#the loop is eternal

[isatartdump]

I don't remember how to draw them

[etrnlbluarts]

It’s your birthday!

[hellsquills]

Frankenstan AU where Ford successfully brings back Stan. His brother is alive again and he couldn't be happier. Stan is actually here! Finally! He's ready to work things out, as soon as they deal with Bill.

Speaking of Bill... He hasn't been around in a few days since the revival. Ford knows that Bill hasn't possessed him recently; even though he can't remember what he does when Bill is in control, he can sense when his body has been used against his will. And that feeling hasn't been there in almost a week.

Ford doesn't understand. But most importantly, he doesn't understand Stan. He's alive and mostly healthy. His body has stitches all over, but his organs are functional. Save for some small details, he's himself again. So why is he acting so unlike him? He hides, he murmurs instead of speaking up, he's sneaky and careful and he stares at the walls for too long sometimes. He's jumpy and silent, and avoids looking at him almost constantly.

There's only one explanation. That is not his brother.

"I'll make it right this time. I promise, Stan," he says, and he pulls the trigger.

(Or: Ford's paranoia + Bill's subtle but constant influence on him makes Ford believe that Stan's demeanor has changed so much not because of what he's gone through in the past decade, but because Bill is somehow inside of him. He's determined to get his "real" brother back, and he won't stop until Bill is unable to enter Stan's body. No matter how many tries it takes.)

[metanarrates]

what I find very interesting about the narrator's choice of reward - ie. an eternity of supposed bliss inside the cabin - is that while it seems on its surface just another instance of him projecting his desires onto you, it actually isn't. he himself probably thinks that he would desire an unchanging eternity like the one in the cabin, but...

when he is talking about his reasons for wanting to remove death from the world, his focus is almost entirely on connections to others. he talks about the greater good, having loved ones, wanting better for them. it's those connections that drive him to submit to death in the hope of defeating it. he is definitely selfish, but if he was totally selfish, he wouldn't have been able to do that. he believes his own death is a worthy sacrifice for the continued existence of his world. his vision of an ideal eternity, as he describes to you, is one where connections are endlessly and joyfully rediscovered.

in his ideal ending, you've killed off the only being you could ever meaningfully connect to. and this is one of the main reasons his plan dooms itself. who could bear the weight of an eternity alone? not him, certainly.

[alcrego]

The vanish of vanity

'Matiére Noire' collective exhibition. Marseille, 2017.

[iknowicanbutwhy]

Tfw you (currently obsessed with ISAT who never plays pokemon) play a soul-link nuzlocke with a friend (in for a world of torment) and you can't pay attention to a health bar for the life of you nor remember what types are weak to what.

Spoiler under the cut :)

Guy how did you manage to un-evolve yourself

[polycoriad]

eugh blugh anyway anyway. elias like talks to jon completely differently than he talks to anyone else. if jon is the room he is talking exclusively to jon regardless of how many other people are in the room. if jon is not in the room but there’s a tape recorder running he’s talking to jon. if he thinks jon might have this conversation relayed to him at a later date he’s talking to jon. mag 92 is hysterical because why did you pack this office with as many people as possible for this conversation and then audibly not break eye contact with one specific guy for twenty minutes. well this is because jon is the only person that actually exists to him in this situation. or most situations. elias knows he’s in a podcast but as far as he’s concerned he and jon are the only characters in it and everyone else is set dressing and he gets so cranky about it when the set dressing starts expressing free will. jon is aware that other people exist 95% of the time unless he is actively talking to and/or yelling at elias and then he kind of forgor. mag 102 when elias is like melanie is coming to murder me with a knife for like .25 seconds jon is like the fuck is melanie and then returns to reality and remembers he has a life outside of “weird thing with elias” and is kind of embarrassed. like uh whoops sorry got kind of intense there for a second (elias continues to be kind of intense unabated) (forever)

[codacheetah]

This pleasant gradient shows up at your door

[newedem]

[rotomicity]

I am Elidibus! And it is my duty to steer mankind and the very star upon their true course. This I swore to...to someone.

