this series are when it's kept out of the hands of humans and back into the hands of nature. Even when humans are able to fight back and create their own technology, nature will always win in the end, no matter how hard humanity tries to defeat it. The way Touhou 17 ends is indicative of this, with Keiki being defeated and the Animal Realm returning to it's status quo.

However, Gensokyo has never had this kind of issue before.... or so it may seem. Yes there's never been any technological uprising by the human villagers and with the way things are there most likely never will be, but when you take away the potential for technological advancement from humans then the next best thing would be magic. And when humans in Gensokyo use magic to find a way to gain power and be more than just fodder for the Youkai, they end up being punished. This is most prevalent in Forbidden Scrollery when Reimu kills the fortune teller. I don't think I need to go too in depth about this moment since I already did so in my Forbidden Scrollery review but this once again shows a parallel between Gensokyo and the Animal Realm.

So what am I trying to say with all of this? I've been bringing up a lot of the similarities that these two places have but similarities can just be chalked up to coincidences that don't mean anything. What I've been trying to say with this whole thing is that the Animal Realm represents an extreme version of Gensokyo, one where every ugly aspect of it is dialed up to 11 and the law of the strong eating the weak rules all. It's a Gensokyo without a spell card system to level the playing field. I do want to say that I don't believe Gensokyo is a grimdark setting, sure some parts about it are bleaker than others, but there are also many good aspects of Gensokyo that I feel like I should bring up. It's a safe-haven for the forgotten, and if we continue viewing the Youkai and Gods from the lens of both of them being allegories for nature, Gensokyo is a place where nature can fluorish outside of humanity's hands. Unlike the Animal Realm, Gensokyo was never established with the intentions of harming people. Nature is both beautiful and terrifying, and where Gensokyo displays the beautiful sides of nature, the Animal Realm displays all the ugly sides of it. Even then, there is some overlap between the two, Gensokyo does have a nastier side to it and the Animal Realm is a place where nature can exist unrestrained by humanity (even if the place is still a shitshow overall). Now that I think about it, this sort of duality between the two realms is kinda fitting for Touhou, and I can't stress enough that when I say that Gensokyo and the Animal Realm have some parallels I am not trying to say Gensokyo is a grimdark dystopia. Hell even going back into the Lotus Eaters manga, the otter spirit that escaped from the Animal Realm even said that Gensokyo was a better place to live.

So yeah, I don't really have any good way to end this aside from saying happy 5 year anniversary Touhou 17. You are a flawed game but god do I still love you. Oh yeah, and if there's anything I missed or any mistakes I made, please correct me/let me know.

[dr-demi-bee]

2024 Writing Retrospect

Thanks for the tags @marlowethebard and @galeorderbride 🥰

What's been your biggest learning point this past year?

I think the thing I've really learned the most about this year is collaborative creative writing. Getting into narrative style role-playing has informed it a lot - I've definitely learned a lot about how to 'yes, and' and to get into a character's skin. Not only that, but this year I found a community of other writers! And now I'm learning how to be brave and share my work more, how to discuss content without fear of judgement, and to enjoy the process more.

And I think the number one thing I really learned this year has been that there are people that like my work! Genuinely! They like it! They like my characters and my style and- 🥹🥹

How has your writing developed this past year?

This year was a bit of a wild ride. While I got back into writing in general in late '22, started writing fanfic in late '23, and started *posting* fic in even later '23 - I feel like I didn't hit my stride until this year. And that's not to say I wasn't writing well before now - I just feel like I've really started to find my voice (again) and get out of the academic headspace and into the creative.

Good writing habits?

I do it? Haha!

I think, honestly, other than letting myself write what I want and just generally spending time writing - my best good writing habit this year has been allowing myself to be motivated by the enthusiasm of my friends.

Bad writing habits?

Word vomit. Sometimes my stream of consciousness writing is Too Much™️ and I spend way too much time in my own head trying to edit it into something 'perfect'. I'm exceptionally bad at killing darlings.

Favorite thing you wrote?

I know I haven't updated it recently (and I am this close to changing that, I swear) - but my favorite piece is my long fic. It's self-indulgent, but it feels so good to write. And I genuinely enjoy re-reading it every time someone comments on it

Service and Worship are not Love (e.g. the Primalweave story)

Favorite reads?

