#voice from beyond

[medjay-anon]

[fusionquest.. with the silly snek girll..]

[i dont know what possessed me with this one guys. im very proud of it though!] [usually i dont ask but i would appreciate reblogs and. also hearing your thoughts :))] [yippee!!!]

[the-renegade-child-of-time]

“Ya know, you should tone down the longing looks to prepubescent over there…it’s kinda cringe.” - laura to emily.

@deitysmuses

Emily had to bite back the long-suffering sigh that threatened to escape. She honestly didn’t know what Laura’s problem with James was but her problem with him seems to have turned into a problem now with her. When she couldn’t find one to torment then it was to the other she went.

So much for a quiet afternoon reading.

“You ever think that perhaps an opinion isn’t needed unless it’s directly asked for?” She queried, eyes never even leaving the page of Pride and Prejudice “And I don’t look at anyone longingly. We’re friends.”

[ninitenebrae]

Halone? Halone!

Soon... In Tomorrow, ah it's past midnight...today! But first ..

Good night.

[higgsbison]

CHAPTER 2 OF ""CHESS"" IS HERE

40% LESS CHESS, 10% MORE FISH

[notachair]

thinking about how Sypha described Alucard like a "cold spot in a room" in S2, and Alucard showing up at the end of Nocturne S1 looking all desaturated, though yes ethereal, but also in a sense cold and ghostly, all buttoned up at the front. Sypha saying his sadness being like an icy well. And here he'd been so soft and happy by the S4 finale 😭 I'm nervous- but excited. And I fear the new groupie got some walls to tear down

[fanofspooky]

Lucio Fulci’s horror movies

[cybertron-smash-or-pass]

TF One D-16

[grenade-maid]

Signalis, Authority, and History

There's a level of nuance to how Signalis presents the violence of the authority of the nation that doesn't call attention to itself but which I really appreciate. Which is basically just, all the officers and cops and spies who make life hell for people like the Gestalt mine workers, Ariane, and the Itou family--we get little glimpses into who they are in Adler and Kolibri's diaries and despite the propaganda and the authoritative tone they take in official communications, for the most part they don't seem to actually be particularly invested in the hard line of national ideology. They uphold it though, viciously, both because things were worse under imperial rule (we don't get hard details on what it was like but it's mentioned in passing enough that I believe it) and because they're scared that if they don't they will be decommissioned and easily replaced. They are literally stamped out of a production line after all. There's a subtext of well, if I don't do it my replacement will anyway and I'm not trying to die so what's the point of rocking the boat?

I think Kolibri stands out to me most clearly on this because in communications from the block warden regarding Ariane there is emphasis put on how it is unacceptable and suspicious that she should be so interested and invested in art and literature that does not serve the purpose of furthering the goals of the nation. But we know that Kolibris themselves are bookworms, Adlers are fiends for stimulating experiences, and both get miserable FAST when deprived of art and puzzles and entertainment and hobbies. Y'know, just like anyone. Far be it from being a paragon of The Nation only interested in productive labor, we are reminded that the block warden, too, hates this shitty town and wants to transfer but is denied. They're hypocrites, but not monsters, nor brainwashed puppets of the state.

The monstrousness at play is not contained within any particular subset of evil individuals, or even an inherent universal force of evil contained in the broad notion of The Nation. There is no cosmic evil force that makes them all do these things to each other. The monstrousness is within the social systems, the mechanisms of how authority perpetuates on a structural procedural level, held in place by fear and tangible threats of violence, each link in the chain restraining the next through those threats out of fear that if they don't, then they'll be next. Regardless how many, if any, of those people in this chain are true dogmatic hardliners, they must act as such because failing to do so opens them up to danger.

Here then I think of the quote that is so prominent, "Great holes secretly are digged where earth’s pores ought to suffice, and things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl", from Lovecraft's The Festival. This is not just a chilling abstract visual that conveniently evokes a mineshaft-- in Lovecraft's story, this line refers to worms which ate the decomposing bodies of wizards whose wretched souls had remained after death, complete with the terrible powers they gained through contracts with demons. Those worms inherited both their power, and also the evil. The Nation, despite having overthrown the Empire, is built on imperial technology, in particular Replikas and bioresonance. So too, then, we can imply that The Nation inherited with those things some of the monstrousness of The Empire as well. There is no end of history, nor clean break with the past, no matter how violently it may seem to be rejected. That which remains from the past--and something inevitably always does--creates the present.

