#but the levels are very fundamentally different

[descendant-of-truth]

That said, I do think that Shadow Generations being such a more carefully cultivated exploration of Shadow's past compared to what the original Generations was for Sonic is... not doing Sonic himself any favors

General audiences are already kind of under the impression that Sonic as a character is fundamentally not that deep or interesting, and Generations was written during a time that really, really wanted to prove that notion right. Sonic "being deep" was what, seemingly, caused so much critical backlash, so to counteract that, they gave us the blandest cutscenes Sonic has ever had the displeasure of being in.

But that's not really what Sega is trying to push for, now. Frontiers wanted to be more serious, with a mature, down-to-earth Sonic. The movies gave him an origin story that inherently makes him a lot more complicated than usual. Prime put the focus on his emotions and gave him a character arc that lasted the whole show. The IDW comics can get extremely serious, and we're treated to Sonic's inner monologue as he wrestles with difficult choices. They clearly want Sonic as a character to be interesting to people, not just a vehicle for action and quips.

But putting the old Sonic Generations in the same package as the new Shadow Generations is inherently portraying them as equivalent experiences. When Sonic explores his past, it's no big deal - just another day on the hero job! Absolutely nothing worth exploring on his end when it comes to meeting his past self and revisiting his memories! Nope! No need to use time travel as a way to explore his core values as a person who prefers to live in the moment and not be bound by his past, no siree!

Oh, but Shadow? Now that's the actually interesting character! Revisiting Shadow's past is such an exciting event that it requires the whole year to hype up, and Sonic's just so boring in comparison, isn't he? Who really cares about Sonic beyond his surface-level characteristics anyway, right? The Sonic Generations remaster is more of an accessory to what's essentially Shadow the Hedgehog 2 at this point, and that bothers me.

Sure, Sonic doesn't have "a backstory" like Shadow does. But the past that we explore in Sonic Generations isn't his literal origins, but all the adventures we went on with him. Imagine how much depth you could wring out of him if you just took those events as being legitimate parts of his life that he has feelings on! Feelings we could explore!

But because it's a remaster instead of a full-blown remake, all of this effort they're putting into Shadow's campaign is nowhere to be seen in Sonic's. Can you imagine how good of a package deal this would be if Sonic's character was given this much care and respect, too? Like, we have two Sonics, but Shadow is getting more than double the favoritism.

And the fact that this is only going to continue to push the idea that Sonic is just. incapable of being interesting, or even really affected by what happens around him is really frustrating. We already have the movies and Prime drastically changing his demeanor and core traits for the sake of making him "able" to have character development, and as much as I love those versions as characters, it's really doing a disservice to who Sonic is supposed to be.

The last thing we need is for Generations to come out again and make the Sonic from the games seem like the least interesting version of him. Bringing Shadow up should not involve dragging Sonic down - they're supposed to be equals. But this game doesn't seem to be showcasing that very well, on account of essentially being two games written by different people haphazardly mashed together.

People being introduced to the series through this game are going to have such a skewed perception of what Sonic is like as a person, as well as what he's like compared to Shadow, and that just. makes me kinda upset not gonna lie

[scarlet97531]

It’s really fascinating how the fictionkin community has kind of normalized a certain level of plurality seemingly without realizing it. In the fictionkin community it’s like there’s this natural spectrum of plurality that is just accepted as normal.

There are people with multiple kins that experience it in a singlet way and people who experience it in a plural way. They’ve created their own terminology surrounding their plural experiences within the fictionkin framework with polykin and kinshifts. It honestly feels like it’s more common to see people with multiple kins than with just one.

And I want to clarify, having more than one kin identity doesn’t necessarily make you plural on its own, this is very much a wide spectrum of different experiences and I find it very interesting. It kind of feels like getting a glimpse of what it would be like if plurality was never stigmatized in the first place and if it was just naturally integrated into society without us being separated into an entirely different category of people. Where singlets and systems are the same, where we’re all just people. some of us are just multiple, but that doesn’t make us fundamentally different. It’s kind of refreshing. There’s not as much of an “us and them” mentality. Of course what the fiction kin community has isn’t perfect for plurality, but it’s very interesting, and I feel like people should talk about it more.

This is all my observations as a partial outsider though since fictionkin has always been more of a neighbour community to us than something we’ve been actively involved in. I’d love to hear what people who are more involved think about it.