I've read so many exceptional things this year! It's so hard to pick! But here's a few that stand out:

to admit everything by meownotgood

Axioms of heavenly bodies; an intimate analysis of systems unknown and the pleasures contained therein by @12thhouse-sun

Deeply and Immovably So by @dutifullylazybread

if music by the food of love, play on series by @pouroverpaloma

literally any of the poetry written by @waterdeep-weavemoss

every brain chemistry altering galemance piece by @senualothbrok

Biggest win?

Finishing the October Blurbapalooza! How did I do that! Ah! That was a lot of fun. 🥰

(and secretly, giving myself permission to skip the last day felt really fucking good hehe)

Goals for the new year?

I'd love to finish my long fic. Or at least post a dozen of the WIPs I've got staring at me from the editing pile. (whoops)

What are you excited for in the new year?

To keep going. 🥰 To be in a space where I am comfortable, welcome, and loved - and where I am encouraged to be creative and can support others doing so!

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Open boops for anyone interested in doing this yourself. Thanks for a good 2024 lovelies 💙🥰 Here's to a safe and comfy 2025.

[germanpostwarmodern]

Her life and art commands respect and recognition: despite personal blows of fate, the hardships of war and a life often lived on the breadline, Louise Rösler developed her work with incredible perseverance. Over 30 years after her last retrospective at Haus am Waldsee Berlin, the Museum Giersch up until 25 August shows a comprehensive exhibition with works from all of Rösler’s work phases, a long overdue appreciation of an often marginalized women artist.

Throughout much of her career Rösler dealt with the fascination of the metropolis, its dynamism and how its face changes with the passing seasons. But her first steps as an artist were deeply influenced by French art: after studying at the private Hans Hofmann school in Munich and the Vereinigte Staatsschulen in Berlin Rösler and her future husband Walter Kröhnke went to France, a sojourn during which she soaked in the art of Matisse, Cézanne, Derain and Seurat. Upon returning to Berlin in 1933 she again engaged with the metropolis just like she had done in Paris and found her very own style of portraying it: based on impressions collected during long walks around the city Rösler created emphatic cityscapes that were neither impressionist nor expressionist but uniquely individual spatial compositions. In the postwar years Rösler condensed these spatial constellations into fully abstract compositions that dealt with the light and pace of the city, first in collages of found materials and later in increasingly rhythmic paintings.

Her stringent artistic development and difficult personal life also come to life in the catalogue published alongside the exhibition by Wienand Verlag which features a broad chronological selection of artworks and four insightful essays. Of them Laura Domes’ stands out based on the emphatic analysis of Rösler’s transitory time in Königstein im Taunus, a time characterized by economic hardships but also great creativity and the artist’s leap towards abstraction.

With both exhibition and catalogue the Museum Giersch provides a great opportunity to discover a little-known yet exceptional protagonist of modern art in Germany whose art can easily compete with her male contemporaries.

[tenaciouschronicler]

April 14, 2024 2009

I stumbled upon a funny text adventure style webcomic called Homestuck yesterday. To my surprise, I'm not the only one! @homestuckreplay seems to have also found it and blogged their reaction to the first pages, I was hesitant but decided to do the same.

I'm not sure how long the comic will go or if it will even keep my attention for long but it will be fun to do regardless!

(edited 4.14.25: added neocities link)

(edit 2.6.25)

Hello, I'm tenaciousChronicler (or Sam [follows from @sprinksmixcupcake]) and I'm joining @homestuckreplay in re-reading Homestuck. I'm using the Time Machine Mod so my posts wont always match the days update pages.

This blog deals with unreality. It is NOT currently tagged as such so please be warned. (thank you @homestuckagain for making me aware with your tags that this might be relevant)

I mulled over making this side blog yesterday but am only starting it today. I believe I started reading this comic in 2011 or 2012. I'm not sure how often I will post this style of reaction but regardless re-reading the comic is gonna be interesting.

Check out the web taglist!

This blog will contain liveblogs of 'current' Homestuck content over the next seven (!!) years, these will be tagged 'hsrp liveblog'. I'll also reblog fanart, with anything beyond 'current' content tagged 'hsrp spoilers' for an "authentic" experience.

