#demystification

[fantastic-mr-corvid]

one day i will make [and finish!!!] an actual animatic to a Zounds song and then i will ascend.

[rainbowpopeworld]

Source, image description in the Alt

[2percentmint]

It's May time to reblog the COOLOMETER.

From the July 1992 issue of Marvel’s “Sleepwalker.”

[geekyglamour413]

“Sex should be something that can be discussed frankly and we shouldn’t be ashamed about discussing it” and “man I’m really tired of seeing sex infused with everything around me” are two ideas that can coexist

[catilinas]

every scooby doo villain is doomed by the narrative btw

[lady-laureline]

This breakdown of masking fits my experience like a glove. If you know me, or anyone else who is/might be autistic, please watch this.

[number1villainstan]

Is Everybody Going Crazy? by Nothing But Thieves is what saionji/wakaba could have been if Ohtori Bullshit(TM) didn't get to them first

[algoworks]

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[mplanetleaf]

Animal Sacrifice: Ritual Mystification and Mythical Demystification in Hinduism...

[icanlife]

Very tired of people who continue to argue that Bill destroying Euclydia was completely on purpose and he didn’t care about anyone at all because he’s just trying to garner sympathy in The Book of Bill, despite all the supporting evidence outside of Bill’s words that allude to how deeply traumatic it was, (so many, many things about) how he loved and misses his parents, how much of a sore spot the topic is for him, how much he wants to return home but can’t, etc. in addition to how perfectly Alex and co. crafted a parallel narrative between Bill and Ford, including how they hurt the people they love out of carelessness and blind pursuit of their dreams, justifying to themselves that the people they hurt just couldn’t understand

Yes, Bill is an unreliable narrator, and that includes all the very obvious posturing that he did it all on purpose and it was actually a very good thing, that everyone loved him, that he’s NOT incarcerated or anything and that he’s still a really all-powerful being, etc etc etc. To fully believe that EVERY vulnerability he reveals is an evil manipulation tactic, and not actual character writing, you have to interpret his very prevalent denial of weakness, which continues into the conclusion of the book where he already knows he’s lost the reader and is still denying any emotional needs or trauma, as itself a lie.

There’s a reason why the Pines family cracked open this book and laughed at Bill, calling him a fractured, pathetic mess.

The Book of Bill has a plot, a great plot, and great character writing. It’s a crazy companion to Journal 3, Ford’s story. Parallel stories, but where one ends with someone healing from their trauma, coming to terms with one’s mistakes and accepting the need for human love and relationships, the other ends with one stuck forever in their layers and layers of denial, never acknowledging their own trauma, never acknowledging their need for human companionship, grasping in desperate need at their continued facade of hating to love and loving to hurt.

Bill isn’t an always-in-control sly master of the mind, he’s a delusional and desperate man, fractured by his own trauma, who will continue to hurt others to prove that he’s in control. I’m tired of the false narrative that abusers can’t have trauma, aren’t people, giving them this otherworldly status above all humanity. Aside from not being narratively or societally productive, it undermines the ending and message of the book. Acknowledging Bill’s brokenness gives his victims POWER over him. The fact that Bill needs Ford, but Ford doesn’t need Bill is powerful. Them laughing at his desperation is powerful. Looking at someone who once seemed untouchable to you and realizing they’re just a suffering meat sack like any other human being is powerful.

The ending of The Book of Bill is the demystification of Bill. The book is a real look into his mind, telling a story that’s actually very tragic. It’s a very real story, a cautionary tale. You’re not being manipulated or tricked if you feel bad, it’s a very intentional writing decision that this ending elicits that dark pity, as he desperately fades away (arts and crafts materials confiscated) saying that he’s FINE.

So yeah, The Book of Bill and the website are a masterwork of the character, I love them, they’re incredible, and I don’t want to see such a tight character story discredited as “you can’t believe ANY of it!”

[rainbowpopeworld]

Tbh, it’s a great quote in that it describes a real behavior of many people (including Aziraphale). And I kind of hate it because it’s not what I want - for myself or others.

