#we might not get to have the pretty wonderful utopia but we have to be willing to do the shitty stuff it takes to make that future possible

[maelancoli]

i'm kind of late to this but i just finished reading the scholomance trilogy by naomi novik and i feel like it is such an underrated urban fantasy?? taking the chosen one trope and turning it on its head with a fmc who has been prophesied to bring death and destruction, who is imbued with terrible power, but cannot even properly use said power to solve any of her obstacles because it would obliterate them and her soul. it takes a tired trope and the idea of an 'overpowered mary sue' and throws it back in your face by showing how all the power and destiny in the world is useless against a system filled with corruption that has burdened you with an easy way out (evil/destructive magic) that you can't take so now you have to work twice as hard as everyone else just to do simple, constructive spells instead of flicking your wrist and being done with it.

[saltedcaramelchaos]

Wonderlust theory thoughts !! Just finished the first episode :D (these are very disorganized but we just roll with it)

Troy's first bit is pretty cut-and-dried as far as I can tell, it's very much to show the character in his natural habitat, but we'll probably get more context as the series goes on!

Aside from the character, THE STEAMPUNK VIBES ARE SO COOL AAAHHH!! Using flipbooks as play-by-plays? Whatever that interview camera thing was? Using "cogs" as currency?!? YES PLEASE

Also, I see you May. Where were you going so quickly :eyes:

Runt and the street rats are so interesting to me,,, my first thought was "oh there's poor people even in the 'utopia'", but then they actually were stealing from uplanders iirc!

This implies that Doppler + the gang have some way to get up above, without running into the clockwork soldiers. That will definitely be relevant later.

Also it might end up being important who exactly it was that they were stealing medicine from

Come to think of it, why is it always medicine that's being stolen/transported? It could just be a way to show that the characters are kind and care about others, or it could be emphasizing a deep flaw in the system Reclaim runs on...

side note that moment when runt saw the moon and went "how'd they make that".... ough. I don't think that adds a dimension to the worldbuilding other than the character detail of "SHE'S NEVER SEEN THE MOON BEFORE and most people here probably haven't either", but wow, way to emotionally destroy me with a single throwaway line grizzlyplays

More steampunk gadgets yaaayyy! so far between the clockwork soldiers and the mites, all the security measures up above seem like they go WAY TOO HARD. Is it a way to control people through fear? Do they secretly know there's a whole society underneath? Is it to protect something, maybe those purple stones? Is it just the person making them being unconcerned if people die at their hands? I'm so sure this means something (<-"troy's dad is a villain" truther)

Blink's turn! This man has SO many secrets and I can't wait to learn all of them. What was his relationship to Aeon? Why is he here now? Why is he on the run?

More specifically, he said something to- maybe shopkeeper guy-? about how he can't stop helping people. It sounded like a personal-promise-slash-oath kind of thing. He's clearly already been through character development; in his conversation with Aeon neither of them were happy about how the other has "changed"... that's so fascinating to me, is he a paladin? He does this out of the goodness of his heart, sure, but he sure talks like he's at least emotionally bound to it. What could have happened to cause his adamance that helping people is the right thing to do, and that Aeon isn't doing that?

Speaking of Aeon, I 100% agree with the person that said she got to Troy first. It did strike me as suspicious that he had a whole chase scene with Blink Specifically and not anyone else

From what I caught, the vixens are pretty much the self-imposed policemen/tax collectors of Reclaim! I wonder what the general public thinks of them...

that's all I can think of at the moment! let me know if anything on here has been proven or disproven because I tend to ignore the very obvious details for the character/worldbuilding ones LOL

[zagreus-eats-your-bread]

Okay once again it's 2am but I need to talk about the Space Odyssey series. So first of all we all agree the series is about space exploration, right?

It's often been critisized for having flat characters or too many characters, but what really comes out strong every time is cool space facts and poetic descriptions. Clarke pretty much says this when he stated that the data gathered by Voyager 1 was an inspiration for 2010 and the data gathered from Halley's Comet inspired 2061. So gathering scientific knowledge about space is pretty much the driving factor, as well as the mystery of the monoliths of course.

Starting with 2001, the whole point of the movie and the tragic story of the Discovery was to show how human mistrust interferes with space exploration and science. The paranoia and secrecy of politics was just not something that HAL 9000 as a computer could deal with in the same way a human might, so he freaked. It's tragic because it's avoidable and unnecessary as well, since it stems entirely from politics that were holding back scientists in real life at the same time the story was written, while cheering them on to allow ones own nation to be 'the first' to do something, rather than gaining knowledge for the good of all humanity. We agree on that, right?

2010, to a degree, and 2061 are just the same. The Tsien was built and sent out in complete secrecy and there is an obvious contest between the scientists of different nations. The movie has more of a cold war vibe but I'm sure everyone knows what I'm getting at here.

2061 is more obvious in following my little red line. Due to the political value of diamonds, a mission is risked to land on Europa, despite this being forbidden and dangerous.

Now, in 3001 there is no such conflict. It's described as a Utopia that prioritizes scientific knowledge and space exploration. Religion is no more because we are all just too crazy about finding facts and Relgion can't be proven / is disproven.

The entire population of mankind is assessed by their brain caps and great minds are basically sent to the top automatically. Undesirables are seperated from larger society and criminals are mind controled slaves for a few years. A society of efficiency. Even Frank Poole, who is weirdly cool with all of this and more, admits that most people seem rather bland and there are few who have much of a big personality. He believes that humanity has grown up, when he notices that no one wants to prove themselves and works rather toward an efficient solution for the good of everyone.

This terrifying Dystopia — I mean cool and sick Utopia, great job Arthur — works efficiently. It uses technology that is deemed "necessary" to categorize all humans and no one can opt out of this because you need it to go everywhere. It is a technology that technically gives the government complete control over your brain. Most importantly, though I am repeating myself, there is no frivilous political conflict holding humanity back from exploring and modifying space to their needs.

This is essentially humanity ascending slowly to a level that the creators of the monolith technology once occupied. Humanity is slowly ascending to godhood by becoming coldly efficient and scientific. Even the one philospher we meet is just mostly preaching antitheism (in an age where there is no religion. let it go man. you are mister status quo, you're not radical) and that cold fact prevails over faith.

This is going into my personal feelings about the monoliths but I think they are fucking terrifying. There certainly is a romance in aliens not unlike us wanting to create people like it wherever it went. But the horror aspect is clearly not unintentional.

It makes me wonder, what exactly is humanity aspiring to, then? A sort of absolute evolution that includes the absolute morality of manipulating life to fit ones own values? Of commiting genocide where one deems the lifeforms not worthy enough to create a species more to ones liking (destroying Jupiters life forms to ensure Europa could have a permanent chance of life and the ultimate good of "Mind" could be born there)? Of destroying star systems of the conscious species you create that don't turn out exactly the way you like them to? That's fucking terrifying.

I'm sure it's not really intentional but I can't help but see a similarity between the defective monolith humanity is destroying to save itself and its own form of governing itself. Cold efficiency. Fact over emotion.

This is attributed to entropy by 3001, but the monoliths make plenty of mistakes. Not all of their experiments work out. But when they make mistakes it has effects on a massive scale and destroys uncountable lives. Quite literally they are playing God, or they are tools of Gods that have since fucked off to cosmic background radiation (? i'm not sure if the creators are involved at all anymore. all the books are so contradictory).

Humanity learns to shape the Solar system in its image and colonize its worlds. "All these worlds are yours". It's playing God and doing so unaided by dramatic politics and cultural hangups. It just makes me wonder, looking upon the work of the monoliths, whether ascending to Godhood would really be a good thing and something to aspire to.