Backup site found at:

Mobile Tags: (updated 2.12.25)

homestuck - every single post minus personal ones

homestuck replay - all content relevant to the experience

hsrp liveblog - all of my liveblog posts

other players - borrowed from @homestuckredo for any content/reactions reblogged from others that are joining in the endeavor

hsrp lore - posts that are/or have lore relevant content

hsrp retrospection - for any deepdives I happen to do about content

misattributed quotes - analysis of misattributed quotes

dictionary time - breaking down the words of homestuck

hsrp theories - my posts that have theories about future content

tc answers - my asks tag

[briarborealisart]

I legitimately could write so many essays or video essays on the dream SMP if I actually sat down to do it

- retrospective: dream smp's place in internet culture; how a very unique set of circumstances led to the explosion in popularity

- retrospective: rise and fall of the dream smp; something about how scheduling issues and various other things caused the actual story of the server to fall apart in many ways

- legitimately probably dozens of character studies and story analyses i could do especially about tommy dream and wilbur who are my favorites and have such a unique narrative dynamic

- i have this one fucking batshit theory/take from ages ago (just after tommy died in prison) in which pandora's vault is representative of the actual moral center of the dsmp and tbh i think i cooked with that one

- the impact of fanon on canon and my own personal experiences with Canon As A Suggestion

- the unique space the medium occupies: cc! and c! blurring the lines between actor and character, the weird half-lore segments, the fact that it started out as a bit and became something So Serious, the way that live-streamed minecraft roleplay actually works as a storytelling medium

- legitimately i could probably write really good literature reviews on certain subsections of fanfiction especially sbi tropes.

- subpoint: how the dream smp's specific boundaries and culture made gen fic far more popular than ship fic and how that is so nice to see as an aroace person specifically but also just in general

- just a personal essay on how important and impactful the dream smp was to me As A Person and how it's still a piece of media that is really really important to me, and how i balance that with the feeling of cringe and also The Controversy

- an exploration of fandom space and culture through the dsmp and my experiences in it autoethnography style

like i have So much to say all the time this doesn't even really cover it. exile's impact on the story. when the lore became actually serious. wilbur's entire character arc. tommy as an unwillingly willing protagonist. the discs. THE DISCS. the way that i would rewrite the story if it were me telling it. the way that since it was roleplay it was essentially a first draft and that should be taken into account when analyzing it. Literally Any Fandom Discourse. Literally Any Personal Essay. Literally Any Character Analysis. if i had the time and energy to actually do research for these things and put them together i would be so banger for real

[now-notyet]

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the symbolism in Did I Make You Up?

YEAH!!! SOMEONE TOOK MY BAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i will say this is an amalgamation of 6 pieces i've written for various things about this music video ( i love this) so sorry if it flips styles or is COMPLETELY unfocused but to be honest if i sat down to write this i would just be vomiting all this information in an unfocused way anyway. this might be the best you get..... (analysis under the cut)

DIMYU is a retrospective, we need to talk about the music, the video and the lyrics and how they work together to create a narrative. We'll start with the music, as it's a shorter section, and there's less to talk about than the others one of the other things i've noticed and that i personally believe to be the truth is that DIMYU is a slightly continuation of summerland, what with all the references to the summer becoming fall and such ("when you think you really know someone // when you're blinded by the summer sun" and "you were summer // i was fall" , as well as the fact that josh is wearing a school uniform now which can indicate a passage of time i think this can also be backed by the use of orange silhouettes particularly in circles which can convey the sun (i'll touch on orange lighting itself as a motif)

In the first verse, there's the piano overlaid with with a drum roll which is the main use of percussion in the song. The piano is soft and is consistent - plays through the entire song. The drum roll is indicative of something militaristic, regimented - the whole concept of marching to the beat of the drum is to be doing what is expected. So overlayed with a soft piano is the expectations of what a relationship is meant to be - this could potentially symbolise the relationship between the two of them.

Additionally, this could also be Josh's influence trying to control, or change the melody of his ex. She is the piano line, he is the drum. The drum drops out at the end of verse, into a different rhythm.

Although subtle (and yes, I know I am spending way too much time thinking of this), that represents it all breaking apart, coming apart at the seams. This links to the theory of a retrospective because it is all happening in one, not in isolation. This shows us that he's thinking of the story in the past, not the story as it is occurring.

The chorus subverts the expectations set up by the intro and the first verse, most notably with a throughline of melody that subtly undercuts the rest of the song. It's very easy to lose it if you don't pay attention to it. As stated earlier, this melody is very much emblematic of a fleeting memory, floating in and out of the consciousness.

Furthermore, the second "verse" (glorified bridge) lets the piano shine. This could connote freedom for his ex, being able to act as her own person, away from the expectation of what Josh wants her to be. This on it's own does not support the retrospective theory, but then we return to the chorus and think about the composition of the song as a whole, the repetitiveness of the structure really symbolises a circular pattern of thought, getting stuck in the loop, being stuck *in the memory*.

