#the vast Inside

[freewriterevangeline]

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Chapter 63 up!

~

"I'm seven months along today, actually," she said. "As accurately as we can be, at least. He'll be due October 27. What a delightful month—a golden month, here in Muldavia. I hope it's a good omen. It is such an exciting thing—not to know how he'll turn out. All this potential, thrumming inside of me."

"You're talking as if this baby were a—loaf of bread. Not a living human being." He wondered, fleetingly, if he'd be able to get to her. She was worse than Gray, but… in the scheme of things, was anyone irredeemable?

Or at least…be able to influence her… manipulate her as she's trying to manipulate me… I do… 'dazzle her', as Kell said. Revulsion hit him at this, and he hid from the implications.

And yet… I need to get all the intel I can. And she's the one that knows everything…. Really, according to the mission, I should be in her presence as much as possible….

It'll be unpleasant, but at least I know she won't be able to turn me.

Probably more pleasant than being tortured, he admitted.

[joneevarts]

Sky grampa and vertigo edgelord <3

[artgletic]

case study of the self-identified god

[w1ng-gl0ss]

coughs up a lung hi can you take any vooraines (??( pannel and make it cronus and eridan in my au theyre brothers and theyre Happy And I just want eridan fo be HAPPY

LET THEM BE HAPPY

Sorry this took so long! Apparently the sketchy panels are a lot harder to clean up than the solid ones QmQ

[mildcicada]

My friend's gift to me for my birthday!!! (⁠≧⁠▽⁠≦⁠)

[i-am-not-a-who-i-am-a-what]

so about the header that proceeded today's statement:

Viability as agent: Low

Viability as subject: None

Viability as catalyst: Medium

i didn't know what to think of this part of the entry at first, but the longer the statement went on... was the institute in this universe trying to manufacture avatars?

the dice can't do anything without someone to use them, they can't be an "agent" by themselves, but might be capable of manipulation, so in that aspect their viability is "low."

the dice could be a "subject" in the sense that they could use further studying, but the statement itself was a very thorough investigation of their workings, so in that aspect their viability is "none."

the dice seem to influence their holder to roll them, or at least find more victims to roll them, and could therefore be described as a "catalyst" for someone's becoming. but, as seen in the statement, their owner can give the dice to someone else (albeit not without consequences), so in that aspect their viability is only "medium."

so what about the line following all this, what does "Recommend referral to Catalytics for Enrichment applicability assessment" mean? if we go by this interpretation, i'd say it could mean the institute wanted to find a way to make the dice even more potent as an artifact, maybe even remove that pesky ability for their owner to reject them.

imho all of this this brings a whole new level of context to the events of episode seven, of unknown violent agents going after an influx of objects that seemed straight out of artifact storage. was that the nature of the titular "magnus protocol" first mentioned in episode four, the one that involved the starkwall group? containing or destroying potential artifacts before the institute could get their hands on them?

it also makes their "gifted kids program," and sam's link to it as one of the kids being studied, all the more horrifying to think about. was it not just avatars in general they were after, but child avatars specifically? no wonder gertrude got so defensive over the possibility of sam and celia dragging gerry back into the institute's business last episode, we all picked up on her clearly knowing more than she's letting on but now we might know the shape of that information a bit better.

and one final bit of food for thought... this statement had a lot of familiar themes, didn't it? free will or the illusion of it, gambling and not-so-random chance, the statement giver being done in by one final hit from what feels like a bit of an addition... all hallmarks of a certain mother of puppets. doesn't it seem fitting that "chester" would use this kind of statement to warn sam about what harm pursuing the magnus institute could bring to him, considering the one his voice might draw from? and doesn't it seem so painfully ironic that his warning seems to have only driven sam further into that web?

[drinker-of-paint]

Babys first go at an Alice design!!

I'm slightly worried I might have made her outfit a bit. Much? But on the other hand I think her fashion sense cannot be silenced

I'm just trying to get the ones out that I had immediately somewhat clear in my head before I get influenced by everyone elses designs,

I think I'll do Gwen next, no promises on how soon that'll be though bc it's me 😬

[extra-stout-stories]

Feedist Yearning Is

Wishing the cute fat people picking up drive-thru and eating in their cars would decide to eat in the restaurant instead so you can admire them.

