#decay as a metaphor for self hate

[greenhappyseed]

Tomura Shigaraki is defined by an intense hatred of everyone and everything. AFO, on the other hand, is defined by being hollow and petty.

But Shigaraki’s hatred is never actually absolute. He doesn’t have enough hate to steal OFA. He doesn’t have enough hate to turn away the LOV, or destroy the things they love. He doesn’t have enough hate to destroy his allies (like how he doesn’t decay Dabi at the start of this final battle).

In 418, we see this painfully clearly. Tomura’s hatred cracks his body as Izuku says he is here to hold Tenko’s hand and give him peace. Tomura’s final push back is that he’s a villain because he fights for the villains. Even if he’s hollowed out and his hatred disappears, Tenko is still committed to being a hero to the people that are ignored by traditional heroes.

Fortunately, even without OfA, Izuku’s superpower is that he innately understands how Tenko’s hatred is tied to catharsis and relief over killing his family. The only way to tip the scale the other way (not even a metaphor —Horikoshi drew a literal scale!) is to give Tenko relief from his confusion and grief. To hold his hand while he’s crying. To reach out, pull him along, and tell him the one thing he’s always wanted to hear.

Izuku doesn’t get a chance to respond before AFO cuts them off, but I’m assuming that Izuku will say yes, you can be a hero to the villains, because someone needs to light the way for them. Yes, you can be like All Might, even if you hurt your family. (Even if part of you was angry and wanted to hurt them.) Never hold your true self back; you should live your dream and be the hero the villains need.

[poptivist]

metaphorical deaths across trench

the day trench was released, kerrang published an article which contained the following quote: “neon gravestones, tyler explains, is the heart of trench.”

and i just didn’t get it. we’d had jumpsuit, natn, levitate and my blood for months; all in-world, all not having very much detail about death other than showing the literal gravestones lit with neon.

in early 2019 i ran a small poll on twitter asking “do you think this is related to the narrative” for each song on trench, and of 132 voters, only 67% said yes, neon gravestones seemed related. i didn’t then – and still don’t now – know what exactly neon gravestones as a song has to do with every other part of trench the album.

here are some things we do know: ending your life is the goal of vialism. in the third verse of neon gravestones tyler lists reasons that someone might end their life (as a form of legacy, as a form of lashing out) and says as a counterpoint that our culture should glorify old age instead of an early death. in leave the city, the record’s last song, tyler says “in time i will leave the city; for now i will stay alive.” and we know it’s the goal of the vulture/bandito to turn death into life (be a vulture who feeds on pain).

with the “heart of trench” thing in mind, i’m looking for ways that neon gravestones relates to each other song on the album – because before there were articles, interviews, or music videos, these songs existed first on their own, together. i’m starting from here:

the first verse of neon gravestones gives us this:

what's my problem?

what’s his problem? he’s about to explain. excellent.

well, i want you to follow me down to the bottom underneath the insane asylum keep your wits about you while you got 'em 'cause your wits are first to go while you're problem-solving and my problem? we glorify those, even more, when they

(“lost ‘em,” presumably.)

so based on tyler’s description of song structure i’m looking for problem-solving as a point of conflict (specifically, losing wits) and death as a topic.

this is what i’ve scraped together -- i've categorized each song as wits kept, wits lost, and incorporating death into living.

jumpsuit. jumpsuit ends with tyler in a pose that definitely screams dead.

though “attempted escape should be honored,” considering tyler tried (with zero endgame) to run on foot from a bishop on horseback, i would place this firmly in the category of wits lost.

02. levitate “i am a vulture who feeds on pain”. vultures feed on carrion, so there’s some relationship between pain & death. in a sense he’s incorporating death into living.

03. morph. tyler can’t stop thinking about life after death, even though nico is always trying to stop him.

he takes this song to methodically reason out his thoughts about death. for that reason, i would categorize this as wits kept.

04. my blood says “if you find yourself in the lion’s den, i’ll jump right in and pull my pin.” taking the grenade with you is a one-way trip 💀 so i would categorize this as wits lost.

i noticed a bunch of these songs have high emotion in them, like for example jumpsuit's “i can’t believe how much i hate…” if there’s high emotion in this one, i would call it loyalty (but past the point of self-preservation).

05. chlorine. chlorine says "rebel red carnation grows while i decay." decay suggests a death occurring. “i’ll be back when it’s all complete” and “the moment is medical” says this leaving-of-the-city is temporary and necessary; it’s incorporating a death into living.

06. smithereens. “for you i would get beat to smithereens”. smithereens literally means small pieces, which is generally considered pretty dead. if there's high emotion here i would call it most likely rage. you could maybe say what he wants to save he'll kill: in jumpsuit, himself, in my blood, his brother, in smithereens, his relationship. i would call this one wits lost.

07. neon gravestones: is the song we’re talking about.

08. the hype. the hype music video shows tyler and josh getting shot up by invisible bullets, which according to the director symbolized the metaphorical death that took place before the band redefined themselves for trench. this is incorporating a death into living.

09. nico and the niners. this one does say we will win but not everyone will get out. that doesn’t necessarily mean death, but the whole rap verse is a half-assed plan at best. (still better than jumpsuit, which was a zero-assed plan)

10. cut my lip. the cut my lip visuals show the arms of the statues pictured in natn sticking up out of the ground as though drowning. so maybe wits lost? being buried in the ground/drowning is dying, and in the song he says explicitly this isn't what he wants.

(the cement people periodically turn yellow like the vulture)

11. bandito. in jumpsuit tyler’s death is preceded by a fall; in bandito the lyrics say “we know you don’t know to fall”. they also say “i created this world to feel some control; destroy it if i want”. wholesale destruction does seem death-adjacent. i would call both of these things incorporating death into living.

12. pet cheetah. no deaths here. tyler says “no, i move slow, i’ll sit here til i find the problem.” the squealing tires tell us there is an urge to move hastily, but tyler makes a decision to be patient with his problem. i would call this wits kept.

13. legend. during the live show tyler would say during legend “if i my grandfather taught me one thing it’s that it’s worth it to keep on fighting all the way to the bitter end.” he also says “you’re a legend in my own mind” and notably, dema maps have a compass rose, but no legend, so maybe his grandfather is an example for him? either way, “keep fighting to the bitter end” is a clear plan, so i would call this wits kept.

14. leave the city. “it’s only time before they show me why no one ever comes back with details from beyond.” this suggests he’s talking about a final death, a final leaving-of-the-city, the point of no return (assuming people aren’t coming back with anything else either, like cashews or scratch tickets or whatever). this isn’t incorporating death into living then, but it’s a plan to live. i would call this wits kept.

so that's my attempt to see neon gravestones as central to trench beyond what is explicitly said in the third verse. i'm basically full of question marks and this is the best i could come up with. any ideas? what am i missing?

[museofthepyre]

Did a fun Q&A thing on insta about my ocs, here are the highlights, lore and shit! For context I am writing this into a horror-ish book as we speak. Brewing my dastardly schemes (gay tragedy).

Q: Is Eden also a cannibal?

A: Eden isn't a cannibal in the way Harlow is. I mean he eats people but only because Harlow's cooking is too good to turn down /hj. Eden's thing is... kinda the opposite.

He's slowly being consumed by the rot that's festering within him, a manifestation of hatred and shame. To him love is consumption, and he is inedible. Insert vulture metaphor here w Harlow. For every rotting corpse there is a very greatful vulture who will look past the decay, and see your worth. Eden is ultimately finished off by something that loves him, a consumptive love, unconditional and indiscriminate.

Q: ABOUT THE ROT, HOW DOES IT WORK? HOW IS IT AFFECTING HIM??

A: This rot is really the only story element that isn't totally grounded in reality. It's an illness that's a manifestation of his self hatred/ repression/ internalized shame- not an actual condition.

It appears at first like it just affects his chest- but it’s been slowly burrowing deep into his body. Its spreading like roots/ mycillium through his flesh and will finish him off in one foul swoop once it's finished spreading.

In the meantime, it manifests like a chronic illness- his muscles are all atrophied and he feels constantly drained of life. It's taking small pieces of flesh to sustain itself while it spreads (the chest cavity is the result of that-though the REAL damage is invisible. It's the ticking time bomb roots beneath the seemingly unaffected surface). It functions like a slow acting Chronic Wasting Disease (aka zombie deer disease, humans can't get it in reality, but it was the inspiration)

Q: What happened when Harlow discovered Eden was a guy

A: Eden is trans, and closeted in his life. Harlow is the first person he ever discusses his truth with.