We spoke, and I swore...what? What did I...?

An elidibus piece I made for an event back in august, went a bit experimental on this one bc I wanted to capture that crystal/glass-like look to reflect the crystal tower where his trial takes place

I think i rushed this piece a lot bc i needed to move onto other things i wanted to sell for the booth and there were some ideas i had to discard during the wip stage but overall i'm glad i got to do a little tribute to my favorite unsundered :')

[xiaozhan-appreciation]

“The arrest was only natural.”

藏海传 Legend of Zang Hai

[quibbs126]

I'm noticing, the Beasts all have different forms of evil/danger they bring, at least of the three we've seen so far

(note that this is coming from someone who's only played Mystic Flour so far. I still haven't gotten around to the other two yet, I just know some general things)

Mystic Flour brought a spreading plague with no known cure, Burning Spice brought armies and sought to destroy the Golden Cheese Kingdom until nothing remained, and Shadow Milk I believe is using psychological warfare and manipulation to turn Pure Vanilla just like him

They're all evil, but in vastly different ways. This even extends to their involvement in the evil and those it affected. Mystic Flour wasn't even on the continent where her plague was spreading, far away and detached from it all, Burning Spice was personally there with his armies and wanted to destroy Golden Cheese's things himself (I think), and Shadow Milk is there to torment Pure Vanilla, but I think is only interested in him, not so much bringing suffering to people reliant on Pure Vanilla or his companions, outside of what they can offer in his quest to turn Pure Vanilla

It makes me wonder what Eternal Sugar and Silent Salt are going to do. Because if this trend follows, they have to do things entirely different from the other three. Which probably means no bringing of sloth to the Hollyberry Kingdom like I remember people speculating after Mystic Flour, or Silent Salt bringing destruction

I think it might have to do with whatever the Ancients hold most dear/are most vulnerable? Mystic Flour attacked Dark Cacao's subjects, but not with anything he can simply raise his sword at to get rid of and mostly leaving him alone until he himself was alone. Burning Spice went after Golden Cheese's kingdom, which she is desperate to preserve and restore after what Dark Enchantress did. And with Pure Vanilla, I think with him he is the most vulnerable thing Shadow Milk can attack. From what I gather he puts others before himself, to his own detriment, trying to protect them from anything that comes their way, and not to mention he doesn't have much to put in danger anyways. Going after his friends isn't enough, the most vulnerable target is Pure Vanilla himself, who doesn't have a way to defend from mental attacks for only himself. If that makes sense, I don't know how to word what I mean

If I'm to speculate about the other two, I don't entirely know? I'm not the most analytical person. With Hollyberry, I think the thing she values most is her family. Her people too, but they are what's most precious to her, so that's probably in some way going to be what Eternal Sugar targets. Which is great for me personally, I want more content of the Hollyberry family

As for White Lily, I really don't know, because again, I'm not the best at understanding her. All I know is that she doesn't have a kingdom for Silent Salt to threaten to destroy. There's the Faerie Kingdom, but other than it once belonging to Elder Faerie, I don't think it has nearly the same significance to her as the Dark Cacao or Golden Cheese Kingdoms do to their Ancients. I'm really not sure what their sword is going to be used for in their conflict, but it's gotta be for something

[kibu-me]

"A curse of madness has been cast upon the remote village of Mankai... Can you guess who the Wolves are?"

(aka a3! x werewolf game)

[a-bowl-of-grapes]

Pumping iron is so fun to play, i’ve literally been sat at the piano for the past half hour just playing it over and over and over it’s so funnn

[margueritestjusts]

Pathologic: The Marble Nest is so Nietzschean it makes me sick. I believe Dankovsky’s time loop perfectly encapsulates what Nietzsche was referring to whenever he discussed the eternal return. How so, you might ask? Let me explain.