[catastrophic-crisis]

There were plenty of PsychOdyssey documentary lines/moments that were highlights for me. And then I didn't screenshot them. But, sure, I'll screenshot this. And I'm not even thinking about it in a representation kinda way.

[bigskydreaming]

Imagine looking at a character whose entire premise is that in every stage of his life, he's made every version of himself into someone that inspires people to such a degree that EVERY SINGLE VERSION OF HIM has people wanting to literally follow in his footsteps in some way or another.....

And coming to the conclusion that like.....the most important things about him are the sum of all his trappings. His entirely homemade developed from scratch could not exist if not for what he already was and brought with him BEFORE crafting this newest version of himself trappings, with his greatest trait throughout all of it being his adaptability; his ability and willingness to roll with the punches and not try to simply weather any opposition or changes to his life but instead reshape himself as needed to better fit INTO whatever new shape his life and the world around him takes. All while managing to carry the most innate, fundamental and necessary aspects of himself from one version to the next. Thus every single version of himself is different but simultaneously every single version of himself is also undeniably the same person.

The strength of this character, to me, will always be that he can be so many versions of himself, he can become so many things, all without ever actually losing or discarding any of the aspects of himself he considers most essential, the things he's not willing to lose or give up just to keep going. Finding that road not taken by most, usually because most never even think to look for it as an option. But one that he's always able to find because the one trick he's mastered in his tumultuous life is threading that needle of not just digging in his heels in an unproductive way but rather being selective about when and where he makes a stand and decides "this is not a thing I'm willing to compromise about" but here are places and ways I can and will change and evolve and adapt in order to make it possible for me to hold onto these parts and keep them as they are.

And that's why its always so mind-boggling to me that so many writers can't seem to think of anything else to do with Dick Grayson other than invent some new reason for him to just....not be that person, or to like just take the character whose most basic fundamental trait he's NOT about to compromise on is willingly giving up his spot in the driver's seat of his own life.....and make him just a passenger in his own life and stories.

Dick Grayson at age nine....at age nineteen...at age twenty nine....the one core thread running through all versions of him is the only way he's standing back and letting you call the shots for him or putting him on the sidelines in some way is over his dead body.

HOW he goes about that, what that looks like, who he becomes and what aspects of himself he plays up at some times and what traits he lets fall by the wayside at other times when they offer less in service to his primary goal here....that changes constantly. He changes constantly.

But those changes are almost always (or at least they used to be/should be IN MY OPINION) made with the intention of keeping certain things about him or his life as consistent as possible.

That's the duality of Dick Grayson that I'm here for. The inherent contradiction of him that COULD allow for endless conflict and breaking new narrative ground in all sorts of ways if mined properly:

His eternal willingness to compromise....but only ever in pursuit of doubling down on the ways he's not willing to compromise.

Forever walking that tightrope in ways that only a kid born and raised in a circus could ever hope to.

[wonder-worker]

I've been thinking about the tragedy of Elizabeth Woodville living to see the end of her family name.

I don't mean her family with her husband, which lived on through her daughter and grandson. I mean her own.

Her sisters died, one by one, many of them after 1485. When Elizabeth died, only Katherine was left, and she would die before the turn of the century as well.

All her brothers died, too. Lewis died in childhood. John was executed. Anthony was murdered. Lionel died suddenly in the peak of Richard's reign, unable to see his niece become queen. Edward perished at war. Richard died in grieving peace. For all the violence and judgement the family endured, it was "an accident of biology" that ended their line: none of the brothers left heirs, and the Woodville name was extinguished. We know the family was aware of this. We know they mourned it, too:

“Buy a bell to be a tenor at Grafton to the bells now there, for a remembrance of the last of my blood.”

Elizabeth lived through the deposition and death of her young sons, and lived to see the end of her own family name. It must have been such a haunting loss, on both sides.