At first, Harlow was just kinda... confused? Transness is not a concept he was familiar with. At ALL. The idea alone was completely unheard of to him. Again this is the Bible Belt in the 8os, the area so rarely encountered visible transness- trans people existed of course, but so many stayed hidden to survive. The roaring tre of bigotry did not have much tuel in that regard... no trans people to propagandize against. It was not on the public's vitriolic radar. In that way, Harlow hadn't developed the knee-jerk reaction of hatred... he was more fascinated than anything, but it did challenge him to understand at first.

Unlike his journey with accepting homosexuality this was not so much a task of unlearning as it was just... learning.

Also Eden's whole rotting thing adds another layer to this Harlow is stupid and takes everything VERY literally- he thought Eden's condition must be divinely brought.

Harlow saw a gift from God, a rare flower planted in inhospitable soil, wilting before it ever got the chance to bloom. Like the angels sent to Sodom and Gamorrah in human disguises, to test the townspeople's virtue. To present them with something foreign yet beautiful, to judge their inherent goodness based on how they treat it. Like in the biblical story, the townspeople were so vile and inhospitable that it endangered the angels and forced them to leave, burning down the town behind them. Harlow saw this as prophecy. He was eager to get to the “burning down the town” part.

Part of my motivation for incorporating that specific biblical story is SPITE btw since so many people use it to justify homophobia. Reverse uno idiots. I'm putting you in my GAY BOOK as a metaphor for hateful queerphobic societies.HA!

Q: Describe the rot in Eden's chest in sensory detail (texture smell “cause" etc) I want rot details!!

A: I used CWD and necrotizing fasciitis as building blocks for this thing... starts in the brain, spreads like roots through the body, eating away at muscle and skin as it does. Once it's fully spread, it'd rapidly worsten and bring death within a matter of hours.

In the meantime it sustains itself off of non-fatal bits of flesh (his chest here, since it's a manifestation of self hatred and all, and dysphoria is a bitch). It is an open wound so it'd feel scabby and it is perpetually weeping... which is how Harlow finds out about it so quickly (seeps through white nightgown after being left unbandaged for a few nights). He would also have to take care to hide the smell of decay

It advances throughout the story and by the end there's barely any soft tissue left on his chest, nothing alive anyways. The final overtake begins, and his organs enter the early stages of consumption (which happens very rapidly in one foul swoop). That's when they decide it's time for boy dinner!

Q: How smart are they

A: GREAT QUESTION! HARLOW IS FUCKING STUPID. LIKE not only does he lack emotional intelligence entirely, but he's also very impulsive and reckless. The ONLY reason he's getting away with his murders is because the society around him has shot itself in the foot with its homophobia. Noooobody is suspicious of him for the string of missing attractive dudes. They're looking for a "vengeful woman" profile, or possibly a "debt collector with many social connections" or something. Not some solitary redneck who barely shows his face in town and is very polite and quiet when he does. He appears, in all respects, like a normal guy in public.

Once they have mutual blackmail (and also start caring about each other)... Eden realizes that if Harlow gets caught, he's fucked too. So partially for the sake of self-preservation, and... partially out of pity for this stupid stupid man... Eden starts to help him cover up.

Harlow is pretty disillusioned as to how society functions as a whole, since he grew up pretty far from it. Eden is the opposite, he was suffocated by it and learned how to be sneaky as a result. Eden is very good at getting people to trust him, he's good at lying, he's good at acting. Thing is, he's overly trusting to his own detriment. He's desperate for genuine connection and easily deceived himself. He's bad at reading people.

Q: What happened to Harlow's mom?

A: Harlow's mother died due to complications during childbirth. He never had a maternal figure in his life, he was raised as an only child by his father, who had become calloused and would never remarry. Harlow dropped out of high school and kept to himself at his house/ in nature after that very isolated from society. Considering all this... he not only lacked a maternal figure, but any female influence... at all. Which manifested as this warped and idolized understanding of women as a whole

He thought of women in a very high and almost mystified regard- like how a child would imagine a mythical creature. One massive blank filled in by a clueless imagination. He respected them greatly, he feared them like gods, and he felt a need to repent to them as such. He never properly processed the guilt he felt over his mothers death-largely thanks to his father's handling of it. This guilt left him feeling indebted, like he owed the world for what he “took", like if he ever so much as inconvenienced another woman it would be an irredeemable sin.

This all sounds like it comes from a good place, but it's really all just deluded naivety this is not a positive trait of Harlow's. It contributed a lot to his toxic masculinity, the pressure he put on himself to "be a man", etc.

He's not a white knight, he's a cowardly dog.

This is why he didn't just kill Eden on the spot after being caught, he needed to make sure...)

MORE TO COME IM SURE I LOVE GETTING QUESTIONS ABOUT THESE FREAKS IF ANYONE HERE HAS ANY

[faiakishi]

im back with a game of thrones update

after watching through a lot of the show very quickly i have two episodes left, which are the ive heard are absolutely terrible and are the reason my dad (who says season 1-4 are almost perfect television and a great adaptation) hates the show so much. my mom and i have been pointing out dumb things while watching (such as lady mormont being shown turning into a white walker, then being shown on a funeral pyre despite literally every white walker shattering??) but ive still heard that the dumbest and worst things are in these last two episodes.

as curious as i am to see the "terrible ending" ive heard so much about im not really looking forward to whatever these episodes have in store

I will admit that my memory of that episode is hazy due to traumatically blocking most of it out, but it was just the white walkers who shattered, right? White walkers are different from wights. White walkers are seemingly live people turned into whatever they are now, and presumably can still 'grow up' as it's shown that Craster's sons all become white walkers themselves. Wights are reanimated corpses-unintelligent, fragile, and decaying. Lyanna Mormont became a wight. And I think they all just collapsed at the end of it. So...that part at least was not a plot hole.

The dead/survived ratio in the Battle of the Long Night was just fucking ridiculous. Yes, it was crazy and random and tons of people died, but no one really important. Pretty much just everyone the writers didn't really have more material for and wanted to justify getting rid of. Jorah's unrequited love for Daenerys? Doesn't matter anymore! Theon? His redemption arc was over anyway! Ed Tollett being irrelevant now that Jon is a king and there are no POV characters in the Watch anymore? That's cool, he can just die! Beric Dondarrion-okay, I am STILL salty about what they did with him, he's already dead in the books but (and this is a spoiler but I'm trying to encourage you to read the books) he dies bring Catelyn Tully back to life, who then takes his place as Lady Stoneheart at the head of the Brotherhood Without Banners. Meanwhile fucking Sam survives. Don't get me wrong, I love Sam, but how he's portrayed in the show-mf would not have lived. They tried to make it a GRRM bloodbath but critically misunderstood what he did to make his deaths feel so brutal and realistic.

I will say, as much as I would have loved little Lyanna living happily ever after as her badass self-killing a zombie giant while having the life crushed out of her was a death worthy of her. And this is Game of Thrones, so honestly that's as much as you can hope for.

One of the places-I mean, there are many places D&D went wrong, but one of the big ones I think was the decision to make the Long Night a secondary plot point and treat the conquering of King's Landing as the real end battle. Germ has likened the white walkers and the army of the dead to climate change and the advance of the Night King during the War of Five Kings is very much a political metaphor-people are fighting over something dumb like who gets a chair while the real threat goes unheeded, and when it arrives it will not care who sits what throne. Rushing through that just to get back to 'who gets the Iron Throne' is profoundly missing the whole point.

Really, Germ first thought the novels would be a trilogy. The first book detailing the War of Five Kings and the birth of Dany's dragons and her rise to power, Book 2 being Dany returning to Westeros and the ensuing conflicts that will cause, and Book 3 being the war against the 'real' enemy. We aren't even through Book 1.

[madhogthymaster]

I Played Every BioShock Game in One Month, And I Must Scream!

On January 2nd 2023, I made the sporadic, partially ill-begotten decision to buy all three BioShock videogames. Up to that point, I had never experienced these titles directly save only through cultural osmosis, the occasional meme and, naturally, The Discourse! I would spend the following lunar cycle playing them, writing down my thoughts and posting them on Twitter dot com. Today, after enough time passed for my heightened feelings to reset, I have collected those floating brain bubbles and transliterated them into some manner of structured essay for your reading pleasure - or utter lack thereof. Did I have anything meaningful to add to the conversation on one of the most dissected and dissertated franchises in the history of the art form? You may be the judge of that. It begins.

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Part One: Atlas Drowned

BioShock. The first BioShock. BioShock the First. "Spiritual" successor to System Shock 2, Bioshock. Yes, that BioShock. This is most certainly not a title that requires any sort of elaborate introduction. Since 2007, there have been many videos, articles, essays, podcasts, and everything in-between, dedicated to its analysis. For better and (decisively) for worse, the concept of Videogame Discourse was birthed from the metaphorical wreckage of this opus smashing itself onto the collective consciousness. I may be indulging in prosaic hyperbole here but the point still stands: it was, and still is, a big deal. You have probably heard it all before: the game is about the Folly of "Free-Market" Capitalism as it drives Society to ruin, the inadequacy of the wealthy to lead, a satirical takedown of Ayn Rand's Objectivism as it unceremoniously flops when confronted with the reality of basic human nature and needs. It's about America, in other words. It gleefully revels in its political stance with the subtlety of a clown-faced vending machine yelling: "Welcome to the Circus of Value!" It might as well be using a copy of Atlas Shrugged to wipe its anus, at this point. That is all to say, first impressions were quite positive and I was enjoying it a lot.