[kitcat-void]

poem I wrote in my notes app about being a divine/deity/angelkin

[copepods]

i think if i could do absolutely anything and not be harmed at all i would go find a really big tornado just an absolutely fuckhuge one and get sucked into that big guy. just rotate around at ridiculously high speeds for a while. it would fix me

[naradreamt]

Miscellaneous photos of the hide MUSEUM taken in 2000

[robo-dino-puppy]

horizontober 2023 | 13: lounge

[rapidhighway]

i feel like my choices on that poll are very claustrophobia coded

[lungfuls]

When the LA-based interior design influencer who is constantly purchasing $$$$ furniture and reselling it bc she was in the mood for something else informs her viewers that unfortunately, you CANNOT create a worthwhile space with cheap new furniture and you MUST wait until you find the perfect vintage piece secondhand and there is NO valid excuse for not doing so. -_- k.

[hylaversicolor]

wait just kidding i have more to say

mgs is difficult to analyze. it’s extremely hard to watch a mgs cutscene and understand what kind of character emotions you’re supposed to be feeling from it in the moment. the story isn’t exactly character driven in that the characters’ relationships are mainly established offscreen or through exposition or both, often using shorthand (we care about the boss because she has a maternal vibe which kojima exploits for an emotional payoff; the boss isn’t a strongly written character, her relationship with snake isn’t organic, she’s a walking talking thesis statement on wars and borders). her and snake’s relationship in the game consists of her explaining her motivations to him and him reacting to it, then she defects and he asks her “why did you defect?” about a thousand times until she explains herself one more time and then he kills her. there’s nothing like “remember that time we worked together in xyz place,” they have no inside jokes, no flashbacks of them training or working together, it’s all meant to be filled in by the player and perhaps their own memories of their mother or some other mentor figure they have in their life. the same applies to ocelot. he always, always wears gloves (classic trope for concealment/hiding something) and he NEVER explains himself in his own words or if he does he uses half truths or ambiguous wording, or is obscured from the camera or the viewer in some way (x).

we’re not meant to understand ocelot’s intentions based on just what appears in the games themselves. and at the same time it feels like…cheating, almost? to take words from kojima that appear outside the games (even if they did come from kojima himself) and say “this one interpretation of the words is definitively what was going on”

because metal gear is not really about what kojima says outside of the games. mgs is not meant to be clear or unambiguous. the stuff on screen is just one half of the story; by design, half (more than half?) of the story comes from the player: from from the player’s decisions and preconceived notions and lived experiences. metal gear is about the player’s interpretation of intentionally vague storytelling. THAT is why kojima relies on movie tropes for shorthand. he makes games that can easily be interpreted in a variety of ways and that is the Point!! by the nature of the very thing there isn’t a clear answer as to whether or not ocelot’s love for bb is romantic or not. but regardless of whether or not it is, ocelot STILL did everything he did for bb and died for him in the end. there is no easy answer and there is no correct interpretation. thanks

[girlfox]

okay, so .. remind me to touch back on the old, old lore i've written for ahri in the past because i so want to revamp it for the way my portrayal has evolved over the years & the new canon lore she's been given over the years. i used to write short stories on her origins, before ahri ever had any━━and one included her feasting of an entire coastal village in one single slaughter, giving in to her gnawing hunger after denying herself for months in fear of becoming the monster she was slowly evolving into. ( surprise, rejecting your true nature will never end well ). & how she promptly entered a comatose state of fullness and shame, her body buckling under the weight of either, as her mind grappled with what she'd done and her body brimmed with a torrent of new memories and sensations not her own, experiencing each emotion anew like a whirlwind. it took such a toll on her that ahri careened into the forest and took respite inside of a shallow grotto, where she would promptly fall into an endless slumber, her dreams the memories of the hundreds she'd consumed. lasting many years, this grotto would eventually grow, and grow, and grow, nature over-taking it and consuming her, until it became what is known as the garden of forgetting━━a green sanctuary home to flowers that devour memories, nourishing themselves with them. although none knew of the conditions of her years long rest, it could easily be theorized that ahri's over-flowing power nurtured the roots of the garden, gifting them their abilities. only over a century later would ahri arise as a sleeping beauty, resolved to regain control of herself and master the power that had been swirling inside of her all this time, feeding her soul's fox bead.