Concepts similar to the eternal return predate Nietzsche, most notably with the concept of samsara (the cycle of death and rebirth, influenced by the karmic cycle) in Hinduism and Buddhism, but the eternal return holds significant weight in Nietzsche's philosophy given that not only is he oft called a nihilist (although that label is not apt), but also given that Nietzsche was a staunch determinist. The first time Nietzsche mentions the eternal return is in The Gay Science, where he presents it to the reader as a thought experiment:

“What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' … Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.' If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, 'Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?' would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?” (Nietzsche, The Gay Science, p. 273-274, tr. Walter Kaufmann).

Essentially, the eternal return is the belief that time itself is an infinite loop. Everything will repeat, and every event will play out in the same way for all of eternity. While Pathologic as a whole does tend to take more from absurdism and the Theatre of the Absurd (for time loops specifically? See: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead), I think the eternal return holds special weight for Dankovsky in The Marble Nest; he willingly chooses (depending on which ending you chose) to repeat the same day over and over again, not only because he is stubborn and refuses to die, but because he wants to still find a way to keep everyone safe and keep the plague out of the Stone Yard. Despite this, however, the events of the DLC are set to repeat in the exact same way, no matter how many times you try, in vain, to change the outcome. The plague will still come, and you will still choose whether or not you will finally die or not.

And I find it fascinating that the Executor sees Dankovsky's death as being, essentially, mercy. It is implied that when we are playing the DLC, this is not the first time Dankovsky has continued to repeat the time loop. How long has he been doing it for? That, we don't know, but the Executor believes that not only is Dankovsky agitating for continuing to deny death, but that it is also causing him suffering. By choosing to go with the Executor, Dankovsky will finally escape the samsara of his deathbed-induced, delirious time loop. By the end of the DLC, he has come to grapple with death and really, what the hell he's doing. By choosing to go with the Executor now, I believe Dankovsky is, well... not necessarily more at peace with death, but has ultimately come to accept his own mortality in the wake of the plague spreading to the Stone Yard. What would the point of his death be if he just didn't learn anything? That is why the game chastizes you when you choose to die during the first conversation, after all.

On the other hand, there's the choice to repeat the day once again. Would Daniil Dankovsky, bachelor of medicine and famed thanaticist, truly choose to just accept his death? No. Dankovsky would not. Not the man who claimed he would destroy Death itself. That's why he came to this town in the first place, was it not? He will choose to repeat the day, to try in vain to save this town no matter what, and no matter how many times he must relive this day once again.

[aoelustious]

no because genuinely the worst possible ending to me in any ship—like worse than death, worse than betrayal, worse than never seeing each other again—is them moving on. like genuinely, full-heartedly, moving on. falling in love with someone else. building a whole life without looking back. saying “it was love once” and meaning it in the past tense. that shit RUINS me. i can read 50k of pain and blood and screaming and i’ll survive. but give me five lines of “they loved each other and let go” and i will be sick for DAYS.

because to me, love like that—the kind i ship, the kind that burrows into your soul and sets up camp—doesn’t just go away. it doesn’t dissolve with time. it scars. it clings. it haunts. you don’t move on from that. you don’t recover. you carry it. you rot with it.

i want them to break apart, sure. i want them to destroy each other, hate each other, tear each other down. but i want them to still feel it. even in the silence. even in the absence. i want them to spend ten years pretending they’re fine, only to fall apart the second they hear the other’s name. i want them to be in new relationships and still feel like something’s missing. i want them to be 40 and alone and thinking, “they were it. and i let them go.”

it’s not about healthy endings. it’s not about “they grew up.” it’s about the fact that when i ship two people, i do it because they were everything. because nothing else ever came close. and if the story ends with “and then they both moved on and were happy”—then what was the POINT. what did they go through all that for. what did we go through all that for.

because if they can move on, then maybe it wasn’t real.

and i can’t live with that.

BUT ALSO.

this is about fiction. i’m talking about my ships. my ocs. my sick little narrative disasters. if you’re living like this in real life—please don’t. 😭 this level of emotional obsession is only romantic when it’s fake. in real life it’s just heartbreaking and terrifying. please love people in ways that let them go. please heal. please don’t rot for real. okay? okay.