The underwater city of Rapture is a poignantly depressing location: everything from its very name to its opulent Art Deco architecture screams of egomaniacal pretention. It is a monument to its founder's hubris turned into a decadent, decaying tomb for his ambition. It perfectly conveys all you need to know about Andrew Ryan, the founder of Rapture and initial antagonist. He is a rich twat who hated having to pay taxes so he created his own version of a Libertarian Blockchain disguised as a country where there would be "No Gods or Kings. Only Man." He then proceeded to make himself the god-king of his utopia; it crashed and burned along with everyone in it. "Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?" he said, indeed.

Rapture is a wonderfully designed world, in that sense. The only elements that clash with the contextual aesthetic would be the aforementioned "Circus of Value" marketplaces. Let me explain. Andrew Ryan, like all demagogues, takes himself super seriously. His entire platform was built on the premise that he's a charismatic genius and everything he says is Gospel. His whole civilization was constructed on the terrible ideas he convinced both himself and many others were actually good. Seriousness, self-importance and overcompensated grandiosity were the building blocks of Rapture, the roots of its aesthetic, the basis by which this society could function - until it wouldn't anymore. As such, the presence of those vending machines, openly mocking the very foundation of Uncle Andy's Ryanworld, feel out of place within the narrative and universe at hand. They have been clearly put there so that the developers could do a little meta-humour, a wink and a nudge at the player, to redundantly point out how absurd it all was. They must have been worried the game was too subtle and some players would not get it... Anyway, this was but a minor complaint. By all means, take it with a grain of salt. Now, I have some legitimate criticism to bring forth.

Whilst a lot of the conversation has been directed at Brow Sweat Man, his God complex, his insane ambition, his "Chain of Industries" ideology and "Laissez-Faire" economics, not nearly enough analysis was ever dedicated to the other major antagonist of the game, and I can definitely gather why. I will now openly address spoilers for the latter half of the story by discussing the character of Frank Fontaine (aka ATLAS), the de-facto main villain of the piece.

Fontaine is a grifter who played a long con at the expense of the "Kingdom of Reason." He started a smuggling ring that introduced gun violence and religious bigotry to the city, used the malcontent of the exploited working class to start a bloody rebellion, manipulated and killed people behind the scene through various aliases. His corporation is the one responsible for mass producing all the Big Daddies and Little Sisters, the iconic "monsters" of the series running around town. They are a product of Eugenics science based off Nazi Germany's human experiments. I should stress that Ryan approved all this as the city needed exploitable labour in order to run. The reason behind Frank's actions is simple: money, profit, cold hard cash. Andrew Ryan was a wealthy fool hooked on his delusional Capitalist drivel, his "daring vision" for the future of mankind, Fontaine was the reality check. The thematic exclamation point to the game's entire thesis, the depressing yet irrefutable truth behind all the cruelty and horrors caused in the name of IDEAS is good old fashioned Greed. Someone in a position of power will always be there to make a buck out of human suffering.

To be perfectly honest, I find this throughline rather pedestrian. It is the truth of Capitalism, yes, but it is such an obvious statement delivered with such un-earned gusto that it makes the entire game less interesting as a result. Here we have a compellingly detestable villain in Uncle Andy, the "good guy" of his story, a living byproduct of American Exceptionalism, Ayn Rand's poster boy, a poignant satire of the current socioeconomic establishment, being replaced by a basic money-grabbing baddie. What made Ryan so effective is how real he felt: he represented the warped worldview of the out-of-touch, obscenely rich class that rules the planet and that's going to eventually lead us to our demise - much like in Rapture itself. Fontaine, by contrast, is a mustache-twirling cartoon. He acts and talks like a typical videogame villain who doesn't have anything meaningful to say to you other than how smart he is, how he loves money and how he's totally going to get away with it (insert evil laugh here) while sporting the worst accent I have ever heard in my life. His point as a character is moot and the writing is messier as a result. Still, BioShock is a good game, perhaps not as masterfully crafted as many believed it to be, but rather innovative for the time. There is a clever (for 2007) twist right before Fontaine takes over as the final boss in which it is revealed the player's character was being mind controlled the whole time. It's a cute meta-commentary on the unique nature of our interaction with videogames.

Had I played BioShock when it first came out, I would have probably placed it atop a golden pedestal, sung its praises as the best written story in the history of the medium and angrily rejected any criticism towards it in the most obnoxious way imaginable... I think I was trying to make a point but my brain gave up half way through the tangent. As such, I shall conclude this tirade by saying I enjoyed playing this classic title but I have no interest in going through it a second time. Is that fair? Yes, it is.

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Part Two: Tetsuo The Drill Man

I moved on to Bioshock 2: The BioShockening, a game that didn't need to exist, in many ways. On one hand, it drags the theming of the first game to unnecessary levels of dilution as its message had already been abundantly delivered. On the other hand, you play as a Big Daddy with a Big Drill. There is a new ruler in Rapture, her name is Dr. Sofia Lamb. She took over after the fall of Andrew Ryan's "Individualist Utopia" by indoctrinating its inhabitants into a cult that's equal parts Early Christian commune and Eugenics with an extra dose of fanaticism. Much like with Frank Fontaine, we have a case study as to how an unregulated, isolationist, capitalist state lays the foundations for stochastic terrorism and sociopathic grift - just in case it wasn't already obvious that Rapture is supposed to represent America. I say that but, to be brutally honest, Dr. Lamb's politics or set of beliefs are as undercooked and generically laid out as they can get. I had to interpret and extrapolate what her deal was through context clues more than anything else. It wouldn't surprise me if the game's intent was to comment on Communism instead of everything else I pointed out, which would somewhat invalidate its previous stance on Capitalism and would further bring into question the overall political stance behind the BioShock series... but let us put a pin on that thought, for now.

As far as the gameplay is concerned, I believe this is a slightly better, more refined, more challenging loop than its previous iteration. These titles are both solid First-Person Shooters with light RPG elements but the second one improves upon its many shortcomings. The ability to hold both weapons and "magical gene powers" at the same time is such a simple yet elegant mechanic that it (bio)shocks me it wasn't implemented earlier. The hacking mini-games have been simplified to the point of fruitlessness - and I'm fine with that. The big change comes with the Big Daddy himself and his huge, oversized, dominating drill that penetrates all its victims at full force, making them scream. It singlehandedly redeems melee attack as a worthwhile feature. Did I mention it's a huge drill?

Beyond that, there isn't much to add to The Discourse. To reiterate, BioShock 2 is a thoroughly pointless sequel and it barely qualifies as one. It's a glorified expansion pack that adds nothing of substance to the narrative, lazily resting on the laurels planted by its predecessor. It's a more polished and fun title to play, undoubtedly, but it's otherwise easy to see why it is considered the forgettable middle child stuck between an era-defining first outing and whatever Infinite turned out to be. Speaking of which, it's time to get into that one.

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Part Three: Infinite Mysery

WARNING: the following few paragraphs represent my initial impressions on the game, left mostly unaltered as I experienced it for the first time back in January 2023.

So, Infinite, BioShock numero tres but technically a prequel set in 1912, the flying city of Columbia, and all of that. All I knew about this game beforehand was that its engine was used to revolutionize 3D pornography for years to come... Do not ask how or why I know that.

Our "Andrew Ryan" for this episode is played by Father Comstock (oh, brother), an evangelical, white supremacist prophet who gathered his "flock" to live in a conferedate utopia closer to the "Kingdom of Heaven" and far above the "Sodom Below." I used to think the first game was unsubtle and heavy-handed with its commentary, impassioned in its righteous indignation if a bit simplistic by the end, but this game takes that sharp edge and slashes the US flag with it, literally!

This game appears to have things to say about American myth-making, the religious zealotry fueling the glorification (and alteration) of history as a means for Power, The White Man's Burden and the dangerously real threat of Christian Nationalism. It seems to condemn it all with the fervor that bespeaks decapitating a cop with a portable blender - which Infinite is all too eager to provide. What makes the experience truly effective is the setting itself: a far cry from the claustrophobic doom of Rapture. The misery of that place served as a remainder that Capitalism is unsustainable and leads society to ruin. That's an obvious statement by this point and, as such, it left me lukewarm on the experience. All it did was reinforcing my beliefs. Columbia, however, is a different beast. It is not the sunken tombstone to the hubris of a rich fool, it is the realm of the "Chosen Race" thriving under the watchful gaze of the deified Founding Fathers. It's a thriving, gorgeous vision right out of Jules Verne's mind, and it runs on the back of slaves.