This is a game that is not shy about evoking East Germany. And I think all of this provides a sophisticated picture of repressive authority that we rarely see in fiction of the English speaking world, especially in games. The year the S23 incident takes place is notably 84, but, frankly, I find this to be more compelling and illustrative than 1984 (and I'm a librarian and have taught English classes so I get to say that). Orwell, let's be honest, presents a fairly one dimensional picture of authority, where people seize power and wield it against others out of seeming mustache twirling evil or malice.

Here though we get a more humanistic view. Authority did not come from nowhere and is not wielded arbitrarily out of gleeful cruelty or mindless brainwashed allegiance. People aren't "just following orders". Individuals have rich inner lives. They make decisions, and those decisions are based in the context they're in. Even the decision to carry repressive tools of the past into the present is a decision that was made strategically with the big picture in mind. Nobody woke up and decided to be evil that day. Everyone operates on self interest, and, we must assume, an earnest desire for things to get better. Even the [spoiler] program which served as an inspirational demonstration of The Nation's power, you can imagine the chain of officers and bureaucrats who genuinely wanted the people of the nation to believe in the future, to confidently trust that everyone was working together towards something great and beautiful. And, through a long chain of those people who couldn't say "No" without being decommissioned, we ended up with something unbelievably cruel.

We get to know Adler and Kolibri and the other officers not to say well they're human too, maybe it wasn't so bad that they condemned all those people to agonizing suffering, but to remember that if we keep looking for true monsters we will not find them. There are no monsters and there are no demons. There are only people making decisions. A better world is possible. A better world, where Adler is just a paper pusher who does puzzles after work instead of signing papers to authorize torture, where Kolibris are librarians instead of spies and cops, where EULEs can gossip and play piano and ARARs can do maintenance on facilities that don't contain torture rooms, is one that would not have led to the Ariane and Elster's tragic cycle and ultimate end.

Authority and its attendant cruelty is not contained, radiating forth from The Great Revolutionary and Her Daughter, it is within the social systems of control. When those two women die, that cruelty will continue so long as those social systems continue. Like Lovecraft's worms, no matter how long dead the evil of the past is, so long as it continues to be fed upon, that evil will not only remain, but evolve into something new in the present. A better world can't be achieved through the death of the old world alone, even if violent overthrow is warranted. There is no end of history. There is no clean break from the past.

"Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living."

Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

[howtodisappearcompletelyand]

20/10 stars little guy

[madizenmadi]

its not practical at all but i like to imagine that Gilbert, at one point, lent his voice to be used for the announcements for the public transit in Berlin, but then into the 2000s it was replaced by the electronic voice today.

Anyways, after Gilbert died, Ludwig asked to reinstate Gilbert's voice to be heard over the intercoms so that he can hear his late Father's voice everyday as he takes the S-bahn or the U-bahn. It took him a while to get accustomed to the grief, but it then became a comfort.

Sometimes, he takes the U-bahn on sleepless nights so that he can close his eyes and listen to Gilbert's voice, imagining he's still here with him, just like he promised he always would be.

[medjay-anon]

[look who i doodled. smiles innocently] [reblogs reallyy appreciated :33]

[the-renegade-child-of-time]

Maddy/Malekith ~

Send a ship/pairing, and the MUSE will share their thoughts!

@theaccursedninth @deitysmuses

Crying and screaming and throwing up.

One day she might accept it but today is not that day and tomorrow isn’t looking great either.

[ganondoodle]

rough concept for Courage's true form

their lower jaw was broken by the gods, which is the reason they are fully mute

[bigalockwood]

surprisingly still alive (my voice is kinda dead tho)

[jovenshires]

endless au edits: the battle of the bands au nobody asked for pt 8

@BILLBOARD ON YOUTUBE: THE BACKGROUND MUSIC OF BATTLE OF THE BANDS (PART ONE) [we open up on angela from the band 'let's do this'. she's sitting cross-legged on a chair looking at someone behind the camera, looking excited.] patrick [offscreen]: so. what songs are you listening to right now? angela: whoa. like, not my own? patrick: i mean, if you want. angela: because, realistically, that's all i'm listening to as we rehearse. patrick: right, makes sense. just, like, what are your top songs? angela: ever? oh my god... i feel like this is a loaded question now that i actually have skin in the game. like we could collab with these people one day, you know? patrick [deadpan]: you think you might collab with abba? angela [face dropping, seeming embarrassed]: sh - shut up!

[several-ravens]

jonathan is away, and martin is trying his best to fill in in his absence, and it's making so sad but also so proud