#Control vs Chaos

[httyddragonfox]

Lack of control vs Agency

We always have control vs Chaos, but we also have Control vs Agency. I see this in almost everything. There is also this understanding of a lack of control.

Seeing Dragon Prince Season 5, I can't help but think of a few examples to understand this. Mostly, I think of that scene from Kung Fu Panda:

Oogway: You must lose this illusion of control, my friend. Take for example, this Peach tree. I cannot make the flowers bloom before they are ready neither can I make the tree bear fruit before it's time.

Shifu: Yet, there are things we can control. For instance...I can control when the fruit will fall (Kicks the tree). I also can control, where to plant the seed. (Slices the fruit, strikes the ground to make a hole and throws the seed in) These are not illusions, master.

Oogway: Yes, but no matter what you wish you will get a peach tree. You may want an apple or a pear, but you get a peach.

Shifu: A peach can't defeat Tai Lung!

Oogway: Maybe it can...if you nurture it...and you guide it.

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That's not the only example, I also think of what Villads said in Season 2 to Rayla.

Villads: Life is like a river; you can't control where the river goes, but there is one thing you can control: Yourself.

The river may push you forward, but you decide where you are going.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sky Arcanum is about understanding that you yourself have the power to shape your own destiny. You can control yourself. The Ocean Arcanum is realizing that outside of yourself, there are elements you cannot control. This is probably why the sky and the ocean reflect each other.

As for me, I'm too aware of my influence on the world from the slightest action. I rather the currents of life move around me, and yet I'm fully aware of what I want to achieve and how to get there. It's a conflicting ideology, not many can have it.

Either you're a villain like Finnegrin and you want complete control, or you're like Aaravos; aware of what effect your agency has on the world, and purposely making ripples. Complete Control vs Chaos.

[hayabug]

lucy gray you deserved so much more

i just finished tbosas (book) and i’m haunted by what were potentially lucy grays final moments. she desperately runs in an attempt to save her life. someone she trusted, someone she was severely trauma-bonded with, turn out to be who she always knew he was. in the back of her mind. from the start she was wary of him, but she chose to trust him, to love him, because she thought he was better than people who had hurt her in the past.

after mayfairs death, she already had a target on her back, didn’t she? so she chose to make that leap, to leave district 12, subsequently leaving her only family, to try and run away and be free. and that’s all she wanted, to be free. And she has coriolanus by her side, who she thought was willing to leave everything so they could both be free. but all he needed was an opportunity, a chance to gain the comfort of his life back. imagine being her in this situation.

You see the look in his eyes as he looks at those guns. you see his disgust as you teach him how to fish, the disgust at this life he said he wanted to live with you.

And that’s when you piece it together: the third person he killed, who he betrayed, was someone he claimed was like a brother to him.

and so you lie; say you’re going out for katniss. and you run.

Lucy gray must have been terrified. she was back in the arena; only this time it was someone that she decided to trust who was doing the hunting.

She sets a desperate trap, and watches as the man she once thought she loved goes rabid, almost as if had rabies; and she sings out her song— sejanus’s song— and holds him accountable

“Are you, are you

Coming to the tree?

Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me.

Strange things did happen here

No stranger would it be

If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.”

and the mockingjays whom he hates so much carry forth her song, driving him beyond mad. and just like her namesakes ballad—we don’t know what becomes of her. no one does.

But she stays a spirit. she’s in the trees, where he can’t catch her. but she also haunts his mind; where he can never get rid of her either; never catch her.

-

sorry if this is put together very sloppily i just have so many thoughts about lucy gray that are all trying to claw their way out of my head. in conclusion i am never getting over her ever and am begging suzanne collins to personally tell me her fate please

[snigora]

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

I'm fricken obsessed with this book and I had to write something about it, but I’ve never done something like this before so hopefully this is coherent!

Spoilers for The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

I want to talk about the differences in how Coriolanus (I’m just gonna call him Snow I cbb writing out his whole first name) perceives Lucy Gray and Sejanus, and how that leads him to his conclusion about human nature at the end of the novel. Because I think Lucy Gray and Sejanus are two sides of the same coin – to Snow, they both come from the districts, they are both pacifists, and they both have a desire for freedom from the reign of the Capitol. But Snow claims to love Lucy Gray and has a constant dislike, even hatred, of Sejanus. So, what’s the difference between them?

