rotundyawner

[rotundyawner]

Tintin remembers what comes after 15.

[rotundyawner]

im going to have a stroke

[rotundyawner]

What do you find patriotic about the themes of In Stars and Time?

Yayayay thank you for this question anon! I have SO MANY THOUGHTS!!!

I hope this won't get too long sorry in advance for the whole huge essay heh

I think first we need to get into what patriotism actually is. Because what some seem to propose is that it is only “supporting the political interests of a country you're a citizen of” which is not actually true or “glorifying it to the point of warping into nationalism and chauvinism”, which is extrremely untrue and frankly bonkers??? No, patriotism is love for your country, for your nation, for your people. And by extension, for your culture, your language, your history (loving means admitting to the dark sides of it btw), your home, all of it. It doesn't mean your national food, music, etc. have to be your favorite in the world, but it does mean you find value in them, you want to preserve and remember them, you want what’s best for them. (I love my brother. He gets on my nerves so much i wanna strangle him sometimes. You get the idea) so sorry if it's all obvious to you but i thought it needed to be clarified just in case

ISAT as a whole but especially Odile, Siffrin, and the King’s character arcs pose a question: how much of yourself is influenced by your origins? This topic is explored in many various forms, woven into the flesh of the narrative, ever-present (the differences and customs between countries a recurring topic in the party’s conversations, for example). The cultural exploration is often what drives the plot forward.

(Also the use of national religions is so great, it adds a yet another perspective to the problem, but it’s a whole nother can of worms for a whole nother day!)

While the Country is used mainly as the vehicle for themes of loss and loneliness, the so-called "Homesickness" (“Mal du Pays”),

its national aspect is never undermined. This is, among other themes, a story about being denied the connection to your roots, after all. If you think about it, the whole plot happened because of it, is undivorceable from it, and arguably serves to show how horrible such a thing might be.

This is also a brilliant way to explore what being a “country” means - it's not just about some territorial politics or conservative history classes. It's the whole environment you grow in as a human being.

The King and Siffrin are juxtaposed here as narrative foils, the King acting as a fallen Siffrin: now this is especially interesting, because in every other story like this i'd expect the King to be a chauvinist. But… surprisingly, he’s not. He is a patriot, in a sense. He does love his country and he does love Vaugarde, his actions are not motivated by a political self-righteousness, they are motivated by a love warped into obsession by fear. Don’t get me wrong, he is an irredeemable villain, but he’s as much a victim here. He isn’t condemned by the narrative. He gets his wish granted in the end (wishcraft and the Universe? add it to the aforementioned can of worms, not today but boy do i have things to say), he gets to remember his homeland. He gets justice, both in the form of punishment and compensation.

Siffrin nearly ends up like him, but doesn’t - not because he decides to abandon and forget his country forever! but because in being loved by his family he finds strength to conquer the fear of losing everything again. It’s a fine line, but i think insertdisc5 navigated it masterfully. Check out how Sif's internal monologue changes in regards to the Island. He has a history of running away from the painful things and thus not working on his massive trauma (one could make a case that the rewinds when he remembered his past weren't actually caused by the Universe but by him but again, worms. in a can.). But now in act 6 he finally stops looking away:

and you might even imagine a fondness in his eyes.

By the way, here's a tiny personal digression: i 100% believe that there are some nationalities that will inevitably be hit harder by this narrative than others - one of those being Polish. Which i happen to be! Now lemme tell you, at some point in act 3 i thought: "huh. i, too, am from a country that disappeared once". But it didn't really disappear now, did it. So then i thought, what if it had, and i were the only one left and i, too, couldn't remember anything? And then my heart weeped, and i grieved inside a little, and made a fanart, and didn't feel better afterwards. Yay!

But you know what? There's a cool quote from Shang-Chi saying: "you are a product of all who came before you" - and your own unique characteristics, one should add after Odile. Your past, and i mean the generations upon generations before you as well, is a part of who you are, whether you like it or not. We see it in Siffrin. No matter how the wishcraft tries to erase it, it can't. Because one way or another, he will remember. He will love the stars and know basic astronomy, he will be able to use wishcraft, he will dress in his ethnic clothes, he will love malanga and cheese samosas, he will instinctively swear in his language. It's a part of him:

And maybe that's what's actually the most patriotic aspect of ISAT's narrative - that you can't erase it. As much as you try, you will never be able to fully succeed. Because there are people who love it, still. Even if they will never remember it. After all:

[rotundyawner]

Man your guy looks SO COOL. FREAKING SCALES SO COOOOOOOL

forgot if i posted them. heres my. salmonid oc... bleeh.

[rotundyawner]

This was a huge labor of love that was really meant only for me, but I thought it'd be good to share this to more people. I may not have the programming ability, but that doesn't mean I can't draw and dream.

I hope you enjoy!

(ps. i will type out all the text and repost this again later if yall have difficulties reading it)

[rotundyawner]

Thanks supporting me! This is a commission for someone so I cropped it dumbly and hid a signature in it XD

[rotundyawner]

A developer just explained why Link cries out whenever he puts on a transformation mask.