[possamble]

do you have any particular thoughts regarding marcille being a half-elf? its interesting to me considering the fact that she seems self-conscious about being a half-elf, but denies it when its brought up

i remember marcille looking visibly uncomfortable over laios simply asking her how old she is, which i think the only reason she might feel nervous about this is because it might reveal her as a half-elf to him.

she's never corrected anybody whose called her an elf either.

never mind the circumstances of the reveal, in which thistle goes on about how half-elves are inferior and accusing her of wanting to become full blooded elf, she seemed particularly upset like he struck a nerve-

i wish the half-elf thing was built upon more. also, underrated marcille line:

okay so i revisited this sequence just to make sure I could back myself up and it's just... man. there's a lot going on.

the first reaction we get from Marcille is this huge panel that takes up half of the page

she is viscerally affected. flushing to the tips of her ears with the intensity of it. and we see it again, a few pages later

so it might seem like she's embarrassed about it and lying to herself, but... I really think it's just that Thistle is accidentally hitting sore spots. If you really look at what he says to get these reactions

"you'll live out your entire life [...] and die that way too"

"a hundred years from now, nobody will be there"

Hear me out. I think, if he stuck to harping on about her inferiority without bringing up how terrifyingly long-lived she is, she wouldn't have been as bothered. But right now, Thistle is accidentally hitting all the marks on Marcille's deepest fears-- and this is after the Winged Lion promised her that her dreams could come true in an extremely vulnerable moment, so it also hits her slightly guilty conscience as well.

I do truly believe that Marcille isn't bothered about being a half-elf the way that people assume she'd be bothered by it. To her, the biggest problem with being a half-elf is that it's isolating.

On one hand, it's not hard to imagine why she'd distance herself from elves in the west. A lot of them can clock her as a half-elf on sight, unlike other races, and therefore she's always branded with this weird stigma of being Othered -- I would even say that she considers herself lucky for being born outside of elven culture instead of having to grow up in it. I mean, just... look at the way elves talk about her.

Skipping past the uncomfortable implication of what 'not tolerating the existence' of half-elves would actually entail, this is incredibly fucking annoying. You can see why she wouldn't want to be around elves much. You see a lot of Marcille reacting badly here, but honestly, almost all of it can be attributed to her freaking out that her bluff completely failed. She's honestly more paying attention to Izutsumi's footsteps and trying to coordinate an opportunity to escape.

And in the end, you see her built-up frustration at being asked if she wants to be a full-blooded elf like 2-3 times in a row.

Yeah, yeah, "the lady doth protest too much," and all. But we know Marcille. We know that she's a lot more embarrassed and horrendously unconvincing when she's being prodded about something she's actually self-conscious about.

Moving onto the flipside of things, it might seem weird that she "pretends" to be a full elf around other races, but it's not really that strange if you think about it. Again, people are weird about her being infertile or whatever, and a lots of them don't even know much about what sets half-elves apart from everyone else. I mean, look at how uncomfortable Laios is just asking her about it

and look at how exasperated and resigned she looks

And like... she's right. Where would that come up in normal conversation? Why would she go out of her way to tell them? She's functionally a normal elf to other races anyway -- got the ears, the abnormally long "childhood", and the huge mana capacity. Unless it's directly relevant or important for people to know, I don't think it's all that strange or indicative of insecurity that she prefers not to bother with it.

(This combined with her sense of being an "outsider" to elf culture also explains why she thinks elf superiority is embarrassing. She sees the way elves treat short-lived races from the "outsider" perspective nonetheless, and thinks it's obnoxious; especially more so because she usually has to play the elf around short-lived races and deal with the reputation of arrogance that elves have built up.)

The sad thing is, this all means that... she doesn't actually fit in anywhere. She doesn't like going out West much because of how elves treat her. But she's also an outsider in the continents she was born in, treated like this exotic long-lived alien choosing to live among short-lived races for some reason. She is always an outsider, the Other, no matter where she goes. Add in the fact that she'll live longer than literally anyone she knows, and it's honestly kind of heartbreaking.

And I think that's the crux of it. Marcille really doesn't act like she's at all self-conscious about being a half-elf because of any feelings of inferiority or being half-made or whatever. She considers herself a perfectly legitimate being and might even, in some ways, consider herself superior to normal elves because she's not blind with elf supremacy or whatever. (And whatever "elven biases" she displays, all of them are born more out of the fact that she's kind of bad at conceptualizing how other races age and mature compared to herself, not that she actually considers herself better or more mature simply for being an elf.)