That's what makes it truly horrifying and infuriating. The fact that it works, that its ruler managed to build a community for "good white Christians" thanks to the power of religious indoctrination and the exploited labour of the "lower races" that keeps it afloat. It is unsettling, bone-rattling, how inviting the city looks at a first glance, its Victorian architecture bathing in the sun as a barber shop quartet entertains curious onlookers. It's a grotesque dream of Dixieland as filtered through Gone with the Wind lenses.

As such, getting to disrupt the perfect little order of this bigoted, racist 19th century style town through acts of wanton violence is INFINITEly more cathartic than killing random junkies in an already disrupted, dead society. Sticking it to an unjust hierarchy by murdering cops and destroying property elevates the enjoyment of playing this title tenfold. It's exactly what was missing from my ideal BioShock experience. It's simply more compelling to defeat that which is yet to be even challenged. Another major element in the game's favour is a main character with actual agency, as opposed to a silent protagonist whose whole deal was his tragic lack of agency. It's much easier to be invested in the narrative when my guy has a literal say in the matter.

I sure hope the game does not somehow ruin everything in the second half. That would be so disappointing...

WARNING: the following are my real, unfiltered opinions on BioShock Infinite.

Do you know what is the most egregious, baffling, aggravating turn a narrative like this could have made after all it's done, after putting out such an inflammatory takedown of the American conservative institutions? Why, Bothsidesing, of course! According to this game's oh so wise writing, when those rebelling against their literal slavers do it by employing Direct Action instead of "the right, non-violent way" then they're just as bad as them. That is how Infinite chooses to frame the Anarcho-Socialist revolution of one Daisy Fitzroy (the only named black character) as she's compared to Father Comstock (the racist theocrat) with the all too familiar adagio of "Both sides are in the wrong." I am seething with rage.

This game went out of its way to pontificate against America's history of bigotry and racism up to including actual horrendous ethnic caricatures to drive its point home. Then it cowardly decided to throw it all away by taking the "Enlightened Centrist" stance. Essentially, the people in charge of the project have demonstrated to me their unwillingness to commit to a difficult subject as soon as it came to addressing the Real American history, opting thusly to an implicit endorsement of the Neoliberal Status Quo. The message now reads: "Slavery was bad but the slaves should not rebel against it! They should debate the slavers in the Market Place of Ideas!" You could take such a blanket statement and apply it to every sociopolitical scenario where there is a clear Oppressor with a clear Oppressed and expect it to be uttered by those who benefit from the Oppression.

I understand this title is more than a decade old but I will unendingly rag on the plate of unfulfilled potential due to cop-out writing. In fact, this whole situation has forced me to reevaluate my thoughts on the first title, as well! All of a sudden, the dichotomy between Andrew Ryan and Frank Fountain (the latter pretending to be on the side of the working class with a "clever" pseudonym) starts to feel like a less immediately obvious form of political bothsidesing. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the game was cherry-picking its themes as if they were somehow divorced from the larger critique on the Establishment. Implying, in other words, that concepts like the "The Invisible Hand", Objectivism and Manifest Destiny could be extricated from the very fabric of American Society when the inconvenient truth is that they are as much a part of it as Racism, Slavery and Genocide. I am not necessarily changing my opinion on that first iteration, mind you, but I do find myself dubious over my initial read given how the series ultimately panned out, with all the poise of a bald eagle covered in blood-soaked feces! It has just occurred to me, as I was writing this down, that Infinite is basically a remake of the first BioShock but dumber in every conceivable way. More over, BioShock 2's main antagonist, Sofia Lamb, was presented as the total opposite to Andrew Ryan (but just as bad) which reinforces the aforementioned Centrist stance the series now appears to champion while serving as a prelude to what would become the profoundly stupid thesis of the third one! It is astounding just how bad Infinite is turning out to be: horrible in a manner that makes me retroactively question my own ability to understand media literacy. This, dear readers, would be the time when I start screaming.

That said, it's not even the worst part. No, the most offensive aspect about any of this is that None of it actually matters, by the end.

WARNING: That Ending.

It turns out Father Comstock and your main character are the same person but from a different timeline when an Important Choice was made because of Guilt which led to becoming a Reborn Christian and the foundation of Columbia. You had a daughter which was taken from you by your evil doppelganger from another dimension and you were left trapped in a pocket world of some kind and then the rest of the game happens. Something, something, Regret. Something, something, commentary on Player Agency. Something, something, you must stop existing in the past in order to erase all the bad timelines, Sonic '06 style. By the way, there are timey-wimey bollocks, in case it wasn't clear. This is garbage and I do not care for it.

To see what this game was actually about, all along, further undermines whatever "political position" was presented to me throughout the diegesis. Depictions of oppression, racism and human suffering very much rooted in actual history were used as a mere thematic red herring. Meaning that there never was any real commentary, it was a "distraction" from the true narrative. Let this thought consume you for a spell. The game will have you slaughter fascist cops as well as recently liberated black men in the same gruesome, sadistic fashion while framing both groups as "equally bad", only to then pull the rug from under you and tell you it was all window dressing for the Real Story, which was about our (white) protagonist being tormented by his bad life decisions. I am beyond done.

The best I can say about the third and final chapter of the thoroughly tainted BioShock saga is that its contentious presence can be applied to a broader discussion about the nature of Art, namely if or when certain lines should be crossed, for what purpose should they be crossed and, especially, by whom. Infinite was built on the foundation of bad ideas and irredeemable execution. It presented a vapid vision of political radicalism from the obvious perspective of White Privilege and managed, bewilderingly, to not have anything to say about said politics, at all! It's the kind of idiocy that should have been nipped at the bud before wreaking untold damage - much like the main character himself. Nevertheless, it is a real piece of media that exists, a piece of gaming history and, like all history, we can learn something from it... Never Again! That would be the lesson to learn here.

-

Part 4: Something, Something, A Conclusion

As I am about to put this series inside the proverbial Tomb of Amontillado, I suppose this would be the right time to enlist my many gameplay pet peeves, my general pedantries, starting with the hacking mini-games: annoying in the first game, pointless in the second. In general, dealing with turrets, cameras and security robots was an unpleasant experience throughout the trilogy.

In the first two entries, some wise guy had the "great idea" of mapping the jump input to the upper button of the controller. I positively loathed that. They finally fixed it in the third game, just in time for it to stain the bed with several more horrible decisions! Why can't I hold more than two weapons at once in my inventory? That is such a backward step compared to the rest of the series!

Infinite must have also been one of the first AAA games to implement the hideous, horrendous, hackneyed sprint feature that would have you press on the left analog stick while the character is moving. Why was this ever considered an acceptable design choice?

I guess there were a few DLC. They sure exist.

... And with that underwhelming post scriptum, I shall now set my sights elsewhere - away from "Great Chains" and "Kingdoms of Heaven." New games await but we will always have the memories.

The memories of the giant drill, specifically.

---

BioShock and BioShock: Infinite were developed by Irrational Games. BioShock 2 was developed by 2K Marin.

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[whoisthemaster]

Why does no one ask, Master Who?: (#3 - Oh No, He’s Crispy!)

Why does no one ask, Master Who?: A Character Study Series Masterlist

Our next topic to cover in the subject of the Master is his Anakin Skywalker---er, I mean, sudden change in appearance and re-appearance when he surprises us all in the Fourth Doctor’s era. I think this is where his now signature long running gag for ‘coming back from the dead’ without any explanation truly began. 

So, because of the tragedy that happened to Roger Delgado, the Master as a character was kept out of stories for quite awhile until the 4th Doctor’s era in 1976′s episode, “The Deadly Assassin.” An episode not only remarkable for bringing back the Master in a MUCH darker state, nearing the end of his regeneration cycle, but the fact this episode began a lot of the mythos of the Time Lords and Gallifrey as we know it. Played by two different actors for two different episodes years apart, the fandom has dubbed the Peter Pratt and Geoffrey Beevers Master’s as the Crispy Master or Decayed Master, due to his decaying form looking like he was fighting with a Jedi for control of the high ground and lost (Still too soon? Okay.) 

In ‘The Deadly Assassin,’ the Master’s disappearance is explained to us when he comes up with a clever plot, sending the Doctor back home to Gallifrey in order to uncover a mystery into the future premotionions of the Lord President’s death (and of course he’s behind it.) This Master is FAR more dark than his previous self, hell-bent on only his survival, even if it means taking the rest of Gallifrey with him to achieve it. Only his hate and need for revenge keeps him going. Although it may seem the Master has finally lost, this is only when we start to realize how great of a survivor he can be when it comes to death.