[rotundyawner]

[rotundyawner]

I may not be on this platform at all, but if I can call them, they are truly talented people

my friends r so talented. rb if ur friends are talented

[rotundyawner]

So I've Been Busy

(TLDR below)

Haven't been posting anything AT all because I've been hyperfixiating on my favorite past time:

✨✨Learning crap✨✨

So what have I've been doing?

Teaching myself how to make PNGtubers

Actually I made four:

One of which I used to host a stream teaching how to do it yourself... it just so happens to feature Siffrin haha:

2. Finally finishing my charms I've procrastinated on (snorlaxs and more pikachus

3. Currently (re)learning how to maintain and take care of bikes (and my really old cool scooter) The point of this being, it really isn't ever too late to learn something as long as you are willing to do so.

Part of the reason I suck so hard at actually posting on tumblr (or just posting in social medias in general) is because I'm too busy using my time elsewhere doing some really cool sh*t (in my opinion at least).

So if for some reason you are seeing this random ass post from some nobody online, go do some cool sh*t.

It took me about 3 weeks of work to learn how to make PNGtubers, half of which was just spent watching youtube just to familiarize myself with the process.

So start investing in yourself! You can do some really cool, crazy sh*t ™ yourself too.

Its only ever "too late" if you never start- never do. TLDR: i learned a bunch of new stuff impulsively and you should too. Invest in yourself.

stop doomscrolling you doofus XD

[rotundyawner]

[rotundyawner]

YOU "PROMISED" IN THE LOST STREAM YOU WOULDN'T DO THISSSSS YOUUUUUU-

do u have an image of the artwork used on the cover of the artbook ,,, its so so cute im tearing up the walls /pos

yes. you also get the back of the cover too because i am very evil and nice :)

go and get your artbook and be sad

[rotundyawner]

Sometimes you live through something awful.

But you do live through it.

[rotundyawner]

i feel like rain world posts in general are getting way less attention which is sad

[rotundyawner]

NO IT CANNOT BE, WAS THE ANSWER ALWAYS RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY EYES

Excuse the discord screenshots, but I'm having late night Rain World thoughts again and I do not want to re-type all this.

[rotundyawner]

Some Thoughts on Karma, the Natural Journey of Ascension, and Why the Ancients/Benefactors were Kind of Wrong

I'd like to address the community-wide misconception that you can only gain karma through "shedding your urges" when both in game and within the text of the game, we see this isn't true! the whole "shedding urges in order to ascend" stuff was only really a thing before the void fluid revolution, as Moon states in the bright red farm arrays pearl. The discovery of void fluid entirely trivialized needing to completely shed your urges by providing a much more natural method of ascension, and we see this play out within Rain World's story and gameplay.

In-game, we gain karma by directly engaging with our urges, whether it be sustaining our hunger, holding treasured items close or just survival in itself. From the beginning we are deeply ensnared within the struggles of living, "caught in the net" as the ancients/benefactors say. However, over the course of our gameplay, (I'm using survivor as a baseline, since their campaign illustrates the core of this) as we learn and grow and become more knowledged, living becomes easier, the struggle is not as harsh as it was before, and surely but slowly we die less and less as time goes on.

Simultaneously, this is reflected in our karma, as by dying less, we now hold higher karma more frequently. This coincides with the natural gameplay loop of rain world; the more we explore and learn new things, the more we grow and learn about the world and our place within it, we tread further and further away from the struggles of life, and become closer to enlightenment.

Ascension is the natural culmination of this journey of enlightenment, the next step on the path beyond. It's not inherently the right or wrong choice to make, its a step into the unknown, in search of something greater, of answers to our own existence, true spiritual self-fulfillment. This is how the ancients/benefactors saw it, but you could say they still got parts of it pretty wrong...

This is treading more into personal headcanon territory now, so bear with me, but I believe the issue lies within the great problem that the ancients built the iterators to solve. They wanted to find a means of evicting all life, material, the entire world from the cycles entirely, eliminating the personal struggle tied to ascension, taking away the choice and the journey that are so unbelievably crucial to it. This is also why I personally believe that a solution to the great problem doesn't or can't exist, as it would go against the fabric of their universe, from which the cycles are built upon. (LTTM describes the group behind this ideology as "triangulators"; they believed a solution was dangerous and had to be inferred rather than solved)

Ironically, in their desire to become effortless, by creating the iterators to make living easier, and to detach themselves from the struggles of the cycles, (just as we do within our own journey to ascension as the slugcat) this could also only be achieved through massive effort, so they even weren't truly "effortless" in the end, as nothing can be. Of course though, the few echoes in-game demonstrate that same ideology slipping through. Those ancients/benefactors became echoes because they hadn't experienced the personal journey paramount to ascension, or maybe they just didn't want to leave, but regardless, they weren't able to let go of their place in the universe and move on, and thus, they stayed behind.

TLDR: The ancients/benefactors were wrong about ascension because as a society they didn't fully recognize how important personal struggle, journey, and choice is for ascension, and sought to remove that struggle entirely.

[rotundyawner]

I love the ISAT Discord server, they have the best ideas ngl