I think that whatever self-consciousness Marcille has about being a half-elf is, instead, related to terror and loneliness. The reminder that it ensures she'll never truly belong anywhere for the rest of her very long life. The reminder that, in truth, even she's not actually sure how old she is by other races' standards (hence the discomfort when asked how old she is). She doesn't want to not be a half elf, or be a full elf or full tall-man-- in her ideal world, she's still a half-elf. She just gets to live out her life at the same pace with the people she loves and doesn't have to say goodbye again and again and again until she dies.

and one last very important panel, right after Mithrun tells her that all her desires would be devoured

In her ideal world, she's still a half-elf and reality magically starts marching at her pace. But failing that, the second best thing is that she's still a half-elf-- but one who is able to accept reality and let go of her fear.

(But the rest of the story pans out the way it does because, to Marcille, taking reality apart and reshaping it was less scary than simply and fully reconciling with it.)

[starry-teacup]

Jon: *describing what he was like when he was younger, explaining why it was hard to raise him*

Me: Oh. wow. No, that's me exactly. I- I didn't know other people were like that. Nice to know I'm not the only one.

Me: ...

Me: GUYS I'M NOT AUTISTIC. STOP

[ruvviks]

PLEASE DO NOT TAG AS YOUR OWN OC OR PAIRING.

Nathan and Ruben share a bond more powerful than most; mutual understanding through past experiences no one should ever have to go through, and through past actions so horrible they cannot be spoken of. Their grief and the blood on their hands binds them to the STEM technology they created, which has alienated them from the rest of the world— but they give each other the comfort they have both longed for so desperately for years, and that is all they need. They are each other's counterpart; you cannot imagine one without the other, like two sides of the same coin. Through their pain, their grief, their desire, and their regret, they have become one.

anna akhmatova, the guest // bones; equinox // 'i won't become' by kim jakobsson // agustín gómez-arcos, the carnivorous lamb // by oxy // achilles come down; gang of youths // czeslaw milosz, from 'new and collected poems: 1931-2001' // 'extended ambience portrait from a resonant biostructure' and 'migraine tenfold times ten' by daniel vega // a little death; the neighbourhood // marina tsvetaeva, from 'poem of the end' // by drummnist // katie maria, winter // 'nocturne in black and gold the falling rocket' by james abbott mcneill whistler // micah nemerever, these violent delights // body language; we are fury // 'the penitent' by emil melmoth // chelsea dingman, from 'of those who can't afford to be gentle'

taglist (opt in/out)

@shellibisshe, @florbelles, @ncytiri, @hibernationsuit, @stars-of-the-heart;

@lestatlioncunt, @katsigian, @radioactiveshitstorm, @estevnys, @adelaidedrubman;

@celticwoman, @rindemption, @carlosoliveiraa, @noirapocalypto, @dickytwister;

@killerspinal, @euryalex, @ri-a-rose, @velocitic, @thedeadthree

[satanfemme]

watching the jenny nicholson video about the star wars hotel and based on this testimony you could not design a more hellish experience for me if u tried I think. at no fault of the star wars ip. just the entire design and functionality of the hotel itself.... I feel physically nauseous from the second hand anxiety this video is giving me and I'm not kidding LOL

[gayvampyr]

it’s very isolating to be queer, ND and lower class. to know that even surrounded by your peers you stick out like a sore thumb. to know that they treat you differently in ways you can’t even really describe because you’re not technically one of them. depressing

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

I’m in a lot of pain so I’m thinking about my nova au to stay calm (tl;dr for it is basically metal sonic makes his own sonic oc the aforementioned nova to try and infiltrate and assassinate sonic's friendgroup, immediately instead decides that they're His Now bc being treated like a person is nice, transes her gender into literally all of them, and gets into the world's most hilariously consensually toxic qpr with sonic based around eventual murder) and the robotnik family in it is so fucking funny like.

eggman's first child ended up running off with his arch nemesis for one. i mean like nova and eggman's relationship is more complicated than that they do care for each other a lot even if their relationship is strained, in a mutually very fucked up way, but seeing your daughter making out with the guy you fucking hate so much you literally created your daughter solely to kill him is not exactly the best way to learn your little robot killing machine is growing up.