[fictionkinfessions]

[WARNING: Has major, MAJOR spoilers for «“Persona 5 Royal”», please continue scrolling if you do NOT wish to see them!!]

Good morning, afternoon, evening, or whatever time it is for you right now!

Um. I know that you might not want to hear anything from me, I can understand that, but even so..

I wanted to say "I'm sorry", I guess? You might wonder: "sorry for what?", and to be honest.. I don't know either, I just know that I feel awful that I couldn't really do much more for you. Maybe I should have tried to help you since the very start, as I noticed something was.. kind of off about you. Not that I meant anything was wrong, it's just that.. you always seemed more like you tried to fit an ideal or as if you were merely playing an act rather than being yourself most of the time? Ah, the more I think about stuff I could have done, the worse it makes me feel about everything, but this isn't about that.

I'm sorry for not being there for you more, and I'm sorry for how everything ended with us. I'm sorry about how the only thing I have left of you is your glove, and I'm sorry for pretty much everything I could be sorry for.

I know what you're gonna say: "are you an idiot or something? What are you even apologizing about?", but still, I feel as though there's a lot of things left unsaid in between us, so I might aswell just use this chance to properly tell everything..?

I'm aware, that you probably do not think of me this way, and that's why I never really tried to say anything, but I always felt like you were somehow more special than anyone else? I don't know, but the second we met I just.. I guess something clicked and I grew to like you a lot more than I thought I could. More than I thought a person was supposed to.

Even knowing that, I never really knew how to explain this feeling without making everything awkward, and it's not really like I'm an expert about love or something, but I guess that whenever I tried to look more into it, that was always the word that fit better than the rest? So I'm gonna be honest, I believe I may have fallen in love with you the exact second I saw you. I didn't really believe in love at first sight, as I thought it was unnatural, unrealistic and only happened in movies or fictional stuff, so this is actually a shocker for me.. and maybe also for you if you actually never noticed anything 😞

I could tell you that in three languages, actually, but isn't that more of a brag than something romantic..?? Oh, whatever, not like it will matter now or ever.

But, back to what I was saying..

I'm sorry. I was willing to just give up on our reality and to live in a perfect utopia world just because I was afraid of losing you again. I didn't want to let go of you, the person that I believe is the most important to me. Of course, I really care about the others, please don't get me wrong, but even so, I still cared too much about you like to just.. let you go, knowing you'd be dead and that I'd never get to see you again outside of a casket, if anyone even bothered to make one for you after you.. well.. died. Wouldn't it have been easier to live in a world where you and everyone else was happy? Sorry, this was and still is selfish of me, but I really just wished we could have been.. you know, friends, without all of the trauma.

I hope you have never questioned how much I loved and treasured you, though, since I tried to make it as clear as I could without making it weird..?? Anyways, I truly love you, te amo muchísimo, so please don't think that because you're not just some sort of real life prince charming I won't love you, because I do, I genuinely do. You're a super nice and uncanningly perfect person? I love you. You're actually resentful, full of hatred and actually were plotting to murder me? I love you. You're both? I love you. You're neither? I love you. It doesn't matter, whatever your true persona-lity (pun intended!!) may be, I will always love you, so don't worry about me hating you, since as long as I'm alive, you'll always have someone who wants to hangout with you, or maybe to just sit somewhere in pure, comfortable silence with you. You get it, right?

And, even if I'm not entirely sure about the idea of reincarnation..

maybe we're together in every universe, somehow?

Sorry, I'm pondering about this whole message and I'm realizing how cheesy it sounds, but I hope that, regardless, it will reach you, Akechi Goro.

(ily!! 愛してるよ！！ te amo!!) (but remember to actually take care of yourself and to sleep well or else I'm sending Mona to haunt your thoughts 😒)

— #❂🥞🐈‍⬛✮ (OH GOD I ALMOST FORGOT TO SAY WHO I AM 😭 hi, hello, I am Ren Amamiya / Akira Kurusu / “Joker” from «“Persona 5”». I'm not sure if this is allowed, but could you please tag as both fictive and kin?? Sankyuu!!) (oh, also, yeah the tag isn't taken)

(futaba, ILYY!! I miss u and the rest of the phantom thieves a TON :( you're in charge of them if you reunite with the rest and I'm still not with you all by then btw 💥💥 will forever be grateful that Mafia Caillou [Shido] is not in this universe, though.. I think. 😥) (also to sumire, ilyyyyy!!!!!)

"I love you!! I love you!!"

[thetonethetollandthethunder]

Scythe chapter 16-20!!

Ayy we’re backk!! Let’s just get started shall we?

Chapter 16!!

-oh god the elegy—

-“Could you imagine me as a teenager?” OH YES I CAN OHOHO

-This also shows how much power scythes and especially Goddard has

-And also shows how bad of a scythe Goddard is as well

-Scythe Curie makes a good point that also relates to the toll, in which it doesn’t matter if they kill Goddard or anyone like him because another with the same ideology will always come along without fail

-this chapter didn’t have much but it IS good so ykyk

Chapter 17!!

-OHHH ITS THE MOMENT THAT EVERYONE LOSES THEIR MINDS OVER!! SCYTHE FARADAY IS D-D-DEAD or is he? :) :)

-Rowan instinctively trying to protect Citra!!!

-it makes sense for most disabilities to be nonexistent but that doesn’t mean I have to like it :/ like idk why the way it’s done is just :// especially as a disabled person myself

-The way the describe Faraday’d death is already suspicious if you already know he isn’t dead but when you’re first reading it, it does make sense!

-OH AND THE SEPARATE TRAININGS BEGINS!!!

-“If I ever take on an apprentice it will be for a different reason entirely.” OHOHO I KNOW I KNOWWWW

-Again not much to say BUT still rlly good!!

Chapter 18!!!

-Part 3 begins!!

-SCYTHE CURIE!!

-Again I always forget the names of these places, falling water is a very pretty name!!

-Citra being angry about Faraday’s death OUGH, she’s rlly going through 5 stages of grieve style

-Could you imagine ppl in the future calling our decor and shit old fashioned? Bizarre

-I love how they make Curie instantly charming and likable with only a few scenes, good writing man!!

-What hobbies would other scythes have? I wonder…

-Fun fact, i cannot drive, tried to learn and crashed the car, oh how I wish driving wasn’t necessary like in scythe

-Giving us little notes about the comfort scythes can give

-We hear a lot about being stagnant in the Scythe universe, and like, yeah, if you were in this utopia wouldn’t you grow stagnant even quicker than most? You have nothing to do literally

-You can really feel how observant Curie is, she noticed the small details

-Jesus even Curie’s yelling scared ME and I already knew what was gonna happen! She’s rlly intimidating—

-Gotta uphold your image!!

-“Another Scythe might have exacted a punishment far worse.” *COUGH COUGH GODDARD*

-Again shit names!! Barton Breen??? What??

-20 kids,, Jesus,,

-You can Curie’s own version of compassion, it’s different from Faradays yet still wonderful

-She did find her own way of gleaning!!

-Again FUCK Goddard!!

-I do wonder what would happen if Citra was trained by Goddard instead of Rowan…

-“Immortality has turned us all into cartoons.” GOD THAT LINEE

-Amazing chapter!! Told a LOT abt Curie!!!

CHAPTER 19!!!!

-Oo!! I thought this moment happened in Thunderhead but I misremembered!!

-Tho I THINK something similar happens??? Idk maybe my memory is fuckin with me ushejdj

-ALSO DAMN CITRA!! Pushin girls in front of TRUCKS holy fuck!!!

-Hate the eating descriptions!!

-TELL THE MOTHER YOU TWO!!! LIKE CMON??