I want to be challenged, in good faith, to see beyond my illusions. And I want to let go of those illusions that were forced upon me before I even had a choice or awareness of them. And I want to help others do the same. To create a world in which we can see what is and build what we need to support everyone.

Anyway, I have a lot of Feelings about this 😅😓

Michael Sheen said this quote in an interview in July, which I just saw today. So I decided to put it onto these two images.

The second one is more angsty, fair warning 💓💕

[txttletale]

it is kind of disconcerting when self-proclaimed "leftists" adopt a fully liberal position on sex work where everyone is having the just-so fictional mutually beneficial transaction central to capitalist mythmaking. idk a lot of radfem propaganda is basically positioning themselves as the last bastion of real structural critique and i think you are just doing their work for them when your argument for why sex work should be legal is "well it's consensual because the sex worker is just choosing to have sex in exchange for money which is a win-win for everyone :)".

your defense of e.g. legal protections and destigmatization for sex workers (& your corollary critiques of legislation targeting them) needs to come from a position of demystification and desensationalizing sex-as-innately-different-to-all-other-forms-of-activity and treating them as what they are, which is workers who are being exploited and are in need of protections and safe working conditions. this is not incompatible & in fact should be perfectly compatible with recognizing simple marxist truths like that consenting to have sex when the alternative is starvation is inherently coercive--in the exact same way that all other wage labour is coercive.

acting like it is incompatible is literally just buying into the reactionary SWERF worldview that accepting that fact should lead you to support oppressive legislation and the intervention of the bourgeois state in ways that demonstrably impoverish, endanger, and immiserate sex workers & it is dismaying when people who self-identify with "the left" (whatever that means but thats a different conversation) cannot formulate a (vital & necessary!) defense of sex workers and their interests and safety without falling back on obviously untrue liberal truisms.

[squeakitties]

i hope im not just a creature but also an insane weirdo that u follow despite my eccentricities being a bit off-putting to a lot of people, and in doing so gain a valuable tolerance, understanding and demystification of a lot of esoterica and sexual material

[klm-zoflorr]

TMA on a relisten is so fucking funny, I-

(for the record, ep041: too deep. Jon explores the tunnels)

The first time I listened to this, I was terrified for my poor Jon. Like? The claustrophobia? I felt his terror. I was convinced this all was a higher power manifesting in the tunnels to tell him to get out or perish.

And it was all probably just Jurgen in his underwear and a dirty wifebeater with his shitty beard and no socks or shoes, reading his funny book and literally just going like "please get out, dude". And both me and Jon just shat ourselves in terror

Damn, talk about demystification.

[flickering-nightfall]

Watcher Thoughts

Spoilers for everything!

This is a shortened version of a much longer essay where I jotted down all my thoughts about the campaign. This is still pretty long, but hopefully it’s digestible enough.

Gameplay

Loved the initial twist. Was disappointed that we'd have another repeat with the siblings for a second. I love them but after eight campaigns, I was ready for something new. I'm not put off about not having another iterator (yet? I’m not counting Prince) either. It would have been neat, but exploring different stuff instead is good.

Got stuck a couple times, as I didn't understand what I was supposed to do to progress. I had fun exploring the regions, but exploring the majority of the first three with no idea of what to do next was frustrating. It wasn't even about story progression either - I just wanted to see more regions! But region and creature discovery felt very rewarding at least.

Portal placements were pretty wack and regions felt disconnected - you've probably heard it all already at this point. Some improvements like portal markers on the map will help (I'm certain that they'll either add it officially, or someone will make a mod). I avoided playing any region mods before this to keep things fresh, so I have zero context for any of these places. They're certainly very pretty at least.

Story

Droplets forming ripples in the water…? Yes there's a stray pixel in one frame. I made this from a spritesheet, it's not my fault, I swear

Although I would have preferred something different, I respect that the devs wanted to explore new and frankly wild routes. If it were me, I probably would have done a rare working transit system or something. Keep things grounded, group the new regions by theming so that you can at least connect them to each other. (Like Badlands + Rusted Wrecks + Torrid Desert.) I would have liked exploring ideas like scavenger societies or new biome lore instead of... rift walking through time and space madness. But I can't deny it was fun!