When we come to look at the lyrics, it is so important to note the use of pre-chorus/hook - especially the creative use of it in Did I Make You Up.

It is a single line; "Lost in a daydream."

This line appears 3 times in the song, most often before a chorus. Most notably, it is the first line of the song, prefacing everything. 

This line could imply that everything the listener is about to hear is part of a daydream, not real, or fictionalised - supporting the theory that DIMYU is a retrospective. Alternatively, it can be said that this line is Josh being lost in the daydream that the relationship was. The use of hook supports the theory that DIMYU is written as a retrospective. By framing the narrative with a line, Josh sets the expectation of the song and the narrative: nothing is real here - it’s made up.

Furthermore, probably the most damning part of the lyrics that leads one to believe in the retrospective theory is the use of past-tense. “Was I wrong?” “I was summer, you were Fall, maybe I was naive.

This section is without a doubt self-explanatory in it’s relation to the argument.

Additionally, we must talk about the pre-chorus itself;

“Hit me all of a sudden, Shawty, you saw it coming. I was summer, you were fall, Maybe I was naive. Lost in a day dream.”

With the use of past tense; bolded for convenience, when we focus on the actual meaning of the section, it undoubtably screams some form of retrospective, particularly the line of having seen it coming.

If the story were to have been in the present - with a form of direct address, it would make more sense for the line to have taken the form of “Shawty, you’ve seen it coming.”

(i hate myself for the fact i’ve had to write the word shawty in a semi-serious academic context).

Finally, the chorus gives some of the most damning evidence of a retrospective;

“When you think you really know someone, And you’re blinded by the summer sun, Fall in love with who they won’t become, Was it ever real? Did I make you up?”

“Blinded by the summer sun”, a reference to summerland (which is the assumed song the relationship in question started in), implies the passage of time between then and now. Additionally, the summer sun being blinding and having gone away also implies a change of time.

A change in time (and season) continues to support the idea that Did I Make You Up happens in retrospect - a passage of time connotes the idea that relationship has already ended and we are now viewing a deeper inner contemplation of the relationship itself. Finally, the music video;

So I'm reaaaaaaaaallly into colour theory, but specifically only the colour theory used by half alive in the universe it all takes place in. What we know for sure is that; Orange - Daydream/The In-Between/Unreal Natural Lighting/white - Reality As showcased in the still feel. music videos, there are so many other unassigned states of conciousness, with different colours, but we know for sure that these two mean those things. The bit I'm so focused on is the orange because it is so PRESENT in the Did I Make You Up? music video, from the beginning.

It is undeniable to say that the music video for Did I Make You Up is one of the band’s most intense and meaning filled videos to date, and it would be no less true to say that interpreting the video itself is a challenge without the aid of established concepts.

One such established concept is the prominent use of warm orange lighting and motif to convey a sort of dreamlike environment - or, in the case of Now Not Yet, being stuck in the inbetween. Orange has been previously established to be symbolic of this concept, with references as far back as aawake at night and still feel, with the shipping crate lighting, and the vast majority of atmosphere in still feel. until the ending breaks and we’re back to the naturalistic lighting of real life.

It is apparent in videos like What’s Wrong (which I would love to talk about in future too because I love the way the orange and blue meld together into one and it's this dreamlike state of being lost) and Runaway in more naturalistic contexts, but with the same meaning: All of these examples show the same thing: not being real/not really being sure if it is real – and it is no less true for DIMYU. One of the things we begin with is Josh’s head being surrounded by a beam of orange light. Coupled with the line, “Lost in a daydream”, this could symbolise Josh’s head literally being lost somewhere not real - in the in between - being lost in a day dream. During the music video, Josh returns to the orange circle, before the first chorus, and after it.

This could symbolise Josh returning to the daydream, thinking it over, (in retrospect, as is the thesis) and it “playing [his] mind on repeat” (Beige), implying that it happened previously.

