#Existential Understanding

[turiyatitta]

The Enigma of the Monistically Absolute

A Journey Beyond Comprehension Imagine, for a moment, immersing yourself into an immeasurable realm of complete egolessness, a profound plunge into the depths of an eternal abyss that, paradoxically, awakens you to the highest pinnacle of existential understanding. It’s a journey toward the Monistically Absolute – an awakening to the Ultimate Truth where you comprehend an uncanny Total…

[unionizedwizard]

honestly i like zenos' ending because it fits with one of the many reasons he is so memorable and uncanny to the player: his awareness that he is a video game character stuck in a video game, and his refusal to interact with the material in good faith & bend to the narrative's rules. in my opinion this is the key reason he immediately resonated (no pun intended) with the WoL, but his main failure is that he always (arrogantly, cruelly) refused to interact with the world in the way the "ideal" player character does: no emotional investment towards anyone (what for? these are all "npcs" to him, you can just kill or torment them for fun to see what they'll do next or what loot they'll drop), no crafting/gathering (lol), no sidequest (lolx2), no concept of actually conquering/stabilizing an empire (he doesn't care about turning ffxiv into crusader kings the way that varis does, for instance). he's the concept of the entitled cutscene skipper who is only there for high-end content and is unable/unwilling to cooperate because he sees himself as essential superior to everyone else due to his (excellent) skills; even his job change/constant skill evolution mirrors the player character's behavior

in the same vein as yotsuyu's survival being open until she goes too far and denies the very tenets of the narrative (succumbing to despair and the belief in an unchangeable, evil nature which can create nothing but cruelty and is therefore justified in causing harm, with no redemption possible), which dooms her irredeemably, zenos willingly missed every sign & opportunity to actually grow... so that in the end, his apathy & desire for personal freedom coupled with his awareness of the narrative (existential horror if there ever was one) anchored him in ultima thule (literal liminal space between reality and fiction) after a last 4th wall breaking speech to the WoL, just because he refused to be the puppet of the writers ever again. we know he could have left. if WE did, that means HE could have left, with sufficient willpower (which we know he has, for things that really matter to him). but he didn't! i think that's a respectable, honorable choice all things considered, that's truly coherent to his character. he WOULD rather stay stuck in limbo (cancelling his sub?) forever than actually interact with the world with respect & patience & humility because he's too proud & unable to even envision doing otherwise. that was an ultimate manifestation of agency on his part and his story would not hit as such otherwise

[pigswithwings]

in another life, you and i are birds of different species. we happen to meet in a park where our winter migratory groups have stopped to rest; you are swimming in the pond and i am walking along the bank looking for things to eat. we look at each other and you say something in a language i do not understand. your feathers are in a pattern i do not recognise, and i, too, say something that you do not understand. still, we hold each other's gaze all the same.

in another life, we are strangers at a bus stop. my plastic grocery bag breaks and my things go everywhere; i kneel down to grab them frantically and you are there too, on your knees on the asphalt. picking up the apples i have dropped as if we will share them for dinner.

in another life, we are trees separated by the riverbank. the river has been running dry lately, even for the summer, so you ask me if there might be danger of a fire. i shake my branches in mimicry of laughter and ask you, danger? us, in danger because of a fire? no, no - of course not. if there must be a fire, we will be reborn. and i will love you just the same.

in another life, i miss you terribly during a late night. i call you, and you do not answer. you must be very busy, i think. i roll over in bed and watch the shadows on the ceiling bend and twist with every passing car. i sleep, and i am dreaming of you even if i do not remember it the next day.

in another life, you are a beetle, and so am i. we are burrowed together beneath a tree root during a rainstorm. i do not know you. i am not as small as you. your carapace nudges mine as we both try to burrow further into the dirt. it is cold. we are warm.

in another life, we are spotted hyenas in the same pack. you have been hunting, and now your ear is bleeding. you are limping, so i follow you. i lick the blood from your face, lay down next to you and breathe in the silence. we watch the evening sun glow.

in another life, we live across the hall from each other: you are room 317 and i am room 316. we know each other, barely - i have held open the door for you a few times and you've done the same for me. we have never looked at each other's faces close enough to recognise each other. but still, i notice it when you move out, when the sound of music on your stereo no longer floats through my window.

in another life, we are transmission towers, connected by a few metal strings.

in another life, we are lilypads on a pond. we are stars in the sky. now we are skeletons in the same grave. we are corpses on a battlefield. bricks in a wall. stickers on someone's notebook.

what am i to you? and how do i describe who you are to me? i have this feeling that is greater than love, perhaps it is beyond the word "love". all i know is: with the time i have, i am glad to know you.