Making a return in ‘The Keeper of Traken,’ he’s still focused on attaining a body that can handle the presence of a Time Lord. Although he isn’t able to obtain the Doctor’s, using his cunning, the Master ends up stealing the body of Tremas of Traken, finding a way to extend his life a little longer.

Important Character Traits for Crispy!Master:

High sense of Self-Preservation. He doesn’t care what it takes to stay alive. This is the first time we see it with the Master, even if he’s going completely against the Doctor to do so.

Known for being the most ruthless of the Master’s incarnations (and that’s saying something.)

His physical state of being rotten and decayed can be used as a metaphor for how evil he is as an individual. As Geoffrey Beevers remarked; this is what the Master is like without his smooth looks and charm: as he put it, "the essence of the creature.”

However, in Big Finish, thanks to Beevers himself, and the writers, Crispy gets more of a development. Despite being just ruthless because of his current situation, ‘being faced with his own mortality also gives him plenty of poetic and calm moments.’ 

The Many Explanations for his Crispy State:

Geoffrey Beevers remarked that this is what the Master is like without his smooth looks and charm: as he put it, "the essence of the creature". This seems to be a running theme with this Master. The first Crispy Master is the ugliest and cruellest of all, while the second Crispy seems to have "healed" a little and is a step back towards Delgado behaviour (how much of the "healed" appearance is intentional and how much of it is due to the limitations of Beevers' makeup compared to Pratt's mask is unknown).

There are also many more explanations of how the Master became decayed on the TARDIS Wiki. 

[symphonyofmalice]

Reflections on the show

So it's been a week since I finished Season 1, and I've had some time to reflect on it, read/watch other people's reactions, and gather my thoughts.

Actors great, characters inconsistent I want to say that all the actors were well-cast for the show. They did excellent work bringing the scripts to life. The trouble was, the writing sometimes had them playing wildly different characters. Sam Reid makes an excellent Lestat, when the script let's him play Lestat. Louis is sometimes philosophical, detached, and refined. Sometimes he's coarse, direct and irreverent. Yes, characters can change and no one is just one thing. But there was no clear arc, they seemed to flip-flop episode to episode. Lestat is sometimes recognizable as his impulsive, needy, theater-kid self, and sometimes he's a cold, calculating chessmaster. I want to be clear I do not expect the characters to be good people. These are vampires, and I expect them to act monstrously. But with book Louis, I have a basic idea how he might react to different situations- when he might be passive, when he might snap and act out, what might upset him and what he doesn't care about. This Louis? No idea. He's fine with eating humans until he isn't six years later, he'll delight without any hesitation in murdering people who made racist remarks, but is too squeamish to enact his own plan (because it's his now) to kill evildoers, in the modern day he no longer kills but gives the 'alpha predators' speech.

What did y'all do to the family dynamic In my initial reviews, I noted the 4th episode was the first that really felt like the Louis-Lestat-Claudia dynamic I expected. And I think it's because it's the only episode that didn't decide that Lestat just hates Claudia from the very beginning. All the other episodes lean hard into the idea that Lestat never wanted to make Claudia at all, is constantly happy when she leaves/trying to drive her away, wouldn't want her back if not for Louis, and is barely tolerating her very existence for Louis, and would hurt/kill her if he could. Now, in the books, their relationship obviously sours- she kills him, after all. But they do have a genuine love and respect, and it is in the hope of repairing the decaying relationship and 'making peace' that Lestat accepts her gift of poisoned blood.

Pick a lane/Easter eggs are not adaptation points I think a big reason the characters flip-flop around so much is that the show is trying to tell two stories. One is the story of a Jazz-age queer Black man discovering vampirism as a possible escape from the restraints of society. One is Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire, with it's plot beats of Louis, Lestat and Caludia. And since the first is pretty different from the second, anytime the show has to switch tracks, it introduces sharp turns and inconsistencies. The crew promised easter eggs for book fans and sometimes it seems like easter eggs are all there is. "Look, Lestat said Savage Garden! He mentioned his mastiff! Nicolas name drop!" which ended up feeling almost distracting. A metaphor for adaptations:

The original books: A black forest cake. Rich and dark and bittersweet. A classic that is iconic and famous, though definitely not for everyone.

The 1994 movie: A black forest cupcake. A little condensed, a little different. Smaller in size, so it's not the full experience. But in flavor and structure, it's a pretty close match for the original.

The musical: A black forest cocktail. Structurally, this is a very different experience. If you don't like cocktails/alcohol in general, than you probably don't want your cake in cocktail form. But if you do, then it's pretty decent! There's a clear attempt to get the essence of the taste across, and for some people (like me) it can be a wonderful way to immerse oneself in the same flavors in a different way.

QOTD movie: Cherry cheesecake that's gone bad/old. First of all this isn't even close to the original, and second of all you cared about it so little that it's gone sour and even people who might like cheesecake probably don't want this.

The show: Black forest (brand) gummy bears. This is clearly just a different thing. It can be really good as it's own thing! No having the brand-name black forest does not make it the same. No, it doesn't particularly help that some of the gummy bears are cherry flavored and black forest cake also has cherries. No it would not help to dip the gummy bears in dark chocolate.

Let's not "secret good fourth Sherlock episode" ourselves I've seen some theories that the discrepancies in Season 1 are deliberate, due to unreliable narrators, or Armand's mental influence. The trailers for season 2 so far certainly seem to lean into that, with the repeated memory theming. It's possible they'll pull something off with this. But I'm also hesitant to accept it as a blanket excuse. Even if they do retcon some of these details later...why? How is that any better than an "it was all a dream" excuse? Why should I, as a viewer, remain emotionally invested in the show if, at any moment, I could be told none of that happened? Twists and reveals can be good, but they can't be everything. 'Don't worry, season 2 will explain season 1' is not very promising for season 1 as a story.

Concerns about Season 2 I'm going to watch season 2. I have to, the same way I watched the QOTD movie knowing I'd dislike it. I'm curious to see what they do, and if nothing else, I might get some Nicolas images out of it. From what I've seen of Joseph Potter, I believe he can act Nicolas very well...if the script lets him. I'm also concerned about escalation. Everything in blood and violence was dialed up to 11. In the books, Lestat hits Louis (when Louis interrupts his feeding on Freniere) in the show, it's an extended beating. He punches through the priest's brains, and drops Louis out of the sky. In discussion with someone, I described this as "Lestat acting like Armand" since that kind of roof-dropping is literally a thing Armand does. And if they keep Armand's role as the 'villain' of IWTV/TVL, I'm concerned to what levels of extremity they'll have to push him in comparison.

[plantfeed]

location: fanny's open mic night. status: closed for ella<;3 @laughstrack

they detest the performativity of open mic nights, where graduates in berets stand shoulder-to-shoulder with chin-stroking lecturers as they contemplate whether a nectarine can ever be a metaphor for a vulva. rory’s therapist says it’s ‘ good to put yourself out there ’ — probably in the secret hope that by becoming someone else’s problem, they’ll no longer have to deal with him, crying, hysterical, cross-legged on the roof of the triage centre in scrubs still covered in blood. they were supposed to end up in music, an electronic music EP out by now and a small but dedicated following on soundcloud. somewhere along the way they’d lost their path, ended up slaving away at bad track records to pay their way through a med school degree they're not sure they even want, selling vinyls that cost more than their daily pay to people who don't even understand chord progressions. thursdays are their day off. they get most of friday to recover from the mid-week, before the sound tech shift into the early hours of saturday morning begins, and then back to the MGH. so wednesday-night open mic becomes the melting pot where each week rory cuts a strip along his arm, bleeds out a poem, a song, a refrain written on his guitar, more often than not a haiku, the long hours mopping up other people’s guts watered down into a rhyming couplet about a climate change.          “ hi. me again, ”  comes their uneasy start, the self-conscious wave of his hand a half-apology for being there as rory takes to the stage, the mic unsteady in their grip.  “ uh, rory. for those of you who don’t know me… okay, this is a little different to my usual stuff, but i’m just gonna go for it… it’s a narrative poem i’ve been working on. it’s called winter with nilsen. ”  clearing their throat, they pull a scrappy lined piece of paper from the pocket of their corduroys and take a swig of liquid luck from the rim of a beer bottle, sticky resin where the label once stuck.  “ november, our bodies tight like toothpicks in a cigarette tin / you press your thumb against the hollow of my throat and i, losing my breath, losing my mind, disintegrate. i still hate the taste of praline — you told me once they made you think of dad, louisiana, a stranger in a pig pen who gave you tooth decay — it stuck like gum. longer than you did, at any rate. i reach for you / in dreams and grip the air, the lilac taste of… ” eyes snap up from the page, a prick at the back of their neck, and they lose their place on the page. there, by the jukebox, beside a journo grad in a gaudy bucket hat ; freya. rory swallows a gulp, averts his gaze, presses on.  “ the lilac taste of… ”  an attempt at continuing as if nothing’s happened disperses on rory’s tongue, a sudden claggy feeling, like all of the blood’s been sucked up into his ears.  “ sorry, i’m not… i don’t usually get stage fright. but it needs more workshopping. cynthia, do you wanna take over ? ”   it’s posed as a question, but really it’s a cry for help, thrusting the mic into the general direction of the open-mic emcee as they stumble down from the steps and out of the fire escape door to the smoking area, heartbeat throbbing like a metronome.