I really enjoyed Spinning Top (the echo), I think they’re very funny. I’m not bothered by them being able to move around - Two Sprouts, Twelve Brackets kinda imply they can too, at least enough to watch the tunnels of Subterranean. Maybe it depends on the echo too.

The decision to make a proper, repeated character out of an echo was interesting. Though I’m on the fence about the demystification of echoes and ascension. I do like Spinny’s arc and their story, and it gave me strong feelings to see them finally choose to move forward. I liked what they had to say, in terms of more lore for the ancients, their own character, and also in their final scene. 

Being tethered to the world by the sorrow of realizing you weren't loved in the way you should have been loved. Craving a warmth you can see but never feel again. The concept of peace after long-lived suffering. Able to move on because you had someone at your side, someone who cared enough to keep coming back to you, even if it was just a silent, peeping little creature. It resonated with me.

The purpose of the ending confused me at first. I thought Watcher playing with the toys was an example of their personality, maybe - distant, relatively unaffected by the events that just unfolded. And maybe that’s still true, but the emphasis on the spinning top in the campaign select screen… I’m not sure what yet, but playing with the echo’s namesake, their former beloved toys… there was something there.

I feel weird about Watcher being able to influence the world physically. I thought the point of echoes was that they were ghosts unable to interact with the physical plane. Only able to provide a bit of enlightenment for slugcat with their presence - stuck between one world and the next. Unless it’s all a dream (a trope I dislike and partially assign to Saint anyways), or Watcher is not quite an echo, in which case… hm.

Personally I'm tired of the rot, and I preferred it as a relatable and contained disease, rather than a sentient force that can corrupt worlds across time (and dimensions/timelines?). What they did with it was interesting, at least. You can explain it being Like That™ as a different strain of rot from Pebbles’, or it being because Watcher is a separate continuity. But it’s not about the explanation for me - it’s about the themes.

I enjoyed Prince as a character - I like the way they look, move and speak. But I didn’t get as attached as I could have due to my lukewarm feelings about rot stuff and Watcher’s rift powers in this DLC. Though, due to this campaign, I don’t know if I’ll keep headcanoning voidspawn as a lesser consequence (than echoes) of not being ready for ascension. The "stinging idiots" seem very intent on getting Watcher/echoes to finish crossing over into the next realm.

It seems like they want to portray the void as a force, to which the rot is the antithesis of. Prince spoke of wanting all life to go on forever, never lost - and then a force opposing its own. And it seems like that force may have won. I suppose all things must return to the cycle, or come to an end, eventually…

You can hear a single whispering iterator voice as you walk up to Prince’s puppet for the last time. That voice disappears after the karma flowers take over. Patches of them now bloom across all the regions. But the rot continues to spread! So hm I dunno what’s up with that.

Since they're adding more content later, I feel like they'll probably be character-centric threads too. Spinning Top and the Prince are probably two chapters in a broader anthology. I wonder where they’ll go from here. (Maybe a way I can unrot my save file? Haha.)

Regions

The art direction is great in my opinion. Some regions that stuck out to me:

Badlands (minus the locusts, they should really not see you while you’re invisible). The vibes are immaculate.

Torrid Desert. I usually find desert maps boring, but the sand dunes were a refreshing break from geometric tiling. In general, I really like breaks from the tile-based geometry. The first time I saw a scavenger templar/disciple (don’t remember which one) was a neat moment. I find the implications of those guys existing quite interesting.

Shrouded/Stormy Coast. Something about the warehouse crates and hanging platforms really tickled my fancy. I think the scale of it all, as well as the color provided from the crates, contributed to it feeling so good to me.

Desolate Tract: Conversely to the wavy desert dunes, this place being so flat, not boring due to the uniqueness of that, and backdropped by the wind tunnel really made me curious about this place. I hope they fix the bug that makes your FPS tank here though.

Outer Rim: Rife with secrets, both left and right. The desert portion reminded me of Kingdom Hearts' Keyblade Graveyard. Against all odds the scavengers continue to survive, and like in Torrid Desert they have strange, powered garb. Void-infused clothing? It’s interesting.