-Cindy lmaoo, whenever someone whitewashes Citra im gonna call it Cindy instead <3 spite

-“err on the side of respect.” LMAO love that line

-RONDA ROADKILL IM DYINGGGGGG and so did she! (Temporarily but yk)

-“Can i throw you under a truck some other time?” She’s a busy person! I’d totally throw Citra under a truck! Would be fun!

-Morals change when theres little consequences, Citra would never even CONSIDER pushing Ronda in the mortal age, but since people can just come back it doesn’t seem like such a bad thing, it also shows how the concept of empathy and morality has changed in this society

-“the cloud” like icloud! Guess apple won in this world!

-“The machine had a purer soul than any human” NO IT DOESNT IVE SEEN AI ART YOU CANT FOOL ME!!!

-FUCK YOU SCYTHE GODDARD!!!

-OO TIME FOR CITRA TO INVESTIGATE!! I remember LOVING this plot so!!!!

Chapter 20!!

-Rowan finally!!! I missed you!!!!!

-He doesn’t wanna kill Citra!!! The beginning of his devotion to her UGHHH

-god hes only 17, I think we forgot how young these characters are, they really are just kids being pushed into this horrible situation god,,,

-“His was a life without substance, and now it would end.” God and here we see Rowan’s iconic self deprecating “emo” moments, people make fun of these scenes a lot but I fucking love em, it really contrasts Rowan and Citra. Citra has people who love and care about her, Rowan doesn’t, he knows that (in this moment) if he died no one would really care or remember him, so when he finds Citra, someone who does care about him and would care if he died, he clings to it. I mean when you’re that neglected and want SOMEONE to care even a little about you, wouldn’t you do the same thing?

-He already wants to change things!! And he will!! He will change a lot, though not as much as his girlfriend!!

-VOLTA!!

-“So is there a reason why you choose your robes to be the color of piss?” HA one of my favorite lines!!

-“the Change” god their ideology—, the fact they’re all thinking that they’re changing things for the better really shows how convincing of a man Goddard is, GOD i hate him!!!

-Ans here we have Goddard’s MANY parties

-my sensory issues would hate this

-I accidentally spelled Goddard’s name as Goodard which…Isn’t that so Ironic?

-“Bimbotech” Neal I’m BEGGING you to stop

-“Rowan wondered if the man had a diamond-studded bathing suit in his waredrobe as well.” He would because he’s a vain prick!!

-HES UNDERAGE STOP GIVING HIM ALCOHOL!! *Looking at you RAND especially ya creep—*

-“He was lucky if they even remembered to get him a gift” rowans parents man,,, He was really fucking neglected man it’s so awful, and the fact he still cares about them despite that GODDD

-See how goddard bend the rules? See how he twists them to make them fit what HE wants? Yeah, he’s gonna do that a lot; again, fuck you Goddard

-ESME!!! Shes backk!! And he’s right! She’ll be important!!

-GOD this is a good chapter, rowan my beloved!!

And that’s it!!! Next time will be chapters 21-25!! We’re going so fast aren’t we?

[fabcreature]

random thought, but i think it might be somewhat harmful when foreigners talk about finland as this wonderful utopia where children at school aren't given homework (false), there are no homeless people (also false), healthcare is free (close, but leaving out some details there), college is free (kind of true, in that there's no tuition (unless you're a foreigner..) but it's complicated and people still have student loans they need to pay off), there's no discrimination and everyone's treated equal (nuh uh), the police are trustworthy (nope), and it's like 90% forests and nature is respected and taken good care of (i LAUGH in your face, i LAUGH).

i can't rly comment on if/how it's harmful for said foreigners to fantasize about finland being this utopia when it's not. but i feel like it's got a negative impact on finland and finnish people themselves.

because we see those things people say about us. and sure, something like kids not getting homework is easy to laugh off and be like "that simply isn't true, who the hell made that up?" but a lot of the other stuff, people internalize it. finland is named the happiest country over and over again, is praised for it's high standard of education, and people talk online about the country like it's the western liberal's wet dream. and when people internalize this and adopt an attitude of finland being the greatest place to live, we're all so equal, we're all so healthy, we're all so happy, it gets really hard to criticize it when finland does things wrong. and it does things wrong A LOT.

like yea people complain and say "happiest country in the world? no one asked me". but people also always say "it's a lottery win to be born in finland", and the moment you start actually genuinely criticizing finland for its systematic flaws, the inequality, poverty, racism, the average person will shut you down with all of those "it's much better here than in other places" and start spouting about all those things that foreigners praise us for, a lot of which isn't really even true. i think it may be part of the reason why finnish people are so passive, not bothering to participate in politics any more than voting every couple of years, and just shrugging it off and accepting it when the government does absolutely horrendous things! not only do they not see how terribly flawed our country is, they believe that this fabricated utopia will protect itself and nothing can tear it down because we live in such a great country.

like i was always taught that finland is so great and progressive and people are happy and equal and it's all great! and because of this it took me a really long time to realize there are things wrong here and there are forces we need to fight! as a kid i romanticized this idea of rebellion and revolution, but i thought i could never be part of something like that because finland is such a great country to live in, there's no corruption or injustice to fight against. and that is. simply not true. there is so much wrong here. thankfully i've seen that and i am trying my hardest to fight against that.

sorry my rant's a little all over the place, i did not compose any fancy speech, i was just writing thoughts as they came to me. i've just been pretty frustrated with this lately, possible partially brought on by people in the notes my eu elections meme thinking finland's most recent results are representative of our country's politics as a whole. the past year or so has felt so fucking hopeless and infuriating i am genuinely scared for what this country is coming to. and like, i like the place i grew up, and i hate traveling, so i've never really been tempted to move away from my hometown, let alone abroad, but now recently for the first time i've thought that maybe in the future i'll have to move someplace else if this continues the way it's going now.

we are NOT doing good.

[magimerlyn]

So i just saw the Barbie movie

Visually, it was stunning, but the storyline was meh at best

Spoilers from this moment on

My biggest complaint is that the movie has a very surface level understanding of feminism and the patriarchy, or more specifically the problems inherent in a society where only one gender is allowed to be more than an accessory

Barbieland is a matriarchy, and at first it seems wonderful, they have a black president Barbie, they have an all-Barbie supreme court, their nobel prize winners and great scientists and doctors are all Barbies

Great, right? And it makes sense, an all-Barbie society would naturally be led by women.

Except it's not an all-Barbie society.

Which is where the film's view of a feminist utopia falls apart, because there's Midge, who lives on Barbie's street but never leaves her yard, there's Allan, who's literally the only one of his kind, and then there's the Kens.

The Kens don't have real jobs, Ryan Gosling's job is supposedly "beach," which does not mean lifeguard, there is a Ken who appears to be a lifeguard, but the water's fake so all he does is sit on the tower and use binoculars. Instead, every Ken has one responsibility: be Barbie's boyfriend.

Now in the real world, women weren't able to open a bank account on their own without a husband until 1974. We generally don't think of women having entered the workforce until the 40's in America, when the men went off to fight in the war effort. And even today, there's an implication that you're a failure of a woman if you can't get a partner.

The Kens don't have an identity outside of "Barbie's boyfriend" which leads Ryan Gosling's Ken to flounder from pretty much the moment we meet him because Barbie is clearly not interested in him. (She doesn't actually communicate this to him at all either until the very end of the movie) The fact that being called "sir" by a woman who was asking him what time it was translated in his mind as her seeing him as an authority figure is sad and kind of pathetic. So when he saw other men doing things that weren't connected to their partners, like driving trucks, drinking beers, and riding horses, it's not surprising that he equated those with having an identity of his own.

But herein lais my second major complaint with the movie: how Ken is radicalized.