[scribz-ag24]

I've recently seen again a post talking about the Sableye and Dusknoir's relationship so i'd like to put my two cents in the discussion, for I love screaming into the void about PMD. (this isnt meant to discourage any other interpretations btw this is just my take on theirs and Dusknoir's relationship, bc I think they're very fun characters and I am very glad the game actually gives these minions a bit of relevance in se5).

Tbh I don't buy that Dusknoir treats the Sableye nicely, at least not out of kindness. I don't think he's a tyrant or inexplicably mean, of course, and I think his minions ADORE him, but i also believe that doesn't mean he's nice to them, sth that i consider meaningful for their character arcs.

Throughout the entire game he's exclusively giving them orders, in se5 he concocts a plan that involves thrashing them MULTIPLE times (he's lucky Grovyle isn't one to try and kill enemies in battle ig), and the cherry on top is that the first time we see him being fully genuine he does this:

(yes, he is in turmoil in here, but there's not a single thing implying that 1. this is an unusual response towards the sablye, 2. dusknoir feels bad for it at some point or is surprised at himself, 3. this has any impact in the sableye at all. You can argue these reactions happen off screen and we don't see them, they don't happen bc they have pressing matters to attend to or they happen after they return to life, and that's perfectly valid, but i'm sticking with what the game shows us, here.)

I must say, though, the fact that the Sableye, despite having been almost mindless pokémon up to now, STAND UP TO AND ATTACK Primal Dialga for their boss and even try to look after him despite him ordering them to check on Grovyle and Celebi first is SO important to me. they are goons to the bone and they love that scheming ghost so much.

My own view is that Dusknoir is generally polite to them (you wouldn't randomly break your own revolver or weapon without any reason, would you?), but is quicker to get mean with them than with people he doesn't know or he is seeking to manipulate. He doesn't care about their behaviour as long as they get the job done, which is why I think the anime thing of the Sableye climbing onto his shoulder isn't that remarkable, rather it's a very cute moment, one that is showing how they've been working together for long and how their size difference affects their interactions, but it is not necessarily conveying an affectionate bond (this is a bit random, but it reminds me of Disney's Jafar with Iago lmao. throw your pet sableye at your enemies so they mock them and then return to your shoulder). Additionally, Dusknoir letting the Sableye onto his shoulder is probably as close as we are gonna get to a villain turning around in his chair while petting a cat in PMD lol.

[this isn't meant to be a one-to-one comparison, it's just a detail i find cute and shows that this gesture can have multiple interpretations, with none being the only right one]

Leaving that aside, I hesitate to claim Dusknoir trusts his Sableye as allies, as Grovyle makes a point in the main story of how the Sableye (your Sableye, he says, as if objectifying them; not friends, but tools, weapons at Dusknoir's disposal) are lacking compared to the way hero/partner/grovyle support one another (power of friendship and hidden information babyyyy). The Sableye are used to Dusknoir's way of doing things, though, I'm sure. They know what happens when he's displeased, after all.

I think, most of all, the Sableye are meant to look disposable: they are 6 identical pokémon that almost act like a hivemind, and we are not supposed to think at all about how we may hurt them in battle any more than we do with the angry Manectric pack or random dungeon pokémon. This, I believe, is why the game has them stand up against Dialga and gives them unique dialogue at the end of se5. They're meant to show their inner shine, just as Dusknoir managed to do. They suddenly gain an individuality they had never shown while they were working to maintain the dark future.

Where they abandoned Dusknoir in the Old Ruins, now Grovyle has motivated them to look for their dignity and fight for a better world, and that starts with protecting their leader from Primal Dialga's rampage, and supporting his new objective and allies in their quest to save the future. In their own small way, they've also grown as characters throughout SE5.

I believe that, overall, Dusknoir saw the Sableye as tools, but thanks to their growth and clear care for him, there's a possibility he might start to see them (and by extension other pokémon) in a more genuine, less pragmatic / objectifying way in the future. Now that Dusknoir has the chance to live a fulfilling life, he may learn to care for others without surrounding himself by so many walls. If anything, I think their future is quite bright. Not that the Sableye would mind if he still thrashed them around, though lol, they're clearly not bothered much by it (special episode 0 had a great depiction of the sableye imo, you can check that romhack if you haven't yet).

In conclusion, look at these little guys who adore their can-get-mean-but-is-mostly-polite boss and probably have a body count but now are good, they're so cute:

[autisticaradiamegido]

day 231

doomed timeline

u ever think about how literally every single one of the thousands of aradias that traveled back to fight in the trolls' boss battle was from a doomed timeline where she had to a) watch all her friends die b) process that she was also doomed and c) then power through all that to do a bunch of time travel detective work so that she could advise the alpha iterations of her friends on how to avoid splitting into that doomed timeline in the first place? before traveling to a battle she knew she wouldn't make it out of?

yeah man

[turtleblogatlast]

[ cw: slight questioning of gender identity / ]

Leo learning he’s trans and having various reactions to it.