Ancient Urban: Even if I'll argue about ancient scaling forever, the actual presentation of this place was amazing. I was eating it all up and now I really want to get around designing my ancient OCs. You think it was named this as a nod to the popularized fandom term? Haha. 

Unfortunate Development: The dead coral corpse of Pebbles 2 electric boogaloo. The void worm is weird and all (is it rot-corrupted or just a faceless facsimile the rot created?), but I enjoyed the environment more. The background was a tesseract-like frame that stretched on seemingly forever. That was what really spooked me.

Brightness and contrast adjusted for viewing ease. Where is your head?

What are Starcatchers? They look iterator-like. Maybe it’s an alternate dimension thing, just as Signal Spires has the pyramid concept art iterators in the background? They could be structures that aren’t iterators, a different build type of them, or an alternate timeline, I guess. Starcatchers probably perform a function related to their name, regardless.

I remember before this DLC, some people interpreted iterator bricks as cylinders instead.

In the files Outer Rim also has a curving sky and a placeholder background where the earth is crumbling at the edge. And it’s literally called Outer Rim. Could also be a floating landmass, or sinking into the void sea, if you wanted to try out some other explanation. But I think that flat planet Rain World theory has some more evidence with this one. (I don’t think I can use flat planet RW for my space-involved AU but it is still interesting)

At the edge of the world...?

Someone (I think it was a reddit comment, I've been brain blasted with so much Watcher stuff that it's all starting to mix together) pointed out that spreading rot in the past doesn’t influence their future versions, so alternate dimensions aren’t out of the question. (Unless all regions are separate places - I wasn’t sure if places like Stormy Coast vs. Shrouded Coast were supposed to be the same or not. Or if the karma flowers kill the rot in the past, only for it to crop up again in the future and die again, but that seems overly convoluted.)

Time and space riftwalking shenanigans were already a lot - timelines/alt dimensions feel like quite a step further. In this case you are not following just the one “thread,” as Spinny puts it.

Final Thoughts

Initially I had a poorer reaction to Watcher's story, but some of it was defensiveness over the tone and headcanons I had come to like about RW and DP. After a few days of it settling in, I find myself warming up to Watcher more. I may have liked something different more, but I can enjoy and appreciate Watcher for what it is. 

If people can differentiate the canons of the DLCs (...it might be a little easier than vanilla vs. DP, because Watcher is so fantastical), I think I can have a fun time with both. 

Speaking of headcanons, giant ancients are pretty inconsistent with a lot of the environmental clues about ancient size, even the new regions within the DLC itself. I’ll post some stuff about it with screenshots and drawings later. 

Here's a couple of them...

I think literal hand puppet iterators are a good reminder that an iterator is more than its puppet. I can really imagine them as a giant machine waving a cute toy on a stick, a form more palatable for their audience. (Although that does make Moon being stuck in the PoV of one feel a little weirder too.) It emphasizes the way ancients likely thought of them as well. The concept is just neat.

However, I don't know if I would have fixated on iterators so hard without seeing puppets as more of a proper body. The superstructure is fantastic - but the puppet avatar makes it easier to identify with them as people and characters. The puppet being completely toylike rather than closer to a body-like vessel makes that a little more difficult. 

For a lot of stuff I’ve already written, especially interactions between ancient and iterator OCs, the size discrepancy is too much. So I just won’t adhere to giant ancients or tiny everything else hahaha

In general I mostly see myself using the snippets of ancient lore, region stuff, new creatures. If possible, I'd like to see what secrets can be uncovered about the new regions. 

I’m not interested in using stuff like the sentient rot when it comes to the continuities I more deeply engage with. My opinions may continue to evolve over time, we’ll see. But these are my thoughts after a few days of processing.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Beat Poetry

Beat poetry - the work created by Beat poets during the Beat movement, a post–World War II literary community that embraced counterculture and activism.

Examples of Beat Poetry

Explore the following poems to gain a better understanding of Beat poetry.

“Howl” by Allen Ginsberg (1956): Perhaps the most famous text of the Beat movement, Ginsberg’s “Howl” is an epic fever dream that documents the experience of people living in the United States. It features critiques of American injustices through surreal and terrifying imagery.

