#which is why some of the right ones are 'corrected' by the other

[nostalgebraist]

Thanks for this thoughtful review!

(BTW, for others – this is probably obvious but there are spoilers below the readmore, don't click unless you've read the book)

I'm going to use this as an opportunity to talk about one specific thing that bugs me about some reader reactions to my stuff. Therefore, most of what I say below will be negative (about your review), but I want to emphasize first that that's not a reflection of what I thought of it overall.

----

What I'm here now to talk about is this kind of thing:

There are parts of all his books, where I really think that the explanation for why they are the way they are is that they are "bad on purpose", and all the bullshit [note: in context "bullshit" seems to be meant as a neutral term for non-realist elements -nost] is a way of turning these shortcomings into strengths. The self-effacing voice which whispers that the characters aren't sufficiently well-drawn, are too cartoonish—well, what if that was the point? What if there was a reason for that, in the story?

And like... okay, there is sort of a sense in which this is true, sometimes, kinda. There is a grain of truth to this; it is getting at something real.

But it pains me to say that, because I don't want to encourage this kind of reading. Interpretations like this are occasionally correct but IMO they're much more common than they should be. IMO the right intuition is that this is a galaxy-brained, contrarian sort of take, a last resort you land on when you've ruled out everything else.

And not just with my work, with everything – I'm simply more aware of the problem when it comes to my work, because I wrote it and I'm aware of why I actually did things the way I did.

I've said this before, but watching the way that people react to my own fiction has been an eye-opening experience, one that has taught me things about reader (and viewer, etc.) reactions in general. Specifically, what I've learned was:

People's tastes are way more diverse than I had realized (before I started writing and sharing fiction). And they are diverse in a very fine-grained way; even if two readers have the same preferences about 90% of stuff, or 95%, they'll still diverge on some things. While it's not literally true that "every reader is a unique snowflake with a preference set that no one else shares," that is a very good first approximation of how things are.

Readers (including me!) have been trained by a lifetime of reading book/movie/etc. reviews to frame their preferences/reactions in a pseudo-objective "this is just how it is" way, like their own tastes have some special viewpoint-independent priority, a quality of "reality" or "accuracy" lacking in everyone else's tastes (which are all different, cf. 1). And this is not just a stylistic quirk of the way people write about fiction, it actually (IMO) feeds back into the underlying opinions behind the written commentary. It degrades people's ability to understand what it is they're looking at and their ability to make accurate inferences about the process of its creation.

----

Here's a sort of cartoonish schematic of the type of experience that led me to draw these conclusions. (And I suspect this is not just a thing that happens to me, I imagine it happens with any sort of work that "contains a lot of different types of stuff" the way mine does.)

Writer makes something that has X and Y and Z in it. Writer thinks X/Y/Z are "great tastes that taste great together." Writer is very pleased with the result.

Reader 1 has similar tastes to writer, says something brief about how they loved the book and it's a new favorite for them.

Reader 2 loves X, is OK with Y, hates Z. They write a lengthy review saying that the book was a mixed bag and could have been great if the writer had stuck to X and not messed things up by doing so much Z.

Reader 3 is the reverse of their predecessor: they hate X, are OK with Y, love Z. They write a lengthy review saying that the book was a mixed bag and could have been great if the writer had stuck to Z and not messed things up by doing so much X.

Reader 4 loves X and Z – but they hate Y. They write a lengthy… you can fill in the rest. Imagine a whole bunch of these guys (readers 5, 6, etc).

Reader 17 has the same tastes as Reader 2: loves X, is OK with Y, hates Z. But their lengthy review takes a different, in some sense "more charitable" angle, speculating that the inclusion of Z was a load-bearing pillar in the overall structure, a thing that unfortunately had to be included to "unlock" all that sweet sweet X.

Reader 18 has the same tastes as Reader 3: hates X, is OK with Y, loves Z. But, they explain, X was a load-bearing pillar in the overall structure, a thing that unfortunately had to be included to "unlock" all that sweet sweet Z.

Writer reads all these reviews and feels strange, dizzy. The "nicer" reviews like 17 and 18 are actually more uncomfortable to read than the "meaner" ones like 2 and 3.

"I don't know how to convince you guys," Writer thinks, "but I... I just liked all of it? I thought it was good? That was why I wrote it? (Why else would I have written it?)"

----

Or, as I wrote in that previously linked post from 2021, w/r/t TNC specifically (and making a slightly different but closely related point):

Some people say X was the worst part of TNC, some people say X was the best part. The story was a celebration of Y; the story was about how Y is laughably futile. It’s a letdown that we were never told more about Z; the reason TNC is good is that it leaves stuff like Z to the imagination. It was obvious we were meant to believe P; it is obvious we were meant to believe not-P; the ambiguity about whether P is tiresome literary masturbation; at least the story didn’t jump the shark by spelling out whether P! The reason people like TNC is, of course, that it has A, although nostalgebraist insisted on putting B in there too because he hasn’t fully perfected his formula yet / he somehow thinks B is good even though it isn’t / he thinks it’s funny how bad B is (but the joke tires). …and then someone else has same take, but with A and B flipped.

This exact sort of thing is of course happening again before our eyes with reactions to TAoHS.

I've encountered multiple readers who disliked most of the story but felt the ending (sort of) "redeemed it," and I've also encountered multiple readers who liked the story up until the ending but disliked the ending (or at least thought it was worse than the rest) – to say nothing of the many readers who liked (or disliked) the whole thing all the way through.

And this ending-related stuff is just one particularly obvious facet of a broader diversity in the overall reader response.

By now I know not to be surprised by this stuff, and even to find it kind of fun to watch... but I have to admit, it is still a dizzying and uncomfortable experience.

----

Now, as I said, it is sometimes true that things really are "bad on purpose."

But I think the interpreter's default hypothesis – which should be maintained by default unless convincing evidence against it can be brought forth – should be:

The writer thinks that the thing they wrote is good. They think the ideas are good and they think they executed them well. And they think this more-or-less homogeneously for everything in the work – there are no "bad but unfortunately necessary" parts from the writer's POV.