Snow starts out the book as a sort of blank slate, not having come down on either side of the humans are inherently good or humans are inherently evil debate (although it could be argued that his actions always tended towards the belief of inherent violence – but that’s not what this is about). His belief is only completely solidified at the very end, after seeing everything Sejanus and Lucy Gray have done. Given one of the major themes in the book is control versus chaos, I believe that both Lucy Gray and Sejanus represent chaos, with Dr Gaul representing control and Snow definitively falling on that end of the spectrum in the story’s finale. Snow’s close relationship with both the chaos characters is certainly what drives him to his conclusion about human nature, and his desire to control it.

Sejanus is looked down upon by pretty much everyone in the Capitol because of his district heritage. Snow is no exception to this – the only difference between his attitude towards Sejanus and the general attitude of others in the Capitol is his desire to be different from everyone else, falsely leading Sejanus to believe that Snow is his friend (Chapter 1, p17*). Snow has no interest in actually being Sejanus’s friend, but Sejanus latches on to him, much to Snow’s annoyance. As the story progresses, it becomes clear that Sejanus’s loyalty lies with District 2, not with the Capitol, which is something that Snow cannot fathom. With his prejudice against the districts, Sejanus’s defence of them is something that fuels Snow’s dislike of him. Sejanus’s trajectory of rebelliousness starts small, with going out of his way to do District 2 funeral rites for tributes who die, and standing up to Dr Gaul, to actively putting himself in dangerous situations. None of his rebelliousness is violent in nature, but it all challenges Snow’s beliefs in a way that he doesn’t want to be challenged. Their ‘friendship’ causes Sejanus to often confide his plans in Snow, which Snow desperately tries to dissuade him from doing, primarily because it would reflect badly on himself. But no matter how hard he tries, Sejanus always ends up doing what he thinks is right in his eyes. Snow values control, he says so many times throughout the book, and Sejanus is someone he cannot control.

Lucy Gray, on the other hand, is someone he sees as beneath him, because she is not from the Capitol. However, Lucy Gray does not particularly strongly associate herself with the districts because of the Covey. She just sees herself as someone who unfortunately ended up in District 12, which allows Snow to justify his continued prejudice while simultaneously falling for her. But the main difference between Lucy Gray and Sejanus is that Lucy Gray’s unpredictability and ‘chaos’ always reflects well on Snow because it draws attention to her as a tribute and as his tribute. She is also very much dependent on him for survival in the Capitol, making him feel in control of her. Lucy Gray says she believes everyone has an inherent goodness in them, and that is reflected in the ways she perceives Snow – everything he does, which we know is out of self-interest, she interprets as a selfless act. So really, she falls for a façade of Snow. She sees all the good in him and voices it often, making him feel validated. He finds her alluring because she is different, she reflects well on him as a tribute, and he sees her as a controllable sort of ‘chaos’. He starts to realise that she’s not as controllable as he’d like – that she has a life outside of him in District 12 and that’s when his affections for her start to slip, and that, along with other events, leads him to ultimately turn on her completely.

So, how do these two similar yet different people influence Snow’s view of human nature? The conclusion Snow draws at the end of the story (mildly influenced by his upbringing and Grandma’am, and majorly influenced by Dr Gaul) is that the Games must continue to constantly remind people about the inherent savagery of humanity, which he thinks people will inevitably revert to if the Capitol loses control. In Sejanus, he sees how his pacifist actions always end up with more violence – when he tries to trade tributes with Snow because he sympathises with his own district, and Marcus ends up dying horrifically; when he disappears into the arena and Snow has to retrieve him, the tributes band together to try and kill them; and when he colludes with the rebels in District 12, which causes the death of Mayfair, Billy Taupe, and Sejanus himself. In Lucy Gray, it’s how he sees her behave in the arena, seemingly killing people with ease; he believes that Billy Taupe’s death is her fault, and that he will end up like him if he stays with her; and when she leaves the snake to bite him in the woods.

Finally, the actions of Sejanus and Lucy Gray also cause Snow to realise the violence within himself. When he escapes the arena with Sejanus and is ambushed by the tributes, he kills a tribute (Bobbin?) out of self defence without a second thought. This shakes him up and causes him to start giving thought to Dr Gaul’s idea of human’s natural state being violent. When he catches Sejanus with the contraband, he ends up killing Mayfair, this time out of self-preservation. After this, he has an active role in the murder of both Sejanus and Lucy Gray, convincing him of his own need, and from there everyone’s need, to be under the control of the Capitol to keep the peace.

This turned into more of a ramble. But I haven’t had a chance to talk about these ideas with anyone yet (and I’ve only read the book once and I may have made errors), so I’m very open to discussion!