Finally, one of the most striking parts of the music video is the second “verse” (wasted potential - i think dodie should have been on this instead of Nobody). It is accompanied by a side pan of what can be assumed to be the relationship, all enshrouded by an orange light, implying that the progress of the relationship is playing back out in his mind, which supports the idea that it has already happened.

anway about the dancing

so like, probably intentionally, in addition to the main feature of the uniformed dancing, we've got other things going on (namely the cowboy) that don't take the focus of the scene. this is intentional, probably, because this is a set and if they wanted it to be focused only on the dancers then it would have been focused on the dancers everyone else is going on about their normal business, brett and j are recieving gifts of books, there's a guy just sweeping about, there's a cowboy, later on there's 2 people carrying a cooler etc. etc (basically what im saying is that life as usual is going on around them) but the focus on the camera is still locked firmly onto the dancers and away from whatever else is happening. now i consider, due to the fact that no-one else but josh is paying attention to the dancers, that the dancers are actually thoughts, and i solidify this via the idea that at the beginning just after when the floodlights come on and reveal the scene, they seem to dance erratically and somewhat in line we can also associate these dancer to josh as thoughts seeing as they follow the same clothing scheme (blue school-uniform) anyway, that's just what i think the uniform means now i can talk about other stuff so obviously there's this circular movement with the heads rolling. i dont have a gif for that yet but it's at about i think 34 seconds into the MV i personally think on no basis whatsoever that this is akin to thoughts going round and round in circles due to the very circular and repetitive movement, like how you get stuck thinking about this (ahah this is funny because i've only been able to think about this mv for the past 2 weeks) now onto the main part, josh fights his way through the "thoughts" and then they suddenly come through into a sort of marching formation

they've gone from out of control to very controlled, but they're only controlled for so long before falling apart now aside from the fact that this can be interpreted to be losing and fighting for control of your own mind (especially in a place of emotional turmoil) i find the precise movements of the company (as i will now refer to the dance troupe) to be akin to a weapon of some kind, especially with how josh moves his hands fist, open, slides something into position, aiming towards something, and then the travelling of the "bullet" (pointed finger) towards a "target" (the circle) i think there's a specific meaning to this, being that alongside this movement he sings "hit me all a sudden // shorty you saw it coming". this might be reaching towards a conclusion but i believe that this weapon movement is a bit like the physicality of how sudden the breakup hits finn francis but how carefully planned and meticulated it was for his ex

essentially, yeah. maybe i will revisit this later and reorganise my thoughts, as well as finish adding the rest but this is. this is most of them thanks for the ask!!

[anawkwardlady]

May I ask a veeeeeeeery naive question about Umineko? (So naive that I wouldn't dare ask it publicly)

I know that episodes 1 and 2 are basically the messages in the bottles by Sayo, and the other episodes are basically forgeries by Tohya. OK.

But I read analysis that talk about "a very different style of writing between" between these episodes, and... what are these differences? I must have missed them when I was reading Umineko, there are absolutly not obvious to me at all.

OK, more precision about my last ask: I don't fully get the meta-twist of Umineko. Why is there only two messages from Sayo? What do these messages tell about her (that the forgeries don't tell, or tell differently)? Why isn't it more messages from Sayo, are these two messages the only things that Sayo had to tell to the world? What did she exactly want to tell? (What Tohya wanted to tell through his forgeries seems to be clearer to me)

Okay so I need to preface this with the fact that I definitely don't have the level of most people developed essays and thoughts about Umineko (bc first of all I need a re-read like yesterday)

The reason given for the two message was that they're the only ones that were found, it's said she wrote a lot more.

To really simplify and I apologize if I miss some stuff, I think when people mention these difference of writing it can refer to different perceptions and portrayal of characters + different tones of the games. Episode 2 might be the first actual game taking place during Beatrice and Battler and it might play into it but most and I'd say that that the tone was darker and a bit more bleak. You could say that Beatrice was crueler, especially to Shannon and Kanon in the early days and truly personified Sayo's torment, self hatred and to some extent power fantasy. Beginning Episode 3 ( and that continues post Episode 3 deception reveal) she is a bit more faceted, softer, has the silly sides. Some could also say that the ushiromiya siblings are at their most antagonistic at the beginning and being shown in a more "sympathetic" light through the forgeries.

The first games are a scream for help to be seen, to have Sayo's heart understood as who she is, what she is about to do and why and retrospectively hints a lot at everything we will discover after (Shannon and Kanon being "furniture" and therefore impossible to love relating to Sayo's view of her body and circumstances of birth, their respective role and relationships relating to her view of love and internalized gender roles (which is also seen through the adults), the hints to Battler's promise etc). As said earlier, only 2 bottles were found but she supposedly wrote all the possible way it could have ended and all are basically, a confession. So what is so different to the forgeries, well the forgeries were not replicas of the formula, they're also a response to this call, perpetuating the legend of witch and following Sayo's will since it's too late to save her too.