(At least, this should be the default with works that aren't making the writer much/any money. Obviously things are different with lucrative commercial fiction; there are plenty of well-paid hacks who know they're hacks and do it for the money, etc.)

Why should this be the default? Multiple reasons.

First: it takes a lot of effort to produce any sort of creative work. The writer thought that effort was worthwhile, for some reason – why?

The most straightforward explanation (and a very common one IMO) is that the writer simply believed in the thing that they were making. They believed the effort was worthwhile because it would yield a good product.

Second: as a writer you have an immense amount of freedom. It's difficult to overstate the extent of it. You are playing God, you decide the way that literally everything will be.

Obviously there are some constraints, cases where one part of a story will imply the existence of another or whatever.

But it's very rare that you actually get forced into "doing a thing you know you are bad at, badly." After all: why do that? No one's forcing you! Just do something else! You're God, you control everything!

(Note that this applies also to the very act of writing anything. No one is forcing you to write at all. If you can't come up with good ideas, nothing prevents you from just not writing your bad ones.)

Third: at least in my experience, "playing God" in this way requires a certain state of mind, a certain boldness and self-assurance, which is incompatible with thinking "yeah this is gonna suck but I have to do it" – but is very compatible with thinking "I am making something excellent and every part of it is excellent, hell yes."

Fourth: because of the previously noted diversity of reader preferences, it should not be surprising to any given reader that they find some parts of the work much better than others, even if the writer thought it was all excellent.

This outcome is predictable from the X/Y/Z stuff I talked about above. No clever interpretive work is required to explain it; it arrives pre-explained; it's simply what happens by default.

And finally: because, as I noted above, I think all of us are infected with "reviewer brainworms" and we need to be mindful of this fact.

(Just to be clear, I am not accusing OP of being more infected with said brainworms than anyone else; I'm still on my soapbox, giving a generic rant about a general issue, with OP as merely a jumping-off point.)

We've grown accustomed to the casual conflation between our own tastes and some (usually hazily imagined and under-theorized) sort of "objective, ideal artistic standards."

Outside of a few edge-case eccentrics who can be ignored for my present purposes, we do not do this because we've become intellectually convinced that

(a) such objective standards make sense and really "exist" or at least really matter and

(b) they just so happen to match our own preferences.

Rather, we've fallen into this habit because it's what the pros do: there's a standard style that professional critics and reviewers write in these days, and that style implies these stances. And if one writes (and thinks, in one's inner monologue) in this style, one can easily fall over backwards into uncritically believing (a) and (b) for no better reason than "I seem to already be talking as though I believe these things, hence it would be simple and convenient if I really did believe them."

But – even if we bracket the philosophical questions of whether (a) is in fact true, and (if it is) whose tastes in particular ought to be elevated in the way (b) presumes – even if we table all that for another day, still we ought to keep in mind how weird and audacious a move this is, this simultaneous assertion-without-explanation of the (a)+(b) pair.

We've gotten used to it by exposure, because "the pros" have normalized it. But in actual fact it is a pretty wild thing to just go and assume, given the X/Y/Z/etc. diversity of actual opinion!

If (b) is true for you (general "you" not OP), then it can't be true for me, because we're both unique snowflakes to a first approximation; indeed if (b) is true for you then (to a first approx.) it is only true for you. No one else's tastes have this magical relation to reality, just yours.

Holding the belief (b) about a given reviewer is conceivable-but-wild if we're only considering them in isolation. But once we bring a 2nd reviewer (with non-identical tastes) into the picture, who also believes (b), it's literally impossible to maintain that both of these people are fully right.

And then of course in real life there are not 2 but many, many readers out there, all of them unique snowflakes. And, while it is socially normal in our social context for each one of them to write like they're the chosen one blessed with that special (b)-magic, if you read enough such writing and actually think about what you're reading, it can't help but feel like a sort of game, like playing make-believe. As with most games, it can be very entertaining (for all parties involved), but we shouldn't confuse its amusing conceits for properties of the real world.

In the real world, the writer has their tastes, and you have yours. These tastes are probably not identical. The writer may be aware of the diversity of readerly tastes, and may thus be aware that tastes like yours are out there, but they have no special reason to consider you in particular, elevating you above all the other readers who are non-identical with them (and with you). The writer is dimly and abstractly aware of you, at best, as just another one of the people who will come along later, dislike some of their choices, assume that these choices were wrong in some "objective" way the writer knew about at the time, and then speculate as to why the writer would do something they know is wrong. For every choice, and every way of making every choice, one can imagine a reviewer who responds to it in this way, and quite often these reviewers actually materialize once the work is available for consumption. If you try to reason about these guys in advance, as a writer, it'll stop you in your tracks (if nothing else because there are 2+ of them whose takes are mutually incompatible). You've gotta have some other standard of value to rely on.

So, as a reviewer, if you ask "why would someone ever make a choice I don't like?" and try to pick at this question, you are quite likely heading toward a dead end. The writer wasn't thinking about you (or people like you). They were applying their own, distinct standard of value.

Better to ask: "suppose there was a person who actually liked all of this. What would they be like? How would they be similar to me / different from me? And what, if anything, can I conclude from that?"

The Apocalypse of Herschel Schoen

My fourth novel, The Apocalypse of Herschel Schoen, is now available in full.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

[the-two-of-clubs]

A r/limbuscompany Reddit thread titled "Why do people refer to Dante as a boy?" had a lot of answers given that frankly depressed me, so I wrote a huge essay. And because it's huge and the Redditors are definitely not going to listen, I'm going to repost it here. For non-Limbus fans, Dante's the game's speaking protagonist of indeterminate gender.

People will just straight up say "I just don't want to use they/them pronouns, it's either he or she and I get to pick, sorry!" and be the top upvoted comment in this thread.

When I encourage you to use they/them pronouns for Dante that's not even because they're nonbinary, it's because it's what Dante is always referred to in the game they're from, and it's because it's a less clunky standin for "he or she" as well. "They" can refer to anyone, that's why it's the single best fit of any common English pronoun for an ambiguous character like Dante. They/them is the only way to refer to Dante without making up a headcanon, whether that be a fan theory that they're Ayin or Benjamin or whatever, or a self insert projection.

They/them is something you (yes you! the reader!) could be getting used to being able to use, for multiple reasons. One of which being for nonbinary people, and another reason being not constantly being forced to assume everyone's gender all the time. To smoothly be able to use language that doesn't constantly exclude women. For example, hearing someone talk about a doctor and immediately leaping to "he/him" is a microaggression, because female doctors are constantly confronted with the assumption that they're either men or nurses.

The more you use they/them pronouns for others, the more natural to you they/them pronouns will seem. And Dante could be a great starting off point for some of you to start doing that. Using they/them pronouns can make somebody's day. It would be real self improvement that matters. You probably know a trans or nonbinary person, whether you know that about them or not.

Some of you are 100% telling on yourselves that you couldn't handle being around a nonbinary person who uses they/them pronouns in real life with this thread. The pronouns are so alien and unusable to you you're performing mental gymnastics specifically to get out of using them. Yes, nobody can stop you from using he/him for Dante, knock yourself out I guess. But also, what is your actual reason to do that? And not just some casual excuse that you're throwing out, like "you can't prove Dante's NOT a man" (why not use she/her then, hm? what if she's a woman? at the very least the correct pronoun for this would technically be "he or she", right?) Or "Dante is a male name" (the entire Limbus main cast has male names and you don't see people "he/him"-ing Faust. Seems like a specific issue you guys have with they/them and Dante.) Really ask yourself why. Why ARE you so convinced Dante is a man? No really I'm serious.

And when that question does get asked by OP here, people are arguing in this thread that men are the ones who play Limbus Company, and that of course everyone's calling Dante he/him because almost all gamers use he/him, with the whole self insert argument. Which is dismissal and erasure of women, who apparently don't exist and it doesn't matter if the game's self insert mascot represents them, despite showing up in this thread to tell you that they and their presumably from context also female friends play Limbus. This self insert argument will never make Dante a binary man, it would make Dante another type of nonbinary which is pangender or genderfluid, because Dante represents all players that play them or whichever specific player is playing them, and to refer to Dante as the concept, the gestalt, the infinite-mirror-worlds Dantes that exist on each of our phones, they/them still suffices in a unique way, to pay homage to other players with different genders than you and their Dantes which would match those genders, I think.

Calling Dante "he" is an active choice you're making, going against the way the game refers to Dante.

Using the pronouns that the character always gets referred to in the entire game they're from is the norm. You guys never don't do that, except in cases like this where it's so you can ignore they/them pronouns. You do have an actual reason, conscious or subconscious, to actively change which pronouns you're using. Some of the people referring to Dante as he/him here absolutely have biases that make them unwilling to refer to Dante as they/them and therefore they're going out of their way to contradict the source material, namely transphobia. That might not be you, but it's some of the people you're sharing this take that Dante uses he/him with.

I am under no illusion that Dante is necessarily intended to be nonbinary representation. However, some of your reasons for "he/him"-ing Dante are very much trans exclusionary. "Dante has a masculine frame"... People who look like men to you sometimes aren't men. Heck, sometimes they're cis women. And if this is the first you're hearing of it, yep! That's always been true and you should keep it in mind. We live in a big weird beautiful world. People who look like men to you might be nonbinary and use exclusively "they/them" pronouns for example, and being referred to as "they" rather than "he" might go a long way to their happiness and comfort because of a thing called dysphoria, which can be medically dangerous for people if they suffer too much of it from being misgendered too often. These people can't somehow get a different skeleton structure and look even more androgynous than Dante does in order for you to refer to them respectfully. Training yourself out of jumping to pronouns because of the width of someone's shoulders can do real world good just like training yourself out of jumping to pronouns because of somebody's career. It all helps you act respectfully and challenge your assumptions. And that can start right now right here. You can just refer to Dante or any nonbinary video game character you've been neglecting as they/them, sound it out in your head, nothing is stopping you.

And yes, before someone starts whining that I'm making "too big a deal of this" because I dropped the dreaded T-word that will get me downvoted, Dante isn't real and can't have their feelings hurt by the fact that people keep referring to them as he/him even if they turn out to have been a woman this whole time. I know I am aware. You should know that nonbinary people are reading the posts you're making and seeing how casually and thoughtlessly you're willing to dismiss even the concept of using they/them for a CLOCK who doesn't even have a human FACE let alone an obvious gender, and I for one know that were we to meet, you wouldn't gender me correctly either. You'd take one look at me and thoughtlessly assume you're always right.

Does referring to Dante as anything at all matter directly? No. It's fiction. However, words inspire people. Everyone is just referring to Dante as he/him because everyone else is and it's considered normal. A creative thinker, a leader rather than a follower, is someone who questions what everyone else is doing, and comes to their own conclusions. Coming to your own conclusions is what you will have to do with what I have written here.

For the Tumblr audience this is probably just an unsurprising PSA that Limbus fan Redditors are being weird about they/them pronouns and a bunch of weird arguments they're using to do so. I'm not trying to come after any queer person's he/they or she/her or any pronoun set Dante headcanons in particular here either, you can tell by the explanation of what dysphoria is that's not the target audience. If you headcanon characters having different pronouns when it's not just because you can't be assed to use they/them we're cool that's very cool of you.

[niobiumao3]

Anyways, here are some random tidbits I swear I'm not actually writing this except maybe I am who knows anyways...

At the time she convinced herself it couldn't be him. They'd killed any clones whose chips hadn't activated. So it was just her imagination, a desperate attempt to find any excuse to cling to the hope he'd survived, as she had, probably for similar reasons: pure, stubborn refusal to let the Empire win.

***

Later she would accept that she'd known it was him from the moment she saw him standing in the line up. Not because she could see his face--they were all helmeted and wearing identical, dusky black armor--but because she'd have known him anywhere by stance and posture alone. They'd not fought side by side in the war for over three years for her to forget him, any of them really but especially not him.

But won they had. Memories of her life before the Inquisitorious were fragments, seemed more like dreams described by a different person. A wild young Jedi and her squadron of variant clones. It sounded like a children's story, in some ways was less painful to tell herself that's all it was. Otherwise--

"Your assigned operative will be CX-2."

The Grand Inquisitor's voice drew Fifth Sister back to the present. Though the armor the clones wore was all identical, not all of them were the same size. The one they'd stopped in front of was taller than average, shoulders broader. This was important somehow. (Another way she knew it was him.)

Fifth Sister looked the operative up and down. His hands were clasped behind his back like the others, and he stood perfectly still. This wasn't the stillness of rest: he was poised, ready, waiting. A knocked arrow.

"CX-2," she said, and the operative nodded an acknowledgement. She looked askance at the Grand Inquisitor. He and his own operative--CX-1, a shorter clone with a broad chest--were watching the two of them intently.

"How do I refer to him?"

"Operative should be sufficient," the Grand Inquisitor said. Fifth Sister made a face.

"Won't that be confusing if multiple of us are assigned to the same mission?"

The Grand Inquisitor shrugged. "You can use the designation in such cases."

She fought down a sigh, considered the operative in front of her. He gave the distinct impression he wasn't looking at her, which annoyed her for some unfathomable reason. Why should she care if he paid attention to her, as long as he followed orders?

The Grand Inquisitor held out a hand to his operative, who gave him a datarod. "Your first mission is to intercept a shipment of cargo bound for []." He offered her the datarod. Fifth Sister took it, eyes narrowed.

"Cargo," she echoed. The Grand Inquisitor arched an eyebrow at her.

She considered his expression. There was only one kind of 'cargo' with which the Inquisitorious concerned itself. "Force-users."

"Very good," he said. But he was still waiting. Which meant...

"Potentials."

The operative in front of her said, "Younglings."

It almost startled her to hear him speak. His voice was modulated, rendering it garbled and rough. And he'd just corrected her.

"Potentials are by necessity young," she said, voice sharp.

Either be didn't notice, or didn't care, because he said, "Not always. You were not."

Probably sensing the fury swirling into being within her, the Grand Inquisitor said, "Quite right, CX-2. However, that was only to found the Inquisitorious. From this point forward our potentials will be younglings."

The operative's head tilted for a moment, then he nodded. Fifth Sister took the time given by this interruption to reign in her anger. Killing her operative for the high crime of being precise wouldn't go over well with her superior.

The Grand Inquisitor continued, "You have three standard rotations. Report in if you require assistance or if the mission exceeds these parameters."

Fifth Sister nodded, jerked her head at the operative and strode towards the hangar deck. He was tall enough she had no hope of outpacing him without use of the Force, another minor irritation.

After a minute or so she realized he was careful to keep his distance behind her precise, even if she slowed down. He never allowed himself to be in front of her. In her way.

"It's going to be hard to address you if you're always behind me."

"I can hear you perfectly fine from this position."

"But you can't see my face. My expression."

"I am unclear on how that is useful."

"Depending on the situation I'm not always going to be able to say what I mean."

"I am more than intelligent enough to intuit such instances."

"*Really* . So this isn't just an excuse to get a good look?"

Confusion rippled around him in the Force. "At what?"

She sighed, shook her head. "Nevermind."

***

"It would be best if we--"

She tied off the bandage with a sharp yank, causing him to fall silence with a grunt. Between cleanup around the other gash, she said, "If you're about to suggest something *idiotic* like I should leave you here so I can return the [] and then come back for you? You can keep that shit to yourself."

Her voice was sharp and even, the way it was when she was well and truly angry. Yet unlike in those moments, when he sometimes thought he could feel the Force rising around her, aiming to strike down her enemy, there was something else hovering around her. Tenuous, wavering. Brittle.

"I was not going to recommend you return for me."

She made a frustrated sound, looked away. "You really think I should leave you hear for the sake of some--some fucking *missives*. We don't even know if they'll be useful."

"They are vital to the mission."

She started to say something, stopped. A sensation ripplied through him almost like fear. Almost. He didn't know what she'd been about to say, except some part of him *did* know, knew it was something they couldn't come back from. Best to not give voice to it, make it real.

She licked her lips. "I'm not likely to get out of here without you anyways."

"That is untrue." He took up his datapad, winced as the bandage on his side pulled. He took a moment to catch his breath, brought up the schematics. "There is a route here which will be possible for you to use. Together we would likely be seen or caught, but on your own it--"

"Not an option."

He held in a sigh. No one could move her when she dug in her heels like this, save the Grand Inquisitor, sometimes Fourth Sister. "If you are not back in one rotation they will depart without you. Those were the mission parameters."

"Then we find our way back on our own."

"My injuries are such that leaving this planet without the asistance of Imperial resources will be extremely difficult, if not simply--"

The medkit next to him rattled, the lantern jostled. He fell silent, waited and watched as she struggled her eyes shut, one hand formed into a fist so tight her nails would have drawn blood from her palm if not for her gloves.

The tremor abated. "I am not. Leaving you here. And that is *final*."

He sighed, considered his datapad again. In the corner of his eye he noted a hairline fracture in the lantern's shroud. "In that case."

[thealmightytrashdump]

Can you make some headcanon about his childhood? 🤔 i know he was manufactured so i suppose there were some "standards" he needed to follow at that time.

I like to imagine baby wesker couldn't be a child really. Like he was immediately groomed from maybe 7-8 weeks old to be "superior." Taken from his parents at a very very very young age. Raised mostly likely in a strict competitive environment all his life. No wonder this man has a ton of fucking issues.

First off. Getting chosen/kidnapped/orphaned. They had to select a child with quote unquote "superior genes." I'm halfway convinced they chose upper middle class white children, mayhaps with the 1940s Nazi Hilter Aryan race mindset. Spencer was in an older generation with older generation concepts cough RACISM cough so to speak.

So they obtain the child, in order to do whatever the fuck to him, they erase his birth identity from existence. Scrub him from the world and give him the new name they chose to fit the project. Albert Wesker.

Maybe they even went as far as given him a fake birthdate. Not birth year, but a fake birthday. (Basically canon at this point)

Wesker probably couldn't celebrate any holidays, or maybe all he would get as gifts were expensive reading materials/study guides/office supplies. Maybe the toys they gave him were secretly tests and puzzles and whatnot.

Maybe some of the other Wesker children were different ethnicities and they just didn't make it. So in a twisted sense perhaps that confirmed some prejudices that may or may not have been had by Umbrella's founders.

Of course his caretakers would encourage suitable behaviors and discourage certain idealogies. Not necessarily correcting bad behavior per say, more so correcting any undesirable traits like free will and fun. So maybe even from a young age, he was taught that being cruel was okay, maybe necessary to survive his upbringing. He didn't know better and no one was certainly teaching him good morals. Me thinks he wasn't raised religiously, but definitely could be wrong on this.

Of course being specifically chosen to be in the project means he naturally excelled in a boarding school learning environment. He definitely got some excellent af education.

Maybe he was on the autistism spectrum and they catered/designed his education for him specifically to succeed. Maybe they just abused him hard enough for him to learn how to survive despite any perceived learning setbacks. Either way, he did graduate at 17.

I like to think he was privately tutored but also maybe got some public university experience (where he could've met William), but canonically they supposedly met after he got his degrees and was shipped off to the arklay mountains where he worked under Dr. Marcus, right?

I like to think one of his private tutors tried to unbrainwash Albert and the trio founders of Umbrella stopped that nonsense real quick.

He has to have been raised with the other Wesker children and had to have realized their deaths/project failure was too systematic and put two and two together. For sure, Alex was the favorite of Spencer, and Albert (in terms of the wesker program) was average at best. He was superior genetically to Alex, but she was way more Intellectually advanced. Perhaps, he was an unruly child and needed a stricter lifestyle than Alex did. Either way, this is why Umbrella recuited William in, and tried to pit him and Wesker against each other. It would give Albert a goal to work towards, to strive to be better so to speak.

Albert was, of course, intelligent enough to not make enemies of his peers, Alex and William included. But that doesn't mean he liked them. Or hated them. I think he thought of them as coworkers.

His "friendship" with William (who was not raised to be a really smart sheep) definitely introduce some very interesting concepts to Wesker.

'What if not sheep but instead, a sherpard?' Which sparks his initial interest in learning about Spencer (who at this point imprinted himself on Wesker's psyche) and Umbrella. He was initally content with just getting his "dream job" as a researcher in Umbrella, but eventually begins thinking like "a sherpard" thus makes the deal with an increasingly paranoid Spencer to betray Dr. Marcus.

Of course, that means he's still under Spencer's thumb but he's starting to see the fucked up lamp in his dream bubble of a life. So schemes to get out of it by either: convincing Umbrella to let him join the military for some juicy secret B.OW. testing OR attempting to leave his predetermined life via joining the military.

(This would be around the time the virgin Wesker meets the hot dommy future Jake mommy. Mans never stood a chance.)

Either way, he must've not liked the vibes of the military because he immediately comes crawling back to being a researcher in Umbrella. Maybe due to his military experience, he gets promoted to head of security in arklay and selected to be undercover via S.T.A.R.S. Cap Wesker. Two positions, he most likely disliked heavily.

Keeping in mind, around this time, Alex was off on some island being God, William was making breakthroughs with the G virus, and now there's a new bitch(s) introduced as another rival in his life: Alexia Ashford (and her brother) who creates the T veronica Virus.

I imagine at this point, he's getting burned out, overworked, and basically the lowest asshole on the Umbrella totempole among his peers. I bet his ego was bruised and he just got tired of it.

At this point, he only had the T virus credited to him (and William), and he didn't even create it. Dr. Marcus (and co.) created it. All this man has at this point is knowledge and a ton of research and a killer body that survived one progenitor virus (this has enhanced his immune system and most likely gave him his naturally fit buff hot body.)

When the revived Queen leech Dr. Marcus starts fucking things up in the arklay mountains, this motherfucker's first thought after he realized he couldn't contain the problem (as head of security, Wesker would be the problem solver), he fucking decides to dip. "Bollocks to Umbrella." He says, and cuts a deal with some random ass organization/US military and accidentally dies trying to get some last minute B.O.W. research to sell.

Remember he had William design him a specific version of [Insert virus here](I think it was the T virus with some Wesker goop mixed in) so he probably did that as a failsafe, so he could survive. Though, it was probably untested but at this point, his career has basically imploded, and he knew it.

He literally writes that the arklay mountain and the raccoon city incident was the downfall of Umbrella and it was technically his (and William's) fault. He has nothing to lose (except his life), and everything to gain, if his gamble paid off.

And it did. He survives, and gets called a fucking loser by Chris and Jill and also sergei. Lmao. No wonder he was so smug and petty when next he sees them. Wanting to gloat and show off as much as possible.

[mossadspypigeon]

okay so i can give some context:

the origins of CRT is legal and sociological jargon. it referred to a sociological study that showed there was racial bias in the us court system, which was proven in unjust sentencings of black and brown men for minor offenses etc etc

it was ORIGINALLY only a course in law school for defense attorneys.

it became a thing for US later when CRT was something people tried to teach in schools. the right flipped out, but it was also around the time dei started and people conflated the two and combined them. critics said dei was a way to push crt in schools etc. it sort of became that, but that wasnt what it actually was, if that makes sense? it was used.

the thing is, crt is generally correct in certain american contexts. however, it does not take ethnicity into account or any other groups besides african americans and whites and one other group. therefore applying it to other contexts reduces everything to “do you fit into this box or this box?” it is ineffectual and erases the experiences of other groups. dei draws on some of that and that is why IT is so ineffective.

(crt can be applied to areas with hispanic populations too. it doesnt apply with anyone else really besides african americans/black americans, hispanic/latino americans, and white americans of actual european descent. those are the three groups.)

both theories completely erase jews and other ethnic groups, even arabs. however, crt was only meant to show certain disparities in certain contexts. it was not meant to be universal.

you see all of this today in “are you white or poc?” it’s gotten really bad, really reductive bc skin color doesnt denote ethnicity or experience.

what anon is talking about is what it became and what it led to, which was jews being completely erased and removed from leftist movements and activism.

i fully support talking about the prejudices within the american system and fixing them, but we need to change how we talk about it and discuss the variety of experiences.

https://sapirjournal.org/social-justice/2021/05/critical-race-theory-and-the-hyper-white-jew/

Saw this posted to Twitter about leftist antisemitism!

"Jews, who have never been seen as white by those for whom being white is a moral good, are now seen as white by those for whom whiteness is an unmitigated evil. This reflects the nature of antisemitism: No matter the grievance or the identity of the aggrieved, Jews are held responsible."

^^^ precisely

[greasydumbfuck]

dumb post of the month. rlly wanted to do one of these so i did. bc life is short i guess

[meamiki]

mira !!! :]

[gideonisms]

Does a podcast ever release a take you disagree with so strongly it makes you question everything you heard on it up to that point

[yuseirra]

I've a feeling that Mr Akasaka believes they're really clever and they think they’ve given us all the necessary hints already but no one gets it

If you search for "Aratate Shrine," it's an information that comes up right away!

I opened the volumes again after a long time for reference, since I was planning to draw a fan comic.

At the end of Volume 8? Or the last part of Chapter 80? When all the characters went to make their wishes? Page 189??

There’s a narration there that says, "Was it because their prayers were answered, or was it someone’s guidance?"

And on page 186, it even confirms that the location is Aratate Shrine!!!

Now, look at the description on the tourist guide website! It says this:

A shrine that is often visited by celebrities, Aratate shrine is said to bring good fortune in show business and marriage. This shrine is dedicated to Sarutahikono-mikoto and his wife Amenouzume no-mikoto who gave directions to Ninigino-mikoto the grandson of the sun goddess(Amaterasu) upon his descension from the heavens. While walking through the grounds of the shrine, you will see ancient trees called sakagi which are said to grant wishes. One of these trees called Shichi-fukutoku-jyubangi is said to grant 7 wishes to those who hit the tree 7 times. Take your best shot and stock up on good fortune!

I feel like I already brought this up a long time ago when I was researching and linked it back then!!!!

Kamiki, that guy, is a guiding deity!!!! Sarutahiko is a god of guidance and also a god of light!!! That’s his identity!!!

The one who granted the wishes there was him!!!! If there's ANYONE in this comic who is that Sarutahiko god, it's Kamiki!! He helped Ruby’s career, later granted the twins’ wishes, and even helped them find him. The hint is in the "Mephisto" lyrics—it’s like he’s saying, "Come find me." He granted their wish to come to him and kept supporting the twins. In his own way, he thinks of himself as their father. Even near the end, there’s a mention of wishes again, right? It seemed like he wanted to grant them. It’s like he wanted to do something for them.

He’s a god who guides the way and leads people’s futures in a good direction!!! He’s the black star, and Ai is the white star.

Right now, all the wishes have been fulfilled in strange, distorted ways, haven’t they? That’s because this guiding god’s power has been corrupted and is now malfunctioning... It’s Kamiki’s fault. He's the selfish giant star that's been ruining people's lives as said in the song Fatal. But I’m not sure if this is something intentional or not.

For wishes to be properly fulfilled, Ai has to be with him. The two of them need to be together to make it happen. The wishes end up being granted with flaws because he's incomplete without his wife regarding that ability!!! He's wishing upon a star in Mephisto to have Ai come back to life, isn't he? He needs her to complete him and function! That's why he'a been looking for her and her love ever since she passed!!!

I don’t really check Japanese fandoms or other people’s reactions, but is there no talk about this in Japan??? This is the answer, isn’t it???? Has no one figured it out? I’ve been talking about this since July or August, but people won’t believe me. Then I just casually opened the volumes to reference the art, and I saw that. Now I have a headache. This is correct. If this isn’t right, then what is it? What’s the explanation? The story doesn’t make sense otherwise.

Why else would his name include references to a god and light? And I’m telling you, Ame-no-Uzume is Ai!! After Ame-no-Uzume married her husband, she started blessing love too. It’s said she’s the reincarnation of the morning star!!! Seriously!!!

Kamiki is a god, but it seems like his power has been distorted somehow, and it doesn’t even seem to be entirely intentional.

If you analyze the lyrics, they mention a flaw arising. That flaw came after he lost Ai (love).

His ability to guide the future got all twisted, and as a result, everyone around him started becoming miserable and dying.

Why isn’t this addressed properly in the story??? Because it’s not mentioned, no one gets it, but I’ve been saying for months that this must be it~~ This must be it~~ It’s so frustrating!! But since this is what's beyond logic and too fantasy, even if I think it is, it just isn't convincing, is it?; I understand, I feel stupid myself too but,

There are way too many traits of Kamiki that align perfectly with that god for this to be a coincidence. And why else would there be references to him being noble, or him drowning??? Ugh!!! Seriously!!

Isn’t it possible that things just didn’t work out the way he wanted them to? He probably never wanted anyone to get hurt, at least not until Ai’s death. This person seems to have the ability to influence the future, but if everything had gone the way he wanted, would his life have ended up like this? The fact that both Aqua and this person ended up drowning is proof of it—they can make wishes come true, but everything gets twisted in the process.

What if this person fell apart because of it? What if even he didn’t want these results? At the very least, some of the things that happened don’t seem like they were his intention. Ai’s death, for instance—there’s no way he wanted that. He probably really just meant to send her flowers. But because of the darkness in the entertainment industry or whatever, everything about him was already so broken that it unintentionally spiraled into the worst outcome due to his broken powers.

That’s why he completely lost it… He’s searching for Ai (Ame-no-Uzume-no-Mikoto), isn’t he? There’s even that line about him wandering in search of love (Ai). I think it’s from Chapter 160 or so. He wants to get his wife back. Collecting the white stars probably had a real connection to that goal—it seems like it actually worked in some way.

Then what about all the other incidents? The deaths of so many people? After he "died" (?), didn’t people start acting like they were breaking out of some kind of trance, with a bunch of them suddenly confessing and turning themselves in? This isn’t something a normal human could do. Is it that he passively exerts influence just by existing, or did he actively use his abilities to make all that happen later on?

Anyway, he is a god!!! But what if he really meant it when he said he never intended to hurt anyone? What if that’s true? No way, right? Isn’t this all just him spiraling out of control in his desperation to bring his late wife back?

I really think this interpretation is correct, but shouldn’t the story have addressed this explicitly?!

If you’re Japanese, is this something you would’ve known? Do people get it? Is it common sense?; Do they understand what’s happening in this story? Does everyone know? Shouldn’t this have been explained? Without researching separately, you might get the feeling that something’s off, but there’s no way to uncover the full story just from the work itself. And yet, these kinds of clues exist, don’t they? I’m telling you, my interpretation is correct. Why don’t they clarify this? For a story to work, you need to at least tell us what it’s about.

I really think this is the answer… No matter how much I think about it, there’s no other coherent way to interpret it.

That’s why it’s so frustrating. No one takes it seriously and I get that because even I feel ridiculous insisting that a character is a god!! but there’s no other explanation for it, right? I thought the story would address this before it ended. Isn’t this such an irresponsible piece of work? At the very least, they should’ve wrapped it up so that we could understand what was happening. Why didn’t they?

I’ve never tried to feel something intentionally.

But what this character feels... it’s just too overwhelming. The emotions of suffering are so vivid that I can’t help but think there’s something more to it, and it keeps bothering me.

For a character accused of being a psychopathic serial killer who supposedly murdered his girlfriend, I couldn’t help but think, he doesn’t seem like someone who’d do that. That thought bothered me so much my head hurt.

But in this case, isn’t he grieving? The song conveys sorrow and pain, doesn’t it?

This kind of emotion doesn’t feel like something someone who hurt their loved one would express. It’s grief, longing, and an unbearable desire to see them again. And it’s not entirely one-sided—it feels like it stems from a mutual bond that once existed. The more I look at it, the clearer this becomes. If I couldn’t see it, I wouldn’t bother putting my heart into this. But once I do see it, there’s no way to ignore it.

It feels like the emotions are so strong because there was a time when they loved each other deeply, got along so well, and were happy together.

Am I the only one who feels this way? I don’t think so.

I don't think he ever wanted nor attempted on things to turn out this way. There IS something about the guy that influences those around him into disaster.

This darn manga… It hits so hard, and yet, look at what it’s become. But it seems to follow mythology, so I can sort of understand why it turned out this way, and that makes it slightly forgivable. But do people get this? Do they know why it happened like this? No way. You can’t know unless you look up the mythology. If you’re going to incorporate mythology into the manga, at least explain it! This manga isn’t entirely grounded in reality anyway—there are gods, reincarnation, wishes, star eyes, and some kind of mission or destiny!

I'm not trying to defend Kamiki, either way he seems to have become a hazard of some sort.

And before that, Ai passed because Kamiki is guiding god whose powers-the power of Michihiraki-which brings out the best in people-, got distorted into being the opposite of what it was meant to be due to the darkness of the industry?

So people like Ryosuke had their worst sides coming out and that influenced him to murder Ai. In that case, Kamiki would feel a sense of responsibility for it and try to reverse it (if he's figured out his destiny-or what he is-)because even if it were to be unintentional, it'd still be his fault in a sense. That's why he has this bizzare behavior of blaming himself continuously for things.

I'm not sure if everything about this is solely what he's brought upon himself. If he has those kinds of powers, maybe people just die and end up misforunate from him wishing to feel Ai?

(Yeah then we had him thinking killing Ruby would have helped him to feel her. But he didn't do it. Was it only because Aqua tried to stop him? What is going on?)

Well, when someone dies, they’re no longer by your side, so their presence begins to fade.

I think this person… just couldn’t bear that. If you look at the lyrics of the songs, they convey those types of emotions.

From what I feel, his feelings towards Ai isn’t about worship either—it’s just pure longing towards what he regarded as his other half. But I bet a lot of people won’t see it that way. The story doesn’t make it easy to interpret it like that, does it? Ha… it’s frustrating.

Sure, a character who’s a clingy psychopath has its own charm. But if someone who isn’t like that is written to look that way, shouldn’t the story take responsibility for it? Either say it isn’t true, or confirm that it is. Why do I feel like I’ve figured out the answer, only to constantly doubt myself, wondering if I’m spouting nonsense?

The narrative and abilities of the god of entertainment couple align way too closely with Ai and Kamiki. Not just on a similar level—it feels like they are them. Was that not important? I think it’s an essential element for explaining why the story unfolded the way it did. They SHOULD have touched this before they go.

You know, I wonder if there's a way to tie up Hikaru's characterization between 155 and post 160.

Like in another version of onk where there's more time and effort put into it. The end result is Aqua and Hikaru falling into the ocean but the process is different, do you think it's possible to do that with the same amount of chapters?

I think I said this ... ? somewhere ?? in my tag previously but I think a really low effort easy way to make this make even a moderate amount of sense is just to alter Tsukuyomi's little monologue at the start of 161 and have her state that the Jokerfied Kamiki of post-160 is the direct result of having his worldview shattered by realizing that Ai had loved him all along and that he killed her for nothing. Like, as an exercise to prove this, I bullshitted this together in a few minutes;

please be nice about this dialogue i came up with it in 10 seconds

Is this good? Eeeeeeeeehhhhh. I think having Kamiki be the final boss after 154 is just so mid and such a boring way to end his arc, but I do think something like this would be an improvement. At the very least, it makes the sudden, jarring shift between the seemingly defeated and remorseful Hikaru of 154-5 and the Anime Supervillain Hikaru of 160+ actually motivated by something in-story other than "GO CRAZY GO STUPID" but I also think it makes the bitter tragedy of Aqua's death hit a lot harder. Now it's not just Kamiki being arbitrarily ontologically evil in the way that most conveniently puts him in conflict with Aqua - this is now a tragedy that Aqua brought on himself by continuing to pursue getting revenge on Kamiki and rubbing his nose in his mistakes.

Obviously this is still messy as hell and it doesn't solve all the dumb shit with Aqua's ""reason for existing"", but I do think the Kamiki we get on page in OnK is not unsalvageable as a character and it legit would've taken very little to make him internally consistent in a way that was engaging.

Oh uh, we're cutting the serial killer cult bullshit though. That's just dumb.

[themyscirah]

Reading shit comics kind of sucks but at least I get the satisfaction of proving my own point w this

[medicinemane]

I don't know... horrible things happen all around the world and it's not a competition

Atrocities are committed against multiple groups in multiple parts of the world at the exact same moment, and none of them erase each other. They all matter, all the people in this world who are being brutalized matter. There shouldn't be any line you draw where one group doesn't actually matter as much as another

You're welcome to prioritize your energy towards helping one group or another, but what's not ok is invalidating or dismissing people who are actively being harmed

Same goes for trying to figure out which social group has things worst (and lets be honest, always using a US lens)

Like... maybe the important thing is to prop each other up and help everyone get on their own feet rather than trying to... pick fights about if physical disabilities or mental illness are less respected (I'm trying to pick a more absurd example but sadly I've seen exactly that argument happen before). Maybe it doesn't really matter and what matters is helping who we can when we can

I'm tired of it, I'm just fucking tired of it. Support people, champion them when the world is just brutalizing them, but you don't need to throw a single other person under the bus to do that

Which seems to be an absolutely impossible lesson for people to learn

[servuscallidus]

we need to study the art of rhetoric again in school. all 13 years. this can't go on

[sigmundthesorcerer]

M would be obsessed with the fact that vault-tec dropped the bombs bc she's a paranoid freak who's been running off a conspiracy theory that america nuked itself as a population control tactic and the rest of the world is doing fine

but the point is that she's supposed to be wrong!!!!!

[shararan]

What's with this sudden uptick in "any fanfic depiction is a deliberate slight against the source material that should be condemned" I'm seeing across fandom in general and how the fuck do I opt out of seeing it

[classyrbf]

you find it so funny how people think your husband, nanami, is the sweetest, most innocent and romantic man they’ve ever laid eyes on, such a gentleman. Which, they are correct in some ways. Gentleman. Check. Sweet. Check. Romantic. Check. He’s always buying you flowers, opening doors for you, kissing your hand, taking you out on spontaneous dates, calling you ‘sweetheart’, ‘honey’, ‘love’, and treating you like some porcelain doll. But innocent? Oh no, no. You almost laugh because it may seem like your husband is ‘innocent’ or ‘vanilla’ whichever term they may use, but he is anything but that. While he may treat you like a princess in public, he absolutely sluts you out behind closed doors.

You don’t blame people for thinking he may look and act soft because that was your first impression of him too. So, imagine the surprise when you first had sex and he was pounding you in a mating press, tears streaming down your face. Yeah, best night of your life. And now that you’re married? God, it makes the sex one hundreds times better than before. He’s go you on your side, one arm hooked under your leg, reaching so far that he’s able to wrap his hand around your throat. The other wrapped around your waist, rubbing your clit while he fucks his cum into you. He’s forcing you to look him in the eyes, faces inches away from each other, because he wants to watch your pretty face when you cum. So innocent, right?

“Oh my god! Fuck!” You cry out, your breathing labored. He’s so deep inside of you, the tip of his cock hitting your g-spot over and over again to the point it makes your head spin especially when he’s toying with your swollen clit. “I can’t! I can’t, Ken! You’re too fucking deep! Ah!” You grip onto the ruffled sheets below, bucking your hips as you attempt to make his cock not feel so good, but the bruising grip he has on your throat and waist puts you right back in your place.

“You can take it, sweetheart. I know you can. You know why?” He pulls you in closer, pressing his lips to your ear. “Cause you’re a fucking slut for this dick.” He thrusts his hips faster, skin slapping against skin and the mixture of your juices and his cum create a sticky mess between your thighs. “Awe, is that gonna make you cum? Being degraded? I can feel your pussy clenching me,” he darkly smiled, heavy breaths fanning against your damp skin. He rubbed your clit faster, carefully watching the way you threw your head back in pure bliss.

“Fuckkkk! You’re gonna make me cum again!” Your toes curled the closer you got to your orgasm, whimpering as you took in every feeling of pleasure coursing through you.

“Squirt all over this dick, baby. Be a good girl for me and show me how good I make you feel.” He felt your walls tightening with each passing second, sweat trailing down his forehead as he kept his pace. Your legs began to shake as you writhed under him, cursing and screaming as you squirted all over, soaking the blankets below you. “Messy fucking slut. Look at you, you’re still fucking going.”

“Oh my god! Yes, yes, yes!” Your brows furrowed as you watched him fuck you through your orgasm. “It’s too much, Ken!” You pulled his hand away from your clit, holding onto his wrist tightly while he slowed down his thrusts, now going deep and slow. You laid there in a dazed state, trying to catch your breath. His hand gently caressed your stomach slowly inching up towards your tits, cupping them in his hand while he placed sloppy kisses down your neck and to your collarbone.

So yes, while your husband may be such a gentleman, such a sweetheart, such an angel to others, in the back of your head, you think of those moments behind closed doors when he makes you cum your brains out, praising you and degrading you all within the same breath, choking you and treating you like some common whore. But after all that’s over, he’s back to treating you like the most delicate thing he’s ever touched. It’s truly the best of both worlds.

[kavehater]

I agree with absolutely everything she said his in game model is not as good as I envision him to be 😭 like fanart carries him FRRR but it’s honestly so sad ppl see the coolest ever character and be like yaoi 😋✌️how about NOOOO !!!! 😭😭😭 gosh this is so !!!! He has so many deep important aspects to himself, he’s so full of contradictions and despite it all he’s still one of the most kindest characters