Trucks, beer, and horses are not what makes someone do what Ken does. Possibly seeing a world where men are in charge would compel him to try to take over Barbieland, but it's specifically the way that he and the other kens objectify and mistreat the Barbies that felt very strange with what we were shown that he saw. I think if we'd seen him hear something like an Andrew Tate podcast or something it would make more sense, especially with how his basic desire is for Barbie to want to be with him the way he wants to be with her, as well as why the patriarchyhe brings back is so violent and how similar it is to real-world patriarchy.

Barbieland's matriarchy is not violent in its oppression of the Kens, its more that the Barbies don't see the Kens as being equal to them. Which is still oppression. It's arguably a more benign form, but it's still oppression.

So when the Barbies reinstate their matriarchy with no changes except for bringing Weird Barbie back into the fold again and giving the Kens the possibility of a minor court judge one day, it's really frustrating because the film is basically saying there that there were no problems with the original system, when clearly there were if Ken was able to radicalize all the other Kens in literally one day. It's saying that as long as women are in charge, everything is perfect.

The narrator even says "one day, the Kens might even have as much power as women do in the real world."

When so much of the cast and crew was talking about how this was a great feminist movie, I'm just disappointed by how surface level it actually was.

[thekatebridgerton]

I wonder what a weird sci Fi movie Bridgerton might be like.

Depends because science fiction is a pretty big genre. Considering that it spans anything that has to do with futuristic events (dystopia, utopia, any kind apocalypse au, etc) science advancements that sound fictional (robot aus, AI, time travel machines au) to all fiction set in any sort of place that is not planet earth (space travel au, astronaut au, alien visitation au, waking up in mars au) so it would be something to see. And since I haven't watched any of the true gems of the genre yet I don't have an educated opinion.

Although I'd love to see a Matrix or Tron Legacy sort of au for the Bridgertons, something very futuristc and jazzy. Anthony and Kate as Neo and Trinity would be fun to read.

And if we touch on Disney A Meet The Robinsons au would be my one true heart's desire. With Agatha Bridgerton using a time machine to find teenage Colin and convince him that if he doesn't follow his dreams then her father will never invent the time machine. And she needs help getting back home because her time machine is broken. Only for teenage Colin to find out in the end after visiting the future, where all of Agatha's aunts and uncles welcome him very warmly, (aunt Kate, aunts Sophie, uncle Phillip, Simon etc) that Agatha's mysterious scientist parents are Penelope and Colin himself and that he invented the time machine in an effort to impress his future wife.

[lhs3020b]

Starfield, an accidental deconstruction?

Oh my, a Starfield post.

So, I just visited a certain facility on Earth, got to read a few terminals and listen to some Fallout-style apocalyptic logs ... and yikes! It feels like the endings to Mass Effect 3 again. (Except the preceding game was mostly a disappointment, so I don't have quite the same sense of chaotic baffled scathing despondent confusion that I did in ME3 - instead I'm more just "rolling my eyes" and "but... but... none of this makes any sense!")

Spoilers, and a rant, below the cut...

Starfield, arguably, is an accidental deconstruction of space-booster/high-frontier ideology. I say "accidental" as the writing/dev team clearly didn't intend it to be this, but consider the following points:

1. The consequences of developing the grav drive were WORSE than if it hadn't been developed. Sure, an asteroid might have hit the Earth eventually, but the ecosystem has survived them before. It didn't survive the sputtering.

(Question: "Who killed the world?"

Answer: "Dr Victor Aiza, arguably the worst human being who ever lived.")

2. There's fuck all wonder to be found in Starfield's galaxy; most planets aren't even that pretty, really, there are no other civilisations and beyond resource-grinds, there's little real point to exploring anywhere.

(That said, hunting alien critters on high-level planets is a good way to farm level ups. Just so you know.)

3. As for humanity's supposed "glorious future in the stars", Akila City has mud roads, the UC is fascist and it's apparently uncontroversial in-universe that the corporate board on Porrima wanted to enslave the ECS Constant colonists! (You can't even raise the events of Porrima with your contact at SSN, which implies that no-one in-universe thinks any of this is remotely noteworthy.)

4. Also, in light of things found on Earth at the NASA ruins, a lot of aspects of the UC's founding seem even darker than they did beforehand. They stopped building colony ships several years BEFORE the atmosphere fell off. How many people were simply abandoned? Millions? Billions? There's even a colony ship on the launchpad that apparently they didn't even bother themselves to finish building, let alone launch it!

5. No wonder the UC created a system where who gets to vote is tightly-vetted - the UC seems to be based on genocide, whether deliberate or negligent. (And absolutely-deliberate on Aiza's part - he KNEW what he was doing, and there was malice aforethought there. The monster.)

6a. As for technology in-universe, the NASA facility, the ECS Constant and any random pirate-infested facility in the "modern" galaxy all have the same hardware and machinery. Apparently technology has barely moved in literally centuries. It may even have declined. (There's no indication that they actually could build mechs again, even if they wanted to, for instance.)

6b. The grav drive technology is apparently basically cribbed from Aiza's artifact-induced visions, so strictly speaking, we didn't even develop it ourselves. We were spoon-fed it by Starborn and their agents.

6c. The supposed "greater good" this is all for, let's remember, consists of borderline-lawless and half-empty planets - even Jemision has pirate encampments within sight of the city walls of New Atlantis! -, a grand total of four cities and a population that presumably can't be more than few million. None of this is better than what humanity had previously on Earth.

7. This social equilibrium may not even be that secure. Entire colonies can collapse - c.f. Londinion or whatever it's called - and there's enough political instability for major and devastating wars to happen. There is no utopia amongst the stars, rather there is chaos!

8. The galactic economy is horribly exploitative - the Eleos Retreat questline actually directly-calls this out, interestingly - and I think you can make a case that the system itself is directly-abusive. (The behaviour of the Trackers Alliance is ... not great ... and that's putting it mildly.) All the downsides of free marketism with no sign of any benefits!

9. Meanwhile, the influence of these Starborn and these artifacts they're obsessed with appears to be entirely-corrosive. Arrogant, authoritarian, dishonest, sociopathic, murderous ... the behaviour of all Starborn I've encountered so far has been baleful.

10. TBH, I'm leaning toward the view that the best thing to do with these artifacts, really, would be round them all up and toss them into a star (hopefully that would get rid of them...)

So in summary, you can argue a case in Starfield's world that the grav drive was entirely-bad. There was no significant threat to escape from, whether asteroids or alien invasion. The grav drive and its developers directly-caused billions of deaths and the collapse of Earth's ecosystem. And the societies that have emerged are small, precarious and (depending on how you interpret some events in the game) may even be beginning to collapse. The grav drive brought no good consequences, and you can argue a case that it would be better if it had never happened. It also made it easier for people to find these awful, brain-warping relics, which I guess must be the Starborn's angle on all this. They toasted Earth so they could collect more shiny stones. (And the Starborn have shown no interest in fixing any of the messes they've made, either.)

It's a deeply dystopic situation.

I don't think the writing team planned to deconstruct high-frontier ideology, but that's effectively what they've done here.

[aeoki]

SHINSEKAI - Empire of Fantasy: Chapter 8

Location: Seisou Hall (Ritsu & Mika’s Room)  Characters: Mika, Shuu & Sora

Mika: Haa… I’m exhausted…

Shuu: We can finally rest. Good grief, what a disastrous day.

Mika: Yesterday was way too different… We won the “Championship Match” yesterday and could go to bed feelin’ great.

Wait, ngh? Huh~ No wonder I thought this place seemed familiar – Isn’t this my room at Seisou Hall?

Sora: “HaHa~♪ There is an extra rule that states unless ES idols pay ‘SSG’, they can only stay in the hotel that’s been recreated to look like their own rooms!”