“At Tower Peak” by Gary Snyder (1956): This poem evidences Snyder’s commitment and interest in Buddhism and environmental activism.

“Wild Dreams of a New Beginning” by Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1988): Ferlinghetti, responsible for the publication of many volumes of writing in the Beat Generation, presents utopian visions in this poem. This poem was published in a book of the same name in 1988.

“I Am 25” by Gregory Corso (1956): This poem written by a young Corso documents the Beat poet’s rejection of what they viewed as a stale elitist tradition of academic poetry.

In general, Beat poets were against capitalist American values and elite academia.

Prominent figures of the Beat Generation include Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Amiri Baraka, and Diane Di Prima.

Other American poets like Gregory Corso, Neal Cassady, Gary Snyder, Bob Kaufman, Hettie Jones, Herbert Huncke, and Lucien Carr also helped define the literary movement.

The broader Beat Movement also included artists such as the surrealist painter Jay DeFeo and filmmaker Stan Brakhage.

The writing and activism of the movement focused on transcending the bourgeoise values of America through spiritual liberation, sexual liberation, anti-imperialism, a rejection of academic literary culture, and a demystification of recreational drugs.

Zen Buddhism and other elements of Eastern religions were a central topic of study and practice for the Beats.

For example, Kerouac's 1958 novel, The Dharma Bums, references Gary Snyder's move to Japan to study Buddhist practice.

A Brief History of the Beat Generation

The Beat poetry movement was relatively brief but culturally potent.

Columbia University: In the early 1940s, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Hal Chase, Lucien Carr, and other writers met at Columbia University. They would go on to be associated with a movement known for rejecting academia in favor of creating American literature that lived closer to the working class.

Greenwich Village: From the early to late 1950s, writers that were or would come to be associated with the Beat movement gathered in Greenwich Village in New York City due to the low cost of living and communal culture.

Gallery Six: In San Francisco, California, the Six Gallery Reading took place on October 7, 1955. It featured Philip Lamantia, Michael McClure, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, and most famously Allen Ginsberg, who gave a poetry reading of the first section of "Howl." Kenneth Rexroth served as the host of the reading. At this time, Lawrence Ferlinghetti of the City Lights bookstore in San Francisco began publishing the City Lights Pocket Poets series. He would publish Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems the following year in 1956.

Rising popularity and resistance: In 1957, “Howl” was subject to a famous obscenity trial that was later dismissed, which further attested to the movement's values and potency in the public consciousness. Other state-led suppression efforts on Beat poets continued, including the FBI arresting Amiri Baraka and Diane Di Prima on grounds of obscenity that similarly resulted in non-indictment. Anti-war was an important theme in the Beat's work and the movement is largely considered America's first Cold War literary scene.

Multi-faceted influence: As the popularity of the Beat writers rose, artists like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and the Beatles were influenced by their work and values. Following the murder of Malcolm X, Amiri Baraka advanced his organizing and activism. Diane Di Prima also helped to organize the Diggers as community activists in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. Between the late ’50s and early ’60s, Paris became a hotspot for members of the Beats to be inspired by French avant-garde art and political history. The Beats were a major influence on the Black Mountain Poets, another literary movement that adopted similar core values and often featured work by Beat poets in the Black Mountain Review literary magazine.

Media mischaracterization: Popular media circulated an understanding of the Beats that was more informed by a perceived bohemian hedonism gleaned from cursory readings of Ginsberg's "Howl," Kerouac's On the Road, and Burroughs's Naked Lunch. A columnist coined the term "beatnik" as a pejorative term referring to the Beats in 1958, and in 1960, J. Edgar Hoover declared that "communists, eggheads, and beatniks" were the primary enemies of the United States. Ironically, by that time the popular conception of Beat poets had strayed from the lives of the original Beats. The public viewed the movement as a frivolous fad and cultural commodity, complete with themed kitsch aesthetic media, services, and coffee shops based on hippie or hipster imagery with an over-emphasis on psychedelic and drug addict associations.

Source ⚜ More: Notes & References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs