#wth has this brainrot done to me

[idyllic-affections]

HI THERE! IM BACK FROM MY TRIP! And holy moly i didnt missed a lot???? (i think..? I’ll have to read back your post but i want to send an ask now!)

First, love the new theme btw. Yaoshi is also my fav aeon from the aeons we currently know! They are so pretty and divine and i did have a huge stupid smile when Yaoshi kissed us in the simulated universe THEY JUST WANTED US TO STAY SAFE!!!!!!! I sometimes wonder if Hoyoverse is just building them up to be someone you should hate just to make plot twist that turns out, them just simply doesnt know the horrible results their actions does. They do it with good intention but didnt know the results would be bad. But i honestly like their ambiguous morality that hoyoverse have for most of the aeons because well they’re aeons they’re gods ofc they wont follow human morality.

Second, your second oc you have rn is pretty interesting. So i have QUESTIONS!

1. What do they look like? Ik that you said you’re not finished with their design but are they like in a child/teen body but has the mentality of an adult? (Something similar to bailu i guess)

2. What are their element?

3. What does the other aeons think of Ambrose? Like ‘why the hell does Yaoshi have a little human with them’

4. Is Lan and by extension the Xianzhou Alliance aware of Ambrose’s existance and special connection towards Yaoshi? since their relationship with the said Aeon isnt the typical relationship an emanator and aeon would have (i hc that Yaoshi is known to particuraly have a good relationship with their emanators but Ambrose is noticably their favourite one child)

Thirdly, can i just say something? Since i get busy a lot, I dont get to instantly play the new update which sadly leads me to be easily spoiled. Case in point, Tingyun infamous neck snap. I was just casually scrolling on youtube when i saw ‘Tingyun neck snapping in 4 languages’ Like wth youtube!? I try to just forget about it but the mind could never. By the time i do get to play and get to play the quest, i already knew her fate and just keep giving her the side eye. Ik her fate but idk the reason and stuff leading up to it. It was an interesting experience to say the least

Lastly, i am proud to say that i have FINALLY done Dan Heng IL companion quest and have researched enough that i can FINALLY continue on the brainrot i keep talking about, i might finish it this week if i can manage my time better but we’ll see. So keep your eyes wide open!

I hope you have a lovely day/night, now i should go to bed as im tired like hell.. BYE

- 🐱 Anon

HI BELOVED HELLO <333 oh i am SO excited to talk about ambrose. they are so fucking RRRAHGHG i love them....... pleasmelejldjd......

i agree!!!! you cannot call an aeon "good" or "evil." none of them are either of those things. good and evil are just human perceptions of morality, and divine beings like aeons cannot be placed into those human boxes (which is why i think the xianzhou's attitude towards yaoshi is so. odd. bro it was YOURRRR ancestors who looked for THEM!!!! THEY did not look for YOU ALL!!!!!! YOU GUYS looked for THEM!!!!! and hyv really wants me to think yaoshi is the "villain" here HELP AKJSJSGJUFBAJ) AND YAOSHI KISSING US CRIES SOBS SCREAMS they have such a gentle and nurturing soul in my brain. it is so hard for me to look at them and think "yeah that's a villain" THEY'RE NOT CRIES

i don't know if i prefer the idea of yaoshi being completely 100% aware of the consequences of their blessing, or being completely unaware and being so consumed by their path that they cannot see the harm they're doing. i think both interpretations have their own appeal. the second one is definitely more agonizing, though. either way, i do not see the abundance as a villain personally. aeons are not human. human morals cannot be applied to them.

and as for ambrose--

ambrose is, physically, a young adult! a very young adult. think eighteen or nineteen. i want them to be chronologically older than most people on any of the xianzhou alliance's ships, though, so i am working on an explanation for why their mara is less severe and has not completely consumed their consciousness.

i think they're either physical, fire, or imaginary. i haven't decided yet. i'm open to suggestions.

this is SO funny and i love thinking about this. i think most of the aeons were like... what the fuck. What Is That. why does yaoshi have a little human. what the fuck. i think nous would get along w/ them despite nous' involvement with the xianzhou; ambrose sought to be freed from the limitations of mortal comprehension in order to learn more and see beyond their home world, after all. and really, i don't think nous would give a FUCK about the conflict between the hunt and the abundance. they don't fucking care bro they are more concerned with other things LMAOOO. ambrose clashes really badly with nanook because they have a deep set love for humanity and the universe, whereas nanook... does not. the child of abundance, ambrose, does not like the destruction at all so they are ALWAYS going around and eliminating the antimatter legion when they can. IX could not care less about them rip..... IX's apathy is a stark contrast to ambrose's infinite kindness and passion for existence. in general, ambrose doesn't seek out any of the other aeons except nous. nous and yaoshi are the only ones they really talk to.

I AGREE I AGREE i think yaoshi is one of the aeons who really likes their emanators! ambrose in particular is like an extension of themselves (perhaps this could contribute to why their mara is less severe? ambrose is but an extension of their aeon, after all. their aeon's power probably does not hurt them as bad as it does to those who do not share that kind of bond with yaoshi; i think yaoshi can literally FEEL when something is not right with ambrose and vice versa. like, they share a sort of metaphysical bond). lan knows about this, and therefore, so does the xianzhou alliance. ambrose is regarded as an enemy, a thing that needs to be eliminated from the universe... even though they did nothing wrong. ambrose honestly doesn't care because fuck it, you know? there is no point in lamenting the loss of potential allies when those potential allies seem to vehemently hate their parent... but ambrose has learned from yaoshi to have love for every living thing in the universe, so the hate is very one-sided. they are not just a pathstrider. they are an emanator. they cannot emanate their parent's will and strength if they are hateful. so, they have a gentle and tender love for life and that does include the xianzhou alliance. the alliance sees their softness as patronizing, unfortunately. ambrose avoids lan like the fucking PLAGUE because they know that lan would absolutely take any given opportunity to remove them from the universe, and yaoshi would absolutely come to their aid if they sensed that ambrose was in danger. and ambrose cannot be responsible for aiding the hunt in eliminating the abundance. if they survived, and if yaoshi happened to... not survive, they would not be able to live with themselves. so they don't bother trying to make amends with the xianzhou or lan.

NOOOOOO YOUTUBE SPOILERS ARE THE WORST. THEY ARE SO UNAVOIDABLE. TUMBLR SPOILERS? THOSE CAN BE AVOIDED BUT YT.......

ahh that's awesome! i still have to do it HSKNKHSBGKA but you're welcome to brainrot in my inbox whenever you'd like to <3

rest well!!!!

[patchworkgargoyle]

This is brilliant and I agree with 99% of it!!

My only additions would be about cadou placements, and a little bit about Heisenberg (and a touch on Lady D). I'm very sorry that I'm on mobile and don't have a read more!!

With regards to cadou placements, there is actually evidence that they're implanted in places other than the gut. Moreau's is actually in the back of his neck - we get an x-ray showing as much, and I believe on the character models for Dimitrescu’s daughters it shows the sides of their heads shaved with large black mark, which implies that the cadou was implanted in their skulls (a bit horrifying, considering the size of the cadou we're shown in game).

When we read the note from Moreau about implanting cadou into tummies, I think that might be Moreau's specific method of giving the villagers cadou, because he's the one who creates the lycans using it. I wonder if this could add another representation of failed/twisted parenthood? Moreau puts something in the villagers' tummies - also a very childish explanation of sex - and the villagers either die or become ravenous, violent monsters. Yikes. 😬

Now, with Heisenberg, I definitely agree with your analysis that he's a representation of artificial and cold parenthood with the machines he creates. However, alongside that I think he's also a representation of the rebellious teenager. Treated too strictly, or harshly, or neglectfully (honestly I wouldn't be surprised if it was all three) he rejected how he was treated and became the teen that lies to their parent to go and do whatever they want, to hide their diary and sneak off to go to parties their parent didn't want them to go to. Of course, with Heisenberg, the diary are his logs and the experiments, the parties are his plan for rebellion which he attempts to recruit Ethan for, the man who's intending to kill his Mother figure, if we wanna keep going with the metaphor. 😅

With my bit about Lady D: if Heisenberg is the rebellious teen, Dimitrescu is the properly behaved child, the one who does as they're told and often tries to hold themselves to a higher standard than the rebel. She does this often in her clashes with Heisenberg, calling him a child and implying he isn't trustworthy. She also laments that she's not the favourite in one note in the castle, and if I remember right it's implied that Heisenberg is Miranda's favourite despite that fact that she knew of his plans. They're absolutely foils to each other, right down to your analysis of their, I guess, parenting styles 😆 She loves her daughters and tries to avenge them, he just creates and sets them loose uncaringly.

I feel like this leads into all the Lords being both representations of how Miranda fails at being a parent in her obsessive quest to bring Eva back (which I think is meant to be doomed and twisted from the start as she's essentially going against the laws of nature), and the Lords being representations of parenthood themselves. It would all be a very great setup to show Ethan and Mia as the good parents, and if we'd gotten more of Mia's involvement it would have solidified that even more. I really believe Capcom missed an opportunity with Mia, she's an extremely capable former agent and it would have enforced all of the parenthood themes they wove into the story of RE8 that much more if we got to see her side of things instead of the enforced helplessness she was shoved into, possibly/probably because of how society views both "good" women and "good" mothers.

Sidenote: I do kinda (read: really) chafe at the reinforcement of heteronormative and ableist ideas around parenthood the game sets up, but it's a horror game and the horror genre is widely Very heteronormative and ableist, so. 🤷‍♀️ It's still a fun game, that's just my onion.

Mia Deserved Better: An Analysis of RE8's Themes/Symbolism

Foreword: I would like to thank @lepusrufus for posting about both Mia and Miranda, and at one point directly saying that Mia deserved better, which is a large part of what caused me to start examining her role in the canon story. Now, I will say that this post, like some of my previous explorations of Village (such as my attempt to determine Donna's age), will not be the best organized. My ADHD makes such things rather difficult for me. However, I have tried more than usual, and have broken up this "essay" into several distinct sections. Still, I am worried that my thoughts will not be as concise or coherent as they were inside my head.

Under read-more for length and spoilers for RE8: Village.

Introduction:

Village is, inarguably, about parenthood. Is it a horror game? Yes. Is it also science fiction? Also yes. But is it still, at its core, a story, and therefore contains imagery, symbolism, and themes? Yes. Now, you may be wondering what this has to do with Mia deserving better. My proposal is as follows: While Village is overall about parenthood, it is more about motherhood than fatherhood. Furthermore, Mia's background + actions from the previous game tie her story directly with Mother Miranda's, making their potential interactions massively important to the story... and could have served the theme beautifully. The missed potential in her involvement in the story is honestly a little bit absurd.

Now, let's examine each of the Four Lords + their sections, as the beginning of analyzing the game's theme.

Lady Dimitrescu + Castle:

Ah, perhaps the clearest (albeit unimportant) bits of theme within the whole game. We are immediately presented with another parent, with three daughters she loves very, very much. Initially they work as a team to capture Ethan, easily overpowering him. When they do split up, each still has dialogue regarding their family members. Each of the daughters expresses a desire to be like their mother/make their mother proud. Lady Dimitrescu herself gets very upset every time one of her daughters perishes, and delivers some important dialogue about this in her final confrontation with Ethan.

To paraphrase, Lady D says that Ethan has done something unforgiveable, caused damage that can never heal, and deserves to die before his daughter. That last part is interesting, in the sense that Lady D seems to believe that outlasting your own child is a fate so terrible that she would not wish it upon anyone, including the person who killed her daughters.

Throughout her dialogue and actions, Lady D serves as an important figure of a living mother. What do I mean by that? Well, the only other mothers we see in game are Mia and Miranda. The former doesn't show up until almost the end of the game (seeing as the "Mia" at the start is not actually the real Mia), while the latter does not have a living child, and her behavior has (presumably) changed quite a bit since that loss. As Ethan goes through Castle Dimitrescu, he watches (he causes) Lady D to go through what Miranda did all those decades ago. When we see her loss, when we experience her loss, it is something we connect with, even comparing it (as Lady D does) to Ethan's loss of Rose.

For the more visual side of symbolism, we can turn to Lady Dimitrescu herself. She is very tall, is visibly older than the majority of the Village cast, and has a fairly classic (old-school) motherly look. Everything about her reinforces her position as an example of a mother, especially when she's with her daughters and becomes such a strong figure of protection. Her height allows her to seem the caretaker for her children, even though they are scary/intimidating in their own right.

Donna Beneviento + Waterfall House:

Yes, the baby/fetus/monstrosity is part of this. No, it is not the only bit of thematic work in this section of the game.

To begin, you can find out that Donna is officially the adopted daughter of Mother Miranda. Her birth parents are dead, implied to be from especially tragic causes (more than is the norm when it comes to "orphan making"), and she has suffered greatly from it. We see that she has been seemingly neglected by Miranda, and is incredibly isolated. The tragedy of her loss, along with the consequences presented by it, are something to keep in mind further down the road, when we inevitably deal with Ethan's own death.

One of the consequences of the environment Donna was raised in is, arguably, her reliance on Angie. While interpretations of their exact relationship (aka how much control Donna actually has at any given point) vary, the two very clearly have something akin to a mother/daughter vibe. Alternatively an older sister/younger sister sort of thing. This shows in the way that Donna holds/carries Angie, as well as the contrast in their demeanors. Moreso, the fact that Donna gave a part of herself to create Angie is almost enough to make the symbolism nonnegotiable.

We also see that Donna has a strong understanding of family/family dynamics, through the way that she uses her powers to manipulate Ethan. She dissects his connections to Mia and Rose, taunts him with the lengths he's willing to go to save his child, then shows him a grotesque version of parenthood: The aforementioned fetus monster. Does the monster represent Ethan's fears, or Donna's?

What if the monster is how Donna sees herself, in some way, perhaps thinking that it's her fault her parents died? Bit of a stretch, but it's not a keystone of my theory, so I'm just throwing it out there. We could, however, go a step further and ask ourselves if Donna has noticed the way Miranda neglects her, and the fetus monster is how Donna thinks Miranda sees her. A baby, true, but grotesque, so terribly imperfect compared to her "real daughter" (Eva, obvs).

Regardless, the monster presents an ugly side of parenthood. It shows us the blood, the hunger (with the way it repeatedly attempts to swallow Ethan whole), the wailing. If Lady D shows us the love of parenthood, the bond, Donna in turn shows us the hate, the misery. Everything that one must endure to reap the rewards of family.

Lastly, we get one last bit of symbolism with Donna's death: We play a game with Angie. A childhood classic, hide and seek. Ethan chases her down repeatedly, stabbing away, seemingly only hurting the doll. But what happens when he kills Angie? It turns out that he killed Donna. You kill the child, you kill the parent. A reinforcement of the connection that comes with parenthood, along with another notch in Ethan's family-murdering belt (not saying that he's the "true antagonist" or anything, just keeping track for one of my later points).

Moreau + The Reservoir

Let's get the worst possibility out of the way: Moreau, weakest and sickest of the four lords, lives in a reservoir, where he is relatively safe. To defeat him, you have to drain the water, forcing him onto dry(ish) land. Paired with the main ideas of his section (which I will detail after this nightmare), one could theorize that he's meant to represent birth itself. Again, he's safe in his ("womb") water, and becomes vulnerable when he leaves (like a fragile newborn). Kinda gross, in my opinion, and also not a strong enough connection for me to care much about. It was merely an interesting (albeit horrifying) enough thought that I felt it warranted sharing.

Moving on to the big stuff with Moreau: He's a baby. Evidence: Whiny, has difficulty moving around, struggles to adapt to his growth, throws up a bunch, loves his mother very much, cries for his mother when he's in trouble, etc. Although Mother Miranda does not care for him, he clearly cares for her, and plays yet another role of an abandoned child (like Donna). Without Miranda there to protect him, he perishes terribly, crying out for someone who does not care to answer.

Hearing him cry out for Miranda, over and over, only for her to continue ignoring him is a key piece in the build-up to our confrontation between Ethan and Miranda. The game, in many ways, centers around the comparison between the two. In my humble opinion, Mia should have been involved in this comparison, as opposed to supplying the solution to the result of said comparison. Yes, I know that was a lot of words that don't mean much yet, but trust me, I'm getting there.

Heisenberg + The Factory

Ironically, of the four lords, Heisenberg is the most similar to Mother Miranda. In his massive factory, he is alone except for his numerous experiments, the results of decades of playing God. In comparison to Ethan + Mia, Heisenberg represents artificial parentage, or more accurately, the artificial creation of "life". While the others Lords also performed experiments, they used living subjects. Heisenberg instead chose to use corpses, which he then "brought back to life" with cybernetics + his powers, a somewhat futuristic version of Dr. Frankenstein.

Together, Miranda and him show a rotten side of parenthood (whereas Donna + Moreau showed us the uglier side of the children themselves). To put it simply, they are bad parents. They throw their "children"/experiments into the fray, uncaring, using them as pawns for their own greater gain. The most important part of this is that Heisenberg offers to "help" Ethan: By using Rose as a weapon. In his act of refusal, Ethan demonstrates one of several important distinctions between himself and Mother Miranda. Where she is willing to use her "children" (read: lives that she is responsible for) as tools, he is not.

Miscellaneous Symbolism/Imagery:

The old hag is one of my favorite parts of Village. She's seemingly nuts, has a crazy old lady laugh, wears bones that make soothing bone noises when she moves, and she draws lots of symbols in the dirt. If you look closely (I can provide screenshots if anyone desires, but it will take a bit of work to get them onto my computer), she's drawing one of the most iconic images in the titular village: The winged unborn. This symbol acts as the key you build up after every fight with a Lord, understandably called the Unborn Key (which turns into the Winged Unborn Key). Whether this counts as foreshadowing towards the hag's identity reveal is technically irrelevant, but I like to think it does.

In essence, you build up the key, this depiction of an infant, to progress in the game. The more wings it gains, the closer you are to your goal of rescuing your child.

The cadou itself is very clearly fetus-shaped. Furthermore, the only place within the human body that we know it ever gets implanted is in the "tummy" (thanks Moreau), aka roughly where someone's womb is/would be. Every infected person we see presumably had the Cadou implanted there (though I think it would be interesting if implanting it in different spots caused different mutations. of course, that is a discussion for another day). To become immortal, you have to "bear" a "child". Does it get more direct than that?

Mother Miranda gained her immortality in part for her grief at the loss of her child. She embodied the despair that Lady D spoke of, becoming an eternal source of anguish. Just as the loss of a child is a wound that lasts forever, so too would Miranda last forever (well, until Ethan comes along).

Mia is a loving mother, who puts up with the BSAA making her move across the world, deals with the complications of having a mold husband and mold baby, and has proved herself (see her section in RE7) to be an immense badass. Previously I had forgotten that, and even embarrassed myself in the comments of another person's post by implying she wasn't a tough, ass-kicking machine. Y'all remember feral Mia? People talk about "poor Ethan's arms", but sometimes we forget that Mia was one of the people who did a number on them. Furthermore, she's one of the only living people (from outside the village) to have any connections (pun intended) to Mother Miranda. They worked together, although possibly not directly, on Evelyn. If anyone in Village has a chance of really understanding Miranda's plight, or knowing the truth behind it, it would be Mia. Yet we don't see them interact a single time. Which leads me to the next section...

Conclusion On Theme + Missed Potential:

Okay, okay, so it's pretty obvious at this point that, as previously stated, the game's theme is parenthood. Every section has its symbolism, the story is very obviously about a man trying to rescue his daughter, etc, etc, but what's the point? Is there a lesson, or a more focused interpretation of the central theme? Let's take one last step back, and focus on something I've mentioned a few times now: The comparison between Ethan and Mother Miranda.

Recurring dialogue from Ethan, Alcina, and Mother Miranda all point towards the developers acknowledging that the characters are similar, but there's nowhere near as much conversation about it as I would like. Several times we have the antagonists ask Ethan how he's so willing to kill someone else's child, or prevent them from (essentially) doing what he's doing (aka saving his daughter). While Ethan responds with a mix of "well you started it" and "aghhh fuck-a-you, bitch", there's a much more solid, unspoken difference: Mother Miranda sends her underlings to kill, so that she may revive her daughter. Ethan kills (read: does the work himself) to get his daughter. The difference is much bigger, and more important, at the end of the game, when we realize just how far it goes. Ethan dies to save his daughter. Time and time again Mother Miranda has killed others for her work, but in the end she is stopped when someone willingly dies to stop her.

Where does Mia come in? Mia, the badass mother, the one who once worked alongside Mother Miranda, should have been the nail in the coffin. She is the one who survives, who lives on to raise Rose, she is the silent solution to Ethan's sacrifice. Miranda, you fool, what could you have accomplished if you had held onto your makeshift family? Through Mia (and Chris, to a lesser degree), his "loss" becomes a victory. There's a certain poetic justice that comes with Rose's full family being instrumental in saving her, when Miranda so readily spurned her own family.

Mia could have had an actual conversation with Miranda, their history giving the latter a reason to actually listen. I'm not saying that Miranda would have changed her mind/plans, but the conversation would have been a well-needed contrast to Ethan's "arggg what the fuck is happening, I only have two reactions to things. agg fuck you". Additionally, I feel that Mia (who was captured and had to endure who-knows-what) deserves the opportunity to be the one who points out Miranda's mistakes, who delivers the final "fuck you" to her. More than that, she's the one at the end who can say that hey, maybe she can understand some of what Miranda did. Was there anything her and Ethan wouldn't have done to save Rose? As much as Ethan is a foil to Miranda, Mia could (and should) have played a similar role.

When so much of the story and symbolism revolves around Miranda's experience as a mother, it only would have been fair to shine a light on her equivalent. Her better.

There's more I wanted to say/feel like I didn't properly get across, and I might add more to this at some point, but it's 5:40 AM right now, and I'm starting to feel like my brain is slowing down, so... Feel free to reblog/comment and add your own thoughts!