outside of that, though, their relationship is such a mess it’s very funny. like, nova is still metal just like his organicsona. but that also means nova has been treated like a person and until that point metal didn’t even see himself as one bc he wasn't ever treated as having full sentience. this isn’t because eggman is a dick- i mean, he is, and that does impact their relationship, but not in this case- he legitimately did not know metal had developed free will bc metal's response to it was literally just to be perfectly obedient anyway. so he basically learnt he had a very sapient mentally ill teenager Because he saw it hanging out with team sonic (specifically, nova took a blow meant for sonic bc it refuses to let anyone else kill him, the force interrupted it's shapeshifting and transformed him back to its neo metal sonic state, it was very awkward for everyone). so like, he genuinely feels kind of bad bc like even though his whole thing of having his robots see him like a father is mostly an ego thing bc like. that means he made a mistake!

and nova's relationships with Everyone are equally very ego based so in return she sees eggman as her father to boost her ego too- bc she views him as one of the few organic beings with worth, and therefore as special. but that also means xe treats him more like a young child than a father bc of hir superiority complex xe views organic life as inherently stupid and lesser unless they’re sonic bc it’s literally programmed into hir Because xe was made by someone equally as arrogant as them. so, like, their relationship seems very strained on the surface, especially since nova spends most of their time with sonic and his friends, but they actually get along great and have a great deal of respect for each other. i mean like it’s not like nova defected he's a neutral party who’s goal is to build up sonic to his peak to prove his superiority to him when he murders him he helps eggman as much as he helps sonic and his friends depending on the circumstances. she's tolerated bc she does make sure no one dies and also bc she’s a singularity level intelligence entirely fixated on that goal she's hilariously op in the au bc the idea of the most powerful being in a setting being someone who's so obsessed over a singular thing they never actually do anything with it is very funny to me.

sage is in this au definitely made as like a second attempt by eggman to be a decent dad and Not have his child run away and become skynet in a psychotic episode at fourteen. like probably not consciously but she’s definitely sort of a replacement metal in a subconscious way. which like you might expect would lead to resentment since nova is incredibly possessive but no they get along really well. by this point metal's been living primarily as his organic oc for four years and while he's not fundamentally a different person as nova a lot of his traits present differently and one of those ways is that his sense of superiority tends to manifest less as obvious smugness but instead as treating people like they're children or pets in need of care, which isn’t, like, exactly great but it is genuine progress for the guy who murdered people for fun as a fourteen year old y’know. and that means she ends up as sort of like a mentor big sister type of figure for sage, who looks up to her a lot.

speaking of like taking on a mentor role bc they view themselves as superior, we get into shadow. who Is nova's distant cousin technically bc sonic lore is wild like metal sonic and shadow being distantly related through adoption is actual canon i was given on a silver platter by sonic team. anyway like nova ends up being very much a sort of mentor figure to shadow during his amnesia mostly bc it sees itself in him. they’re both inherently superior to those around them, they’re both very lost and alone at that point, as far as nova's concerned shadow is close enough to themselves that he's worthy of “help”. which is mostly kicking him in the shin and smugly telling him if he was a robot he wouldn’t feel pain then horribly misunderstanding literally everything going on worse than shadow would alone but it is a genuine effort at helping. so after they do have a very awkward but cordial relationship bc nova does show genuine kindness through her own very warped perspective to him but also like it is absolutely not at all helpful. (that is generally a decent description of nova's relationship with everyone she cares about, though, she fundamentally does not think the same as an organic life form and therefore attempts at empathy and kindness come off as weird and uncanny bc she's a sadistic murderbot who views being damaged as fun bc she doesn’t have a sense of touch and thinks she knows better than everyone else).

so like, tl;dr they are the most dysfunctional family in the world but like. in a funny way.

[lwcina]

the fact that the us government can continue funding and arming a genocide despite massive public opposition really highlights how inherently non-democratic the united states is

[aquapede]

the narrator tsp and the princess stp would hate each other's guts for what the other is an abstracted representation of but theyre so so alike. looks like SOMEONE is the foundation upon which their other half builds atop but is locked in eternal struggle with them because that is the nature of existence!

[sinnbaddie]

You know it’s illiteracy when people start trying to seriously apply poetic and emotional love to Sukugo like it’s not one sided entirely

[hybbat]

You know a world where your ability to carry something is determined by quantity rather than size or weight is very easy to accept in a video game, because of mechanical convenience, but would probably be so strange in a story in any other medium, and I think a few more books and shows could stand to get a little funkier with the fundamentals of their reality like that.

[fooltofancy]

hate him.