Mika: I see. So people who don’t want their rooms shown will have to pay even more “SSG”.

Sora: “Yes! And everything that happens in ‘SHINSEKAI’ has a chance to be broadcast on the internet or on TV! It was written on the contract~”

Mika: I don’t know anything about this contract but we were dragged into this strange world – this VR world? against our own will.

Sora: “HiHi~♪ If you have any feedback or requests for the management, please let Sora know! It might take some time for a reply, though~”

Mika: Huh~? I feel a bit hesitant to complain to someone who looks like Sora-kun.

Shuu: I see you’ve already acclimated to this crazy world, Kagehira… I’m exhausted.

Mika: It’s fun once you get used to it~ If I summon Sora-kun like this, I can talk to him whenever and that makes me happy ♪

We’re both members of “Ba-barrier” but we’re in different agencies and grades, so I’m sad ‘cause I don’t get to see him that often.

Sora: “Yes! This Sora is simply a character that’s completely unrelated to the actual Sora~ Permission has been granted to use his appearance! HaHiHuHeHo~♪”

Shuu: I feel as though I’ll lose my mind any minute now.

Mika: Ahaha. We’ve been through a lot for the past two days, after all. It would be natural for both of us to be pretty tired. How ‘bout you, Onii-chan? Do you wanna have somethin’ nice for dinner and then get a good night’s sleep?

Shuu: …No. It just dawned on me but I don’t feel hungry or sleepy.

Sora: “Yes! Things like that will get in the way of playing the game so it’s being taken care of outside the game!”

Mika: Whaddya mean…?

Sora: “You’ll be fed the necessary nutrients via IV drips?”

Mika: IV drip? I don’t remember bein’ injected with that, though…?

Sora: “HuHu~♪ This means that things that can’t be aired will be removed from this utopia, ‘SHINSEKAI’?”

“Oh! God has ordered Sora to not tell ‘Valkyrie’ any more information, so nothing further can be disclosed!”

“Sora is a good child so he won’t defy god!”

“Sora will take his leave now~ HaHiHuHeHo~♪”

Mika: …And he’s gone.

Shuu: Something like that doesn’t surprise me anymore.

In any case, let’s organise the information we have, Kagehira. Continuing to be toyed with will only be vexing. I want to come up with a strategy to break out of this situation.

Mika: Ahh, okay… You can sit on my bed, Oshi-san. I’ll sit on Ritsu-kun’s. I’m sure he won’t mind.

Shuu: This is simply an environment recreated in VR. I don’t think Rei’s younger brother would be angry if you used his bed without permission or broke it even.

Mika: Ngh~ You’re right but Ritsu-kun has his own personal views on sleep. He really treasures his bed so maybe he won’t like seein’ a fake version of it being broken.

Shuu: Hmph. I see you’ve learnt to be considerate of others, Kagehira. No, I’m relieved to see you’re getting along fine with your roommate.

But I digress. This “SHINSEKAI” is more well-made than I expected. I cannot even imagine what sort of technology was used to create this.

Mika: Yeah. It feels so realistic you probably wouldn’t even be able to tell it’s fake unless you took a look up close.

I wonder how they made this… They even have the plushy I found and placed in my room.

Shuu: Well, that’s not important right now. Rather than investigating how this SF-looking VR technology works, there’s something else that’s of top priority right now.

Just as the Boy mentioned earlier, “SSG” is everything in this “SHINSEKAI”. Everything costs money.

Mika: Yeah. And on top of that, it looks like “SSL$” and “SSG” are two different things…

Since we won the “Championship Match”, there was that agreement where the units we defeated would send us all the “SSL$” they gained throughout the duration of the Qualifyin’ Round.

But we haven’t gotten any of it. It looks like it’s ‘cause everyone was earning “SSG” and not “SSL$”, though.

Shuu: Yeah. Which means money won’t fall into our possession if we wait around, so we have to earn it ourselves.

Mika: We’ve lost our passive income… Ugh, I’ve gotta be diligent about money again, huh. Brings back memories.

Shuu: Well, money issues go hand in hand when you’re an artist.

← Previous Chapter ᠂ ⚘ ˚⊹˚ ⚘ ᠂  Next Chapter →

[irradiate-space]

A setting I've been noodling around with since ~college is that of a interstellar trade empire (where "interstellar" is synonymous with "vast"), which needs to grow its economy by growing its domain by colonizing more worlds by finding more worlds, etc., etc. And part of this is the idea of the interstellar loss-leader convenience store starship, but the more I think about that idea, the less I think that it works at scale. It depends on the Empire being willing to wait until a crisis occurs, and then swoop in with humanitarian goods at dirt-cheap prices, to get you hooked on their supply lines while your own industry is recovering. And that works in a sword-and-blaster fiction setting, maybe, but it also requires knowledge of all of space.

The story I want to write requires the Empire to be ignorant of at least some of space, so that trade model doesn't work.

Of course, with even c. 1980s telescopy, we had a pretty good knowledge of all stars in our galaxy. Where are there stars we don't know about? The only option is on the far side of dust clouds, or occluded by big bright stars. Venturing into those areas requires actual scouting, where you might bring along a batch of trade goods to create friendly relationships, but where sales might not be your goal.

The story also requires the scouts to be somehow separate from Empire.

And floating around in the back of my head in all of this is the bit from Terra Ignota, where The Masonic Empire will absequor Utopia, funding their expansion into the stars while at the same time seizing what's theirs for the use of all Humanity, because of Utopia's crimes. That doesn't seem like a stable social setup, even if the first generation of absequor functions as intended, because when has intergenerational guilt ever been transmissible in a reliable way?

So the revised setting is:

The Empire is on the far side of a big bright gas giant, and has been expanding in its respective Local Fluff, and has had relations with at least two other alien species. Expansion comes from absequor, with a historical Crime resulting in the creation of The Expeditionary Fleet.

The Expeditionary Fleet's goal is "to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before!" And then, having found that, and made it safe for Empire, turn this new territory over to Empire. The Expeditionary Fleet's presence in a system lasts no longer than the space between generations, for when the first child is conceived and born to the Expeditionary Fleet in a new location, that child is part of the tax paid to the Empire.

Within TEF, there is at least one faction which wants to escape The Arrangement. While they go to seek out new life and new civilizations, they wonder whether they should report these to The Empire, whether they should create an off-the-books colony to allow The Criminals' Children to leave TEF and The Empire, and create their own civilization. those humans.

[liquorisce]

Tengoku Daimakyou rereads, Chap 2 & 3

cw: SPOILERS!!

One of the things I loved about this series is the worldbuilding. Inside the academy, the utopia or heaven as they call it, in chapter 1, we have one world. And in chapter 2 we are introduced to the "Outside" which looks to be a post apocalyptic wasteland.

here we meet kiruko and maru, who look like wanderers or treasure-hunters at first glance. maru refers to kiruko as "sis". they wander into a couple of houses, the second of which is nicer, where they find a decaying bodies of a couple on the bed, who seem to have died holding hands. this scene reminds me so much of the last of us. i have a niggling feeling that we might find out who these bodies belong to. maybe i'll have a lightbulb moment later lol.

as maru continues exploring he remarks that the house probably belongs to rich people and we see a plaque stating: nawashiro syndicate. again, idk if this is foreshadowing something.

after a failed cooking experiment, where kiruko uses some leaves to flavour the food but it ends up being too bitter, they try to get some sleep. maru then asks if the people who died here ended up having to eat other humans because there was no food. i wonder if this is just a theory or if this is meant to be a hint about the psyche of hirukos and why they eat man-eaters. it's probably a stretch.

we then get some back story on kiruko. she is looking a pictures of 2 men that she carries with her, and maru asks if they're her lovers. by this point we get some hints of maru's attraction to kiruko, which largely feels like coming-of-age feelings, boy meets girl and they travel together for a common cause and they have awkward situations like walking into a toilet when the other is doing their business (bc there's no door), they sleep closeby etc. kiruko refers to herself as maru's bodyguard, although maru says that she is welcome to leave and that he will be fine on his own (in a nice way).

we are then introduced to our first monster:

it's pretty horrifying to look at it, eyes on it's neck, and is that a foot coming out of its neck too?? anyway, there are some theories about this monster, but we'll get to it in later chapters. i personally haven't seen the hints yet.

as maru and kiruko decide where to head in their journey, they came across a group of 3 bandits. the bandits try to attack them (some creepy, sexual connotations here) and bc they think maru and kiruko are women (both maru and kiruko declare that they are guys), they say, "we'll take you to heaven." it turns into a confrontation and kiruko ends up scaring them off with her weird shaped gun. eventually she threatens them and asks them to take her to the heaven that they were talking about.