1) Uncaring - not like anything really changed? It’s like learning your blood type. Leo is Leo, that’s all.

2) Existential - how the heck did he miss this for so long??? Wait is this gonna change his perspective of gender for himself or is he overthinking things??? He’s comfortable in his own skin and all but what if he’s not, actually? Should he think about this harder? Are there other things about himself he doesn’t know of yet-?

3) Peeved - what do you mean he could have had sick long claws and a cool long tail?

4) Relieved - WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE COULD HAVE LOST HIS STRIPES???

[grhmwtts]

lately,

i’ve been trying to hold space for the harsh realities—the limitations, regulations—i must impose on myself. i spent the past decade unlearning what my church had taught me to be definitively “good” or definitively “bad” and, in such, unleashed a brutal and intoxicating world onto my feeble, pastel body. in said liberation was a newfound understanding that there is no place for objectivity in regards to the good, the bad—but there is, and must be, subjectivity to the good, to the bad. i soon thereafter considered myself a hedonist, indulging in the endless search for pleasure with a fixation on the pursuit of a higher fix each time, because i had believed that since i had the capacity, the ability to do all things then i must do all things. i suppose, herein i shall introduce emotional intelligence, making its entrance in stride, arm-locked, with a sense of identity. somewhere, in the place where their skin meets, warm by their intertwining arms, resides desire—futile, pulsating—escaping. this is where i find myself now: captivated by their entrance, rotten as intrusive thoughts darken the stained glass windows of the church of my mind. what ceremony is this—i dare not ask. but i am keen, and i am ruined, like never before. my veins rupture, an aneurysm of a divinity, where the “good” and the “bad” seek to tear apart each ligament of mine. in these spaces between possibility is the understanding that anything can reside within it, for the specifics do not dictate the general picture—the microaggressions do not typically overtake the one’s impression of character—but certain matter does make a knee capable of bending or in need of replacement. as such, it is within our own genetic, emotional, makeup which suggests what matter might be best for our personal functionality, ease of existence. and only, through the desire brought by contact of emotional intelligence and a sense of identity, their two independent entities and the room that is this church that is this world, that this life of a mind, do we begin to understand how exactly to piece together this body, this world, this life of self. in this process, i find myself. in this process, i find myself questioning my individuality, examining it through a lens and finding in what ways it differs to that of the general understanding, the inundation of mass media. but only in the quietude can i find myself. so i hold space for the harsh realities—the understandings crippling my adolescent-views of self, world. and i allow myself to accept—radically, theatrically, screeching in beauty and terror—that what is “good” for me is good for me, what is “bad” for me is bad for me, and neither of these standards decree a general “good” or a general “bad”. they instead eradicate judgement, eradicate fear, and invite empathy and honor to each outlook. i, still worry-minded and adolescent-angsted, wish to know how good/bad works for other people, hope that i am not the only one to feel so alienated by the way the world apparently works. but in the most minute senses: i must think of these guideposts as allergies. varying in intensity from discomfort to death, i must know the risks and remedies. i must accept that my body, my brain, might not take to 0T7 very well. even if 0T7 is commonly revered, i must instead respect my own limitations, and see them for what they are: understandings which enable me to find my own ease of existence, embrace my personal functionality at its best. it’s a long, hard-fought battle to recognize one’s own capacities and shortcomings. tis an arduous process, what most call life. and i am thankful to recognize that these specifics contribute to what makes me me, similar to the atoms, to my genetics, a glorious collision suggesting life, i get to embrace my own harsh realities. for the world is vast and we can lose ourselves within it. the self is vast and we can find our world within it.

[mourn-and-watch]

the way cole makes varric conflicted is so delicious i think. most of the characters are uncomfortable around him because they're genuinely terrified of demons and the fade and magic in general but varric is a completely different case. the thing is, he doesn't see cole as a demon at all because he doesn't want to.

he acts like he doesn't care about this stuff. that's a little weird kiddo around here and he wants to befriend him. teach him something even. why not. that's a little guy who's a little too good with knives and can't pick up a single social clue at the same time.

but there it is. the "he could have been a person" line if cole is made more spirit. varric is so upset about it because it's not like he saw cole as, well, a spirit who got a little too human. for varric, he was a human first, a weird kid second. the spirit part didn't even come into consideration because. well. it would make him question things. you know where it goes.

every time he starts bitching about anders he brings up justice. justice drove him mad. justice took over him. justice this, justice that. justice is a scapegoat because the thought that someone varric was friends with was actually willing to blow up the chantry and it wasn't just some evil demon's wish is a very unsettling one. varric's friends may be crazy but they're cool and make no irreversible life decisions of that extent, don't they? blondie turned out this way because he let a demon possess him and make him do terrible things. completely out of the blue.

it's either varric's ex-friend has never been driven crazy by some inherently evil entity and there was a whole other person around him all along and that anger he used to mock was coming from the same place as compassion's urge to become a killer or that little weird but kind kid he started to care about has never been and will never be a real kid. he can't have both. a bitter pill to swallow for someone who has never picked a side in his life

[felitomkinson]

can you name three reasons to stay alive for me please. it’s for an assignment. it’s titled trying to find three reasons to stay alive. one from me personally; you can press buttons and strings and they make sounds you can combine which is very cool and worthy of staying alive. what else.