[xaryxarybdis]

hello!!!! i have a very indulgent writing question as i am working on a short story for my creative writing class😭 for your work on archive of our own, i bequeath nothingness by no one, what inspired some of your perceptions on time loops and nihilism? what were your key inspirations for writing?

Hello ! First of all, my apologies for taking so long to answer, I hope this doesn't reach you too late to be useful. And don't worry-I love talking about writing and everything it implies, and I guarantee you your question was no less self-indulgent than my answer will be.

Concerning the time-loop aspect of the story, the most immediate source of inspiration that comes to my mind is the movie Edge of Tomorrow (2014). The movie itself is a fairly classic action flick, but I remember seeing it when it came out and immediately being completely enamored with the concept of a time loop that isn't the classic groundhog day-type situation, but rather one where the loops are dependant on the death of the protagonist. So that definitely stuck at the back of my mind and ultimately inspired the way I wrote I bequeath nothingness to no one. I have not looked into the matter and this particular movie might not be the first piece of media to put this particular spin on the idea of time loops, but it's the one I personally came across during my formative years, so that's the one I'd quote as an inspiration.

The nihilism part of your question was much more difficult for me to answer, because I found it much more difficult to reverse-engineer where most of this stuff came from. So I'm afraid my answer might not be quite as complete as you might have wished, and for that I apologize. I think part of the difficulty that much of it is simply part of the greater cultural canon I grew up in, though I can pinpoint some key elements: looking back, a lot of the sense of absolute alienation from the rest of human society can be traced back to Albert Camus (esp. The Stranger, wherein the protagonist's profound otherness and decaying sense of reality really stuck with me). Moreover, I remember reading Kafka's Metamorphosis not too long before writing this particular piece and while I don't disagree with all the classical interpretations of the story, I felt very strongly that it also served as a particularly striking metaphor for mental illness (or, well, at least mine): the sensation of slowly transforming into something monstruous and unrecognizable, of being put away in a room, neither allowed into human society nor to escape it entirely, but kept quietly, with an iron grip, at arm's length. More pertinently, I think Sasuke's mental state in the story has a lot in common with that of the protagonist of Kafka's tale: he, himself, is slowly changing, metamorphosing, into something he feels is profoundly alien, while all around him, the world stays the same, stays normal in a way he knows he will never be again.

The last work I will quote as inspiration will sound random as shit, but hear me out, I swear I have a point in there somewhere: Thomas Harris' Hannibal, third installment in his Hannibal Lecter series. I fucking hate this book. It makes me unjustifiably angry. Not because it's bad, it's great. I just hate what it does to its Main character with a passion.

Now, for context (and spoilers ahoy): Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal both follow Clarice Starling, a young FBI agent who, for reasons unclear and unimportant to our purposes, attracts the attention of the titular character Hannibal Lecter, who then proceeds to slowly, thoroughly fuck up her life. Towards the end of the book, Clarice’s life clearly has gone past the point of no return: even if she survives, she has no life to return to. Her career is gone, she is under suspicion from the law, and even her friends are in danger by association. She is cast adrift, and there she has one choice: let the man who did this to her die (not even kill him herself - simply let his death happen), or try, herself, alone, with no support, against overwhelming odds, to save him.

Here is the thing about Clarice Starling: she is not a heroic paragon of virtue. She’s a cool, calculated person, who’s clever enough to recognize in herself seeds of ruthlessness that could become evil. But here is the thing about Clarice: she chooses to do good. It doesn’t matter that it doesn’t come to her instinctively, as it does some people, because she consistently, relentlessly, makes the choices that will benefit others. And here, at the end of her journey, where all around her is darkness, and the world is screaming at her that everything and everyone is terrible and cruel and unjust, she drops the sickest line of Thomas Harris’ entire career:

The world will not be this way within the reach of my arm.

This simple sentence - both acceptance and refusal, a decision to stand her ground on this undeniably dark earth - crystallises Starling as one of the most memorable characters I’ve ever read in fiction.

And then Thomas Harris just goes and fucking ruins it. The tl;dr: she succeeds in saving Hannibal Lecter’s life, he kidnaps her and brainwashes her into eating people with him, they’re in love and they go off into the sunset, to live happily ever after. The end.

In a book series about the most fucked-up murders you could possibly come up with, this might be the most repulsive thing to happen. Because, let’s be clear: Clarice Starling, at this point, is dead. The one we know, anyway. She dies the moment she saves Lecter, because what comes out of what he does to her next is a scrambled mess of the parts that used to make up Starling, but now make up this still, eerie, bobbing doll. For the reader, who has followed in Clarice’s footsteps for two books, it feels as close to a profanation as can be. It’s obscene. And perhaps it’s the point, but what I wanted to get at is: Sasuke, too, is not a “naturally” good character. His morals are fucked, he doesn’t know what normal is, he commits acts of objectively great evil. Like Clarice Starling, goodness is something he has to seek. Part of his growth is learning that not only goodness is a choice he has to make, but that it is one he can make. That the world is dark, and cruel, and terrible, but that he doesn’t have to be. He can refuse this dark and unjust world the right to be this way within the reach of his arm.

So, basically: if only out of spite, I like to think a little bit of Clarice Starling lives on in Sasuke. (She deserved better and I will die on this hill, thank you very much.)

The last source of inspiration I’ll quote is, quite simply, folk tales. More specifically folklore about fairies and elves, who contributed quite a bit to my version of Kaguya. I won’t divulge the exact area I come from because I don’t want to dox myself, but in the version of the tales I grew up with, the fair folk lives in the mirrors and crevices of the world: the water-smoothed caves underfoot, where you can still hear the slow, unescapable tinkling noise of water dripping; the burrows under the roots of elder trees; the back of a man’s mind; the hollow heart of the moon.

In the stories, the fairies, nominally, look humanoid. But they’re wrong: their limbs are too long, their fingers too tapered, their faces too pointy, too smooth. They’re imitating us, but they always get it just a little bit wrong. It clearly inspired this line in particular:

[...] its smooth white face, a triangular imitation of humanity, human skin threaded over a lion’s skull.

Kaguya - and, by extension, the concept of godhood in the story - resembles the folktales’ fairies as well in the sense that she is unchanging. If you fall into Fairyland, you are surrounded with creatures that incomprehensibly older and more powerful than you are. To them, you are, at best, a toy, at worst, vermin. But the fairies have one weakness: they do not change. They’re immortal. They cannot. But you, mortal, you have this thing they cannot name and yet so desperately crave: a heart.

This is how you outwit the fairies, in the stories: you endure. You are vermin, and like vermin you can be stamped down, but never for long. This is what the stories tell you: be patient, be watchful, be clever. Be strong, for you must endure; be cunning, for you must learn. Do the one thing they cannot do: adapt.

Sasuke’s story is pretty much a retelling of that one.

I realize now that this is getting horribly long; I apologize. (Though I did warn you: once you get me talking...) I’ve probably missed a lot of influences that i’ll feel stupid for not recalling later, but that’s life, I suppose. I hope this was helpful to you in any way, and, if not, then at least entertaining. If you have any other questions, please don’t hesitate to ask them, I think I’ve made it obvious that I would be delighted to answer. And if you ever want to share what you wrote with me, I would be absolutely honored to read it! (Though I perfectly understand if you cannot or would rather not share it, I just want you to know the option is open if you so choose.) Have a wonderful day!

[thehermitscrossroad]

The same dark road.

More than a review this is a diary entry

James Baldwin’s "Giovanni's Room" is a profound exploration of inner turmoil and the timeless struggle of being gay, set against the backdrop of 1950s Paris. Despite the specific era, where homosexuality was illegal in many places (though not in Paris), the emotional journey of the characters feels deeply personal and universally relevant. The protagonist, David, and his lover, Giovanni, navigate a relationship filled with intense love and equally intense despair. This dynamic mirrors my own experiences in a long-term relationship, where love and hate coexisted in a confined space, intensifying both the affection and the revulsion we felt for each other.