Chap 3

As the kiruko forces the men to lead them towards heaven, the men speculate about the gun. we learn from maru then that the gun takes 30 seconds to fire, and that ammo is precious.

i found this panel very interesting. one of the bandits states that maru and kiruko must be part of the "lawless generation." maybe this is just world building 101 but i love the way that Ishiguro sensei slowly introduces details of their circumstance. Along with the scenery of dilapidated buildings and corpses and bandits and monsters, it's clear that something changed some years ago, post which society has essentially become lawless. people, even children, have no qualms with killing.

the bandits lead them to a place which was probably once a facility. here we can tell that kiruko has experience living in this world and negotiation with scumbags and she threatens to kill them if they don't let her use the generator to charge her gun. nice of her to ask lmao.

it's clear that kiruko and maru are interested in something to do with "heaven". but when kiruko asks them, one of the bandits say:

now we know that something called "the fall" has probably triggered events that have led to the state of the world. it's nice to pick up on this detail this time around bc i definitely didnt pay attention to this when i watched the show. in later chapters/ eps there are more hints about what really happened, and i still am not 100% sure if an asteroid has hit the earth or what is called the jeweled spear of heaven.

From the bandits they learn about a place that grows tomatoes, that kiruko jokingly names tomato heaven. think again of the tomatoes in the academy that we saw last chapter, it seems to be a clear correlation. after getting some hints about where to go, they set out to leave. when they find out that kiruko was charging her gun, and didnt have actual ammo to threaten them, they try to attack her again (unsuccessfully). as they leave, they remark about how kiruko was acting brave because her brother was there (insinuating that they would have tried to assault her otherwise). but her brother was always covering her blind spots.

says something about how protective maru is of kiruko (and also vice versa).

as they head out, the scene changes to the academy with children (heaven). tokio is talking to tarao (the sick child, who is now on a wheelchair). tarao agrees that there is something outside of the academy.

he is suspicious of what goes on past doors where only teachers are allowed to enter, and where their food comes and goes, what's in the vents etc. when tokio mentions the beasts, tarao asks if that isn't just to scare the kids away. smart kid!!!!!

tarao then asks if tokio likes mimihime to which tokio responds innocently. i find this interesting because tokio probably doesn't understand the intention of tarao asking this. tarao then gets violently sick, and dark spots begin to appear on his arms. before tokio can notice or ask about them, tarao pulls his sleeves down and says he will go back inside by himself.

while tokio is walking back she spots two girls kissing amidst the trees. it confuses her. then she runs into kuku who is flaunting the new drawing that kona gave her. this makes tokio jealous because kona had promised all his drawings to her, earlier.

this is probably the first time tokio realises she is jealous.

this whole scene between tokio, kona, kuku and mimihime is so precious. the little girl lesbians in the forest, too. children going through their feelings without much awareness of what they are. without the ugliness of the outside world telling them what to think.

in the background we see shiro looking outside the window, noticing mimihime's casual interactions (and touch) with tokio and kona. the parallels are so beautifully done.

later in her room, tokio is staring at the drawings on her wall, all made by kona.

i have no idea what it all really means, perhaps i should make a reddit post for that lol. maybe children sharing one mind? the world turning upside down? two children from one embryo (that seems to be clear foreshadowing)? winged angels in the sky (seems to be about asura)? and i have no idea what the top right image is, lol. if anyone knows, please tell me.

the chapter ends with a suspicious message from mimihime, on shiro's phone showing a picture of her nude, taking a bath. i have no idea how he gets this? I can't remember if it was hinted at in future chapters.

is he being a creep and has he set up some monitoring device in her bathroom? i dont think so + i think in future chapters he tries to ask her about it and she's clueless, i'm not sure. sounds like some cheesy porn plot lol

was this sent to shiro by meena?? perhaps this something else to ask the redditors.

[co-mixed]

Tropes and Visions

Taking a long look at the nature of fictional villains

Just the other day I asked myself why did I suddenly fall for the vision Toyo Harada planted in the minds of his followers at the beginning of Imperium. It seemed so perfect: peace and prosperity. Pretty much the same world we envision when we hear the word “future”. Neo-futurism, if you may. A world without borders and with mutual respect. It seems so easy and so achievable, at the same time it’s the one thing we repeatedly fail to achieve.

What is evil?

When we were kids, things in fiction were simple. A hero never killed, a villain - did. But any villain had to be obviously almost grotesquely evil. Whether they were guided by their own selfish goals or enjoyed chaos for the sake of chaos. Then we graduated to multi-layered villains. Still, the most favorite ones were driven insane. Sometimes with merely a spark of humanity left deep inside. There’s always a point to either make a villain absolutely inexcusable or keep them redeemable preferably by death. Your Docs. Ocks and Anakins were all allowed to keep their dignity if they exited the story in a body bag.

But today’s villains have to be much more. Otherwise, they’re deemed unbelievably simple (even despite the fact that we see absolute, unforgivable evil done on a regular basis). We want to dig deeper, to be able to understand what drives them. Maybe that’s what second-wave villains have taught us. But maybe it’s something else. 

Does it take a villain 

The best villains in movies or comics have one thing in common — their good intentions. We often find ourselves siding with them, at least for a short while before they go off on a killing spree. And that’s something they inevitably do. 

On the other side, before they do, they get to show you how much better the world could be if they’re just allowed to execute their vision (along with some people but who’s counting). The point is, they are ready to get their hands dirty to achieve their goal. 

Let’s take Magneto as the best possible example. His goal was not peace between the mutants and the humans. He wanted to ensure the survival of his kind. He himself survived the holocaust and was prepared to do anything to save fellow mutants from the same fate. Yes, he went back and forth (a lot), he’s been called a terrorist and he didn’t shy away from killing. He never abandoned his views yet only with his help mutants finally got their utopia on Krakoa. And I might not be the biggest fan of this arc, but that doesn’t make it any less prophetic. Xavier’s peaceful methods were never enough. Magneto made their “last attempt” a success. 

But that’s just one example, and we’re not here to gush about Magneto. This whole thing was inspired by Harada and it’s his path that I want to review. 

Toyo Harada is a more complex example of the same trope. A child of war, a powerful individual, a visionary (all of them are), and a hero to his kind. 

His actions may be more brutal than Magneto’s but his goal is closer to home. It’s Xavier's dream with Magneto’s approach. It’s the whole world becoming an ideal and non-secluded version of Krakoa. And maybe the most devastating part is that it’s achievable with or without psiots. To drive the point further, Harada makes a special point of condemning war profiteering. In fact, if you read Imperium, you’re likely to start wondering who and where is making money on wars. 