*I have the movie tie in edition of the book

[theramblingvoid]

I think the biggest thing about Sunless Skies that gives it a different feel than Fallen London (other than the obvious gameplay differences) is the position of your player in the universe. In Flondon, your character is important and singular. The storyline is oriented around mastery and influence: starting from the bottom and climbing to the top, gaining recognition and reach as you unravel the world's secrets. While social play is encouraged, there are few in-game characters comparable to the PC, and in many plotlines the idea of being the only or the first one to accomplish a certain thing is specifically emphasized. The story is about what path you take to Make Your Name.

In Sskies, that goal is not absent, but there's a sense of...fleetingness, that never quite leaves you. There are many others like you. You see their entries in the cache logs, they are mentioned in the ports and pubs, you find their frozen bodies littering the open void like stones. It is the very first thing you know when you start: you are a Captain filling the shoes of a predecessor, and in all likelihood simply keeping them warm for the next to come after you, and the next. Your time is limited. Your significance to the wild, vast, ancient skies is negligible. The drive in the story comes from this: Your space in this universe is small and hard fought. Make it count.

[sl33py-g4m3r]

??

where did that "biblically accurate angel chao" post go?

I knew I should've reblogged that thing when I had the chance~~~

hope I run into it again someday~~

it was a hero chao that had the head of a biblically accurate angel with 2 wheels of eyes~~~ it was jumping and happy~~

idk if it was a render or a mod someone installed to have biblically accurate chao but it was neat~~~

[phantom-vs-agents]

((Thinking about how Kellas is the Shadow of the Sol Dimension, I say, jokingly))

[chaosgenasi]

it's interesting to me that the only two times we've seen ashton enter hyper rage have been after being frightened, see: having phantasmal killer cast on them in episode 24 and being affected by chetney's "howl of the hunter" in episode 41.

[gayemeralds]

quick question about your Sonic Forces rewrite since im curious; what would be the phantom ruby's origins and how would inverted chaos energy work? :0

my idea is basically like this.....

the REAL phantom ruby is essentially an 8th chaos emerald. the master emerald helps keep the other seven emerald in harmony- essentially, the master emerald is the emerald of positive chaos. the phantom ruby, however, has is powers based in negative chaos energy. the two of them are necessary to actually keep the emeralds in balance, but the phantom ruby is so harmful to people not chaotic in nature that it gets lost through history and time and space after misuses gone wrong

eggman comes in contact with it after sonic generations but doesn't have much time to study it until later

he creates these fake copies of it using inverted neutral chaos energy to try to mimic negative chaos energy. it creates very powerfiul but unstable prototypes. effectively, it's very similar to the fake emeralds tails made in sa2 except with negative chaos energy.

that's what infinite has- he has a prototpe lodged in his chest. the unstable energies ahve also been altering his mind, unraveling him and his body. his mental and physical homestasis have been unbalanced and he's almost literally insane by the time he makes his first apperance, overcome with wrath and hate.

because the phantom ruby is made of chaos energy, sonic's able to use the energy better than any machine eggman can make or any other mobian he can swindle into being his science experiments. when sonic uses the energy against infinite during an encounter (basically, infinite came to torture him while he was captured but sonic fought back easily because infinite is physcially weak after exposure to the unstable energy and because sonic has... fought gods...) eggman immediately puts two and two together and decides to combine the real phantom ruby with sonic

and that has........ potentially disastrous results

[borom1r]

also I’m glad to see everyone in the lead currently is Fucking Unhinged

[cynicallyscorned]

break through it all is extremely super cynic core. thank you for this song frontiers.

[cegodaltonico]

"A sociedade não pode existir, a menos que haja um poder controlador sobre o apetite e a vontade. Quanto menos desse poder existir internamente, mais deverá ser imposto de fora. Isso está ordenado na eterna constituição das coisas: que homens de mente imoderada não podem ser livres. Suas paixões forjam seus grilhões."

Edmund Burke

[artcallednaturalviews]

In no fucking Half n Half

50/50

Or same as previous suckers

I have a better mind

Than two sided

(Dare I say: My, I, me, see, each, wave, of, constellation)

In my Oersonality / Personality

Thee Omni in each of US of the World

You dual minded cat finicky and dog engulfing never chewing

We can watch the Pets

In a Movie too

I just sneezed, who blessed me

Someone just did

But I followed protocol (sneeze cough) in elbow

You just cough all over, you burp/beltch/you gas

Don’t give me a blessing

Excuse yourself first!