Baldwin's poignant words resonate deeply, capturing the essence of human vulnerability and the inevitable journey through darkness:

“Everyone, after all, goes the same dark road—and the road has a trick of being most dark, most treacherous, when it seems most bright—and it’s true that nobody stays in the garden of Eden.”

The fear of losing love keeps us ensnared, even when it brings as much pain as pleasure. Baldwin illustrates this with piercing clarity, highlighting the paradox of human relationships:

“Your father or mine should have told us that not many people have ever died of love. But multitudes have perished, and are perishing every hour—and in the oddest places!—for the lack of it.”

We often talk about "finding ourselves," a phrase that suggests something has been misplaced within us. This search for identity is particularly poignant for those grappling with their sexuality. Many feel the need to escape their familiar surroundings to truly understand themselves, and Baldwin captures this yearning beautifully:

“Perhaps, as we say in America, I wanted to find myself. This is an interesting phrase, not current as far as I know in the language of any other people, which certainly does not mean what it says but betrays a nagging suspicion that something has been misplaced.”

The portrayal of women in the novel, often objectified by the gay male characters, reflects both the era and the attitudes within some gay circles today. Women are seen as passive objects, serving the emotional needs of men—a critique that remains relevant. Baldwin deftly portrays this dynamic, illustrating how deeply ingrained misogynistic attitudes can persist even in marginalized communities.

Beyond the social critique, Baldwin’s exquisite prose breathes life into his characters. He masterfully blends elements of Shakespeare’s "Macbeth" with the tragic arc of Giovanni’s fate. A gender-bending character, reminiscent of the witches in "Macbeth," foreshadows the inevitable pain and suffering. As the archetype of the wise figure—who in narratives often appears as an evil crone—this character prophecies the tragic end, and as readers, we are compelled to witness the prophecy unfold.

The narrative in "Giovanni's Room" is not just about forbidden love but also about the struggle for self-acceptance. David’s internal conflict, his fear of societal judgment, and his ultimate betrayal of Giovanni are universal themes that transcend the specific context of the novel. Baldwin’s exploration of these themes invites the reader to reflect on their own fears and prejudices.

Moreover, Baldwin’s portrayal of Paris as a city of refuge and paradox adds another layer of depth to the story. Paris, with its reputation for tolerance and freedom, becomes a backdrop for a story of confinement and repression. The city’s vibrant yet decaying streets mirror the inner lives of the characters, creating a powerful metaphor for the duality of love and loss.

In conclusion, "Giovanni's Room" is a timeless masterpiece that delves into the complexities of love, identity, and societal norms. Baldwin’s eloquent writing, rich with symbolism and emotional depth, continues to resonate with readers, offering a poignant reflection on the human condition. His ability to capture the profound struggles of his characters ensures that "Giovanni's Room" remains a vital and compelling read, inviting us to confront our own truths and the often hidden darkness within us.

[drbased]

A bloodied fist banging in desperation against a rigid but decaying wall

With a sniper aiming at the intruder, finger frozen at the trigger, a caricature of inertia

The unstoppable force meets the immovable object

A bloodied fist clenching in desperation at a strong but fraying rope

With a void of magnitude sucking in all light and joy, a caricature of self-destruction

The unstoppable force meets the immovable object still. I cannot tell which metaphor is more apt; they both work together to tell the whole story. Your void is so strong that it compacts dimension, making you 2D, a flat impenetrable wall. And I am the intruder, hated for pushing against it but also hated for resisting being sucked in. Just as I found my third dimension, I wanted you to join me.

But in the end, when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object, the unstoppable force has to change direction.

[cecropiasilkmoth]

I gave myself a gaping, festering wound, unfeeling as I took the knife from his back and plunged it into my chest-

And it wasn't until infection set in that I realized it wasn't him I wanted gone but myself- 

Putrid thoughts taint my soul and I rot a little further every time he turns his gentle gaze my way-

I clutch my stomach and vomit maggots onto the carpet from my bleeding heart.

[rabbittongues]

hungry for my own demise

[padfootastic]

i hit a couple milestones on tumblr and ao3 in the last few days and it’s very,,,,,overwhelming lol so instead of losing my shit over that, i’ll do a lil introduction (that i’ve never done, i think 🤔)

hello! welcome to my page <3

i’m padfootastic everywhere, but i go by penny online!

i’m an adult and though i’ve not posted anything too risqué yet, there’s always the possibility i might so uh, keep that in mind pls?

this is a no terf zone. we don’t support that kind of hateful rhetoric here.

ask box + inbox are always open! i love talking, even if im a bit terrible at the actual communication bit itself, so drop by whenever u like. prompts are always welcome too 💜

my favorite characters are—no surprise, i’m sure—sirius, james, and harry! the sirius & harry dynamic is my favorite thing to write about. prongsfoot in any capacity, but especially qpp, is the love of my life <3

i’m a scorpio (so uh, heavy projection on sirius sometimes. beware)

i love oceans and beaches and lakes and swimming pools. i think i’m part-fish, actually. which makes it even more sad that i’m in a land locked city :(

i’m trilingual! english is teeeeeechnically my third language, so that often bleeds into my writing as well. ignore any weird issues & metaphors & SPaG errors pls n thx 🙈

my posts are always tag-heavy because i love adding commentary to everything!!! it’s so much fun!! adds flavor and spice!!

My Works

foundations of decay - gen. ongoing wip! set post-gof, ft. independent, smart harry taking charge of his life. sirius & harry bonding.

glimpses of us - collection of all my tumblr drabbles/oneshots. featuring harry, sirius, james, next gen kids, random OCs.

(everything on tumblr’s under ‘pen’s writing’ and ‘tumblr works’)

since a list of everything would be tedious and take too long—i deal mainly in oneshots 🙃—i’ll just link my favourites!!

a home for you (for me) - 6.2k. Gen. A nebulous universe where qpp James & Sirius coparent Harry who wants to become Harry Potter-Black.

shovel talk - 2.4k. Background Jily. Sirius gives Lily Evans a shovel talk : )

i fall to pieces (when i’m with you) - 6.5k. Prongsfoot. James makes Sirius’ blush, that’s it. The whole fic is just that.

go easy on me (i was still a child) - Gen, 13.8k. Postwar, Sirius-returns-from-the-veil and discovers already Harry has a tattoo when he tries to take him for what he believes is his godson’s first- cue feels and emotions and tears.

i won’t ever let go of you - Gen. 8.4k. Set in OoTP. Molly says the wrong thing to Sirius and protective!harry erupts. Lots of bonding and affection.

home is wherever you are - Gen. 3.5k. Set in OoTP. Sirius’ scent—cigarettes; clove and tobacco and smoke—has always reminded Harry of safety & home.

it’s always been you - Gen. Set in OoTP. Sirius finally stands up for himself when Molly accuses him of treating Harry like James.

where you go, i’m going - Gen/QPP. 3.2k. Prongsfoot!!! and tattoos!! Outsider Remus POV into the close knit bond between James & Sirius.

Sirius Black: The Godfather - Gen. 7.7k. Mostly pre-canon/canon compliant. Background Jily but mainly focusing on s&h. a series of one shots highlighting the godson-godfather bond. (the first time i delved deep into my fav duo!)

okay, i’ll stop here 😭 but! i have a lot of assorted one shots on my ao3 so check it out if any of this sounds interesting. my motto for writing is ‘read what u wanna see in the world’ hence why everything is so…self-indulgent.

thank u for being here!! i appreciate everyone who reads/interacts so much i can not put it in words :”)

[floriannas]

What Exactly Gothic Is

(Let me preface with trigger warnings, because Gothic makes a point of delving into dark themes: murder, abuse, racism, homophobia, incest, ableism, misogyny)

I have seen certain posts about what the definite characteristics of gothic fiction are that, I hate to say...felt either incomplete or inaccurate. And that has bothered me enough to make my own post about, at the very least, my understanding of this genre. 

Some things to get out of the way:

Gothic does not have one fixed definition. It is fluid and nebulous, and while all literature reflects its society, genre changes massively depending on where it was written. Canadian Gothic is not Welsh Gothic is not American Gothic. Victorian Gothic is not contemporary Gothic is not Regency Gothic. Nineteenth century British gothic is often in response to the drastic technological changes of the industrial revolution. Welsh Gothic has a lot of focus on the disenfranchised and the coal mining industry. Where and when your WIP is, and where and when YOU are writing it, is going to define it. 

We cannot talk about Gothic as a genre without talking about the racism that much of it is rooted in. We cannot ignore Charlotte Bronte’s dehumanising description of Bertha Rochester, a creole woman. We cannot ignore that Edward Hyde’s physical description is less ‘white’ than Henry Jekyll’s. We cannot ignore Heathcliff’s identity as a racially ambiguous villain. We cannot ignore just how bigoted in every way Dracula is. We CANNOT ignore the whiteness of much of the ‘feminist’ gothic literature, either. This is something you must be aware of if you're writing Gothic - it is not integral to gothic fiction but as I will explain, the traits of the genre lend themselves to antagonising marginalised groups.