Toyo Harada is trying to help the most disenfranchised and neglected. He isn’t great at it. But he still gets closer to that goal than anyone with peaceful measures.

That may be because Harada is prepared to remove anyone who stands in his way. Sometimes it’s a government, sometimes it’s terrorists, sometimes it’s regular people. To him, there is no difference and that makes his way the wrong way.

Why can’t they just be nice 

We call the ones who kill antiheroes. Your Punishers, Wolverines, (possibly) Bloodshots, they get the job done with a body count longer than your phone number. If there is a line and it’s not at killing, then how come antiheroes manage to longe behind it while visionaries inevitably end up crossing it? They rush towards their goal with such ferocity, they step on seemingly irrelevant people that they’re hoping to help. 

Antiheroes always have a strong moral code, it’s their shield against crossing the line that even we, readers, don’t always see. Even anti they’re still heroes. If the code isn’t enough, there’s always a failsafe that they’re aware of. Something or someone that can end them. Punisher is just a man, Toyo Harada is just short of omnipotent. 

This is a bold statement but if you’re a human or humanoid, tropes strongly suggest that you aren’t capable of handling the weight of enormous power. There is something religious about it that circles back to idolizing another human being. Gods can be flawed but have to be adored. Powerful humans can’t.

This isn’t a writers’ collusion. This is just a trope that gives your villain depth. It makes you feel compassion and it makes you as a reader, mentally define that proverbial no-crossing line. 

Does peace mean no change 

Here’s the billion-dollar question. Are we supposed to believe that the noblest goals are always a lie? Because this is what’s being repeated in the form of these villains. Krakoa is deeply flawed, Harada’s paradise is thousands of starving people, Killmonger just wants chaos, Namor drowns a nation. The list could go on and somehow it always comes back to this one statement - a most beautiful promise has to be a lie. We are rotating around the same idea that Utopia is always a trick. There is a healthy bit of logic behind this too, and a thick tome of world history to support this bit. There are always going to be rebels and they will always be punished. Are we supposed to protect the status quo? Not really, just look around – it’s no good. But if we challenge it, we have to vow to be squeaky clean and keep in mind our own limits.

All that is impossible for a villain. Even with the best intentions. You might get emotionally involved yet you will have to realize that the status quo is still better than an unpredictable power-hungry madman. Note that “powerful” doesn’t mean “satisfied”. 

They all end up power-hungry. Why? Again, history and experience. Great power is required for great achievement. And power corrupts. 

Oh, great power, you say…

You guessed it. A powerful person becomes a villain when they stop feeling responsible for their actions. When there’s no one to hold them accountable. This means that all the aforementioned villains had one problem in common — no one to challenge them. That’s when their moral compass went to hell. Yes, all these stories are cautionary tales warning us to not let one person grab and grab and grab power. It does take a villain to build a paradise but it does take a hero to step down. In his fantasy Toyo Harada did just that, he built a paradise and left it as a legacy. 

It was easy to fall for this vision. The world we live in is so broken, many of us would deal with the devil to fix it.

The vision was a lie, everyone saw what they yearned to see. And Harada himself didn’t really care about the people. He was a visionary, he cared about his vision. 

[astralartefact]

A collection of thoughts about the Dawntrail Launch Trailer as always I fail to be normal about this

I'm talking about the Sexy Robot, the White Lady and... yeah that's pretty much it.

if Solution 9 has nothing to do with the twelfth shard/lightning calamity then what are they doing putting references to lightning in the text of the trailer

Why are they so allergic to showing the Pictomancer Limit Break, no let's just show the mid Viper LB again.

I have a thought where the Area we fight the Eliminator is (not convinced Eliminator is a trial tbh - this might be a Ranjit Solo Fight Situation) - I think this is in the original Golden City (well, at least one of them. clearly there's more than one given tuliyollal is also one symbolically) and that hole in the ceiling also makes me think that that might be the holes in the new Solution 9 artwork and that Solution 9/Heritage Found were literally built on top of the Golden City, taking advantage of it or something?

Trial Fight on top of Solution 9! Trial Fight on top of Solution 9! Trial Fight on top of Solution 9! knew they would do it!!!

I wonder what creature/battle-able force this thing (the golden core looks very very Ancient btw) is going to release upon the world... and if it's the Second Trial or the Final Boss (no idea what it could be lol, i don't know FF6 nor 9)

Also, given it's prominently called a key I wonder what door it opens. Clearly not just Solution 9. I think it would be much more interesting to let that door open and let us look inside, maybe :) (bc if this is the second trial then maybe the final zone is the destroyed 12th and we learn that rejoinings leave traces or something) (and i don't care if that doesn't make sense in the lore, myths of the realm did break the lore worse for less pay-off)

i am so unnormal about her. i hope she's a ultimately good but misguided genocidal pure little lady. and i desperately need the community at large to hate her. also pls be voiced by azusa tadokoro so i can keep calling you marie nier reincarnation it could be her but i'm not sure

If the Eliminator really is her Gundam I'm going to throw up. God. Please give her the Sexy Gundam.

as for speculation on who she is - probably one of the three ascians we don't know yet and/or their 'shard' (i still want them to go deeper into what it does to a person to learn they're a shard and to have to live with that sort of agency-crushing legacy but looking at gaia just shrugging it off we will probably never get that)

i also really hope she's genuinely a 'good' ascian even if she's the antagonist, i think it's boring to think none of them could be reasonable and accept/get over the fact that their world is gone. it's been 12000 years. also keep in mind they rewrote deudalaphon's lore in the newest lore book for no good reason, they have never been called an architect before i would know that so they're probably going to show up somewhere too at some point.

Speaking of which, friendly reminder that the Raid is literally called Arcadia in JP and up until now everything that was called after a fictional Utopia (Amaurot, Eden) had to do with Ascians (also no i won't recognize that red thing in the raid artwork as an ascian sigil it looks nothing like the other ones)

Solution 9 giving people eternal life gave me one (1) fear. If this Expansion is about how dying is good actually and necessary for humans to [gestures to whatever Venat's whole thing and the Omicron quests were about] - I'm not going to froth at the mouth about it like how I'm doing it for Myths of the Realm (Fuck Eulogia), but I am going to roll my eyes at it. Like, can we stop romanticizing the limitations of the human race. I think it's honestly boring to arrive at the take 'Well, Humanity would be worse if we took away one of its limitations' - No, It would probably just be different and that's fine. Both would be fine. And like, who cares at this point. You talked about this three times already. Get new material.

Also, the German Dub was... pretty good??? At this point I'm watching it to avoid the English Dub (you people are weird, you like that???) but I'm surprised about how little I cringed about it! It's still a little bit stilted and stuff (like how Erenville's Narration does the thing where. he. speaks. every. single. word. on. its. own.) but I didn't mind it that much! Another Win for the German Localization!

[thisisryderinjapan]

May 24 - Kinkakujin + Daitokokuji

Today we started the day a little bit earlier so that we could get to Kinkakujin a little before the huge tourist rush. Something that I have learned about Kyoto is that their subway system is not nearly as robust as Tokyo’s, so their public transportation relies heavily on busses, which in my experience are not nearly big enough to accommodate the demand. I understand that the roads are smaller and the busses have to be more agile than those in America, but literally every single time I have had to ride a bus in Kyoto (today was the third time) it has been packed, and the thing about busses is that they are way harder to stand in than trains so when they’re packed it’s really hard (AKA impossible) to avoid falling into the people around you. Anyways, we saw Kinkakujin which was cool but is also the single most touristy thing to do in Kyoto, then we headed over to Daitokokuji, which is a complex of temples where you are supposed to go and enjoy quiet worship. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take pictures inside the first temple we went into, and the second one was not very photogenic so I don’t have any pictures from that, but the gold building above is Kinkakujin. After we finished the academic day, we got Ichiran for the 80th time and did some light shopping (I got more shoes), then got coffee and headed back to watch K dramas and have a peaceful evening in. One of the highlights of my entire trip was on the way back to the hotel because we were stopped by a class of Japanese schoolchildren who were in search of English speakers for their English class. Their accents were pretty easy to understand, but I don’t think they were able to understand what we were saying very well. It was super cute though because they were really excited that we liked ramen in America and that we knew about Shohei Ohtani (a famous Japanese baseball player).