[turiyatitta]

The Ultimate Superposition

A Dance of Existence and Consciousness Everything and nothing. All at once. Time, space, matter, thought – everything is happening in a symphony of existence and non-existence. This concept might seem like an abstract rumination reserved for the philosophers and quantum physicists, yet it is a reality that each one of us is connected to. This concept is known as the Ultimate Superposition. In…

[ghostfacemza]

💕Jeff the killer cosplay💕

[luciaintheskyainthi]

nooooooo there’s a new chapter but i still have 2 more hours at work, this is torture 😔😔

☠️☠️☠️ Stay strong! She'll still be there when you're done!!!

[senblades]

The relationship, or lack there of to be more exact, between Haru and Makoto in yout story makes me so- ough emotional? Idk it makes my chest feel like a deep vacuum whenever i think about it. Cause its one of my favourite troupes of time travel stories, the "oh if things happened even slightly different, we would have been different people and/or met at the wrong time". Except this is the first time ive seen it in 3rd persom instead of though the eyes of the prootagonist, cause usually they REALIZE they messed up and ruined a relationship they valued and try to fox things...but here none of them know the trust they had in eachother in the other timeline. They are different people now and it wasnt due to their own actions. It makes me so sad. Cause i want Makoto to be Haru's Mako-chan again...but it can never be the same in this timeline, even if they eventually become friends/something more (if you ship them)

Sorry, i love your fic and this particular small sub sub sub plot that naturaly developed between them due to the change in their dynamic is driving me insane

ahhh i'm glad you like it so much!!

the makoharu friendship-or-lack-thereof was certainly something that developed naturally for me; as in, i hadn't planned it until i was writing scenes with Makoto and Haru and realised "ah. circumstances dictate that this is a bad start to their interactions." (looking at you, oct 3 mementos confrontation)

Haru is definitely the character that got steered the most off-course from her original timeline counterpart. Akechi would have been a contender, but since he's gotten all his memories slammed back into his brain he doesn't really count, and he was heading down the same path as his canon counterpart mostly- just, uh, speedrunned.

back to Haru though; since everything with her persona happened a month or so early, she's completely missed bonding with the thieves normally. I did add that her and Morgana get along, but that's largely surface level. She's almost been relegated to what could be considered canon-Sumire territory, which is to say she already has preexisting history with one or two of the other thieves and has no reason to bond overly deeply with the others.

Not to mention that Makoto is permanently socially awkward, so don't count on her saving this HFSJKHFS

[smile-files]

just out of curiosity: for friends and followers with schizophrenia, psychosis, or any other mental disorder causing delusions/hallucinations, how do you feel about suitcase ii being a representation of that?

ii doesn't have the best track record for mental disorder representation as it is (cough cough paper cough cough bomb cough cough cabby), so i have reason to be skeptical about suitcase... from my perspective, as someone without any such disorder, the handling of her mental disorder is unnuanced but well-intentioned at best, and a tacky, cliched attempt to create drama at worst. but i'd like to hear what other people think! thank you!

[philosophybits]

The standard philosophical strategy of most naturalisms is to find some way of showing that our own culture has indeed got hold of the essence of man — thus making all new and incommensurable vocabularies merely "noncognitive" ornamentation. The utility of the "existentialist" view is that, by proclaiming that we have no essence, it permits us to see the descriptions of ourselves we find in one of (or in the unity of) the [natural sciences] as on a par with the various alternative descriptions offered by poets, novelists, depth psychologists, sculptors, anthropologists, and mystics.

Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature

[aunhinged]

Ineffable husbands x Bureaucratic husbands

Our Husbands Left Us for Godhood and We’re Drinking About It

Mobius: Look, I get it, okay? They’re ambitious. They wanna be something more. Something bigger."

Crowley, gesturing wildly: But WHY?! We had everything! food, wine, books, a planet that didn’t implode, what more do they WANT?!

Mobius: Hierarchy.

Crowley: Oh, that’s rich coming from your guy. You do realize Loki’s entire personality is ‘down with the system’ but also ‘let me be the system’?"

Mobius, sighing: Yeah. I know my guy.

Crowley: You ever just… wanna kick ‘em in the shins a little?

Mobius: I don’t think Loki has shins anymore, but yeah.