Gothic is not just gothic horror. It can be horror, but it is still a genre in its own right and the horror is not mandatory.  

This post is about gothic as a literary genre. I will not be talking about Ostrogoths, Visigoths, gothic architecture or art, and - for once - I’m not talking about the Goth subculture either, the two actually have almost nothing in common.

Some frequent, though not all required, characteristics of the gothic (this is NOT a checklist. I cannot stress that this is a genre purposefully WITHOUT a clear definition):

Familial trauma - the ending of family lines (the presence of the aristocracy is common in Gothic, this trope perhaps most blatantly depicted in Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher), hauntings - not necessarily literal but metaphorical. There’s often a secret, or some kind of terrible incident that has been covered up, amongst a family that is inevitably unearthed. Marital trauma is very common - as seen in Jane Eyre with the original ‘madwoman in the attic’, the mystery surrounding the titular character in Rebecca, the secret room of The Bloody Chamber, the murdered husband being literally unearthed in House of America. 

The setting is everything in Gothic. It often has a presence enough that it is a character in its own right. Key things about the setting is that it’s typically old - or at least old enough to have a turbulent history - and typically remote, ‘feral’, in amongst nature and separate from civilisation. The latter is very often executed in a racist and/or xenophobic way in Gothic classics. Think very critically of what is considered ‘civilisation’ and what is not. Dracula being a novel about white Christian Britons being threatened by an Eastern European vampire? Don’t replicate that. You will also see the ‘sublime’ (see below) here, and motifs of decay (which can be linked to the ending of a family line easily!), and themes surrounding imprisonment and escape. Gothic fiction loves pathetic fallacy - whether a storm, fog, rain or bitter cold, the weather is absolutely there to set the tone.

Repression. This can be of a trauma, but repression of sexuality can feature too. I have seen it asserted that homoeroticism is a key component in Gothic, and while it can feature, I would not say entirely agree, for a number of reasons. There is often a focus on ‘taboo’ sexuality, a categorisation which places LGBT people with taboos such as incest (which features often in some forms of Gothic). Homophobic tropes such as the predatory gay villain (e.g. Dracula’s obsession with Jonathan Harker and Mrs Danver’s obsession with Rebecca) are fairly common, and a general treatment of homosexuality as immoral or depraved especially older texts, so let’s not act like it’s always been a LGBT friendly genre. Something either hidden away or repressed that is then discovered is a huge, huge, component to most gothic fiction. 

Misogynistic gender dynamics are often present: the combination of a young, vulnerable and innocent woman with an older male ‘Byronic Hero’ type love interest is common. The Victorian template of ‘bad’, ‘promiscuous’ or otherwise ‘improper’ woman reaching a sticky end is well loved. And then there’s Poe’s sinister obsession with ‘beautiful dead woman’. Don’t forget the intersection of ableism and misogyny with the ‘mad’ women like Bertha Rochester and Miss Havisham (though Eleanor Vance of The Haunting of Hill House is a sympathetic antidote of this trope.) The way women are written is something I’d very much like us to move beyond. 

The sublime: this is everywhere. That something, especially the wilderness, is beautiful and massive enough to be incomprehensible. 

Doubles or doppelgangers. Often as a ‘darker’ reflection of the protagonist - such as the hero and villain having close parallels, or the heroine as a foil to her husband’s mysterious dead first wife. It doesn’t have to exist just in this way, but the motif of the doppelganger is one Gothic fiction likes a lot.

‘Otherness’ or monstrosity. ‘Otherness’ and ‘Othering’ is something that is a crucial part of literary theory - what the narrative deems strange, unfamiliar, not like us, and so most depictions of monsters will also be Othered. Considering how almost all of the time in the Western literary canon this is a vehicle for racism, please think critically. Frankenstein’s monster has a more nuanced approach to what society defines as strange, or monstrous, how monstrosity is created, and self fulfilling prophecies. 

Cultural anxiety. This is by no means unique to Gothic but the genre is shaped by what the society of its creation is afraid of. This - like Frankenstein or The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - can be scientific advancement and new discoveries we do not yet understand, but the problem arises that for a lot of Western Gothic this has been marginalised groups. 

The Uncanny. As found in various forms of horror - same with the fear of the unknown, but often in Gothic - that something resembles something else enough to recognise at least what it ‘tries’ to be, but not enough for it to be truly familiar. This is a really effective way to make any person, place, or thing unsettling.

I think I’ve covered most of my notes - please take my first bullet point into consideration as this will inevitably be a bit UK centric. The thing about gothic is that it doesn’t really have one fixed meaning, so you have a lot of freedom. Bonus: if you want to read a really good gay feminist Gothic short story, ‘The Resident’ by Carmen Maria Machado is one of the best pieces of fiction, ever. 

[secret-diary-of-an-fa]

Secret Diary Reviews... Crimes of the Future!

So, David Cronenberg must be old as fuck by now, but he hasn’t missed a beat. I just finished watching Crimes of the Future, his latest weird-ass masterwork and its… subtly brilliant. But before I explain why, I should probably explain who Cronenberg is for the benefit of the wet-behind-the-ears whipper-snappers among you who missed Videodrome and his other early efforts. To whit: Cronenberg is a master of body horror, a very specific subgenre that focuses on all the terrifying ways the human body can be distorted or spontaneously betray the person riding around in it. He’s known for creating horrifying, fleshly realisations of our most grotesquely biological nightmares and parading them on-screen so that we can all be grossed out and frightened by them. His work, while schlocky, is primal and taps into our innate fear of decay and bodily revolt. It’s often melded with the politics of the year or decade in which the film is made, too, so that the body becomes a metaphor for our societal condition. And it does all this without being a load of pretentious wank.

And then, there’s Crimes of the Future, which is set up like a body horror film, but isn’t one. It’s got all the hallmarks of body-horror. People performing surgeries recreationally? Check. Gooey close-ups of human innards being toyed with in ways you’d prefer not to look at? Check. Sexual perversions centred on cutting into the human body being presented in the most disturbingly sensuous way possible? Big fucking check! Actually, I don’t recommend having this film playing on your laptop while other people are in the room trying to do their own thing (like I did, because I’m an idiot) as there are MULTIPLE scenes of naked, blood-covered men and women taking pleasure in having their bodies cut up and rearranged. It’s not the kind of imagery you want to inflict on your loved ones if they happen to walk past or glance screenwards at the wrong moment. But I digress. Crimes of the Future goes out of its way to look like a body horror… and then isn’t.

So what the fuck is it? Well, that’s not an easy question to answer with spoiling anything, but I’ll do my best. Our central character is an artistically-inclined chappie named Tenser whose body keeps growing new, seemingly extraneous organs that he really doesn’t want, referring to them as cancers and the product of a genetic syndrome. Throughout the course of the film, he encounters people who are growing new organs and have actively embraced them; people who have had surgery to change their bodies and both governmental and corporate organisations that want to control or limit the creation of new bodily systems because they believe that humanity should remain unchanged. Ably assisted by his lovely surgical assistant, Caprice (yes, the name struck me as a little on-the-nose as well), Tenser navigates this world of conflicting interests and ultimately… changes his mind.

And that’s it- the crux of the film; the point on which it pivots. It’s not about the horrors of the human body, but about accepting. It’s not about fearing fleshly change but embracing it. All the elements are there for Tenser to become a monster or have to survive one, but he doesn’t. All the elements are there for him and Caprice to end up violently at odds with one another, all their weird fetish-sex turning to hate and violence, but by the end of the movie, it’s obvious that they’re very much in love and who the fuck cares if they use a living Giger-esque nightmare machine to explore each other’s bodies? They’re not hurting anyone… except each other, and they seem pretty into it.

In short, Crimes of the Future is a film about self-acceptance and about learning to live in harmony with one’s own body and its changes. Is it a perfect film? No. A lot of the dialogue is just David Cronenberg announcing to the world ‘OKAY! I HAVE SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT [INSERT SUBJECT HERE]!’ Plus, the film drops a few too many plot-threads that might have been interesting if they’d been allowed to somewhere. But, though imperfect, Crimes of the Future is one of the most scintillating and worthwhile cinematic experiences I’ve had in a while. What’s more, taken in conjunction with the rest of Cronenberg’s oeuvre, it shows a rather heart-warming trajectory. In his early films, Cronenberg was expressing a fear and disgust for the human body, suggesting a deep distrust of his own. But with Crimes of the Future, Cronenberg seems to have finally accepted the divergences and unpredictability of the human body in general and, perhaps, his own in particular. It’s a deeply personal work that represents the end of a long, internal struggle for the director. I recommend it.