Academic Reflection

Something that I thought was interesting from today’s reading was the fact that the term “zen garden” might actually be a misnomer of sorts that was fabricated by Americans who didn’t understand Japanese practices, then in turn imported by the Japanese who were prone to being influenced by America after the war. This is just another example of an impact that America has had on the development of modern Japan and the world’s understanding of the country as a whole. I think about how we understand Japan, or at least, how I understood Japan before this trip, as a clean and perfect metropolis with no crime and kawaii everywhere, and wonder how much of that was initially rooted in misinformed, unsubstantiated American understandings of the country from those who might not have ever even been. Granted, the country has been very clean and feels infinitely safer than America, but definitely isn’t a utopia and has problems just like every other country. This is the entire reason I wanted to go in the first place: so that I could see for myself the country that so many people see as the ideal place and compare my experience to the fantastical image many Americans have in their heads.

[thetonethetollandthethunder]

Scythe chapter 16-20!!

Ayy we’re backk!! Let’s just get started shall we?

Chapter 16!!

-oh god the elegy—

-“Could you imagine me as a teenager?” OH YES I CAN OHOHO

-This also shows how much power scythes and especially Goddard has

-And also shows how bad of a scythe Goddard is as well

-Scythe Curie makes a good point that also relates to the toll, in which it doesn’t matter if they kill Goddard or anyone like him because another with the same ideology will always come along without fail

-this chapter didn’t have much but it IS good so ykyk

Chapter 17!!

-OHHH ITS THE MOMENT THAT EVERYONE LOSES THEIR MINDS OVER!! SCYTHE FARADAY IS D-D-DEAD or is he? :) :)

-Rowan instinctively trying to protect Citra!!!

-it makes sense for most disabilities to be nonexistent but that doesn’t mean I have to like it :/ like idk why the way it’s done is just :// especially as a disabled person myself

-The way the describe Faraday’d death is already suspicious if you already know he isn’t dead but when you’re first reading it, it does make sense!

-OH AND THE SEPARATE TRAININGS BEGINS!!!

-“If I ever take on an apprentice it will be for a different reason entirely.” OHOHO I KNOW I KNOWWWW

-Again not much to say BUT still rlly good!!

Chapter 18!!!

-Part 3 begins!!

-SCYTHE CURIE!!

-Again I always forget the names of these places, falling water is a very pretty name!!

-Citra being angry about Faraday’s death OUGH, she’s rlly going through 5 stages of grieve style

-Could you imagine ppl in the future calling our decor and shit old fashioned? Bizarre

-I love how they make Curie instantly charming and likable with only a few scenes, good writing man!!

-What hobbies would other scythes have? I wonder…

-Fun fact, i cannot drive, tried to learn and crashed the car, oh how I wish driving wasn’t necessary like in scythe

-Giving us little notes about the comfort scythes can give

-We hear a lot about being stagnant in the Scythe universe, and like, yeah, if you were in this utopia wouldn’t you grow stagnant even quicker than most? You have nothing to do literally

-You can really feel how observant Curie is, she noticed the small details

-Jesus even Curie’s yelling scared ME and I already knew what was gonna happen! She’s rlly intimidating—

-Gotta uphold your image!!

-“Another Scythe might have exacted a punishment far worse.” *COUGH COUGH GODDARD*

-Again shit names!! Barton Breen??? What??

-20 kids,, Jesus,,

-You can Curie’s own version of compassion, it’s different from Faradays yet still wonderful

-She did find her own way of gleaning!!

-Again FUCK Goddard!!

-I do wonder what would happen if Citra was trained by Goddard instead of Rowan…

-“Immortality has turned us all into cartoons.” GOD THAT LINEE

-Amazing chapter!! Told a LOT abt Curie!!!

CHAPTER 19!!!!

-Oo!! I thought this moment happened in Thunderhead but I misremembered!!

-Tho I THINK something similar happens??? Idk maybe my memory is fuckin with me ushejdj

-ALSO DAMN CITRA!! Pushin girls in front of TRUCKS holy fuck!!!

-Hate the eating descriptions!!

-TELL THE MOTHER YOU TWO!!! LIKE CMON??

-Cindy lmaoo, whenever someone whitewashes Citra im gonna call it Cindy instead <3 spite

-“err on the side of respect.” LMAO love that line

-RONDA ROADKILL IM DYINGGGGGG and so did she! (Temporarily but yk)

-“Can i throw you under a truck some other time?” She’s a busy person! I’d totally throw Citra under a truck! Would be fun!

-Morals change when theres little consequences, Citra would never even CONSIDER pushing Ronda in the mortal age, but since people can just come back it doesn’t seem like such a bad thing, it also shows how the concept of empathy and morality has changed in this society

-“the cloud” like icloud! Guess apple won in this world!

-“The machine had a purer soul than any human” NO IT DOESNT IVE SEEN AI ART YOU CANT FOOL ME!!!

-FUCK YOU SCYTHE GODDARD!!!

-OO TIME FOR CITRA TO INVESTIGATE!! I remember LOVING this plot so!!!!

Chapter 20!!

-Rowan finally!!! I missed you!!!!!

-He doesn’t wanna kill Citra!!! The beginning of his devotion to her UGHHH

-god hes only 17, I think we forgot how young these characters are, they really are just kids being pushed into this horrible situation god,,,

-“His was a life without substance, and now it would end.” God and here we see Rowan’s iconic self deprecating “emo” moments, people make fun of these scenes a lot but I fucking love em, it really contrasts Rowan and Citra. Citra has people who love and care about her, Rowan doesn’t, he knows that (in this moment) if he died no one would really care or remember him, so when he finds Citra, someone who does care about him and would care if he died, he clings to it. I mean when you’re that neglected and want SOMEONE to care even a little about you, wouldn’t you do the same thing?

-He already wants to change things!! And he will!! He will change a lot, though not as much as his girlfriend!!

-VOLTA!!

-“So is there a reason why you choose your robes to be the color of piss?” HA one of my favorite lines!!

-“the Change” god their ideology—, the fact they’re all thinking that they’re changing things for the better really shows how convincing of a man Goddard is, GOD i hate him!!!

-Ans here we have Goddard’s MANY parties

-my sensory issues would hate this

-I accidentally spelled Goddard’s name as Goodard which…Isn’t that so Ironic?

-“Bimbotech” Neal I’m BEGGING you to stop

-“Rowan wondered if the man had a diamond-studded bathing suit in his waredrobe as well.” He would because he’s a vain prick!!

-HES UNDERAGE STOP GIVING HIM ALCOHOL!! *Looking at you RAND especially ya creep—*

-“He was lucky if they even remembered to get him a gift” rowans parents man,,, He was really fucking neglected man it’s so awful, and the fact he still cares about them despite that GODDD

-See how goddard bend the rules? See how he twists them to make them fit what HE wants? Yeah, he’s gonna do that a lot; again, fuck you Goddard

-ESME!!! Shes backk!! And he’s right! She’ll be important!!

-GOD this is a good chapter, rowan my beloved!!

And that’s it!!! Next time will be chapters 21-25!! We’re going so fast aren’t we?