You simple minded ladies

Voting for(e)

The parenthesis’s of e

So I don’t have to spell out thee other seven letter’s

You crossword or jumbling like you should!

You don’t even own those female parts

On another blog I spoke about

Don’t concern yourselves in Muslim & Christian Talk of Men that’s Man woman, women obey!

Now shut the fuck up, cover thyself, lady

Girl

Female

Im talking in man Talk now

Get on up to bed

Don’t stand near Hezbollah member or constituents

I’m a Man!

I don’t queff

Never been assholed for(e) such a sound!

Ohh Trump, you dropped something

“I have aides for such pickings”

I hope they’re reading!

[mormonmouse]

Control Verus None

Control Versus NoneWhat is the case, why is it that way, and how did it get how it is? These are the things that the gods do consider when considering god-like biz. But how things could be, and thus how they should be, is more the domain of those who, do not trust how things are, so they push them as far,as they can to control what things do. The gods, they do know,that things only can go,as far…

[death-rebirth-senshi]

Though actually I would say I'm finally over mass effect 3's ending. Like whatever yeah I hate it. Moving on.

[gingerswagfreckles]

I think people need to understand that when someone says the situation in Israel/Palestine is complicated they are not necessarily saying that the discussion of who the oppressor vs oppressed is complicated. The Israeli government has been oppressing the Palestinians for a very long time, that is clear, and it is not complicated to understand that at least since the 80s they have had dramatically more financial and military power to keep control of the territory in the way they like.

However, it is reductive and dismissive to insist that there is no complexity in the potential ways to move forward to bring peace to the region. Despite what people on tumblr.edu like to believe, "Israel should never have been created" is not a practical solution to an incredibly heated geopolitical situation in the present day. Israel was created and it does exist. 10 million people live there. 74% of the population is native born and the country has existed for 75 years. Hand waving these fact away with the opinion that "they should move back to where they came from" may make you feel good about being a Radical Leftist, but it does not give anyone a road map for how exactly millions of people without dual citizenship are supposed to just up and evaporate. Nor does it acknowledge the reality that 21% of Israelis are Arabs, the very people you are claiming to want to give the land back to.

Insisting that there's nothing complicated about expecting an entire country's population to willingly dissappear with no consequences is not a productive way to think about this conflict. It ignores the many massive superpowers that have an interest in proping up different states in the region, the power dynamics involved in any land back movements, and the inevitably negative consequences of totally dissolving an established state without a plan. It is also completely and almost comically unrealistic, so much so that it makes it hard to believe that anyone who's opinion starts and ends with this idea really gives a shit about anyone who lives in the area as much as they care about their online leftist clout.

There's nothing complicated in understanding that the Israeli government is and has been maintaining an oppressive apartheid state for decades. It is, however, very complicated to come up with a realistic way to resolve some of the most intricately entangled land disputes on the planet without plunging the region into total chaos. Not everyone has to be deeply educated on every geopolitical situation, but it is very hard to take people seriously when they know nothing about the politics or history of a region and yet insist that there is nothing complicated about it at all.

There's a lot of people on this website who are getting dangerously smug about their own ignorance, and are starting to go down Qanon type anti-intellectual paths in the name of being sufficiently radical. Not knowing the details of a very convoluted land dispute isn't something to brag about online as you call for intentionally reductive solutions. You can support the Palestinian cause and be aware of the oppression they have faced while also holding off on calling people trying to do real analysis and de-escalation work bootlickers. We need to get control of the urge to fit every global issue into a simplistic YA novel narrative structure that appeals to Western revolutionary fantasies.

[freetobeeyouandme]

Very dumb, extremely duh realization I just had about the library but it chimes. Its clocktower is not only a really big clock in the center of town (literally at the heart of Hawkins) that everyone can see -- but also that everyone can hear because it chimes the hour every hour. It's the biggest most obnoxious symbol and keeper of that arbitrary social order of time. And I think that may be why the library: It's at the heart of city spatially and it is the heart of the order metaphorically and so Henry takes it over because that is literally his archnemesis and also the control he aspires to have.

And then on a second, also metaphorical, level the library is also where stories are kept, and stories are everything. Stories are how we make sense of the world, but by extension they are also how we negotiate the order. And libraries especially are places of that negotiation because they're an extension of the government. The library is where everyone can go and read stories, but the library is also the place where people in power can ban books, can ban representations, worldviews, alternate modes of exitence. Alternate orders, yes, but also the lack of order. So the library is the heart of the community on that level too. And it makes sense that Henry would try to seize that, because for his order to establish he needs to seize control of the narrative.